“From the documents stored in Pittaluga collection at Museo Nazionale del Cinema of Turin, we know that a contract requiring Gennaro Righelli to make four sound films with songs and dialogue between November 1st, 1930 and October 31st, 1931, was signed by Anonima Pittaluga on October 30th, 1930, soon after the release of La canzone dell’amore. A few months later, on January 3rd, 1931, a contract was signed with Rosso di San Secondo for acquiring the copyright for the cinema treatment of his drama La scala. Several documents, in the following months of March and April, attest that contract adjustments had to be agreed upon concerning the exact positioning of the credits for Righelli’s and Jacobini’s roles. A timely and unexpected confirmation is found, among original material, stored in Cineteca Nazionale, in a sound positive print, well mixed and dubbed in French and with credit titles: from it we learn that the film was (or was supposed to be) distributed in France by Les Sélections Cinégraphiques Maurice Rouhier, under the title of Autour d’un berceau. This print corresponds to one of the two film negatives, which displays in the labels and in the leaders of each reel the indication ‘second edition’; it has no credits and is classified in the original cards accompanying the materials as ‘Italian international edition’, although it presents a complete and mixed Italian sound track, perfectly corresponding. The other slightly different negative is instead composed almost entirely by duplicating negatives and, as regards the sound track (which is also complete) it is markedly lower grade than the other, but it displays almost all the original camera negative. These are the reasons why we have chosen for its public screening the latter edition, while research and restoration work is still in progress”.

(Mario Musumeci)