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Saltarello in Italia |
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CALLING ALL ITALIANS!
Are any of you in Italy?
Would you enjoy doing some research?
Here’s my quest.
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When did Roscoe Arbuckle’s movies reach Italy?
A week after they opened in the US?
A year after they opened in the US?
Three years after they opened in the US?
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A Word about US Release Dates: They need to be taken with a bucket of salt.
The labs made a handful of prints that the distributors shipped out to the exchanges,
and cinemas with contracts got them whenever they got them.
If the current show was losing money, the cinemas would jump ahead to the following day’s attraction,
or the following week’s attraction.
If a cinema owner was convinced that a film would run at a loss,
he (almost always he) wouldn’t even take it out of the cans,
but would ship it to the next cinema in queue.
The movies then floated about, hither, thither, and yon.
The studios and distributors and exchanges and cinemas kept records
of what was shown where and when and under what contract, but those records have all vanished.
The “official” release dates seem to be what modern researchers
happened to catch when reeling through old newspapers on microfilm.
With rare exceptions, we can take them as approximate at best.
For instance, The Rough House allegedly premièred on 20 June 1917.
Yet it opened at the 12th Street Theater in Kansas City, Missouri, on
17 June 1917.
His Wedding Night allegedly opened on 20 August 1917,
yet I see that it opened at the Imperial in San Francisco a day earlier,
19 August 1917.
And on and on and on it goes.
Then, of course, we all know about The General by now.
The official release dates are 31 December 1927 in Tokyo and 5 February 1927 in Manhattan;
yet we all have learned that its première was actually on 11 December 1926 at James’ Grand in Columbus, Ohio,
after which it immediately spread throughout the US.
We cannot take these official release dates seriously, really, we can’t.
They’re not terribly far off, but I doubt that most of them are exact.
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Here are the Italian titles I can find for the various Roscoe/Buster movies,
but I am unable to find any dates for the Italian releases.
I assume that only two or three prints were shipped to Italy, and that they slowly wended their way
up and down the boot, onto and off of the little islands, and the big islands, too,
over the course of about two years each,
and by the time they finished all their bookings, they were little more than confetti.
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| ITALIAN TITLE PER PANTIERI |
ITALIAN TITLE PER WEAD/LELLIS |
US TITLE | ALLEGED US PREMIÈRE | ITALIAN RELEASE |
| Fatty macellaio | Il garzone di macelleria | The Butcher Boy | 12 Apr 1917 | |
| — | La casa tempestosa | The Rough House | 20 Jun 1917 | |
| Le nozze di Fatty | La sua notte di nozze | His Wedding Night | 20 Aug 1917 | |
| Fatty dottore | Oh, Dottore! | Oh Doctor! | 19 Sep 1917 | |
| Fatty alla festa | — | Fatty at Coney Island | 11 Oct 1917 | |
| — | — | A Country Hero | 10 Dec 1917 | |
| — | Nel West! | Out West | 20 Feb 1918 | |
| — | Il fattorino | The Bell Boy | 07 Mar 1918 | |
| — | Chiaro di luna | Moonshine | 06 May 1918 | |
| Fatty alla clinica | Buone notte, infermiere | Good Night, Nurse! | 22 Jun 1918 | |
| Fatty cuciniere | Il cuoco | The Cook | 20 Aug 1918 | |
| Fatty attore | Retroscena | Back Stage | 20 Aug 1919 | |
| Fatty al villaggio | Il rustico | The Hayseed | 13 Oct 1919 | |
| Il garage di Fatty | Il garage | The Garage | 15 Dec 1919 |
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If you’re in Italy and if you enjoy hanging out at libraries and archives,
could you do the world the kindness of determining when these movies played in the various towns and villages
throughout the peninsula? Pretty please?
Who were the local distributors?
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“Buster” was “a dialectal variant of burster.”
As Buster claimed, “buster” meant “fall.”
Yes, that was one of many definitions: “a bad fall.”
It also meant “an unusually sturdy child.”
As an expansion upon “bust,” it could mean “a frolic” or “a spree.”
In its 1838 sense of
“anything large or exceptional; a man of great strength,”
it could by extension mean
“a roistering blade,” a phrase I need to begin using around the office.
Failing to find even an approximate equivalent, the Italian publicity personnel settled upon “Saltarello,”
which, as you all know, is the name of a medieval dance, and means, literally, “hop” or “skip.”
