Maria Jacobini

At Il Cinema Ritrovato film festival in Bologna, there is a special presentation of the Italian silent film Addio giovinezza/Good-bye youth (Augusto Genina, 1918). A copy of this film was found in Japan. Star of Addio giovinezza is Maria Jacobini (1892-1944). According to film historian Vittorio Martinelli, she was an island of serenity among the Italian divas. Jacobini was the personification of goodness, of simple love. Her weapon was her sweet and gracious smile. However, in some Italian, and later also in German films, she could as well play the vivacious lady, the femme fatale, the comedienne, the hysterical victim, or the suffering mother or wife.


Italian postcard by Ed. Vettori, Bologna, no. 346. Sent by mail in 1926. Maria Jacobini in Onestà del Peccato/The Wife He Neglected (Augusto Genina, 1918).


Italian postcard by Milano, Uff. Rev. Stampa, no. 891. Portrait of the actress Maria Jacobini by Tito Corbella.


Italian postcard by Ed. Romeo Biagi, Bologna, no. 649.


Italian postcard by Dist. Ed. SARPIC, Bucarest, Romania, no. 330.


Italian postcard by Ed. Bettini, Roma, no. 145


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3953/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Terra-Film.

Seductive Man-eater

Maria Jacobini was born in Rome, Italy, 1892. She was the sister of actress Diomira Jacobini. Their older sister Bianca had also started out as an actress, but had interrupted her career after four films.

Maria studied at the Accademia di Arte Drammatica di S. Cecilia, where she got lessons from Virginia Marini and Eduardo Boutet. She made her stage debut at the company of Cesare Dondini jr., where she mainly played secondary parts.

She was noticed by Ugo Falena, artistic director of the film company Film d'Arte Italiana. He offered her to work in the silent cinema.

Her first short films were Lucrezia Borgia/Lucretia Borgia (Ugo Falena, 1910) featuring diva Francesca Bertini,and Beatrice Cenci (Ugo Falena, 1910), but her first important role was in Cesare Borgia (Gerolamo Lo Savio, 1912) again starring Bertini.

In 1912, Maria started to work at the Savoia company of Turin, as a seductive man-eater in short films like Pantera/Panther (1912), La zingara/The gypsy (Sandro Camasio, 1912), and L'onta nascosta/The hidden shame (1912).

From 1913 on, she played her more dramatical roles as the lead in Giovanna d'Arco/Joan of Arc (Ubaldo Maria del Colle, 1913) and Ananke (Nino Oxilia, 1915) with Leda Gys and her sister Diomira Jacobini.

Jacobini worked for pioneering film studios like Pasquali and Celio. Maria gave good performances in the melancholic Come le foglie/Like the Leaves (Gennaro Righelli, 1916) based on Giuseppe Giacosa's stage play, and in the touching Addio Giovinezza/Good-bye Youth (Augusto Genina, 1918).

She made a series of films with director Gennaro Righelli such as Il viaggio/The journey (1921), based on a novel by Luigi Pirandello, and Cainà - la figlia dell'isola/Cainà - the daughter of the island (1923), shot in Sardinia.


Italian postcard by Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, no. 713.


Italian postcard. Photo: Tiber Film. Publicity still for Come le foglie/Like the Leaves (Gennaro Righelli, 1917), based on the stage play by Giuseppe Giacosa. Father Giovanni (Ignazio Lupi) unites his daughter Nennele (Maria Jacobini) with his cousin Massimo (Guido Guiducci). Translation caption: Nennele: Shall I call him? Massimo! Content of the film: After a life of spendthrifts, the Rosati family is ruined. Father Giovanni (Ignazio Lupi) accepts work from his cousin Massimo (Guido Guiducci). Hitherto neglected as too serious and workaholic, Massimo becomes the head of the family and takes care of the son and daughter of Giovanni, Tommy (Alberto Collo) and Nennele (Jacobini), and their stepmother Giulia (Floriana). Tommy and Giulia remain weak spirits, but after an attempted suicide, Nennele realizes Massimo's force and unites with him.


Italian postcard. Photo: Tiber Film, Roma. Publicity still for Come le foglie/Like the Leaves (Gennaro Righelli, 1917). Maria Jacobini (Nennele) and Alberto Collo (Tommy). Translation caption: Nennele: You don't know what you're saying! Farewell, Tommy, farewell, poor Tommy!


Italian postcard. Photo: Tiber Film, Roma. Publicity still for Come le foglie/Like the Leaves (Gennaro Righelli, 1917). Left Maria Jacobini. The man in the middle could be Guido Guiducci. Translation caption : The portrait slipped from the package and fell to the ground.


Italian postcard. Photo: Tiber Film, Roma. Publicity still of Maria Jacobini and Ignazio Lupi in the Italian silent film Come le foglie/Like the leaves (Gennaro Righelli, 1917), based on the stage play by Giuseppe Giacosa. The caption translates: 'Giovanni: And tomorrow I would have been out in the world, shouting like a madman, searching for my little daughter'.


Dutch postcard by E & B, no. 518. Photo: HAP Film, Den Haag / Bens Film.


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 348. Maria Jacobini in the silent film La bocca chiusa (Guglielmo Zorzi, 1925).

Berlin

After the First World War, the Italian film industry was in a deep crisis, and director Gennaro Righelli and his star Maria Jacobini decided to move to Germany.

In Berlin, the new center of the European film industry, Jacobini and Righelli were enlisted by producer Jakob Karoll and they founded a separate company called Maria Jacobini GmbH.

Jacobini first starred in Bohème - Künstlerliebe/Bohème - artists love (Gennaro Righelli, 1923), playing the tormented and suffering Mimi. Her film partner was Wilhelm Dieterle, who would later become known as Hollywood director William Dieterle.

She often performed in Righelli's German films but also in films by other directors. She was directed by Jaap Speyer in Bigamie/Bigamy (1927), Robert Dinesenin Ariadne im Hoppegarten (1928) with Alfred Abel, Richard Oswald in Villa Falconieri (1928) opposite Hans Stüwe, and by Fedor Ozep in the German-Russian coproduction Der lebende Leichnam/Zhivoy trup/The Living Corpse (1929), based on the play by Leo Tolstoy.

These productions were shot all over Europe, and Jacobini even filmed in Africa for Die Frauengasse von Algier/The Street of Women of Algiers (Wolfgang Hoffmann-Harnisch, 1927) with Camilla Horn.


Italian postcard, no. 430. Photo: Maria Jacobini and Lido Manetti in the silent film Addio giovinezza/Good-bye youth (Augusto Genina, 1918), an adaptation of the play by Sandro Camasio and Nino Oxilia.


Italian postcard, no. 431. Photo: Maria Jacobini and Lido Manetti in the silent film Addio giovinezza/Good-bye youth (Augusto Genina, 1918).