Le Avventure straordinarissime di Saturnino Farandola - 1914
ABOUT THE FILM : Le Avventure straordinarissime di Saturnino Farandola
Fondazione Cineteca ItalianaThe Extraordinary Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul
Year: 1914
Saturnin Farandoul birth was marked by adventure: saved by the waters, raised by monkeys, taken in by sailors, becoming captain of a frigate, he sets off to explore the five or six known and unknown worlds with his loyal crew. Beneath the sea he encounters love in the person of the beautiful Mysora; on land he comes up against a mad wise man, a Machiavellian mandarin and bloodthirsty Apaches but nothing will be able to stop his desire to travel. Saturnin is a chip off the old block; his creator Albert Robida is a master of anticipation, an author, cartoonist and contemporary of Jules Verne.
Nationality: Italian
Actors: Marcel Fabre, Nilde Baracchi, Alfredo Bertone
Length: 77' 11"
Genre: fiction
Sound: silent with soundtrack
Original elements: tinted
Producer: Arturo Ambrosio
Composer: Serge Bromberg
Original language: Italian
A BRIEF HISTORY : Le Avventure straordinarissime di Saturnino Farandola
In the Voyages très extraordinaires de Saturnin Farandoul [in the 5 or 6 parts of the world and all in known and even unknown countries of Mr Jules Verne] written in 1879, Saturnin experiences a fabulous destiny and his adventures do a pastiche of the novels of Jules Verne (1828-1905); furthermore he meets all of the famous writer’s heroes: Captain Nemo, Phileas Fogg and Michel Stroggoff.
And as in Jules Verne’s novels, the hero’s journey is geographical, moral and scientific. In his novels Albert Robida (1848-1926) imagines a future society where air travel becomes the main method of transport and where putting on a diving suit to walk beneath the sea is commonplace; technical progress is fully integrated into the life of human society.
Saturnin thus becomes the paragon of modern man according to Albert Robida, thirsty for knowledge and discovery and dominating nature and space thanks to the technologies at his disposal.
These literary adventures interested producer Arturo Ambrosio (1869-1960), founder of the Ambrosio Studios, who then asked Marcel Fabre (1885-1927) to adapt the novel for cinema, these would be Le Avventure straordinarissime di Saturnino Farandola. Marcel Fabre, whose real name was Marcel Fernandez Perez, Spanish, a clown and an acrobat, wasn’t unknown to the Italian public; he became famous thanks to his burlesque Robinet character of which two films, Robinet Aviatore and Robinet Boxeur can be viewed at Europa Film Treasures.
For Le Avventure straordinarissime di Saturnino Farandola, Marcel Fabre together with Luigi Maggi (1867-1946), an Italian actor and film director, famous for having directed Gli Ultimi giorni di Pompeii (1908), produced one of Ambrosio Studios’ leading films.
The film’s originality lies in its composition, it is divided up into 18 episodes of 20 minutes, but some have been lost like Saturnin’s encounter with Captain Nemo. The film presented here shows 4 episodes: L'Île des singes (monkey island), A la recherche de l'éléphant blanc (the search for the white elephant), La Reine de Makalolo (the queen of Makalolo) and Farandoul contre Phileas Fogg (Farandoul versus Phileas Fogg).
The film is both a pastiche and a tribute to the universe of Jules Verne. The sumptuous, exuberant decor is a reminder too of the films by Georges Méliès (1861-1938), notably Saturnin and Mysora’s romantic deep-sea walk with animated fish and octopi.
