Nunzio Malasomma
Nunzio Malasomma (born February 4, 1894 in Caserta , † January 12, 1974 in Rome ) was an Italian screenwriter and film director . His best-known films include Mister Radio (1924), The Battle of the Matterhorn (1928), The Son of the White Mountains (1930) and The Woman Without a Past (1939).
Life
After completing a technical degree, Nunzio Malasomma turned to journalism and in 1920 founded the film and theater magazine "Fortunio" together with Luciano Doria . He came to film as a writer. Malasomma wrote his first two scripts in 1921 and 1923 for the Turin and Rome- based production company Fert Film. After Mussolini was promoted to Italian Prime Minister in a coup in 1923, Malasomma went to Germany. Many other Italian film artists - such as Mario Bonnard , Guido Brignone, and Gennaro Righelli - did the same. In 1924 he wrote the screenplay for the Heinrich George film "Steuerlos" for Righelli, who was hired by the young Trianon-Film in Berlin . In the same year the team produced another film, "Orient - The Daughter of the Desert", with Harry Liedtke and Righelli's wife Maria Jacobini in the lead roles. 1925 staged Malasomma his first film, "The King and the little girl" in the next to Italian silent film star Luciano Albertini and successful teenager Actress Evi Eva and Hans Albers could be seen. With Charlotte Ander and again Luciano Albertini in the leading roles, Malasomma shot the film "One Minute Before Twelve" in the same year and the film "Hunt for People" in 1926, in which Hans Albers again appeared alongside the popular Italian silent film actor Carlo Aldini . The collaboration with Aldini continued Malasomma in the following two films - "One against all" and "The man without a head".
After Malasomma had made mostly sensational and action films so far, he turned to high mountain drama in 1928. Based on a script by mountain film specialist Arnold Fanck , he and his compatriot Mario Bonnard directed the film “ The Battle for the Matterhorn ” , in which Luis Trenker plays the Italian mountain guide Jean-Antoine Carrel , who in 1865 had a bitter competition with the famous English mountaineer Edward Whymper about the first ascent of the Matterhorn . The collaboration with Bonnard and Trenker resulted in two more mountain films: “ The Call of the North ” (1929) and “ The Son of the White Mountains ” (1930).
After the introduction of the sound film , Nunzio Malasomma went back to Italy, where he made several films for the Cinès in Rome, such as “L'uomo dall'artiglio” (1931) and “La cieca di Sorrento” (1934). From 1934 on he worked alternately for Italian and German manufacturing companies. His next German film - the Luis Trenker film " Polarstürme " (1934) - he directed together with Johannes Häußler for the Berlin company Patria. When the audience's interest in mountain films waned in the mid-1930s, Malasomma turned to aesthetic, inconsequential melodramas and shot films such as “ Red Orchids ” (1938, with Olga Chekhova , Albrecht Schoenhals , Camilla Horn and Hans Nielsen ), “The Night the decision ”(1938, with Pola Negri and Iván Petrovich ),“ Die pious lie ”(1938, with Pola Negri and Hermann Braun ),“ The woman without a past ”(1939, with Sybille Schmitz and Albrecht Schoenhals) and“ Vom Schicksal gone ”(1941/42, again with Sybille Schmitz and Albrecht Schoenhals). The exotic film " Gone with the Wind " was the last film that Malasomma made in Germany before the end of the war , after the ban on showing American films was imposed in 1941 and was not allowed to see films like " Gone with the Wind ". In Italy he worked again for the Cinès and other production companies, often with stars like Vittorio De Sica and Amadeo Nazzari .
His last films directed Nunzio Malasomma in the 1960s: the sandals film "La rivolta degli schiavi" (1961) and the spaghetti western "Quindici forche per un assassino" (1968).
Filmography
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literature
- VIM (= Vittorio Martinelli): Nunzio Malasomma - director. In: Hans-Michael Bock (Ed.): CineGraph. Lexicon for German-language films. Delivery to the 19th edition text + kritik, Munich 1992 (loose-leaf edition).
Web links
- Nunzio Malasomma in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Nunzio Malasomma at filmportal.de
- Short biography (Italian)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Malasomma, Nunzio |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian film director |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 4, 1894 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Caserta , Italy |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 12, 1974 |
| Place of death | Rome |