Febo Mari

FEBO MARI (1881-1939) was an Italian actor, director and writer of the stage, screen and radio. During the 1910s, he peaked with such silent films as Il fuoco/The Fire (1915), Cenere/Ashes (1916) and Il fauno/The Faun (1917).



Italian postcardno. 3601. Photo: Vettori.




HIGH-STANDING THEATRE COMPANY



Febo Mari was born in Messina, Sicily in 1881, as ALFREDO GIOVANNI LEOPOLDO RODRIGUEZ. His parents were GIOVANNI RODRIGUEZ and TERESA SPADARO, and the Rodriguez family had Spanish aristocratic roots.



When he was already 14 he arranged with friends an improvised theatre school and wrote his first play. His parents considered it children's play and let him be, as long as he continued his school.



Following his parents' wishes, Alfredo Rodriguez studied and obtained his degree in Humanities, after which he moved to Milan to start working as theatre critic for a Milanese journal. Soon however he decided to change jobs, and debuted on stage himself.



As a young actor he started to work with various acclaimed theatre companies, such as those of VIRGINIA REITER and FERRUCCIO FUMAGALLI.



In 1911, he took over direction of the Compagnia del Teatro Manzoni. One year after he became member of the high-standing theatre company of MARCO PRAGA, with TINA DI LORENZO andas the leading actors.



This theatre company was financed by GIUSEPPE VISCONTI, father of the future stage and screen director LUCHINO VISCONTI).



In 1911, ARTURO AMBROSIO had him also debut on the screen in the film L'innocente/The Innocent (1911), an adaptation of the novel by GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO.



In 1912 he directed his first film at the Ambrosio studio, Il critic/The Critic, starring Mari himself and .



Italian postcardno. 3593. Photo: Vettori.



DO IT! IT IS BEAUTIFUL!



In 1912, Febo Mari passed over to the Itala company, led by producer-director GIOVANNI PASTRONE.



He first acted opposite 'monstre sacr ' of the stagein Padre/Father (Dante Testa, Gino Zaccaria, 1912).



He had the supporting part of the son of the enemy of Zacconi's character Vivanti, in love with Vivanti's daughter.



Later, he appeared opposite the new Itala divain Il fuoco/The Fire (Giovanni Pastrone, 1915) and Tigre reale (Giovanni Pastrone, 1916).



Il fuoco was co-scripted by Mari with Pastrone (and has nothing to do with D'Annunzio's novel, despite Wikipedia telling so).



Mari had the male lead in Il fuoco/The Fire as a poor painter who falls in love with a rich femme fatale and follows her to her castle. He paints her portrait which becomes a success, but she drugs and flees him when her husband returns.



When afterwards she refuses to recognize the desperate artist (as her husband and circle is around her), he goes berserk and will end his days in a madhouse. Then again, she had warned him before that their love would only be short but fierce like a flame.



Il fuoco/The Fire was a worldwide success, though criticized as the femme fatale is not punished in the end.



In Pastrone's subsequent film Tigre reale/Royal Tiger, only thinly based on a story by GIOVANNI VERGA, Mari had the supporting part of a Russian lover who commits suicide when Menichelli's character, countess Natka, refuses him.



When he threatens to shoot himself, she cries: "Do it! It is beautiful!", though she repents when he has killed himself.



With these films Mari became one of the male stars of the Italian silent screen.



and ALBERTO NEPOTI in Tigre reale (Giovanni Pastrone, 1916). Italian postcard. by Vettori, Bologna, no. 461.



ARTISTS AND THEIR UNFAITHFUL MODELS



In 1915 Febo Mari directedin L'emigrante/The Emigrant, in which an old man sells his belongings to find fortune in Argentine while his wife and daughter stay behind.



There he encounters so many mishap, that deluded he returns to Italy, reinforces his family ties and leaves behind the idea of easy money.



In 1916 he made La gloria/The Glory, a now lost film with a typical plot on artists and their unfaithful models. A sculptor (Mari) protects a poor girl (VALENTINA FRASCAROLI) who becomes his model and inspires his masterpiece.



However, when he seriously injured, the girl gets tired of him and dumps him for an old art merchant. During a storm he saves his masterpiece and thus finds his forces, but when the girl returns he chases her away and destroys his art work.



In 1916 Mari returned to Ambrosio where he directed Cenere/Ashes, based on the novel by GRAZIA DELEDDA and starring the stage divain her only film.



The film was largely shot on location in Sardegna and in simple interiors, like a Kammerspiel. It deals with Rosalia, a poor mother who leaves her son Anania to the natural father, well to do and married.



