‘Whose Films are These?’ Italian–Spanish Co-Productions of The Early 1940s (original) (raw)

This article analyses a group of Italian–Spanish co-productions released between 1939 and 1943, which are often described as a rather obvious by-product of the natural alliance between Fascist Italy and Francoist Spain. Among the 24 films produced, only two can be considered outstanding: the big Fascist hit Sin novedad en el Alcázar/L’assedio dell’Alcazar (A. Genina, 1940) and Tosca (C. Koch, 1940), a film initially assigned to Jean Renoir. Applying a cultural-industrial approach, the article reveals a world of subterranean contradictions and a much more obscure relationship than political affinity would lead us to believe. It also defies the established chronologies of political history, in those years supposedly and overwhelmingly determined by the Civil War and its aftermath, in Spain, and the Second World War, in Italy. It also sheds some light on how transnational political relations in Europe become entangled with business interests and vice versa, and the unpredictable results of such an awkward involvement. In some way, it implicitly hints at how the story of peripheral and apparently minor films might contribute to obtain a more accurate perception of mighty historical circumstances.