''Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei'' (English title: ''The Last Days of Pompeii'') is a 1913 Italian

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

silent film A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...

directed by

Eleuterio Rodolfi Eleuterio Rodolfi (1876–1933) was an Italian actor, screenwriter and film director. He was a leading figure in Cinema of Italy, Italian cinema during the silent era, directing over a hundred films including ''The Last Days of Pompeii (1913 film ...

. Based on

Edward Bulwer-Lytton Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (; 25 May 1803 – 18 January 1873) was an English writer and politician. He served as a Whig member of Parliament from 1831 to 1841 and a Conservative from 1851 to 1866. He was Secr ...

's 1834 novel of the same name, the film – one of two different adaptations of the same book in Italy that year – is set during the final days leading up to the

Mount Vesuvius Mount Vesuvius ( ) is a Somma volcano, somma–stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of several volcanoes forming the Campanian volcanic arc. Vesuv ...

eruption in

Pompeii Pompeii ( ; ) was a city in what is now the municipality of Pompei, near Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. Along with Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Villa Boscoreale, many surrounding villas, the city was buried under of volcanic ash and p ...

in 79 AD.

Plot

In Pompeii 79AD, Glaucus and Jone are in love with each other. Arbaces, the Egyptian High Priest, is determined to conquer her. Glaucus buys the blind slave Nydia who is mishandled by her owner. Nydia falls in love with him and asks Arbaces for his help. He gives her a potion to make Glaucus fall in love with him. In fact it is a poison which will destroy his mind. Arbaces' disciple Apoecides threatens to reveal publicly his wrongdoings. Arbaces kills him and accuses Glaucus of the crime. He locks Nydia in a cellar to prevent her from speaking. Glaucus is condemned to be thrown to the lions. Nydia manages to escape and tells Glaucus' friend Claudius what happened. Claudius rushes to the Circus to accuse Arbaces, and the crowd decides that Arbaces and not Glaucus should be thrown to the lions. Then, Vesuvius starts erupting, and a widespread panic ensues. Under the shock, Glaucus recovers his mind. Blind Nydia, the only one to find her way in the darkness caused by the rain of ashes, leads Glaucus and Jone to safety and finds peace by drowning herself.

Cast

Fernanda Negri Pouget Fernanda is a Portuguese, Spanish and Italian feminine equivalent of Fernando, a male given name of Germanic origin, with an original meaning of "adventurous, bold journey". __TOC__ People *Fernanda Abreu (born 1961), Brazilian singer *Fernand ...

as Nydia * Eugenia Tettoni Fior as Ione * Ubaldo Stefani as Glaucus * Antonio Grisanti as Arbaces * Cesare Gani Carini as Apoecides * Vitale Di Stefano as Claudius

Production

The film was produced by Società Anonima Ambrosio. The DVD release by Kino wrongfully credits Pasquali for the production; however, Pasquali was the one producing the ''other'' 1913 version of ''Last Days of Pompeii''. The direction was done by

Mario Caserini Mario Caserini (26 February 1874 – 17 November 1920) was an Italian film Film director, director, as well as an actor, screenwriter, and early pioneer of film making in the early portion of the 20th century. Caserini was born in Rome, Italy ...

is sometimes co-credited, but the grounds for this are uncertain: The Italian

Bianco e Nero ''Bianco e Nero'' () is an Italian film journal. It is the oldest film publication in Italy. History and profile ''Bianco e Nero'' was founded in 1937 by Luigi Chiarini as the official organ of the drama school Centro Sperimentale di Cinematogr ...

magazine mentions only Rodolfi.Bianco e nero 2.2 (1993), 314.

Distribution

The film was released in Italy on 24 August 1913, distributed by Giuseppe Barattolo. It was distributed in the US by the Kleine Optical Company under the name George Kleine Attractions. ''The Last Days of Pompeii'' was the first film shown in the newly founded city of Tel Aviv, then in Ottoman Palestine. It inaugurated the Eden Cinema, the first one opened in Tel Aviv. (Reference in Morderchai Naor and Amit Levinson, "Who were the 66 Founders of Tel Aviv" מי היו 66 מייסדי תל אביב (in Hebrew), in "Early Tel Aviv, 1909-1934", תל אביב בראשיתה ed. Mordechai Naor, Published by Yad Yitzchak Ben Tzvi, Jerusalem, 1984).

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Last Days of Pompeii (1913 film), The 1913 films 1913 adventure films Italian disaster films Italian epic films Italian silent feature films Films based on The Last Days of Pompeii Articles containing video clips Italian black-and-white films 1910s disaster films Films directed by Eleuterio Rodolfi Silent Italian adventure films 1910s Italian films