Maciste contro lo sceicco
(1926) Director: Mario Camerini –
Director of photography: Anchise Brizzi, Antonio Martini –
Production: Fert-Pittaluga, Roma/Torino –
Original lenght: 2256m –
Lenght: 2000m –
Intertitles: Italian –
Censorship certificate: 22468, 28/2/1926 –
Cast: Bartolomeo Pagano (Maciste), Cecyl Tryan (la pupilla/the ward), Rita d’Harcourt (contessa/countess Lami), Lido Manetti (il giovane marinaio/the young sailor), Franz Sala (conte/cont Carlo Lami), Alex Bernard (il capitano/the commander), Oreste Grandi (Lopez), Felice Minotti, Armand Pouget, Mario Sajo, F.M. Costa, Michele Mikailoff (lo sceicco/the sheik)
The film:
The perfidious count Lanni wants to get rid of his young niece Anna who he is the guardian of, in order to enjoy her inheritance undisturbed. He is also planning to send her to the harem of an Arab sheik through some pirates with no scruples. Maciste and a young rebel boarded to escape from political persecution, as members of the crew of the ship used for the kidnapping, will foil the plot. Mario Camerini, director and scriptwriter (story and screenplay), chooses to completely leave the tones of the comedy typical of the other episodes of the Maciste series. This time the gentle giant stars in a turbid psychological melodrama set in the nineteenth-century Southern Italy.
The film restoration:
This restoration is part of a project - promoted by Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino and the Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna - aiming at preserving and promoting silent films produced by Torino production companies.
The restoration of Maciste contro lo sceicco was carried out by the Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino, the Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna and it was based on the duplicate negative of 1992 restoration, carried out by the film archive in Bologna and the Cineteca Nazionale-CSC.
In this new edition, the intertitles restoration was based on the production documents conserved at the Museum in Torino. Some gaps were filled with a 16 mm positive print from the Bruno Boschetto collection in Torino.
The restoration work was carried out in 2009 at L'Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna.
