Alida Valli

The star-fan relationship has not yet entered the agenda of researchers of Italian studies. It is true that the Italian star system is not highly structured. And it is true that Italy does not boast a tradition of long standing associations. Yet Italian spectators were no less active than others in their film consumption. The problem is the scarcity of sources. The fanmagazine should indeed be studied along with the materials produced by the viewers themselves: letters, scrapbooks, film files, pictures, etc. And these materials have not yet received adequate attention from the institutions responsible for their preservation. This paper aims to investigate the Italian fandom of the late thirties through the specific case of the star-like cult of Alida Valli in Fascist Italy. I will use the fan mail recently made available in the Alida Valli Collection of the Csc (Chiarini library) in order to document the major shared fan practices and their culture.

Lo studio della relazione divo-fan non è ancora entrato nell'agenda dei ricercatori di cose italiane. È vero che lo star system italiano non è fortemente strutturato. Ed è vero che l'Italia non vanta una tradizione di associazionismo di lunga data. E tuttavia gli spettatori italiani non sono meno attivi di altri nel loro consumo. Il problema è la scarsa disponibil-ità di fonti. Le fanmagazine andrebbero infatti incrociate con i materiali prodotti dagli stes-si spettatori: lettere, diari, schedari, fotografie ecc. E tali materiali non hanno ancora rice-vuto attenzione adeguata dalle istituzioni preposte alla loro conservazione. Il presente saggio intende indagare il fandom italiano a partire dal caso specifico del culto divistico di Alida Valli nell'Italia fascista. La collezione di lettere di ammiratori del Fondo Valli recen-temente acquisita dal Csc verrà studiata per la sua capacità di documentare pratiche con-divise e rappresentative della fan culture del tempo.

Maria Alida von Altenburger Markenstein und Frauenberg born twice. The first in Pula, May 31, 1921, a child in a wealthy family who soon moved to Como. The second at the cinema, in 1937, when on Il feroce Saladino appears for the first time with his stage name, Alida Valli. But not only: Saladino is also the first ever film that sees the protagonist, yet sixteen; it is one of the first Italian films that bring on screen the world of the magazine; it is also striking example of admixture between the radio and cinema, advertising and costume. The title and the subject is in fact inspired by one of the many passions that sparked Italians in the thirties: the feroce Saladino is none other than a comic figure put on the market for advertising-from Perugina Buitoni, sponsors of the radio program I quattro Moschettieri  by Nizza and Morbelli. Just the program, which can be defined as the first Italian radio play, mixed characters and stories, from which it Saladino. His fortune was so huge that in 1937 there arose a film directed by Mario Bonnard. A satirical film, grotesque, abnormal in the filmography of the director but also in the Italian cinema, within which stood right Alida Valli.
The paper aims to conduct a study around the Il feroce Saladino ,using the documents of the Alida Valli Collection deposited in the Centro Sperimentale and the historical research on the film, mainly linked to the reviews and the statements of the protagonists of the time.