''The Iron Crown'' () is a 1941 Italian adventure written and directed by Alessandro Blasetti, starring

Massimo Girotti Massimo Girotti (18 May 1918 – 5 January 2003) was an Italian film actor whose career spanned seven decades. Born in Mogliano, in the province of Macerata, Girotti developed his athletic physique by swimming and playing polo. While studying eng ...

and

Gino Cervi Luigi Cervi (3 May 1901 – 3 January 1974), better known as Gino Cervi (), was an Italian actor. He was best known for portraying Peppone in a series of comedies based on the character ''Don Camillo'' (1952-1965), and police detective Jules ...

. The narrative revolves a sacred iron crown and a king who is prophesied to lose his kingdom to his nephew. It blends motifs from several European myths, legends and modern works of popular fiction. The film won a Coppa Mussolini award, which is the ancestor to the Golden Lion.

Plot

Sedemondo (

) succeeds his brother Licinio (

) upon his death as king of Kindaor, and a messenger bearing a crown made from a nail from the

true cross The True Cross is the cross upon which Jesus was said to have been crucified, particularly as an object of religious veneration. There are no early accounts that the apostles or early Christians preserved the physical cross themselves, althoug ...

requests permission to cross the kingdom. The crown by legend will stay wherever injustice and corruption prevail. Sedemondo takes it to a gorge where it is swallowed by the earth. A wise woman prophesies to the king that his wife will bear a daughter and Licinio's widow (

Elisa Cegani Elisa Cegani (11 June 1911 – 23 February 1996) was an Italian actress. She appeared in 60 films between 1935 and 1983. Partial filmography * ''Aldebaran'' (1935) - Nora Bandi * ''Cavalry'' (1936) - Speranza di Frassineto * ''The Countess ...

) a son, that the two will fall in love, and the son take the kingdom from Sedemondo. When he gets home, he is told that his wife has given birth to a boy (the daughter having been switched with the child of Licinio) and so believes the prophecy to be invalid. He raises both the boy Arminio and girl Elsa. After some strife between Sedemondo and Arminio, the king orders Arminio to be taken to the gorge and slain. Twenty years later, with Arminio (Massimo Girotti) having grown up in the forest, Sedemondo arranges a tournament to determine who will marry Elsa (Elisa Cegani). Tundra (Luisa Ferida) leads the resistance among the people against the king. The tournament, with various characters attending in disguise, sets up whether the prophecy will come to pass.

Cast

as the mother of Elsa & Elsa *

Luisa Ferida Luisa Ferida, real surname Manfrini, (18 March 1914 – 30 April 1945) was an Italian stage and film actress. She was one of divas in Italian cinema during decade 1935-1945 and she was the highest paid movie star of that period. The actress w ...

as Kavaora, mother of Tundra & Tundra *

Rina Morelli Rina Morelli (6 December 1908 – 17 July 1976) was an Italian film and stage actress. She appeared in 34 films between 1939 and 1976. She was born in Naples, Italy and died in Rome, Italy. Her husband, Paolo Stoppa, was an Italian stage and ...

as the wise old woman *

as Sedemondo, the king of Kindaor *

as Licinio & Arminio, his son *

Osvaldo Valenti Osvaldo Valenti (17 February 1906 – 30 April 1945) was an Italian film actor. He appeared in more than 50 films between 1928 and 1945. He was born in Istanbul, Turkey to a Sicilian carpet trader and a wealthy Lebanese woman of Greek descen ...

as Eriberto *

Paolo Stoppa Paolo Stoppa Knight Grand Cross (6 June 1906 – 1 May 1988) was an Italian actor. Biography Born in Rome, he began as a stage actor in 1927 in the theater in Rome and began acting in films in 1932. As a stage actor, his most celebrated ...

as Trifilli *

Primo Carnera Primo may refer to: People *DJ Premier (born 1966), hip-hop producer, sometimes goes by nickname Primo * Primo Carnera (1906–1967), Italian boxer, World Heavyweight champion 1933–1934 *Primo Cassarino (born 1956), enforcer for the Gambino cr ...

as Klasa, the servant of Tundra *

Dina Perbellini Dina Perbellini (14 January, 1901–2 April, 1984) was an Italian actress. She appeared in over sixty films and television series between 1934 and 1969 and was also a leading voice actress, dubbing foreign films for release in Italy. She made her ...

as Elsa's nurse ;Dubbing *

Gualtiero De Angelis Gualtiero De Angelis (November 22, 1899 – June 6, 1980) was an Italian actor and voice actor. He was best known for dubbing James Stewart in the Italian language releases of nearly all of his films. Biography Born in Rome, De Angelis began h ...