Here is a saltarello, as danced in Lithuania:
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Buster was Saltarello only for the short films.
As far as I know, these are the Saltarello films that were issued in Italy in the 1920’s.
The releases were inevitably delayed, but the early ones were delayed by up to about four years!
Worse, note how they were not spaced out.
They were dumped onto the market in several gigantic clumps,
which is absolutely the wrong way to nurture an audience.
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| ITALIAN TITLE PER PANTIERI |
ITALIAN TITLE PER WEAD/LELLIS |
US TITLE | ALLEGED US PREMIÈRE | ITALIAN CENSOR VISA | ITALIAN RELEASE |
| La casa smontabile di Saltarello | Saltarello e la casa smontabile | One Week | 01 Sep 1920 | 20 Nov 1923 | 16 May 1924 |
| (Not released?) | (Not released?) | The Saphead | 11 Oct 1920 | 18 Dec 1923 | |
| Il delitto di Saltarello | Saltarello e la forca elastica! | Convict 13 | 27 Oct 1920 | 17 Nov 1924 | |
| — | Saltarello e le sue trovate | The Scarecrow | 22 Dec 1920 | 13 Oct 1924 | |
| — | Saltarello e la sua vicina | Neighbors | 03 Jan 1921 | 02 Mar 1925 | |
| Saltarello e i fantasmi | Saltarello e la casa incantata (a/k/a Saltarello e i fantasmi) | The Haunted House | 10 Feb 1921 | 06 Dec 1923 | 25 Mar 1925 |
| — | Saltarello sfortunato | Hard Luck | 16 Mar 1921 | 18 Dec 1923 | 11 May 1925 |
| — | Saltarello ed il tiro a segno | The High Sign | 12 Apr 1921 | 01 Dec 1924 | |
| — | Saltarello e il suo delitto (a/k/a Il capro espiatorio) | The Goat | 18 May 1921 | 17 Nov 1924 | |
| Saltarello e il teatro | Saltarello a teatro | The Playhouse | 06 Oct 1921 | ||
| — | Saltarello, capitano di lungo corso[???] (a/k/a La barca) | The Boat | 10 Nov 1921 | ||
| — | Il viso pallido | The Paleface | 17 Dec 1921 | ||
| — | Poliziotti | Cops | 15 Feb 1922 | ||
| — | I parenti di mia moglie | My Wife’s Relations | 12 Jun 1922 | ||
| Saltarello fabbro | Saltarello fabbro | The Blacksmith | 21 Jul 1922 | ||
| Saltarello esquimese | Saltarello esquimese | The Frozen North | 03 Aug 1922 | ||
| — | Sogni a occhi aperti | Day Dreams | 28 Sep 1922 | ||
| Saltarello e L’ electric Hotel | Saltarello e l’ Electric-Hotel | The Electric House | 19 Oct 1922 | ||
| — | Il matto sul pallone | The Balloonatic | 22 Jan 1923 | ||
| Saltarello, capitano di lungo corso | Il nido d’ amore (Saltarello, capitano di lungo corso[???]) | The Love Nest | 06 Mar 1923 | ||
| Senti, amore mio. L’ amore attraverso i secoli | Senti, amore mio (a/k/a L’ amore attraverso i secoli) | Three Ages | 24 Sep 1923 | 29 Sep 1925 | |
| Le legge dell’ ospitalità (a/k/a Accidenti...che ospitalità!) | Accidenti...che ospitalità! | Our Hospitality | 03 Nov 1923 | 22 Aug 1925 | 27 Nov 1925 |
| Calma, signori miei o La palla numero 13 | La palla n° 13 (a/k/a Calma, signori miei!) | Sherlock Jr. | 21 Apr 1924 | 05 Sep 1925 | |
| Il navigante | Il Navigatore | The Navigator | 13 Oct 1924 | 31 Jul 1925 | 07 Aug 1925 |
| Le sette probabilità | Le sette probabilità | Seven Chances | 16 Mar 1925 | 21 Sep 1925 | 27 May 1926 |
| Io e la vacca | Io...e la vacca | Go West | 25 Oct 1925 | 13 Sep 1926 | 07 Feb 1927 |
| Se perdo la pazienza! | Se perdo la pazienza... (a/k/a Io e la boxe) | Battling Butler | 22 Aug 1926 | 04 Jan 1927 | 30 Mar 1927 |
| Come vinsi la guerra | Come vinsi la guerra | The General | 11 Dec 1926 | 10 Mar 1927 | 30 Mar 1927 |
| Ti voglio così o Tuo per sempre | Ti voglio... così (a/k/a Tuo per sempre) | College | 10 Sep 1927 | ||
| Io e il ciclone | Io...e il ciclone | Steamboat Bill, Jr. | 12 May 1928 | 17 Sep 1928 | |
| Io e la scimmia (a/k/a Il cameraman) | Io...e la scimmia (a/k/a Il cameraman) | The Cameraman | 22 Sep 1928 | ||
| Io e l’ amore | Io...e l’ amore | Spite Marriage | 06 Apr 1929 |
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You surely noticed that Saltarello capitano di lungo corso is provided as the Italian title
for both The Boat and The Love Nest.
