After seeing what’s left of it, what did we learn about this movie? Camillo De Riso and Francesca Bertini pretend to be the princes of something. They laugh to themselves while accepting the tribute of the city’s stiff notables. They are both in love with someone. They throw a party and appear dressed up as a vizier and an odalisque, and she lazily dances in that way that makes you adore her. Bertini herself seems to have written the storyline under the rather suspicious pseudonym Frank Bert. But what exactly does it tell us? We read reviews from that period published in Martinelli-Bernardini’s tome on silent italian film. Instead of making things clearer, we end up more confused. We don’t even know what to call the film, which we know has several different titles (My Little Baby, Little Baby, Baby l’indiavolata, L’educanda monella). Damaged by chemical decay, the surviving fragment certainly does not help to enlighten us. In reality, however, there is one thing we can say about it: Francesca Bertini is an irresistible, brilliant actress. Do you really need to know anything else?

Andrea Meneghelli