New side post, something about movies but above all about 1940's sport age in Italy. Again with additions and revisions from Sorairo. Enjoy!
Mussolini’s Athletes: Italian Sport Under Fascism of Alessio Morisi
Italian Fascism was always supportive of sport as entertainment, distraction and prestige - especially when an Italian athlete or team would win an international competition. The most noticeable case in this sense was the boxer Primo Carnera, acclaimed during the years of the triumph and scarcely mentioned if not at all in his later careering period when the losses mounted. Carnera wasn’t forgotten after his retirement however: in the 1940’s he started a rather successful career as actor, his impressive physique allowing him to become the main actor in mythological subjects, where he was a powerful, classical hero fighting monsters and evil rulers in order to save enslaved people and damsels in distress.
Initially playing the role of Hercules in early movies, Carnera would then take fifteen years after the last movie dedicated to him the role of Maciste. Maciste was a mythologic character invented by Gabriele d’Annunzio, and was a major character in
Cabiria (1914), the first Italian
kolossal: a good hearted hero with a superhuman strength, initially performed by Bartolomeo Pagano. In the 1940’s, the Italian movie industry believed the times for a revival of Maciste were ready and bet on Carnera; his impulsive character and certain naiveté were very fitting with the character, receiving success in Italian (and eventually in Roman Alliance and even in Israel) cinemas since the start, he played Maciste for several movies until 1952, when he decided to retire due to growing health issues (Carnera would die in 1955).
The two most iconic movies of Carnera-Maciste were, by chance, some of the most “propagandistic” ones:
1)
Maciste contro i Cimbri (Maciste against the Cimbris, 1944), where he would fight along the Romans in a very fantastic revisitation of the battle of the Raudine Plains, where the invading barbarians were painted so cruelly in their grey and dark robes (even implied scenes of rape, sacrifices and mutilation were added), being practically demonic worshippers, it wasn’t too difficult to see the contemporary Nazi invaders fighting the noble Romans/Italians - leaded by a very bald Marius.
2)
Maciste e Davide contro Golia e i Filistei (Maciste and David against Goliath and the Philistines, 1950), where the hero would travel to Israel during the Biblical era in the war between Hebrews and Philistines (the chronological inconsistency having been long established with the character in prior films.). Even here, the propagandastic reference to the first Israeli-Arab war was evident, the Philistines overwhelmingly played by Libyan and Eritrean performers.
Carnera through his Maciste acting would reach two important achievements: making of Maciste a definitive symbol of Italian culture – even outside national borders – and also of Fascist culture as well as the pure hearted Roman (Italian) hero fighting for the greater good and always unbeatable. It opened the path to the movie genre known in Italy and the rest of the world as Peplum, classical age inspired productions, centered in Cinecittà with her Golden Age between the 50’s and the 60’s. Between more lavish international productions and ones more modest for Italians, it was an influential movement.
The apex of the genre would be realised in 1951, in the gigantic international co-production of
Attila – which told the (highly exaggerated for propagandistic purposes) story of Romans, Gauls, Visigoths and Britons being forced to work together to defeat the infamous Hun. Through Roman (Italian) mediation, the barbarian forces are finally enlisted and gladly die alongside their Roman comrades at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. Carnera would play Flavius Aetius, the victorious general, who even scored an ahistorical kill over the suspiciously Stalin-like title-character. Fittingly, an international cast had been called in, representing each individual tribe (with Alec Guinness and Jean Gabin both getting screen-time). Some fifteen thousand extras were called in for the battle scenes, with unlimited funds from the state, seeing it as the supreme propaganda experience. Sergio Leone would work as assistant director for many scenes, which would start his own fruitful career. While it didn’t turn a profit due to its astronomical budget, it was the highest grossing film in all of Europe, receiving a rare nomination (as a foreign language film) for Best Picture in the United States’s Academy Awards.
Despite the interest towards boxing, the most preferred sports of the Italians were – and still are today - cycling and football. The interest of the former was rejuvenated yearly by the Giro d’Italia, the most important national multistage race organized by sports newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport (which remains printed in pink coloured pages, hence the winner of the competition receiving the so called ‘maglia rosa’, or pink shirt). The 1940’s would be considered the golden age of the Giro and Italian cycling, for two main reasons:
1) While the Tour de France, which was the most prestigious multistage race of the world since then, due to the war wasn’t organized from 1940 to 1947, when was resumed, the Giro never stopped (not even during the Italian involvement in the World War) and therefore was a point of attraction for foreign competitors deprived of the Tour. This would consolidate the post-war status of the Giro as the second most important national-scale cycling competition in the world after the Tour.
2) The decade was marked by the constant competition between the two most accomplished Italian cycling atlethes ever: Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali. The competition was so fierce between the two that entire crowds went to see the passage of the Giro caravan when passing through or near their houses. Italy split in two between Coppi and Bartali’s fans, sparking interest in lesser competitions where the two could have competed, like the Milano-Sanremo or the Giro di Lombardia. In the late 40’s, when the RAI started to transmit delayed and contracted summaries of the Giro’s stages, coffee shops and Case del Fascio with a television were literally assaulted; certain offices and factories even arrived to put a television in the workplace to avoid cases of workers slipping out of work to see the Giro.
Coppi, who would win the first Giro in 1940, also won the competition in 1941 and 1942, with Bartali arriving always second. In 1943, Belgian Silvère Maes won the Giro. He was the winner of the Tour in 1936 and 1939, and was expected to win in 1940. However, with the invasion of France, the competition was cancelled. Maes, who was a pure professional and lived on that (like other cyclists who agreed to run in the Giro during wartime), decided then to run in the Giro for the first time for money, getting an honourable fourth place. Remaining for his own safety in Italy, he would participate in numerous Giros (until 1947) and even some Huelta a Espana, winning it in 1943 (Franco’s government restoring the competition after the end of the Civil War, reaching an agreement with Rome to perform it in late summer/early fall to not enter in competition with the Giro). This double victory of Maes would later cement his status of national hero in Belgium after his return in home after the end of the war.
