The Italian (1915)

Interesting facts

The Italian is a 1915 American silent film feature which tells the story of an Italian gondolier who comes to the United States to make his fortune but instead winds up working as a shoeshiner and experiencing tragedy while living with his wife and child in a tenement on New York's Lower East Side. The film was produced by Thomas H. Ince, directed by Reginald Barker, and co-written by C. Gardner Sullivan and Ince. The film stars stage actor George Beban in the title role as the Italian immigrant, Pietro "Beppo" Donnetti.

Production

Historical accounts indicate that Thomas Ince and C. Gardner Sullivan had originally titled their project Dago, but agreed to change the title at the request of the film's star, George Beban. The Italian marked the first motion picture role for Beban, who had gained acclaim as a Broadway actor and vaudevillian specializing in ethnic caricatures. Beban only agreed to join the project for a salary of $7000 and a percentage of the films profits.

Ince and Sullivan are credited with writing the film's story, but film historian Kevin Brownlow has shown that the plot was essentially lifted from the earlier Independent Moving Pictures (Ince's former employer) film The Wop (1913).

Though set on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the New York scenes for The Italian were shot in the immigrant quarter of San Francisco. While most accounts indicate that the scenes of Beppo as a gondolier were shot in the Venice district of Los Angeles, an account published by the Los Angeles Times in November 1914 reported that "Ince sent Beban to Italy to get special canal scenes for the eight-reel play."

One of the vivid scenes in The Italian is the fight scene between Beppo and his muggers. The scene lasts five minutes on the screen, and a newspaper story reported that, for realism, "a number of the biggest men at Inceville were used in the scene."

In a story on the production of The Italian, a newspaper reported that a hundred pounds of rice were bought for the film's wedding scene. An initial order of fifty pounds of rice was left uncovered overnight by a "property man" at the Inceville studio. A "heavy rain caused each grain to swell to enormous proportions," requiring the purchase of another fifty pounds of rice.

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