Dria Paola

Dria Paola (1909-1993) was an Italian film actress of the 1930s and 1940s. Her name is attached to the first Italian sound film La canzone dell’amore (1930) by Gennaro Righelli.


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci Editore, Milano, no. 617. Photo: Bragaglia / Augustus Films.


Italian postcard by Cines Pittaluga, Roma, no. 887. Photo: Cines, no. 38. Dria Paola in La canzone dell’amore/The song of love (Gennaro Righelli, 1930).


French postcard by Europe, no. 991. Photo: Produzione Pittaluga Cines, Roma.


Italian postcard by Cines-Pittaluga, no. 3. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga. Dria Paola in Vele ammainate/Lowered Sails ( Anton Giulio Bragaglia, 1931).

Exotic and Mysterious

Dria Paola was born Pietra Giovanna Matilde Adele Pitteo in Rovigo, Italy in 1909, as the daughter of Arturo Pitteo, owner of hunting arms store and Ione Volebele, a cafe owner. Already at a young age, little Etra showed artistic temperament, dancing at the age of three and reciting when she was ten.

She initially worked for the company of Carlo Lombardo. After adopting the exotic and mysterious name of Dria Paola, she managed to get a small part as Neda in the late silent epic Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei/The Last Days of Pompeii (Carmine Gallone, Amleto Palermi, 1926) starring Victor Varconi, Rina De Liguoro, and Maria Corda.

A more substantial part Paola had in the late silent film Sole!/Sun! (1929), Alessandro Blasetti's debut as a film director, on the drainage and cultivation of the marshlands near Rome, the Agropontino. Unfortunately, less than a quarter of the film remains, while the Nazis destroyed the negative during the war.

Sole! wasn’t a public success, but Paola was more fortunate with her successive film, La canzone dell’amore/The song of love (Gennaro Righelli, 1930), the first Italian sound feature, entirely produced in Italy. The quite absurd story about a young woman who adopts the baby her mother gave birth to, was taken from a story by Luigi Pirandello, 'In silenzio' (In Silence).

While her mother dies giving birth, Lucia adopts little Ninni, pretending to her fiancé Enrico (Elio Steiner) and her landlady it is her own child. Lucia breaks up her engagement with Enrico, who is about to become a big musician. Lucia’s rival Anna, played by another upcoming star: Isa Pola, gets hold of Enrico. But when Lucia and Enrico meet again in the big record store where Lucia works and Enrico is making a record, he admits he still loves her. The father of the child (Camillo Pilotto) shows up and claims the child. Heartbroken, Lucia gives in but tries to commit suicide afterward. Just in time Enrico saves her, the father gives the child to Lucia and all is well.

The film opens and closes with images of Rome, and is actually one of the few Italian films from the 1930s showing the city repeatedly. Stylistically important are the different moments of double framing, when Lucia looks out from her rented rooms and mimics neighbours how to change diapers and feed the child. Interesting is also Righelli’s visualisation of Lucia’s frenzy at her suicide attempt and his pans across the enormous set of the record store.

La canzone dell’amore had its premiere on 7 October 1930 at the Supercinema in Rome (the actual Teatro Nazionale). The film was a popular success, not in the least because of the music composed by Cesare Andrea Bixio, whose well-known song 'Solo per te Lucia' became a hit as well. The film also caused two foreign remakes, one in German Liebeslied/Love Song (Constantin J. Davis, 1931) and one in French, La dernière berceuse/The last lullaby (Jean Cassagne, 1931).


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 43. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga. Dria Paola as Maria in Pergolesi (Guido Brignone, 1932).


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 65. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga. Dria Paola as Maria in Pergolesi (Guido Brignone, 1932). The man left could be Elio Steiner as Pergolesi.


Italian postcard by Cines Pittaluga, no. 71. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga. Dria Paola in Vele ammainate/Lowered Sails (Anton Giulio Bragaglia, 1931).


