Monday, March 16, 2020

By the Gods!

Virgilio Riento and Franca Marzi in TIZIO, CAIO, SEMPRONIO (1951)

An early PEPLUM comedy with high productions which is obscure this side of the Atlantic. There's no English track or subtitles. This means a lot of attentive and hard work listening to the rapid fire Italian dialogue. I understand part of it but it's just too much work. I have to say that the look of the movie is excellent. Nothing cheap about it. It utilizes big crowd scenes from SCIPIO AFRICANUS: THE DEFEAT OF HANNIBAL (1937). The one of the only familiar face of the PEPLUM genre is the muscular Umberto Silvestri (below). Hard to miss him. I will be able to get a better overview of the movie once an English version or subs surface. The movie is on Youtube. The title is the Italian equivalent of Tom, Dick, and Harry.

According to Wikipedia (Italian):

The three names appear for the first time brought together in the works of Irnerio, medieval jurisconsult of the Studio di Bologna.

A classic interpretation is the following:

Tizio = Tiberio Gracco; or any Titius;
Gaius = Gaius Gracchus, brother of Tiberius;
Sempronio = Sempronio Gracco, father of Tiberius and Gaius.


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