Minerva Film was an Italian film production and distribution company active between 1912 and 1956. It should not be confused with a similarly-named Danish production house.
Founded during the silent era, the company was named after the Roman goddess Minerva. Originally a distribution company, it handled major foreign productions for release in Italy.
It was one of the major companies of the later Fascist period along with Lux, Titanus and Scalera Film. [1] It both distributed and made films through its subsidiary Excelsa Film.
In 1946 the company was involved in a legal dispute with David Selznick over the contract of star Alida Valli. [2]
A major fire occurred in 1947 at the company's offices in Rome. Minerva continued operation as a distributor until it went into liquidation in 1956.
American International Pictures (AIP) is an American motion picture production label of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In its original operating period, AIP was an independent film production and distribution company known for producing and releasing films from 1955 until 1980, a year after its acquisition by Filmways in 1979.
Republic Pictures Corporation was an American film studio corporation which originally operated from 1935 to 1967, based in Los Angeles, California. It had production and distribution facilities in Studio City, as well as a movie ranch in Encino. Republic was best-known for specializing in Westerns, cliffhanger serials, and B-films emphasizing mystery and action. Republic was also notable for developing the motion picture careers of John Wayne, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers. The studio was also responsible for the financial management and distribution of a few big-budget feature films directed by John Ford, as well as one Shakespeare film, Macbeth (1948), directed by Orson Welles. Under the leadership of founder Herbert J. Yates, Republic was considered a mini-major film studio.
Minerva was a Belgian firm active from 1902 to 1938 and a manufacturer of luxury automobiles. The company became defunct in 1956.
Minerva is the Roman goddess of crafts and wisdom. The name may also refer to:
Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest film equipment and production company, as well as a major producer of phonograph records. In 1908, Pathé invented the newsreel that was shown in cinemas before a feature film.
Screen Gems is an American brand name used by Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group, a subsidiary of Japanese multinational conglomerate, Sony Group Corporation. It has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation, initially as a cartoon studio, then a television studio, and later on as a film studio. The label currently serves as a film production and distribution label that specializes in genre films, mainly horror.
Mark Damon is an American film actor and producer. He became noted for roles in films like Roger Corman's House of Usher, before moving to Italy and becoming a notable Western star and member of the 1960s Dolce Vita set of actors and actresses in Rome. After starring in over 50 films in the United States and Europe, he quit acting and reinvented himself as a film producer and pioneer of the foreign sales business in the 1970s, and became one of Hollywood's most prolific producers.
Bellissima is a 1951 Italian comedy film directed by Luchino Visconti and starring Anna Magnani, Walter Chiari and Tecla Scarano.
Amedeo Nazzari was an Italian actor. Nazzari was one of the leading figures of Italian classic cinema, often considered a local variant of the Australian–American star Errol Flynn. Although he emerged as a star during the Fascist era, Nazzari's popularity continued well into the post-war years.
Condottieri is a 1937 Italian historical drama film directed by Luis Trenker and starring Trenker, Loris Gizzi and Laura Nucci. It portrays the life of Giovanni de' Medici, a celebrated condottiere of the sixteenth century. A separate German-language version was also made.
Lively Teresa is a 1943 Italian "white-telephones" comedy film directed by Mario Mattoli and starring Lilia Silvi, Roberto Villa and Carlo Ninchi. It was produced in the style of the White Telephone comedies popular during the Fascist era.
The Passaguai Family Gets Rich is a 1952 Italian comedy film directed by Aldo Fabrizi and starring Fabrizi, Erminio Macario, Ave Ninchi and Giovanna Ralli. It is the sequel to the hit 1951 film The Passaguai Family.
Mino Doro was an Italian actor who appeared in more than a hundred films between 1932 and 1970. Doro generally played supporting and character roles. He appeared as a blackshirt in the 1934 Fascist propaganda film The Old Guard.
Caravaggio, il pittore maledetto is a 1941 Italian historical drama film directed by Goffredo Alessandrini and starring Amedeo Nazzari, Clara Calamai and Lamberto Picasso. Nazzari portrays the painter Caravaggio as a wayward genius. It was one of his favourite screen roles.
The Jester's Supper is a 1942 Italian historical film directed by Alessandro Blasetti and starring Amedeo Nazzari, Osvaldo Valenti and Clara Calamai. It was based on a play of the same title by Sem Benelli, which had later been turned into an opera by Umberto Giordano. Like the play, the film is set in the 15th century Florence of Lorenzo the Magnificent and portrays a rivalry that leads to a series of increasingly violent practical jokes.
Hollywood on the Tiber is a phrase used to describe the period in the 1950s and 1960s when the Italian capital of Rome emerged as a major location for international filmmaking attracting many foreign productions to the Cinecittà studios. By contrast to the native Italian film industry, these movies were made in English for global release. Although the primary markets for such films were American and British audiences, they enjoyed widespread popularity in other countries, including Italy.
The Tirrenia Studios are a film studio complex located in the Italian coastal town of Tirrenia in Tuscany. The studios were constructed between 1933-1934 and intended, along with the Fert Studios in Turin, to provide northern competition to the increasingly dominant Cines Studios in Rome. Tirrenia was a new town which had grown with the support of Italy's Fascist regime. Although Italian film production was booming following an early 1930s slump, Tirrenia quickly faced increasing competition from the large Cinecitta studios in Rome which had been opened in 1937 as part of the Fascist's attempt to centralise film production in the capital. Nonetheless, the studios continued to be used, sometimes facilitating location shooting nearby.
The Cines Studios were film production studios located in the Italian capital Rome. They were established on Via Veio in 1930 by Stefano Pittaluga, head of the Cines film company, at the beginning of the sound era. It produced Italy's first sound film The Song of Love the same year. For several years it was the leading studio complex in Italy, until September 1935 when it suffered a major fire and was largely destroyed. This became a spur for the Italian government of Benito Mussolini to invest in the construction of a new development Cinecittà, the largest studio in Europe which opened in 1937.
Stephen Gundle, is a British cultural historian and film scholar. He is a Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick. He is best known for his books and articles on Italian culture, politics and the mass media.
Ente Nazionale Industrie Cinematografiche (ENIC) was an Italian film production and distribution entity that operated between 1935 and 1956.