... voice dubbing: Massimo Girotti, role of "Arminio" only (uncredited) *

Lauro Gazzolo Lauro Gazzolo (born Ilario Gazzolo; 15 October 1900 – 2 October 1970) was an Italian actor and voice actor. Biography Born in Nervi in Genoa, Gazzolo began his career on screen in 1938 starring in the comedy film ''The Document'' and bec ...

... voice dubbing: Osvaldo Valenti (uncredited) *

Augusto Marcacci Augusto Marcacci (4 June 1892 – 7 December 1969) was an Italian actor and voice actor.Mancini p.229 Selected filmography * '' Dimmed Lights'' (1934) * '' Lady of Paradise'' (1934) * '' Golden Arrow'' (1935) * ''Condottieri'' (1937) * '' The Cuc ...

... voice dubbing: Massimo Girotti, role of "Licinio" only (uncredited) *

Cesare Polacco Cesare Polacco (14 May 1900 – 2 March 1986) was an Italian actor and voice actor. Life and career Born in Venice, Polacco started his career in 1920 in the stage company of Emilio Zago, with whom he played most of the Goldoni's repertoir ...

... voice dubbing: Primo Carnera (uncredited) *

Giovanna Scotto Giovanna Scotto (born Giovanna Margherita Piana-Canova; August 26, 1895 – December 23, 1985) was an Italian stage and film actress.Verdone p.111 She also became a prominent voice actress, dubbing foreign films for release in the Italian market. ...

... voice dubbing: Dina Perbellini (uncredited)

Production

The film had an unusually large budget and was filmed on elaborate sets at the newly built

Cinecittà Cinecittà Studios (; Italian for Cinema City Studios), is a large film studio in Rome, Italy. With an area of 400,000 square metres (99 acres), it is the largest film studio in Europe, and is considered the hub of Italian cinema. The studios we ...

studios. It stands out in Blasetti's filmography, as several of his most famous films instead were shot on location and used non-professional actors. ''The Iron Crown'' belongs to what is sometimes regarded as a tetralogy of films by Blasetti which deal with mythological themes. The other three films are '' Ettore Fieramosca'' from 1938, '' Un'avventura di Salvator Rosa'' from 1940 and '' The Jester's Supper'' from 1942. The Italian actress Vittoria Carpi in an uncredited role shows a bare breast for moments in the film, and may have been the first actress to do so in an Italian sound film. However, the credit for this is normally given to

Clara Calamai Clara Calamai (7 September 1909 – 21 September 1998) was an Italian actress. She was one of the most famous and popular Italian actresses in the 1930s and 1940s, sharing the limelight with actresses such as Alida Valli, Valentina Cortese, an ...

in Blasetti's next film, ''La cena delle beffe'' (1941), probably because Calamai is the protagonist of that film.

Reception

H. H. T. of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' wrote in 1949, when the film was released in the United States: "There's enough sound and fury in the Rialto's new tenant, a pre-war Italian film called ''The Iron Crown'', to blow the box-office clean across Times Square, if it hasn't done so already. For this adventure-spectacle of ancient times has recruited what seems to be about half the population of Italy, and they all manage to keep busy. ... But the film wastes no time in dropping all religious overtones and comfortably settling in the old boy meets girl rut. In fact, ''The Iron Crown'' is just another romance, played against some magnificent backgrounds with more violence and bloodshed than usual." The American film scholar Peter Bondanella wrote in his 2009 book ''A History of Italian Cinema'': "''The Iron Crown'' is an ambiguous work: while its message underlines a common sentiment among Italians at the time—the desire for peace and the cessation of hostilities during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

—the symbolic implications of the search for a charismatic leader who will restore a magic crown to its rightful place in Rome may also point to

Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...

, Il Duce of a newly revived Rome. Nonetheless, Blasetti unquestionably gave new life to the Italian treatment of heroic mythology born in the silent era with Pastrone's ''

Cabiria ''Cabiria'' is a 1914 Italian epic silent film, directed by Giovanni Pastrone and shot in Turin. The film is set in ancient Sicily, Carthage, and Cirta during the period of the Second Punic War (218–202 BC). It follows a melodramatic mai ...

'', and ''The Iron Crown'' is one of several important antecedents to the postwar genre of the peplum ('sword and sandal' epic) that would become such a cult favorite among film buffs."

Awards

Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival h ...

: "Mussolini Cup" for Best Italian Film.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Iron Crown, The 1941 films 1940s fantasy adventure films 1940s Italian-language films Sword and sorcery films Italian black-and-white films Films directed by Alessandro Blasetti Italian fantasy adventure films Films scored by Alessandro Cicognini 1940s Italian films