The “Voyages” section of the 1931 Pathé-Baby catalogue (number 244), does not mince words: “Immersed in the gulf of Naples, so often sung about for the golden rays that emerge from its wild and wonderful views, is the pearl of Italy. Pathé-Baby will transport you to this earthly Paradise under the perennially blue skies of the land of Dante.” This is the kind of emphatic language one finds in a tourist brochure. One of the film’s intertitles goes further still, combining people and place in the same picture-postcard: “Its inhabitants are in harmony with the picturesque landscape.” It is as if they were there solely to satisfy our desire for beautiful sights, which are rapidly becoming hackneyed. The film fully lives up to this promise: it is wonderful and (fairly) wild.

Andrea Meneghelli