Maciste
Sup. R.: Giovanni Pastrone; F.: Augusto Battagliotti, Giovanni Tomatis; Trucchi: Segundo de Chomón; Int.: Bartolomeo Pagano (Maciste), Clementina Gay (la ragazza), Amelia Chellini (madre della ragazza), Felice Minotti (Pietro), Didaco Chellini (duca Alexis); Prod.: Itala-Film. 35 mm. L. or.: 1968 m. L.: 1377 m. D.: 67’ a 18 f/s. Tinted, toned.
Film Notes
The black slave in Cabiria defeated the king and his troops, winning the sympathy of audiences around the world. Sudden fame brought actor Bartolomeo Pagano the honor of a film all his own, in accordance with the commercial reasoning of the modern technique of making spin offs. In the first film of the series Maciste trades his leopard skin for a double-breasted suit, changes race and social status, and becomes a bourgeois actor of 1910s Turin. A girl chased by a mysterious group of bandits hides in a movie theater showing Cabiria. She is struck by Maciste’s deeds. If he was able to set straight so many wrongs on the screen, why couldn’t he do the same in real life? The next day a mysterious letter arrives at Itala Film… The film was a success and launched a long series that would make Maciste a legend of Italian popular imagination.
Stella Dagna, Claudia Gianetto
Print restored in 2006 at L’Immagine Ritrovata from a nitrate positive preserved by the Nederlands Filmmuseum, as part of a project for the enhancement and preservation of silent films produced in Turin promoted by the Museo Nazionale del Cinema and the Cineteca di Bologna. The Italian intertitles have been reconstructed using the censorship card, production books, and photographic sheets preserved by the Museo Nazionale del Cinema. Tones have been made with Desmetcolor.