Soldati, Mario

(1906-1999)

   Writer, director, screenwriter, literary critic, academic, actor. Perhaps better known as a writer than a filmmaker, Soldati always claimed to have become involved in cinema merely in order to make money. Nevertheless, he was obviously attracted by the medium and joined the revamped Cines studios during Emilio Cecchi's period as artistic director there in 1932. He began working as a screenwriter, collaborating on the screenplays of many of Mario Camerini's best-known films, including Gli uomini che mascalzoni (What Scoundrels Men Are, 1932), Il cappello a tre punte (The Three-Cornered Hat, 1935), and Il signor Max (Mister Max, 1940), as well as on Alessandro Blasetti's Contessa di Parma (The Countess of Parma, 1937) and Renato Castellani's debut feature, Un colpo di pistola (A Pistol Shot, 1942). From the late 1930s he tried his hand at directing, beginning with Dora Nelson (1939), a white telephone comedy set in the film industry itself, which he followed with the two "calligraphic" films for which he would become best known: Piccolo mondo antico (Old-Fashioned World, 1941) and Malombra (1942), both elegant and atmospheric adaptations of novels by 19th-century writer Antonio Fogazzaro.

   After the war, while intensifying his literary output, he also continued to direct films, moving effortlessly between stylish literary adaptations such as Eugenia Grandet (Eugenie Grandet, 1946) and La provinciale (The Wayward Wife, 1952) to swashbuckling adventure fantasies such Il sogno di Zorro (Zorro's Dream, 1952) and Jolanda la figlia del corsaro Nero (Jolanda, the Daughter of the Black Pirate, 1953). After the erotic melodrama La donna del fiume (The River Girl, 1955), which showcased both the body and the acting talents of a very young Sophia Loren, Soldati became intensely interested in television and produced a number of travel documentaries for the RAI, including Viaggio nella valle del Po (Travels along the Po Valley, 1957) and Viaggio lungo il Tirreno (Travels along the Tyrrean Coast, 1961), which he made in collaboration with Cesare Zavattini. The last film he directed, before devoting himself almost completely to writing, was the light ironic comedy Policarpo, "ufficiale di scrittura" (Policarpo, 1959).