Aldebaran is a 1935 Italian drama film directed by Alessandro Blasetti and starring Gino Cervi, Evi Maltagliati and Gianfranco Giachetti. The film was a naval melodrama, an attempt by Blasetti to make a more commercial film following the difficulties encountered with the propagandist The Old Guard (1934).[1]

Aldebaran
Directed byAlessandro Blasetti
Written byLeo Bomba
Corrado D'Errico
Giuseppe Zucca
Alessandro Blasetti
Produced byGiulio Manenti
StarringGino Cervi
Evi Maltagliati
Gianfranco Giachetti
Egisto Olivieri
CinematographyUbaldo Arata
Massimo Terzano
Edited byAlessandro Blasetti
Music byUmberto Mancini
Production
company
Manenti Film
Distributed byMGM
Release date
  • 1935 (1935)
Running time
98 minutes
CountryItaly
LanguageItalian

Plot

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After a couple of projects had either been postponed or fallen through for Blasetti, it was suggested that he should make a film about the navy in peacetime. The result is this strange film, which at the outset plays like a propaganda piece for the might of the Italian navy, only to veer off into high melodrama, as it zeroes in on Commander Corrado Valeri (Gino Cervi), and his conflict between duty and the jealousy of his wife. There are comedic asides, a visit to a North African club, affording Blasetti to contribute the first scenes of nudity in Italian film, and there are moments of heroism, including a mission to rescue the doomed crew of a wrecked submarine. As if all of that was not more than enough, the film features a star-studded cast including Evi Maltagliati, Gianfranco Giachetti, Doris Duranti, Elisa Cegani (in her debut), and even a brief cameo by Blasetti himself.[2]

Cast

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References

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  1. ^ Moliterno p.41
  2. ^ "Alessandro Blasetti – Aldebaran (1936) | Cinema of the World". Archived from the original on 2014-08-01. Retrieved 2014-06-26.

Bibliography

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  • Moliterno, Gino. Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema. Scarecrow Press, 2008.
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