MULHERES DA BEIRA
Sog.: dal racconto “A Frecha de Misarela” di Abel Botelho; Scen.: Rino Lupo; F.: Artur Costa de Macedo; M.: Marie Meunier, Georges Pallu; Scgf.: Henrique Alegria; Int.: Brunilde Júdice (Aninhas), António Pinheiro (Pedro), Mário Santos (André), Rafael Marques (Fidalgo da Mó/nobile della Macina), Maria Júdice (Madre superiora del convento di Arouca), Celeste Ruth (Clara D’Orsay), