Una tragedia al cinematografo is a risqué Cines comedy about the cinema as a venue for clandestine trysts. A wealthy, jealous husband (Ignazio Lupi) follows his elegant wife (Pina Menichelli) when she goes out during the carnival season. Believing she is having an affair with a man in a cinema, he tells the cinema manager (none other than Bruto Castellani, the Ursus from Quo vadis?) that he will shoot her and her lover. The manager interrupts the film (which is obviously a film about adultery!) and tells the audience that there is an angry husband with a gun outside. The message has a huge effect… Both inside and outside the cinema, we see posters for Enrico Guazzoni’s blockbuster Quo vadis?, which also reference famous paintings by Jean-Léon Gérôme.

Ivo Blom