Italian postcard by Cines-Pattulaga, no. 91. Photo: Cines-Pattulaga. Dria Paola in Vele ammainate/Lowered Sails (Anton Giulio Bragaglia, 1931).


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 883. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga, Roma. After an attempted suicide, Lucia (Dria Paola) and Enrico (Elio Steiner) make up towards the end of La canzone dell’amore (Gennaro Righelli, 1930). The cityscape of Rome in the background.


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 885. Photo: Cines Pittaluga, Roma. Dria Paola in La canzone dell’amore/The song of love (Gennaro Righelli, 1930).

Clumsy Damsel in Distress

Dria Paola was a star overnight. By now the thin actress with the big head and fluttering hands was typecasted as the fragile and sometimes clumsy damsel in distress. At the death of her father in 1932 she moved to Rome with her mother.

Her films included the avant-garde film Vele ammainate/Lowered sails (1931) - the only sound film by Anton Giulio Bragaglia, the biopic Pergolesi (Guido Brignone, 1932), and Fanny (Mario Almirante, 1933), based on Marcel Pagnol’s famous play, the sequel of his 'Marius'. While audiences liked Fanny, the press considered the film too stagey. The same happened with the original French adaptation, Fanny (Marc Allégret, 1932).

Then, Paola played a department store worker opposite a young Vittorio De Sica as a shoplifter in Il signore desidera?/Mr. Desire (Gennaro Righelli, 1933).

Her following leads were in La fanciulla dell’altro mondo/The girl from another world (Gennaro Righelli, 1934) and La cieca di Sorrento/The Blind Woman of Sorrento (Nunzio Malasomma, 1934), while she played supporting parts in Il colpo di vento/The blast (Carlo Felice Tavano, 1936) starring Ermete Zacconi, and L’albero di Adamo/Adam's Tree (Mario Bonnard, 1936) starring Elsa Merlini.

Righelli gave Paola a lead again in the Pirandello comedy Pensaci, Giacomino!/Think It Over Jack (Gennaro Righelli, 1936) starring Angelo Musco as a professor who marries his caretaker´s daughter, who is pregnant.

After supporting roles in the Raffaele Viviani drama L’ultimo scugnizzo/The last urchin (Gennaro Righelli, 1938), L’albergo degli assenti/The property of the absent (Raffaele Matarazzo, 1939), and Lotta nell’ombra/Fight in the shade (1939) by former acrobat turned director Domenico Gambino, Righelli provided another female lead for Paola in the historical drama Il cavaliere di San Marco/The Knight of San Marco (Gennaro Righelli, 1939), starring Mario Ferrari.

After a bit part in La grande luce/The great light (Carlo Campogalliani, 1939), Paola had a substantial part opposite Camillo Pilotto and Germana Paolieri in the naval spy story Traversata nera/Crossing the black (Domenico Gambino, 1939). Paola also had a major supporting part in Guido Brignone’s musical comedy La mia canzone al vento/My Song to the Wind (1939) with Laura Nucci and the female lead in La notte delle beffe/The Night of Tricks (Carlo Campogalliani, 1939), opposite Amedeo Nazzari.

Paola’s last parts were in the drama Cuori nella tormenta/Tormented Hearts (Carlo Campogalliani, 1940) and La pantera nera/The Black Panther (Domenico Gambino, 1942) starring Leda Gloria. Dria Paola then retired. Later she published her autobiography and did sporadic performances on stage and on television. One last film appearance was in the drama Cortile/Courtyard (Antonio Petrucci, 1955) starring Edoardo De Filippo.

In 1993, Dria Paola died completely forgotten in Rome, at the age of 83.


Italian postcard in the Series Cines Pittaluga by Casa Editrice Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze, no. 2550.


Italian postcard in the Series Cines Pittaluga by Casa Editrice Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze, no. 2561. Photo: Cines Pittaluga.


Italian postcard, no. 618. Photo Bragaglia / Augustus Film.


Italian postcard by Cines-Pittaluga, Rome.

