White Telephones

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Propagandist "black" films were heavily outnumbered by so-called "pink" pictures during the Fascist era. Mussolini wanted cinema to distract, amuse and uphold the consensus. Diversions like Nunzio Malasomma's musical comedy La telefonista (The Telephone Operator) (1932) and Mario Camerini's Grandi magazzini (Department Store) (1938) fitted the bill perfectly.

There were costume pieces like Alessandro Blasetti's 1860 (1934) and contemporary melodramas like Ferdinando Poggioli's Sissignora (Yes, Madam) (1941). But audiences preferred comedies with a Hollywoodesque touch. Consequently, over half of the 639 features produced between 1930 and 1944 were light entertainments.

Vittorio De Sica became a matinee idol in comedies of errors like Camerini's Il signor Max (1937) and Mario Mattoli's Ai vostri ordini, signora! (At Your Service, Madam!) (1939), while Isa Miranda headlined Goffredo Alessandrini's female variation on the theme, Una donna tra due mondi (A Woman Between Two Worlds) (1938).

Invariably set onboard liners or in hotels or nightclubs, these telefoni bianchi or "white telephones" pictures gently mocked upper-class convention while celebrating the triumph of the commonplace. But a cosier style of bourgeois comedy emerged during the war in films like Blasetti's Quattro passi fra le nuvole (Four Steps in the Clouds) (1942).

David Parkinson