Bartali would finally win again in 1944, winning the Huelta in the same year. The Spanish practically begged Rome to convince Bartali and Coppi to participate the competition. Coppi refused, burned by the defeat in that year; Bartali accepted and won. This would put Coppi into a period of depression, which brought him to not non-participation in the Giro of 1945. Bartali didn’t win, however – a new fresh competitor, Fiorenzo Magni, recently exonerated by military service, came on top instead. The victory of Magni and Bartali’s defeat contributed in shaking up Coppi, who participated and won the Huelta of 1945. Bartali would win again in 1946, Coppi in 1947, finally Magni again in 1948, year when Bartali won the Tour, then Coppi in 1949, winning the Tour as well with Bartali second; bringing Italy the world championship that same year.
Despite their stellar popularity in and out of Italy, or perhaps because of it, OVRA kept always a watchful eye over the two. The Fascist police knew Coppi had leftist sympathies (he even dared to meet the PSI leader Saragat in Paris in 1949 rather publicly, because he felt invincible at the time to defy the Duce) and Bartali Catholic Democratic ones, to the point legends say Mussolini once stated: “The only people who could bring me down are Coppi and Bartali; thank goodness they hate each other more than they hate me”.
It was known that the fascist establishment was much more favorable to Magni, a loyal Fascist. But despite his talent, Magni wasn’t able to reach the levels of Coppi and Bartali. With time, fears over the two champions started to decrease. Coppi in the 50’s enjoyed a luxurious life and got entangled in an illicit relation with a married woman (the famous “White Dame”), causing a massive scandal in Italy for the time, with the Vatican arriving to condemn openly the relation and the OVRA attempting to catch them “in flagrant act”. As the woman was arrested because she was found pregnant with Coppi’s son, the fading “Campionissimo” found no better option than directly petitioning Mussolini. Still remembering the insult from 1949, Mussolini wasn’t displeased to have Coppi into his hands. He was starting to enter into his later years and – while never reaching the heights of Stalin or Hitler, he was in a phase of his life where he felt promoting certain petty acts would strengthen his support. He simply asked for Coppi to “join” the PNF (more precisely to declare to be in the Fascist party in an earlier age, more or less when he started his professional career) and eventually become a poster man for Mussolini, making speeches in honour of the Duce in certain occasions. Coppi caved, and he managed to get reunited with his lover, later marrying her in Mexico with a ceremony never recognized in Italy. Coppi didn’t have to endure the humiliation to go across the various Case del Fascio or participate in events where he spoke of Mussolini like he was the second coming of the Messiah for long. Umberto II (through his wife, a Coppi supporter while the King was pro-Bartali) through Ciano and Balbo pressed the Duce to cut it off. Mussolini left Coppi free from his obligations, because he realized the Italians were aware of the forced smiles of the Campionissimo; scandal or not, they weren’t happy seeing him so dejected. Coppi, due to his illicit marriage and family, was practically ostracized and lived the rest of his life, dying in 1960.
Bartali was easier and yet more difficult to handle at the same time. He would retire to his farm estate, seldom offering advice to a new generations of Italian cyclists, or making sportive commentaries for the RAI, but he kept contact with certain Catholic charity organizations – some of them suspected to be underground channels for the catholic political movement under De Gasperi, then Moro’s leadership and therefore supporting Italian Antifascism. Besides he was Florentine, and the OVRA always was somewhat paranoid towards whoever came from a more traditionally Anti-Fascist Italian city. But As Bartali was living much more low profile than Coppi, the OVRA held back.
Meanwhile the 1940’s Italian football was dominated by the hegemony of the Torino FC. Being able to gather a pool of young talents, the squad won without interruption all the Italian first league championships from 1943 to 1950, arriving to be the core of the Italian team of the 1950 World Football Championship in Brazil as defenders of Italy’s holder title, after 12 years of hiatus due to the war. As many countries were not ready to participate in the competition, FIFA adopted a unique group cage process in two phases. After beating 3-2 Sweden and 2-0 Paraguay, Italy passed the first group phase; winning 4-3 against Brazil (“The Match Of The Century” according to many footballing historians, starting a long term feud between Italy and Brazil for the title of the world’s greatest footballing nation), 3-2 against Uruguay and finally 3-1 Spain, Italy with a full score won the championship, and also the right to keep forever the Trophy, the so called Jules Rimet Trophy (by FIFA’s decree, to be given to the squad which would win for first three world championships). It was raised by the Azzurri’s captain, Valentino Mazzola. The 1940s ended in triumph for the “Grande Torino”. [1]
Italy’s sporting dominance in the 1940s was punctuated by the success of the Italian Olympic team in the Summer Games of London of 1948, the first ones after the war. With 11 gold medals won (rowing, fencing, cyclism, football, boxing, water polo, shooting) 30 medals overall, Italy arrived third overall in competitions won behind the US and Sweden, followed by France and a surprising fifth place for Hungary (with King Otto calling the success “the rebirth of Hungary’). But this period would soon end with the coming of 1950s being dominated by the dominance of the Cold War, even in sport. This would lead to one of the most pivotal events of 20th century Italy: the Summer Olympic Games of 1960 in Rome…
[1]: ITTL there is no tragedy of Superga, hence Italy winning its third World Football Championship in a row. Those 1948 games went slight better for Italy with 1 gold in football slipped from Denmark and 2 in shooting slipped from the US and Switzerland. This will mean the Netherlands will rank 9th while Switzerland and Denmark would fall to 10th and 11th place.