Years after, Rosalia has become destitute. Anania is about to marry a fancy girl (played by Mari's second wife MISA MORDEGLIA MARI aka NIETTA MORDEGLIA).



Though disappointed that his mother had abandoned him in childhood, he wants to invite his mother to the wedding. But the girl dislikes the mother, so the poor woman loses her son once more. She dies, Anania arrives too late.



Contrasting with Mari's rather heavy gesticulating, Duse showed more restraint, fitting to her reputation Scandinavian-like acting on stage.



A tinted nitrate print at the George Eastman House was used for a colour restoration of the film by the Cineteca del Friuli and the Cineteca Sarda, which had its premiere at the 1992 Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone.



. Italian postcard, no. 30. Collection: Didier Hanson.



THE ROMANCE OF A FAUN



In 1917 Febo Mari directed Il Fauno/The Faun, a reverse Pygmalion-themed film starring Mari's wife NIETTA MORDEGLIA as a model who is neglected by her husband, a sculptor (VASCO CRETI). She dreams the marble faun her husband has made (FEBO MARI) becomes alive and they fall in love.



A rich female collector () buys the statue but underway it falls from a cart and becomes alive once more. The model and the faun live their romance in the nature, until a jealous hunter () shoots him and he becomes stone once more. A tinted copy of the film was found and restored.



In the late 1910s Mari continued to direct various films at Ambrosio: Rose vermiglie/Ruby Roses (1917) with , Tormento/Torment (1917) with , Ercole/Hercules (1918) with GIGETTA MORANO, and the epic Attila (1918) with Mari, NIETTA MORDEGLIA,and .



Subsequently he founded his own company Mari Film in 1918. He directed a few films for this company with NIETTA MORDEGLIA as the female protagonist or antagonist.



These films included e dopo?/And after ...? (1918), L'orma/The Footprint (1919), Giuda/Judah (1919), and Casa di bambola (1919) after HENRIK IBSEN'S A Doll's House.



In co-direction with ROBERTO ROBERTI, Mari made Maddalena Ferat (1920) starring , the period piece Triboulet (1923) with UMBERTO ZANUCCOLI in the title role, and La torre di Nesle/The Tower of Nesle (1925), with action hero .



La torre di Nesle was Mari's last film direction, but he continued to act in film. He appeared in the late silent films Mese mariano/The Month of Mary (Ubaldo Pittei, 1929) and Assunta Spina (Roberto Roberti, 1930), in which he played Michele oppositeas Assunta.



Italian postcard by La Rotofotografica, no. 1. Photo: Ambrosio-Film..



RADIO DAYS



In the sound era, in the 1930s, Febo Mari's film parts were scarce.



He was the billionaire in the Italian version of the multi-language film I tre desideri/The Three Wishes (Kurt Gerron, Giorgio Ferroni, 1937), a Milanese theatre director (!) in Giuseppe Verdi/The Life of Giuseppe Verdi (Carmine Gallone, 1938), and he had a supporting part in Lotte nell'ombra/Battles in the Shadow (, 1939).



In the late 1930s Mari was active in radio plays, both in comedy and drama, at the Roman radio studio EIAR.



Febo Mari died in Rome in 1939. He was 55.



He had played his last film part in Il conte di Brechard/The Count of Brechard (Mario Bonnard, 1940), starring . The film was released after Mari's death.



FEBO and MISA MORDEGLIA MARI's daughter was actress ISA MARI.



ISA MARI also worked as a script supervisor for a.o. FEDERICO FELLINI's La dolce vita (1960) and was the author of the novel Nella cittl'inferno (Hell in the City).



Her novel about women in prison was adapted by directorRENATO CASTELLANI as Nella cittl'inferno/...and the Wild Wild Women (1959) starringand .



The Fondo Misa e Febo Mari, left by MISA MORDEGLIA MARI, can be consulted at the Centro Studi del Teatro Stabile di Torino.



This contains letters, notes dealing with film projects, telegrams by , letters by ARTURO AMBROSIO and GRAZIA DELEDDA, etc.



In 1998, NINO GENOVESE published the study Febo Mari.



Italian postcard for the Ambrosio film Attila (1918) by Febo Mari and starring himself in the title role. Translation caption: The torture of a girl by orders of Attila.



Italian postcard for the Ambrosio film Attila (1918) by Febo Mari and starring himself in the title role. Translation caption: Saint Genevieve announces that Attila is retreating.



Italian postcard for the Ambrosio film Attila (1918) by Febo Mari and starring himself in the title role. Translation caption: The Huns advance while killing and burning all over the Venetian plains.



Sources: (Italian), Aldo Bernardini/Vittorio Martinelli (Il cinema muto italiano), (Italian), Wikipedia ( and ), and .
Full Post