Golden Madonna

BFI Most Wanted: the hunt for Britain's missing films

Directed by Ladislao Vajda, 1949

The disappearance of a valuable painting from a British girl's estate in Italy is thought to be the cause of the village's misfortunes. With the help of an ex-army officer she goes in search of the painting meeting a variety of unruly types along the way.

Patricia (Phyllis Calvert) in quest of a legendary painting.

Credits

Director Production Company Screenplay Photography	Ladislao Vajda Independent Film Producers Akos Tolnay Anchise Brizzi; Otello Martelli
Cast: Phyllis Calvert (Patricia Chandler); Michael Rennie (Mike Christie); Tullio Carminati (Signor Migone); David Greene (Johnny Lester)
88 mins, 7,951 ft, sound, black & white

Why are we so keen to find it?

Ladislao Vajda, known as 'the International Adventurer', made a significant contribution to several national film industries including his native country Hungary but also Italy, Spain and Britain. He was an editor, designer and script writer before turning director, working alongside luminaries like Billy Wilder and Henry Koster.

Lead actress Phyllis Calvert was a major star of the 1940s, best known for playing the 'good girl' in the notorious Gainsborough melodramas. That said, her performance in this film was reviewed badly. The Evening Standard observed how her "irritating voice emphasises the banality of the dialogue". Descriptions of co-star Michael Rennie's performance fared no better and he looked, according to the same reviewer, "like a retired tennis player."

However, the supporting cast (mainly Italians) were reviewed much more favourably. These included celebrated Italian maestro Tullio Carminati, famous for Hollywood productions like One Night of Love (1934). Its international cast, merging of fact and fiction (the film casts a 'Spivvy' Englishman alongside a dwarf "well-known as a tourist guide in Naples") suggests that this is at least a genuine curiosity.

What's it about?

The script was apparently based on an original story by Dorothy Hope, who wrote and adapted scripts for several British productions in the 1930s and 1940s. The contemporary synopsis is pithy: "On the Mediterranean Merry-Go-Round, she met the biggest fiddler since Nero".

The Monthly Film Bulletin gives a more detailed outline:

"Comedy Drama. Patricia Chandler, a British girl, inherits an Italian estate. While tidying up her new property she throws away a painting, the Golden Madonna, which is to the villagers a symbol of prosperity. An ex-Army officer, Michael Christie, goes with her to Naples to recover the painting, which has been sold by a gang of thieves led by a British deserter. They pass the picture on to an Italian art collector, but when she appeals artlessly for their help the whole gang join in the case of the collector. The picture is eventually run to earth in Capri."

Last seen?

Despite the film's initial lack of success, it was reissued in 1953, with the apparent deletion "of some 1,700 feet from original concentrate[ing] story's urbanity and humour." It was shown on television in Britain in December 1956 on ITV in this edited version of 73 minutes and again in August 1958, at 88 minutes, presumably in the complete version.

What else do we know about it?

The Golden Madonna was released the same week as Rossellini's Germany Year Zero. Italian neo-realist productions were receiving a great deal of critical acclaim at this time and clearly there was an intention on the part of the producers to cash in on their popularity by shooting entirely on location in Italy; the publicity for the film refers to this as shooting 'on the spot'. The Capri coast and rubble-strewn Naples appear in the film, another reason perhaps for the enthusiasm for its recovery. Indeed, in press and publicity it was drawn attention to that one of the actors in the film was Pippo Bonucci, the young boy who played the wily street thief whom the African American soldier meets in Naples in one of the episodes in Rossellini's Paisa (1946). Here he plays the leader of a gang of Neapolitan urchins.

Does anything survive?

The BFI National Archive holds 1000ft of mute material on the film as well as some press stills, held in the BFI's Stills, Posters and Designs collections.

Reviews

Generally, the reviews focused on a weak plot and acting, though the location shooting and photography were greeted favourably. The Times believed that "the sad truth is the English do not show up well against an Italian background."

Mr McCarthy, reviewing titles for distributors, believed that it was an unsuccessful attempt by the filmmakers to emulate Italian films: "This British film, photographed in Italy, is little more than an illustrated guide to Capri and Naples. While it might have been a most pleasant experience for the players while making it, this such can hardly be said for those patrons called upon to pay to see it."

The Monthly Film Bulletin was more forgiving: "This curiously slow-moving, indecisive, amateurish film tries to bring to the British screen something of the life and colour of the Italian cinema. The whole attempt is slightly synthetic, but the film does succeed in giving a tourist's eye view of Italy against attractively photographed backgrounds. With a better, gayer script, and more sensitive playing by the English leads, it could have been enchanting. As it is, the energetic Italian cast do their best, but the screen temperature falls noticeably whenever the English pair appear; they, too have very much the worst of the script."

Kelly Robinson, Filmographic Editor (Festivals and Awards), BFI National Library

You can find more about British films of the late 1940s, including entries on surviving films and video clips for users in UK schools, colleges, universities and public libraries, at BFI Screenonline. You can also view similar titles at the BFI Mediatheques.