FADE TO BLACK in May

[Harvey Chartrand]

And so who was Lea Padovani and why am I not very familiar with her work on the big screen? The Internet Movie Data Base notes that Padovani was a "sultry Italian leading lady of post-WWII continental filming." Born 1920. Died 1991. She costarred with Welles' friend Hilton Edwards in CALL OF THE BLOOD in 1948. Edwards must have introduced Padovani to Welles, because that same year, she is cast as Desdemona in Welles' OTHELLO. According to IMDB: "After Welles began the filming in Venice, producer Montatori Scalera informed Welles that he wanted to make Verdi's opera, not the Shakespearean play, so the money ran out and the movie was shelved." Padovani ends up starring in another classic: Edward Dmytryk's long-suppressed drama GIVE US THIS DAY (1949), about Italian-Americans surviving in New York City, filmed entirely in London. She later appears with the great Italian comic actor Toto in TOTO AND THE WOMEN (1952) and in Giuseppe De Santis' neorealist masterpiece ROMA ORE UNDICI (ROME: 11:00). Padovani co-stars with Anthony Quinn and Valentina Cortese in ANGELS OF DARKNESS (1954), appears in two films directed by André Cayatte: BLACK DOSSIER (1955) and AN EYE FOR AN EYE (1957), and co-stars with Vittorio De Sica and Sophia Loren in SCANDAL IN SORRENTO (1955). Padovani plays a sympathetic barmaid to Gérard Philipe's doomed artist in Jacques Becker's MONTPARNASSE 19 (THE LOVERS OF MONTPARNASSE) [1958]. I saw this one and recommend it very highly. In 1962, Dmytryk again directs Padovani in THE RELUCTANT SAINT. By the mid-1960s, she is increasingly relegated to supporting roles in obscure films such as OUR MEN IN BAGDAD (1965), although she has a cameo in the all-star CANDY (1968). Padovani hardly appears on screen at all during the seventies and eighties. Her final film role is a small part in THE KING'S WHORE (1990). A long career, with a few good parts in good films, along with lots of Eurotrash, and yet I can't say I remember Lea Padovani in the few films in which I have seen her. I will make a point of renting GIVE US THIS DAY, in which she delivers her strongest performance as the mail-order bride Annuziata, lured from Italy to Depression-era New York under false pretenses. This film was also made when she was at the peak of her beauty.

[Glenn Anders]

Yes, GIVE US THIS DAY was based on Pietro di Donato's famous short story "Christ in Concrete," which he later expanded into novel form. The American release of the film in the fearful climate which produced McCarthy, the grisly subject matter, and the story's take on the Italian experience in America, pretty much doomed it at the American box office.

I've never seen it, but the DVD version gets great reviews. Lea Padovani's performance is singled out for praise. Looks like another Welles' discovery, and the name of Greg Toland is invoked by one viewer to describe the camera work.

Thank you, Harvey, for bringing it to our attention.

Glenn

[jaime marzol]

years and years ago i did read about a strange murder that happened in a hotel in milan (?) where welles, shortly after he left america, was staying . it brought to mind the black dahlia accusations. but if dates are quoted right in the welles bios, during the black dahlia murder welles was home recouperating from mexico, and LADY FROM SHANHGHAI; dehydation, and an insect bite that gave him a huge, swollen eye.