Terra madre

Coming out of the void that is our knowledge of Thirties Italian cinema, this one is one of the best things an old movie can be, a glimpse into a world the (English speaking) audience knows zip about and it's delivered in an accomplished manner - particularly for a film so early in European sound film production.

The plot deals with a subject said to be close to Il Duce's heart, the superiority of the agrarian worker to the decadent city dweller. There are not a few of these from other sources at this stage - Hanns Schwarz 1928 German UNGARISCHE RHAPSODIE/ Hungarian Rhapsody or more peripherally Michael Curtiz' US 1932 CABIN IN THE COTTON as examples.

They work hard on the idea content, offering two contrasting female models, Leda Gloria's slinky blonde city woman and Isa Pola in her peasant blouse get up, or the tenants doing traditional worker songs and dances while the visiting city friends lounge about in evening dress and their pianist plays fox-trots.

The not over sophisticated plot has land-owning Duke, uncharismatic Sandro Salvini, coming back to the family castle with it's statues and suits of armor and putting up lady friend Gloria in the bed chamber where the roof leaks while he joins in wrestling bulls for the branding, to the applause of his tenant farmers. However his reduced circumstances mean he has to sell the property to a new, graceless owner whose man gropes the jolly middle aged maid and who plans on clearing the peasant accommodation. A fire breaks out and Salvini races back to the scene.

The choice of angles and pacing is quite good, giving an appearance anticipating Blasetti's best film, the 1939 swashbuckler UN'AVENTURA DI SALVATOR ROSA, and the piece is rather winning in it's warm,unfamiliar picture of the rural community.

The ducal estate has rich land, but there's been no investment in machinery, or move to drain the marshes. The head farmer, Vasco Creti, is getting old for the job. Yet there is rejoicing, for Duke Sandro Salvini is returning after many years in the city. All the people celebrate, but then the word goes out: he is selling the land to Carlo Ninchi.

At first I thought that Alessandro Blasetti's film was ancestral to the country-set neo-realistic films after the war, with its talk of hard times and gently moving shots of the peasants en masse. It soon became clear it was a romantic comedy, for Salvini returns with a bunch of friends who fox-trot to country tunes, and lover Isa Pola, who really wants him to sell, and that his inevitable fate is Leda Gloria, Creti's daughter, who meets Salvini without knowing who he is and tells him that the Duke is doing it all wrong. He should return to the estate and take care of it and the people, who have been there for a thousand years.

Beautiful camerawork by Giulio De Luca and Carlo Montuori make this watchable, and a handsome sense of humor is present, at least until Ninchi has his lackey burn the peasants out.

Blasetti directed his first movie in 1917, then went back to film criticism. He returned to producing, co-writing, and directing in the late 1920s, and continued to work until 1981, with a lot of historical epics in his filmography. He died in 1987 at the age of 86.