A long-cherished dream that almost came true in the spring of 1951: a major film about Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù featuring the finest actors from the golden era of Italian neorealism. Then, for reasons still unknown, the project was ultimately abandoned. It would have been the third attempt in fifteen years to produce a feature film about the master luthiers of Cremona, a goal that only materialized many years later—first in 1988 with Stradivari by Giacomo Battiato, starring Anthony Quinn, and then in 1998 with The Red Violin by François Girard.

Back in 1936, in anticipation of the Stradivari bicentennial celebrations scheduled for the following year, a specially formed committee proposed, among other initiatives, the idea of a film about Antonio Stradivari, to be shot entirely in the streets of Cremona. The proposal was also supported by the newly founded Provincial Tourism Authority, chaired by Tullo Bellomi. It was discussed in the final meeting of that year, but nothing ever came of it.

However, the idea was not exactly original. The Germans had beaten the Cremonese to it, releasing the first film dedicated to the great luthier on August 25, 1935. Titled Stradivari, it was directed by Géza von Bolváry and featured a top-tier cast of the time. This Franco-German production, made with substantial resources, was followed in October by its French-language version, Stradivarius. It was a full-length film—over an hour and a half—centered on Stradivari and his violins, with a plot that in some ways anticipated the themes of the later Red Violin, which would be filmed in the streets and squares of Cremona more than sixty years later.

So, on the evening of March 31, 1951, when Enzo Borromeo appeared at the small theater of the Leonardo Artistic Group, set up inside the Palace of Arts, to attend two performances of L’uomo dal fiore in bocca directed by Adriano Vercelli, everyone took notice. The director had come expressly from Rome, accompanied by his secretary Paola Gagnatelli, formerly an actress at the Teatro Stabile directed by Gemma D'Amora, who had left Cremona the previous year to settle permanently in San Felice Circeo.

Originally from Ancona, Paola passed away in November 2013 after teaching for 32 years in the elementary schools of Borgo Montenero. During the war, she had been evacuated to Cremona with her mother and passionately devoted herself to theater. In 2008, she was awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by President Napolitano, following the publication of her book La lunga favola di nonna, which opens with the story of her life in Cremona.

The young Roman theater director had come to Cremona with a clear purpose: to make a film about Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù, and he presented all the details of the project. It was to be an Italian-Austrian co-production, between the Italian company Italmetrofilm and the Austrian Helios Film. Negotiations had gone on for several months, and at that time, they were working on the production plan. Filming was to take place mostly in Cremona's streets, historic buildings, and the Cathedral. Some scenes would be filmed in Parma and Bologna, while interiors were to be shot in Vienna.

The story had been written by an Austrian author, while Borromeo himself was writing the screenplay, then in its final stages, in collaboration with several experts in violin-making. The film was to be shot entirely in color, using the Agfacolor system. Introduced in 1939, Agfacolor was the first negative/positive chromogenic color film process with multilayer film technology. During WWII, it was used in 13 color films. After 1945, other color films such as Ferraniacolor were developed based on Agfacolor. The development and introduction of Agfacolor had been promoted by the Nazi German government, particularly by Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, who believed that German color films would soon compete with Hollywood productions.

What was truly astonishing, however, was the star-studded cast involved in the production, featuring the most renowned Italian and Austrian artists of the time. Among them was Paula Wessely, one of the leading figures of Austrian cinema and of the UFA studios during the pre-war period. She had won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival in 1935 for Episode, a film by Walter Reisch. In 1950, she founded her own production company, which over nine years produced eleven films.

Also involved was Otto Wernicke, known for his role as Commissioner Karl Lohmann in two films by Fritz Lang, the first pragmatic and rational police inspector in film history. He also portrayed Captain Smith in the first official film about the Titanic in 1943. In 1951, Wernicke was working in Italy on Amore e sangue, a film by Marino Girolami starring Andrea Checchi.

The cast also included Harry Feist, an Austrian dancer and theater actor who began appearing in Italian films in 1942, remembered especially for his role as Major Fritz Bergman in Rome, Open City by Roberto Rossellini.

Will Quadflieg, one of the most prominent post-war German stage actors and a masterful reciter of German poetry, had performed works by Schiller, Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Schnitzler, and had also worked in film dubbing and adapting theatrical texts for both prose and musical theater.

Among the Italian actresses was Silvana Pampanini, the first real Italian film diva to gain global fame—from India to Japan, the United States to Egypt, and all across Europe. In the early 1950s, Pampanini, who had tied for Miss Italy with Rossana Martini in 1946, was the highest-paid and most in-demand Italian actress. In 1951, she would go on to star in Beauties on Bicycles, in which she sang the title song, and OK Nerone, her first international success—a parody of Quo Vadis.

There was also Vittorio Duse, who had acted in Redenzione (1943) by Marcello Albani and Ossessione by Luchino Visconti, and who, decades later in 1990, would portray Don Tommasino in The Godfather Part III by Francis Ford Coppola.

Other cast members included Mario Ferrari, an actor and voice actor with a long career, who had worked with directors like Blasetti, Alessandrini, and Brignone. Known for playing strong, incorruptible, and principled men, he often portrayed military officers and was a cinematic symbol of the fascist-era ideal of the flawless, fearless hero. Ugo Sasso, who in 1970 would appear as the lame sheriff in They Call Me Trinity. Armando Guarneri, who acted in many 1940s films, such as Amanti in fuga (1946) with Gino Bechi, I fratelli Karamazoff (1947) with Fosco Giachetti and Mariella Lotti, both directed by Giacomo Gentilomo, and L'isola di Montecristo (1949) by Mario Sequi, starring Carlo Ninchi and Claudio Gora. In the 1950s and 60s, Guarneri continued acting in supporting roles in many films, including Cops and Robbers (1951) by Mario Monicelli and Steno, with Totò and Aldo Fabrizi, in which he played the barber. Finally, there was Enzo Staiola, who at age seven was cast by Vittorio De Sica as Bruno Ricci in Bicycle Thieves (1948). Chosen for his distinctive way of walking, Staiola’s moving and spontaneous performance made him a kind of living symbol of Italian neorealism. However, his later career never allowed him to revisit or expand upon the role that had made him famous, though some of his performances—such as in Hearts Without Borders (1950) by Luigi Zampa—were noteworthy.

As for the soundtrack, it was to be composed of original works by Paganini, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Director Borromeo also intended to involve local amateur theater actors, with whom he had already established contact.

However, the film—which was meant to be distributed in Italy, Austria, and Switzerland—was never made. Enzo Borromeo disappeared from public view, and no other violin-related films were mentioned until the 1980s.

In the first photo, Paola Gagnatelli and Otto Wernicke.
In the second photo, Silvana Pampanini and Ezio Staiola (shot from the film Bicycle Thieves)