One of those attributions is surely wrong.
I suspect — I strongly suspect — that it was the title of The Boat.
The Rough House was La casa tempestosa at first,
but, surely after Saltarello developed his own following,
some cinemas must have advertised this as La casa di Saltarello.
Other instances of alternative titles surely derive from screenings in the 1960’s and later.
So, I really doubt that Il capro espiatorio, La barca,
and Il cameraman were used in the 1920’s.
On the other hand, it seems that La palla n° 13 and Io e la boxe
were used interchangeably with the official titles.
These variant listings cause me to suspect that the titles were changed from one booking to the next.
I can easily imagine a local exchange chopping out the old main titles and splicing in replacements.
There is also a good chance that some titles were changed only on the broadsides, not on the films proper.
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When Fellini recalled that Buster was his favorite at the Cinema Fulgor in Rimini,
he was referring to the releases of 1924 through 1931,
after which the movies completely disappeared.
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As mentioned above, there were no movie posters in Italy in those days.
There were
broadsides, custom ordered by each individual cinema, and rarely did they include any illustrations.
(Here is a rare exception.)
They were printed on the cheapest paper possible,
and they were specific to particular bookings and thus could never be reused.
That is why frightfully few have survived.
Here are the few I found on the Internet:
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 Fri, 28 March 1924 |
 Tue/Wed, 7/8 May 1924 |
 Fri, 16 May 1924 |
 Wed/Thu, 21/22 May 1924 |
 Sat/Sun, 30/31 Aug 1924 |
 Sat/Sun, 20/21 Sep 1924 |
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Fridolin, or Fridolen, whichever, was Jimmy Aubrey. | |
 Thu/Fri, 7/8 Nov 1924 |
 Thu, 13 Nov 1924 |
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“Saltarello, the Rival of Ridolini.” And who, pray tell, was Ridolini? Larry Semon! | |
 Wed/Thu, 26/27 Nov 1924 |
 Sat/Sun, 6/7 Dec 1924 |
 UNDATED, 1924 |
 Fri, 16 Jan 1925 |
 Thu, 21 Nov 1929, Milan. |
 1929, Milan. |
 UNDATED, 1931 |
 Fri, 16 Nov 1934 |
 UNDATED, 1932 This is that gawdawful Parlor, Bedroom and Bath. Ugh. |
 UNDATED, 1933 This is that gawdawful Passionate Plumber. |
Okay. Make a liar outta me.
An illustrated locandina, printed not by the distributor, but on behalf of the cinema.
It is apparent that the distributor supplied the cinema with the necessary graphics.
For a paltry $2,256.59+$15.88 shipping, you can have this for your very own.
I’m too much of a skinflint to pay that sorta dough.
The item is from
BENITO ORIGINAL MOVIE POSTER in Sitges, Spain,
who lists it thus:
IO E LA SCIMMIA - 1928 Dir EDWARD SEDGWICK Cast: BUSTER KEATON MARCELINE DAY HAROLD GOODWIN ITALIA - LOCANDINA-INSERT-33X70-CM.-13X27-IN. LOCANDINA Most are in excellent condition but may have normal wear such as edge wear or a slight hole. I try photograph any flaw but examining the photos closely is your best bet! Please see bigger picture for details. La mayoría est en excelentes condiciones, pero puede tener desgaste del borde o algun agujero pequeño. Intento fotografiar cualquier defecto, pero el examen de las fotos de cerca es su mejor opción! Por favor ver la foto en grande para más detalles SHIPPING COSTS: Fold posters SPAIN 5€ = $7- -Correo certificado EUROPE 15€ = $20 WORLDWIDE 20€ = $25 posters on linen small format $60 big format $90 All POSTERS GOES BY FEDEX. ITEMS PURCHASED CAN BE COMBINED TO SAVE ON SHIPPING Seller Inventory # 37430 | |
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The films vanished for over 30 years
until Rohauer showed 16mm prints at the 1963 Venice Film Festival.
