It was November 1936 when, in anticipation of the Stradivarian bicentennial celebrations to be held the following year, the committee that had been specifically formed, among other initiatives, proposed the idea of making a film about Antonio Stradivari, which would be entirely filmed in the streets of Cremona. The proposal was also embraced by the Provincial Tourism Board, recently established under the presidency of Tullo Bellomi. This was discussed during the final session of that year, but then nothing came of it.

However, the idea was not original at all. The Cremonese had been beaten to the punch by the Germans, who, on August 25, 1935, had released Stradivari, the first film dedicated to the great luthier, directed by Géza von Bolvàry, with a cast that included the best actors of the time. It was a Franco-German production made with significant resources, followed in October by the French version titled Stradivarius.

Nearly ninety years ago, then, the first true film was made, lasting over an hour and a half, with Stradivari and his violins as the main focus, and a plot that, in some respects, resembles the contents of the famous The Red Violin, which was actually filmed in the streets and squares of Cremona sixty years later, in 1995, by Canadian director François Girard.

The story is set in 1914, just before the World War, when Sandor Teleky, an Austrian officer and violin virtuoso, inherits a valuable instrument from an uncle, which is later discovered to have been made by Stradivari. A legend, however, claims that every owner of this instrument fails to win the love of the woman he desires. The officer, who falls in love with an Italian musician, Maria Belloni, who is not wealthy, resigns from his position and accepts a post in America in order to marry her. The outbreak of the war prevents their marriage and separates the two lovers. Sandor returns to his regiment and does not provide any news for four years. In Milan, the young woman is courted by a medical officer, Pietro Rossi, who, ironically, comes into possession of the precious violin while treating the severely wounded Austrian officer. When the two men realize they are in love with the same woman, the Italian officer, who has proof of the woman's affection for her first fiancé, nobly steps aside and reunites the two lovers. The announcement of the armistice ends the war tragedy. The film, produced by Fritz Fromm, was distributed by Boston Film of Berlin and achieved moderate success, thanks mainly to the director's name and the prestigious cast.

Géza von Bolvàry, a Hungarian-born director who became an Austrian citizen, was particularly active in Germany and Austria starting in the 1920s. After a career as a freelance journalist and actor, he worked as a director first for Star Film production company, where he met Hungarian actress Ilona Mattyasovszky, whom he married in 1923. Later, in 1922, he was hired for a four-year contract by Emelka, the future Bavaria Film in Munich. After moving to Berlin, he was contracted by the German film company Fellner & Somlo, for whom he directed from 1926 to 1928. He left the German company to move to London, where he worked for about a year with the British film company Associated British Picture Corporation (BIP). In 1930, he directed Two Hearts in Time for the Waltz with Walter Janssen and Willi Forst, his first critically and internationally acclaimed work. With this film, he inaugurated a film genre that became very popular in the 1930s and 1940s, the Viennese operetta musical, for which he collaborated with, in addition to Forst, screenwriter Walter Reisch and composer Robert Stolz. Between 1923 and 1933, he mainly directed light comedy films, discovering talents like Zarah Leander, Hilde Krahl, and Ilse Werner.

The screenplay for von Bolvàry's film was written by Ernst Marischka, another big name of the time. Specializing in musical comedies and operettas, and the brother of Hubert Marischka, he is best known for directing the three films about Sissi, the Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, starring Romy Schneider between 1955 and 1958. Marischka also wrote the lyrics for Vergiß mein nicht, the German version of the famous Non ti scordar di me by Ernesto de Curtis. Ernst wrote his first screenplay for Alexander Kolowrat, a pioneer of Austrian cinema who founded his own production company, Sascha Film, in Vienna. Der Millionenonkel, a film directed by his brother, was a large-scale production that opened the door to cinema for him. He soon also became a director and made his directorial debut in 1915. Over his career, he directed thirty-five films. However, his primary work remained as a writer: a specialist in the brillante genre, he wrote many novels and musical comedies. He worked in Austria, Germany, Italy, France, and even for the United States. Hollywood adapted some of his subjects and screenplays, such as The Eternal Harmony, a biographical film about Chopin directed by Charles Vidor, and Spring Parade directed by Henry Koster in 1940, starring Deanna Durbin.

The role of the protagonist, Antonio Stradivari, was played by one of the regime's most appreciated actors, Veit Harlan, who, as a director, became one of the key figures in German cinema during the Third Reich. His works included some of the most important films supporting Nazism, such as Jud Süss (1940), Der grosse König (1942), for which he won the Mussolini Cup for best foreign film at the Venice Film Festival, and the epic Kolberg (1945). The son of writer Walter Harlan, he studied acting with M. Reinhardt and made his stage debut in Berlin in 1915 as an actor, and the following year as an assistant director. The advent of sound, and thus the possibility of spoken dialogue, led to his late directorial debut, which coincidentally was an adaptation of a comedy, Krach im Hinterhaus (1935), which he had directed in the theater. This marked the start of a prolific career as a director and often a screenwriter for films primarily based on great performances.

Another great actor, Gustav Frölich, one of Harlan's favorites, played the role of officer Sandor Teleky. For three decades, he was one of the most popular actors in German cinema, embodying the character of the positive hero. With his open smile, direct gaze, and confident, worldly attitude, he had the ideal physical presence for light, sentimental, and romantic comedies. His first leading role was in Metropolis (1927), when Fritz Lang cast him as the son of the scientist-dictator of the megalopolis. In the later years of silent cinema, he played two significant roles in Joe May's films: Heimkehr (1928; The Song of the Prisoner), where he is a soldier returning home from war, and Asphalt (1929), where he is a philistine traffic cop who falls in love with a thief, showing his comfort in psychological and intimate dramas.

The female lead of the film, playing Maria Belloni, was Sybille Schmitz, the first diva of the "fantasy" genre, a femme fatale and enigmatic actress with exotic beauty, far removed from the stereotypes of the cold, blonde seductress of Nordic cinema. She had entered the public imagination through a film two years prior, Vampyr directed by Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer in 1932, followed by The Master of the World two years later. The film's title itself announced a story of sorcery and necrophilia. In her role as Leone, the daughter of a castle keeper tormented by a vampire, Schmitz showcased rare dramatic intuition, shifting between innocent girl-like smiles and grimaces of a bloodthirsty creature.

Perhaps it was this role that first made her performance stand out, aided by the skillful direction of a master of Danish cinema, but in later years, Schmitz's strong expressiveness would continue to move even the most impassive viewers. The most interesting film she starred in, however, remains Fährmann Maria (The Ferryman Maria, 1936). With expressionistic emphasis, Schmitz ferried passengers from one riverbank to the other, pursued by apocalyptic riders. The many dramatic situations, Maria's dance with death, and the prayer of soldiers marked by a feverish wound, were softened by the happy ending, where Maria finds her homeland and love.

Certainly, the actress's face greatly influenced her appearances: it is hard to imagine her as a carefree Gretchen with that unsettling gaze. Most often, she portrayed problematic women: she played George Sand in Farewell Waltz(Abschiedswalzer, 1934), a shadowy spy in Hotel Sacher (1939), and a cunning princess in The Captain of the Mercenary (Trenck, der Pandur, 1940). But her most successful performance was in The Tragedy of the Titanic (Titanic, 1942), a retelling of the famous 1912 disaster in which the massive ocean liner was swallowed by the sea.