It may seem a criminal fate for films about murder and solving mysteries to have survived full of narrative gaps. You may not even discover what the misdeed actually was. The past really does become an impenetrable mist. You find yourself craving the unmasking and punishment of the guilty party, but the ending is lost, perhaps forever. Frustrating? Definitely. But not necessarily so. The stories we propose here come from mutilated, fragmented copies, torn apart by time. Mysteries destined to remain unsolved. They force you to become part of the game, to fill in the blanks with imagined possibilities. If a thriller consists of the pieces of a puzzle to be put back together, you can reinvent yourself as author, detective, master of the case. Or simply embrace the thrill of not knowing. The fragment we have of Nina la poliziotta is from the mid-section of the film. Rotten luck, some might say. The female protagonist takes it on herself to investigate and unmask her boyfriend’s killer, convinced she knows who did it. But what if she’s wrong? And why does Ginetta, a patron of seedy taverns, go to pray at the graveside of the deceased in Turin cemetery? And is he really dead? Il passato che torna is such a mysterious title that it doesn’t appear in even the most high-end film encyclopaedias. Once again, the tiny reel we have comes from the film’s mid-section. Tamara is obsessed by the presence of Doctor Karinski. There is a murky past, a long demonic hand that creeps through masked balls, husbands seized by sudden paralysis, violated bedrooms, mirrors that multiply appearances… Sotto la maschera / La vendetta del pugnale doesn’t even have a name we can rely on. The two titles were handwritten on a scrap of paper found inside one of the cans that held the two nitrate reels. There is a 1913 film entitled Sotto la maschera, but this isn’t it. We follow a girl plotting revenge for her brother’s murder. The initially irrefutable evidence becomes mired in doubt. A baroness hides a dagger. With a relieved heart, a prince is slaughtered by the enemy among the barbed wire of the front. At least this time we have the ending. But will that be enough to dispel all our doubts? Idolo infranto is a fantastic way to appreciate Francesca Bertini in the mood for cruelty. From a tender shepherdess who inspires sublimely artistic acts, she becomes a vampire who drains souls and bank accounts with equal efficiency. Here we only get to follow the beginnings of her nefarious undertakings; however we do know that she will end up hammered to death. Or so they wrote. Who knows? We end our race trying to keep up with Luciano Albertini, which isn’t easy. Albertini is the champion of Italian athletic cinema. When he’s around, wrongs are righted by way of bold feats. The year 1919 saw him in superb shape. In Sansone e la ladra di atleti he is joined by another sort of hero: Costante Girardengo, the first great champion of Italian cycling.

Andrea Meneghelli