When Pasolini told of his admiration for Buster because of “the perfection of The General,”
he was referring to his one and only viewing at the Venice Festival.
Then the movies were completely gone again.
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Buster popped up at the following Venice Film Festival, September 1965,
to publicize Samuel Beckett’s Film,
a movie he was glad to put behind him, proclaiming thankfully that he would never need to sit through it again.
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 Posted by Sara Zittel |
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Then he featured in American International Pictures’
War Italian Style,
fronted by L’Italian International Film, which washed the money by posing as the producer of
Due marines e un generale, as the longer edition was known in Italy.
(Those were the glory days of Italian cinema, awash in leftover Hollywood money,
which was put to use to fund Fellini and Pasolini and Visconti and Leone and others, too.)
It was on that last trip to Italy that Buster granted an interview to RAI television:
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Lorenzo Tremarelli, Buster Keaton ai microfoni di un giornalista della RAI, posted on Jun 7, 2011 When YouTube disappears this video, download it. |
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Tony Pagoda, Carmelo Bene su Buster Keaton (Completo), posted on Mar 29, 2022 When YouTube disappears this video, download it.
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Buster’s silent movies were completely gone,
except when they privately replayed in Carmelo Bene’s memory.
The first reappearance, as far as I know, was in 1973,
when Our Hospitality popped up again.
But it wasn’t Rohauer’s edition.
It must have been a 16mm print purchased from Enrique Bouchard.
I won on eBay the poster (locandina) for La legge dell’ ospitalità as issued in 1973.
Not a mention of Rohauer anywhere on it.
It was rather crudely done, and I have difficulty believing that this was for a formal 35mm release.
If it was 35mm, Italian cinemas would have cropped it at 1:1.85 (.446"×.826").
Not worth seeing when it’s butchered like that.
But I bet it was 16mm, it had to have been 16mm,
even though pretty much no Italian cinema had 16mm capabilities.
If you know more than I do, please write to me.
Thanks!
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 Our Hospitality The locandina from the 1973 reissue by DAE, Distribuzione Art Essai, without so much as a hint about Rohauer. I bet it was a 16mm print from Enrique Bouchard. |
 The Navigator Also from 1973 is this due fogli with that same cartoon of Buster and also issued by DAE, Distribuzione Art Essai, again with no hint about Rohauer. Again, I bet this was a 16mm print from Enrique Bouchard. Tempted to buy this, but I don’t want to part with the moolah. |
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We see now program notes for a handful of Buster movies in 16mm.
It was highly unusual for an Italian cinema to run 16mm.
Actually, it was highly unusual for 16mm to appear in Italy at all except for home movies
on Sunday evening in the parlor after dinner,
with daddy at the projector and with the bored kids trying to edge away,
entirely uninterested in watching images of themselves as babies
while fawning grownups irritatingly remark about how cute they once were.
Note that the titles are provided in English,
which might lead us to suspect that they came from The Rohauer Collection,
but they did not, as Rohauer’s name appears nowhere on this calendar.
So, I assume that these prints were purchased from Enrique Bouchard.
Just an assumption.
There is no date on this brochure.
Since the bibliography at the end cites a work from April 1976,
the calendar can be no earlier than that.
Since this seems to have been typed on an IBM Selectric,
it was probably created before 1990.
The visible paste blotches in the
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If this does not display,
download it.
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And that was probably pretty much it for Italian audiences.
If they missed those screenings, then all they know about silent Buster is what they caught in
The Dreamers.
Some of the movies popped up on VHS and DVD, but the few I have seen are pirated.
Were there any licensed editions of Buster’s silents issued on Italian home video?
Probably not.
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Here is a fascinating article by Andrea Ciaffaroni,
“Buster Keaton parla italiano,”
Comedy, il blog la comicità è un serio affare, dossier e memorie di grandi comici,
Tuesday, 6 November 2018.
Read it!
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