Sources: Wikipedia (Italian and English), and IMDb.

Vele ammainate (1931)

Vele ammainate/Lowered Sails (Anton Giulio Bragaglia, 1931) is an early Italian sound film, produced by Cines-Pittaluga. Dria Paola starred in this melodrama, which lacked a good script but had excellent cinematography and art direction as can be seen on the postcards.


Italian postcard, no. 4. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga. Publicity still for Vele ammainate/Lowered Sails (1931).


Italian postcard, no. 64. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga. Publicity still for Vele ammainate/Lowered Sails (1931).


Italian postcard, no. 71. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga. Publicity still for Vele ammainate/Lowered Sails (1931).


Italian postcard, no. 83. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga. Publicity still for Vele ammainate/Lowered Sails (1931).

An infamous harbour tavern in the Tropes

Dria Paola (1909-1993) was an Italian film actress of the 1930s and 1940s. Her name is attached to the first Italian sound film La canzone dell’amore/The Song of Love (1930) by Gennaro Righelli.

In Vele ammainate/Lowered Sails, Paola plays Aurora, the daughter of the keeper of an infamous harbour tavern in the Tropes. Her lurid and vulgar father (Umberto Guarracino) mistreats her all the time, which attracts the attention of a dashing young captain (Carlo Fontana), who is stuck in the harbour town because he has lost his ship in a storm and he is penniless. The captain defends the girl against the brutal father and a cheeky rival. In the end after he has regained income and paid for a new ship, he takes the girl with him on his new ship.

The Cinema Illustrazione reported in 1931 that the cinematography and scenography of the film were excellent, such as can be seen in the storm scene, or in the buoyant atmosphere in the tavern. However, the magazine condemned the poor script, the editing and the direction. Dria Paola did not get much space to develop her character, which was deplored in general as well, not only for this film.

The cinematography of Vele ammainate/Lowered Sails was done by Massimo Terzano and Domenico Scala, and the sets were designed by art directors Gastone Medin and Ivo Perilli. Indoor shooting was done at the Cines studios, outdoor shooting in Savona. Vele ammainate premiered around 21 December 1931 in Rome.

For both director Anton Giulio Bragaglia and Dria's co-star Umberto Guarracino Vele ammainate was their last film.The strongman Umberto Guarracino already played bad guys in the silent era, starting as the Monster in Il mostro di Frankenstein (1921) with Luciano Albertini as Dr. Frankenstein, followed by parts in Luciano Albertini's earliest German films, directed by Joseph Delmont in 1921, and a few other German films. In 1922-1923 he returned to Italy, to act in the Maciste films of the 1920s, in which he was called Cimaste. Dria Paola's other co-star Carlo Fontana was a little known actor, who only did four feature films, between 1929 and 1937.


Italian postcard, no. 91. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga. Publicity still for Vele ammainate/Lowered Sails (1931).


Italian postcard, no. 104. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga. Publicity still for Vele ammainate/Lowered Sails (1931).


Italian postcard, no. 108. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga. Publicity still for Vele ammainate/Lowered Sails (1931).


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 887. Photo: Cines Pittaluga, Roma. Publicity still of Dria Paola in La canzone dell’amore (1930).

Source: Roberto Chiti/Enrico Lancia (I film, vol. I: Tutti i film italiani dal 1930 al 1944), Wikipedia and IMDb.

La canzone dell’amore (1930)

This week's film special is about the first Italian sound film, La canzone dell’amore/The Song of Love (1930) directed by Gennaro Righelli. Lead actors of this popular sob story were Dria Paola, Elio Steiner and Isa Pola. Dria Paola became a star overnight.


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 887. Photo: Cines Pittaluga, Roma, no. 38. Publicity still of Dria Paola in La canzone dell’amore (1930).

Quite Absurd Story

La canzone dell’amore/The Song of Love (Gennaro Righelli, 1930) was the first Italian sound feature - released in Italy and entirely produced in Italy. It was distributed by Societa Anonima Stefano Pittaluga and produced by Società Italiana Cines.

