Luce, an organism founded in 1926 for literacy in agriculture, launched two speeds for the showing and reading of intertitles: slow in the countryside, fast in the city. With La crociera aerea del decennale, propaganda rose to the skies. The tenth anniversary was that of the march on Rome. In this aeronautics colossal, silent and sound, futurist aerodynamic graphics and direct sound recording still coexist. A round-trip crossing of the northern Atlantic with a hundred men, twenty-four aircrafts, and numerous cameras coordinated by Mario Craveri. The hero of this multimedia enterprise is the founding father of national aeronautics, Ferrara native Italo Balbo, truncheoner of the reds, opposer, quadrumvir, rebel, amateur, curious about women’s mouths and about rifles. Gascon like one of Blasetti’s adventurous captains, with a cigarette always hanging from the corner of his mouth, among the few Fascist action squad members capable of smiling, this Trotsky of fascism really loved the cinema. The year before the formation flight, he had demanded an aviation fiction film from Cines-Pittaluga, L’Armata Azzurra by Righelli, for which he personally chose the cast. Several years later, exiled as Governor of Libya, he made Genina film a part of Lo Squadrone Bianco over again, because the Italian camel corps had a black burnous and not a white one. In July of 1933, the Savoia-Marchetti airplanes in Balbo’s transatlantic crossing flew over Chigaco and New York in a blaze of radio coverage, shooting stars, confetti, whistles, and sirens. “Cannibal” Carnera waved his gigantic hand… Balbo outclassed Lindberg, Saint Exupery, and De Pinedo. But his success, engraved in celluloid, became awkward. Silent and sound coexist. Balbo and Mussolini no. Already in August, the Duce ousted him. On 28 June 1940, eighteen days after Italy entered the war, the “Regime War Hawk” was gunned down by friendly fire and fell from the skies over Tobruk.

Tatti Sanguineti