Hollywood on the Tiber
Hollywood on the Tiber is a phrase used to describe the period in the 1950s and 1960s when the Italian capital of Rome emerged as a major location for international filmmaking attracting many foreign productions to the Cinecittà studios. By contrast to the native Italian film industry, these movies were made in English for global release. Although the primary markets for such films were American and British audiences, they enjoyed widespread popularity in other countries, including Italy.
The commercial success of
Background
Following
In Italy, the film-makers used the vast Cinecittà complex which had been built in the 1930s by
Height
Although American companies had shot in Italy before (such as
In 1962, the lengthy and troubled production of Cleopatra brought further media attention to the city. The delays led to a spiraling budget, making it the most expensive film ever made at the time.[6]
Far from leading to a decline in Italian cinema, the native industry boomed during the era. In 1960, Italian films outperformed American imports to Italy for the first time since 1946.
Later years
Cinecittà was at the peak of its international fame between the production of Ben Hur and Cleopatra (1958–1960).[9] As the 1960s drew on, the fashion for classical epics began to decline following the commercial failure of The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), although films in other genres such as David Lean's Doctor Zhivago (1965) continued to be profitable.
In 2009 a documentary film Hollywood on the Tiber was released. It portrays Cinecittà and the various stars who worked there between 1950 and 1970.
Selected filmography
- Quo Vadis (1951)
- Roman Holiday (1953)
- Three Coins in the Fountain (1954)
- The Barefoot Contessa (1954)
- War and Peace (1956)
- Helen of Troy (1956)
- The Little Hut (1957)
- Boy on a Dolphin (1957)
- The Naked Maja (1958)
- Ben-Hur (1959)
- It Started in Naples (1960)
- The Angel Wore Red (1960)
- Cleopatra (1963)
- Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
- The Pink Panther (1963)
- The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
- The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965)
References
- ^ "Cinecittà, c'è l'accordo per espandere gli Studios italiani" (in Italian). Retrieved 10 September 2022.
- ^ Wrigley p.52
- ^ Balio p.228
- ^ Gundle p.261
- ^ Balio p.228
- ^ Bondanella p.161
- ^ McElhaney p.146
- ^ Bondanella p.339
- ^ Torriglia p.60
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - Hollywood on the Tiber". BBC. Retrieved 2023-11-07.
Bibliography
- Balio, Tino. The Foreign Film Renaissance on American Screens, 1946–1973. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 5 Nov 2010.
- Bondanella, Peter. A History of Italian Cinema. Continuum, 2009.
- Gundle, Stephen. Mussolini's Dream Factory: Film Stardom in Fascist Italy. Berghahn Books, 2013.
- McElhaney, Joe. The Death of Classical Cinema: Hitchcock, Lang, Minnelli. SUNY Press, 2012.
- Torriglia, Anna Maria. Broken Time, Fragmented Space: A Cultural Map for Postwar Italy. University of Toronto Press, 2002.
- Wrigley, Richard (ed.) Cinematic Rome. Troubador Publishing, 2008.