Version made from a 2195m long tinted positive copy with Danish intertitles conserved by the Danske Filmmuseum in Copenhagen and from a 1366m long tinted positive copy conserved by the Cinemateca Brasileira in Sao Paulo. Both copies were developed from the same negative. The intertitles of the Brasilian version maintained the original grafics which were used for the Cineteca di Bologna’s reconstruction.
“[…] Brignone’s Maciste all’inferno has surfaced several times in the history of Italian cinema. Naturally, the first time was in the twenties when Fert Pittaluga of Torino proposed the umpteenth episode of the Maciste series and the writer Riccardo Artuffo (mentioned as the Fantasy in the credits) provided Guido Brignone with a script that, even though it doesn’t revitalize the myth – by then a bit worn out – of the heroe played by Bartolomeo Pagano, at least offers some excellent material for an unpredictable and amusing film, rich in fantastic and bizarre humour. It was ready for release already in 1925, but had problems with the censor (first blocked in October 1925) so that the film came out in Sweden three months before it was first shown in Italy (Fiera di Milano, March 1926).
Maciste reappeared in the early forties, one of the few silent films privelaged with the honour of being put into circulation in a copy with sound track added later and thus gained new celebrity…
Finally, Maciste all’inferno gained new glory in Italian cinematographic histroy when Fellini, in various interviews and memoires, mentions it as a sort of “scena primaria” in his cinematographic subconscious. It thus became impossible to mention Brignone’s film without also citing the memories of the ‘Maestro’ that carry us back to the viewing conditions of the time, i.e. to an experience that even the most perfect and complete restoration can never recapture:
“What was my first film? I’m sure I remember it well because the image has remained so deeply impressed that I have tried to re-evoke it all my films. The film was called Maciste all’inferno. I saw it standing with my father’s arms around me amidst a crowd of people in wet overcoats because it was raining outside. I remember a large woman with nude belly, her belly button, her eyes, darkened with make-up, blazing. With an imperious movement of her arm she created a circle of flames around Maciste, he also half naked and with a dove in his hand”[…]
(Antonio Costa, Cinémemoire 1993)