“In a hilarious scene in Kri-Kri Opium Smoker, we see three Kri- Kris on the screen!” enthused La Vita Cinematografica. Kri-Kri, having smoked a “harmless” cigarette, undergoes a disorienting crisis of identity. His doubles persecute him, and even his own reflected image menacingly pursues him. It could be a case of saying that smoking is harmful, but in the eternal and alternate struggle with plagiarism, in this case opium, so much abused in the comic filmography of the period, it has certainly not harmed Kri-Kri (compare, for example, Pathé Frères’ 1914 film Bigorno fume l’opium).

Cristina Zanasi