Diana Karenne in Justice de femme!
Vintage Spanish collector's card (cromo, minicard). Issued by Chocolat Imperiale, Barcelona. Distributor of the film: J. Verdaguer, Barcelona. Card 6 of 6. Diana Karenne and Alberto Capozzi in the Italian silent film Justice de femme! (Diana Karenne, David-Karenne Film 1917), based on the novel by Daniel Lesuer.
Plot: Ruggero (Alberto Capozzi) is a major composer, dedicated to his art, while his friend Giovanni (Mario Mecchia) is a lazy poet. One day, Ruggero tries to push his friend to seriously deal with life, but the other responds with a loud laugh. Ruggero turns the laugh into the Leitmotiv of his new opera. During the rehearsals of the new opera, Ruggero often accompanies the female lead singer, arousing the jealousy of his wife Simona (Diana Karenne), who in a moment of weakness surrenders to the courtship of Giovanni. From this betrayal a child is born whose paternity is unsure. A few years after, Simona hears a laugh and thinks it is Giovanni's, but instead it is her son's. She is now sure the child is the fruit of her sin. In order not to hear his laugh again, she sends him to a boarding-school, where the child perishes. The mother goes mad with grief, and approaches death saying: "A woman must not and cannot fail: when she fails, she drags down the honor of the family." [From an Italian review at the time]
Instead the backsides of the Spanish collector's cards tell a slightly different story: The composer Ruggero leads a happy life with his wife Simona and daughter Paolina, but he is so passionate about his art that he forgets his family. While rehearsing for his new opera, and irritated by an imposing primadonna, Giovanni, friend of the family, feeds Simona the venom that Ruggero is infidel. She observes Ruggero at the theatre, getting in the car with the primadonna and thinks worst. Still, she cannot run away from her daughter and prefers her straightforward husband to the saccharine words of the lover. She tells him she'll rather drown herself into the sea. Meanwhile, the frivolous and adulterous Gisèle pushes Simona to come to her party with Giovanni, leaving Paolina alone. Confronted with this deed by her husband, Simona is deeply ashamed and the situation becomes icy. Paolina gets a younger brother, Hugo [it is not told if Giovanni is the father], while Simona hears that Giovanni, fed up with Simona, has become the new lover of Gisele. One day Gisele's mother begs her to stop the adulterous affair, and heavy-hearted Simona does so, for the love of her girlfriend. Meanwhile, Hugo dies in boarding-school, victim of a grave disease, putting another nail in Simona's coffin. Later on, she confesses with her dying breath to her daughter, now 15 years of age: "We women we have no right to trespass. Our virtue represents the virtue of the whole family, our husbands, and our dear children. If we fail, all will go down with us."
The critic Ettore Dardano of the Neapolitan journal La Cine-Fono wrote in 1918 that the lengthy intertitles distracted from the film itself, as a film should be action in the first place. The mise-en-scène, by Karenne herself, was considered elegant and delicate, artistic in its complexity. Karenne was judged an excellent performer, whose face expresses intelligence and expressivity. She should only focus more in veracity, on life as it is, as she was still too ostentatious. Capozzi's performance was also praised as elegant, sober and efficient. Ïn short, this is a film that worthily may aspire to a place among the most artistic films, at least with the modern production."
(Source: Vittorio Martinelli, Il cinema muto italiano, Vol. 1917.)
Polish actress Diana Karenne (1888-1940) was one of the divas of Italian silent cinema. Between 1916 and 1920, Karenne fascinated European audiences with her eccentric dresses and make-up, and with her primadonna behaviour.
Alberto Capozzi (1886-1945) was an Italian film and stage actor who had an enormous career in Italian cinema in the 1910s and early 1920s. Afterward, he pursued a career abroad in Austria and as a sound dubber in France. He returned to film acting in Italian cinema in the early 1940s.
Diana Karenne in Justice de femme!
Vintage Spanish collector's card (cromo, minicard). Issued by Chocolat Imperiale, Barcelona. Distributor of the film: J. Verdaguer, Barcelona. Card 6 of 6. Diana Karenne and Alberto Capozzi in the Italian silent film Justice de femme! (Diana Karenne, David-Karenne Film 1917), based on the novel by Daniel Lesuer.
Plot: Ruggero (Alberto Capozzi) is a major composer, dedicated to his art, while his friend Giovanni (Mario Mecchia) is a lazy poet. One day, Ruggero tries to push his friend to seriously deal with life, but the other responds with a loud laugh. Ruggero turns the laugh into the Leitmotiv of his new opera. During the rehearsals of the new opera, Ruggero often accompanies the female lead singer, arousing the jealousy of his wife Simona (Diana Karenne), who in a moment of weakness surrenders to the courtship of Giovanni. From this betrayal a child is born whose paternity is unsure. A few years after, Simona hears a laugh and thinks it is Giovanni's, but instead it is her son's. She is now sure the child is the fruit of her sin. In order not to hear his laugh again, she sends him to a boarding-school, where the child perishes. The mother goes mad with grief, and approaches death saying: "A woman must not and cannot fail: when she fails, she drags down the honor of the family." [From an Italian review at the time]
Instead the backsides of the Spanish collector's cards tell a slightly different story: The composer Ruggero leads a happy life with his wife Simona and daughter Paolina, but he is so passionate about his art that he forgets his family. While rehearsing for his new opera, and irritated by an imposing primadonna, Giovanni, friend of the family, feeds Simona the venom that Ruggero is infidel. She observes Ruggero at the theatre, getting in the car with the primadonna and thinks worst. Still, she cannot run away from her daughter and prefers her straightforward husband to the saccharine words of the lover. She tells him she'll rather drown herself into the sea. Meanwhile, the frivolous and adulterous Gisèle pushes Simona to come to her party with Giovanni, leaving Paolina alone. Confronted with this deed by her husband, Simona is deeply ashamed and the situation becomes icy. Paolina gets a younger brother, Hugo [it is not told if Giovanni is the father], while Simona hears that Giovanni, fed up with Simona, has become the new lover of Gisele. One day Gisele's mother begs her to stop the adulterous affair, and heavy-hearted Simona does so, for the love of her girlfriend. Meanwhile, Hugo dies in boarding-school, victim of a grave disease, putting another nail in Simona's coffin. Later on, she confesses with her dying breath to her daughter, now 15 years of age: "We women we have no right to trespass. Our virtue represents the virtue of the whole family, our husbands, and our dear children. If we fail, all will go down with us."
The critic Ettore Dardano of the Neapolitan journal La Cine-Fono wrote in 1918 that the lengthy intertitles distracted from the film itself, as a film should be action in the first place. The mise-en-scène, by Karenne herself, was considered elegant and delicate, artistic in its complexity. Karenne was judged an excellent performer, whose face expresses intelligence and expressivity. She should only focus more in veracity, on life as it is, as she was still too ostentatious. Capozzi's performance was also praised as elegant, sober and efficient. Ïn short, this is a film that worthily may aspire to a place among the most artistic films, at least with the modern production."
(Source: Vittorio Martinelli, Il cinema muto italiano, Vol. 1917.)
Polish actress Diana Karenne (1888-1940) was one of the divas of Italian silent cinema. Between 1916 and 1920, Karenne fascinated European audiences with her eccentric dresses and make-up, and with her primadonna behaviour.
Alberto Capozzi (1886-1945) was an Italian film and stage actor who had an enormous career in Italian cinema in the 1910s and early 1920s. Afterward, he pursued a career abroad in Austria and as a sound dubber in France. He returned to film acting in Italian cinema in the early 1940s.