Odessa in Flames

1942 Italian film

Odessa in Flames

Directed by| Carmine Gallone
Written by| Nicolae Kiritescu
Gherardo Gherardi
Starring| Maria Cebotari
Carlo Ninchi
Filippo Scelzo
Olga Solbelli
Cinematography| Anchise Brizzi
Edited by| Niccolò Lazzari
Music by| Pietro Sassoli
Ion Vasilescu

Production
companies

Grandi Film
Oficiul National Cinematografiei

Distributed by| ICI

Release date

* 14 September 1942 (1942-09-14)

Running time

| 83 minutes
Countries| Italy
Romania
Language| Italian

Odessa in Flames (Italian: Odessa in fiamme, Romanian: Odessa în flăcări) is a 1942 Italian-Romanian propaganda war film directed by Carmine Gallone and starring Maria Cebotari, Carlo Ninchi and Filippo Scelzo.[1] The film is about the Battle of Odessa in 1941, where the city was taken in an operation that was primarily conducted by Romanian forces and elements of the German Army's 11th Army.

It is an anti-communist propaganda work focusing on a family trapped in Soviet-occupied Bessarabia and its eventual liberation by Axis forces during Operation Barbarossa.[2] It was screened at the 1942 Venice Film Festival.[3] It was made at the Cinecittà Studios in Rome. The sets were designed by the art director Guido Fiorini. Location shooting took place in Axis-occupied Odessa and Moldova as well as Romania.

## Plot

[edit]

Maria Cebotari played the role of Maria Teodorescu, an opera singer from Bessarabia, who is in Chișinău with her 8-year-old son at the time of the invasion. The boy is taken somewhere in Odessa. The mother is told that he will be maintained in a camp where he will be educated as a man and a Soviet. To get her son back she agrees to sing Russian songs in theaters and taverns. There, she shares pictures of her past. One such image is found by chance by her husband, who is in the Romanian army with the rank of captain. In the end, the family reunites.

Because of the invasion of Bucharest by Soviet troops in 1944 the movie was banned and the actors were arrested. Many such movies were either destroyed or censored. Nothing was heard of this movie for more than 50 years. However, it was rediscovered in the Cinecittà archives in Rome and was shown for the first time in Romania in December 2006.

## Cast

[edit]

* Maria Cebotari as Maria Teodorescu
* Carlo Ninchi as Il capitano Sergio Teodorescu
* Filippo Scelzo as Michele Smirnoff
* Olga Solbelli as Luba
* Rubi D'Alma as Florica, l'amante di Michele
* George Timica as Giovanni Alexis
* Silvia Dumitrescu-Timica as Anna, la moglie di Giovanni
* Mircea Axente as Pietro
* Maurizio Romitelli as Nico
* Paolo Ferrari as Paolo
* Gilda Marchiò as Ila
* Giuseppe Varni as Lo scrivone
* Checco Rissone as Gruscenko
* Adele Garavaglia as La nonna del bambino malato
* Bella Starace Sainati as La vecchietta

## References

[edit]

1. ^ (in Romanian) Odessa in flacari Archived 2011-11-04 at the Wayback Machine at Telecinemateca.com
2. ^ Laffan & Weiss p.128
3. ^ Reich & Garofalo p.298

## Bibliography

[edit]

* Michael Laffan & Max Weiss. Facing Fear: The History of an Emotion in Global Perspective. Princeton University Press, 2012.
* Reich, Jacqueline & Garofalo, Piero. Re-viewing Fascism: Italian Cinema, 1922-1943. Indiana University Press, 2002.

## External links

[edit]

* Odessa in fiamme at IMDb
* Odessa in fiamme is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive

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Films directed by Carmine Gallone

* Il bacio di Cirano (1913)
* The Naked Truth (1914)
* Senza colpa! (1915)
* Flower of Evil (1915)
* The Wedding March (1915)
* Sotto le tombe (1915)
* Avatar (1916)
* La falena (1916)
* Malombra (1917)
* The Thirteenth Man (1917)
* La storia di un peccato (1918)
* Redemption (1919)
* A Doll Wife (1919)
* The Sea of Naples (1919)
* On with the Motley (1920)
* The Faces of Love (1924)
* The Fiery Cavalcade (1925)
* The Last Days of Pompeii (1926)
* The City of a Thousand Delights (1927)
* Pawns of Passion (1928)
* Land Without Women (1929)
* Ship in Distress (1929)
* The Singing City (1930)
* City of Song (1931)
* My Cousin from Warsaw (1931)
* A Son from America (1932)
* Sailor's Song (1932)
* Going Gay (1933)
* My Heart Calls You (1934)
* Two Hearts in Waltz Time (1934)
* My Heart Is Calling You (1934)
* My Heart is Calling (1935)
* Casta Diva (1935)
* If It Were Not for Music (1935)
* The Divine Spark (1935)
* Thank You, Madame (1936)
* Mother Song (1937)
* Scipio Africanus: The Defeat of Hannibal (1937)
* Giuseppe Verdi (1938)
* Marionette (1939)
* The Dream of Butterfly (1939)
* Eternal Melodies (1940)
* Love Me, Alfredo! (1940)
* Manon Lescaut (1940)
* Beyond Love (1940)
* The Secret Lover (1941)
* First Love (1941)
* The Two Orphans (1942)
* The Queen of Navarre (1942)
* Odessa in Flames (1942)
* Harlem (1943)
* Sad Loves (1943)
* The Song of Life (1945)
* Biraghin (1946)
* Before Him All Rome Trembled (1946)
* The Lady of the Camellias (1947)
* The Legend of Faust (1949)
* The Force of Destiny (1950)
* Night Taxi (1950)
* Messalina (1951)
* We're Dancing on the Rainbow (1952)
* Fatal Desire (1953)
* Puccini (1953)
* Madame Butterfly (1954)
* House of Ricordi (1954)
* Casta Diva (1954)
* Mata Hari's Daughter (1954)
* Don Camillo's Last Round (1955)
* Michel Strogoff (1956)
* Tosca (1956)
* Carthage in Flames (1960)
* Don Camillo: Monsignor (1961)
* Carmen di Trastevere (1962)
* La monaca di Monza (1962)

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