Regina di Ninive, La Queen of Nineveh, The (GB) / Queen of Ninevah , The (US)(1911) Director: Luigi Maggi –
Director of photography: Giovanni Vitrotti –
Production: Società Anonima Ambrosio, Torino –
Original lenght: 320m –
Intertitles: English –
Cast: Gigetta Morano (la regina di Ninive/Queen of Nineveh), Angelo A. Capozzi (Assur adulto/adult), Mirra Principi, Oreste Grandi (Gran Sacerdote Mitrane), Luigi Maggi (re Sennacherib / King Sennacherib), Giuseppe Gray (amante della regina/Queen’s lover), Dario Silvestri, Ernesto Vaser (il pastore nella grotta/Sheperd in the cavern), Ercole Vaser, Mario Voller Buzzi, Serafino Vité
The film:
The Queen Tamiri “beautiful as the goddess of spring, evil as the spirit of the darkness”, incites the lover Canach to poison her husband, King Sennacherib. The king dies entrusting his son, Prince Aznur, to the loyal minister Mitrane. Tamiri and Canach come to the throne of Ninive, while the minister Mitrane entrusts Aznur to a modest sheperd, in order to save from the risks the legitimate successor of the king. After 15 years, Aznur is by now a man and Mitrane unveils him his real identity and incites him to a late vengeance. Aznur, touched by the vision of the board where his father wrote his last words, leads a popular insurrection and fights and kills his mother Tamiri on the staircase of the palace.
This “Assyrian legend”, as it is called by the program of the theater, builds its fascination on the role of the protagonist, eccentric virago who doesn’t hesitate to wear the armor refused by her coward lover to enter the fray. In this film Gigetta Morano, appreciated comedienne, shows her talent playing a dramatic role, even if the gaps of the copy don’t allow us to fully enjoy her performance.
The film restoration:
La regina di Ninivewas restored in 2018 by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna and Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino from a tinted nitrate copy with English intertitles, preserved at BFI- National Archive and belonging to the Joye collection. Restoration works were carried out at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in Bologna in 2018.
