Orient Express was a 1954 film directed by Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia with Silvana Pampanini, Henry Vidal on a screenplay by Brancati, De Benedetti, Age and Scarpelli.
And now a selection of exceptional works, on cardboard, often stamped on the back L'artistica, a historic art shop in Via del Babuino in Rome in the 1950s and 1960s. A very rare repertoire of plates representing a visual experiment and contamination that lasted a few years, from the late 1950s to 1965, almost exclusively designed for the French market, for magazines such as Star Cine Cosmos and Le film du coer. They were selected and created by a brilliant artist and editor such as Franco Bozzesi, who then brought authors such as Ermanno Iaia and Franco Fiorenzi into his workshop. Collage, fine photographic film paper cut out and shaped, then retouched with tempera and further shading on sturdy cardboard. Not exactly cineromanzo, but an innovative form in terms of depth, perspective and inventiveness that almost brings the cinema of those years back to one big melò. The golden age (with the real balloon) probably began with 'Super Cinema' at the end of 1950 (first release of Il brigante Musolino) and reached its peak in the middle of the decade: 'Fotoromanzo gigante', 'I grandi films-I capolavori dello schermo', 'Amica film', 'I tuoi film-romanzo' were born and died.
Among the very rare series of Franco Bozzesi's art that we are presenting here, the 'Cineromanzo gigante' published by Lanterna Magica, which is actually an emanation of the De Laurentiis productions, as well as the Apollon productions, are certainly among the best cineromanzi, They also make extensive use of set photographs, have an author who signs the texts (Mara Baldeva),a large format, excellent paper and sometimes come out at the same time as the films (for Soldati's La donna del fiume even earlier), in synergy with the house productions.
But Franco Bozzesi goes further, he does not use the balloon in these plates, but rather experiments with vignettes with shaded effects and intersections of collages and perspectives
Unique works by an artist publisher who decided to try a new path in France for a few glorious years, even crossing paths with Jean Luc Godard's Nouvelle Vague.