Alessandro Blasetti's Resurrectio/The Resurrection was in fact the first sound film produced in Italy, but it was only released in 1931. Allegedly because La canzone dell’amore was thought to be more commercial, and indeed, Resurrectio became a box-office flop.

The quite absurd story of La canzone dell’amore is about a young woman who adopts the baby her mother gave birth to. It was based very loosely on a short story by Luigi Pirandello, In silenzio (In Silence).

While her widowed mother dies giving birth, music student Lucia (Dria Paola) adopts little Ninni, pretending to her fiancé Enrico (Elio Steiner) and her landlady it is her own child.

Lucia breaks up her engagement with Enrico, who is about to become a big musician. Lucia’s rival Anna, played by another upcoming star: Isa Pola, gets hold of Enrico. But when Lucia and Enrico later on meet in the big record store where Lucia works and where Enrico is making a record, he admits he still loves her.

The father of the child (Camillo Pilotto) shows up and claims the child. Heartbroken, Lucia gives in but tries to commit suicide afterwards. Just in time Enrico saves her, the father gives the child to Lucia and all is well.


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 888. Photo: Cines Pittaluga, Roma, no. 39. Isa Pola and Elio Steiner in La canzone dell'amore (Gennaro Righelli, 1930).


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 889. Photo: Cines Pittaluga, Roma, no. 40. Lucia (Dria Paola) and Enrico (Elio Steiner) hide from their friends in order to be able to kiss each other, in La canzone dell’amore (1930).

Double Framing

La canzone dell’amore opens and closes with images of Rome, and is actually one of the few Italian films from the 1930s showing the city repeatedly.

Stylistically important are the different moments of double framing, when Lucia looks out from her rented rooms and mimics neighbours how to change diapers and feed the child. Interesting is also Righelli’s visualisation of Lucia’s frenzy at her suicide attempt and his pans across the enormous set of the record store.

La canzone dell’amore had its premiere on 7 October 1930 at the Supercinema in Rome, the actual Teatro Nazionale. The film was a popular success, not in the least because of the music composed by Cesare Andrea Bixio, whose well-known song Solo per te Lucia became a hit as well.

Gerald A. DeLuca at IMDb: "Although laced with elements of soap opera, the film is nicely acted and manages to engross the viewer so that one really cares about what happens to this poor woman and her 'son' that she has grown to love. The boy, at the age of 14 months, is played by this sweetheart of a kid named Nello Rocchi. The film has some genuinely touching moments. My favorite one is when Lucia is at a loss about how to change and diaper the child on her first day with him. She looks out the apartment window across the way at another mom who is bathing, changing, and nursing her own child. Lucia imitates what the other mother is doing as though the neighbor were providing how-to instructions in motherhood. The only thing she cannot imitate is the breast-feeding; Lucia ponders the difference between herself and her neighbor, then grabs the baby-bottle to feed little Ninní. All this is accompanied by a lovely ninna-nanna in the background."

The film also had two alternate-language versions, one in German, Liebes Lied (Constantin J. Davis, 1931) starring Gustav Fröhlich and Renate Müller, and one in French, La dernière berceuse (Jean Cassagne, 1931) with Jean Angelo and Dolly Davis.

Lead actress Dria Paola became a star overnight. But soon the thin actress with the big head and fluttering hands was type casted as the fragile and sometimes clumsy damsel in distress. She could never repeat the success of her first sound film, and retired in the 1940s.


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 883. Photo: Cines Pittaluga, Roma, no. 40. After an attempted suicide, Lucia (Dria Paola) and Enrico (Elio Steiner) make up towards the end of La canzone dell’amore (1930). The cityscape of Rome in the background.


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 885. Photo: Cines Pittaluga, Roma, no. 43. Publicity still of Dria Paola in La canzone dell’amore (1930).

Sources: Wikipedia (Italian), and IMDb.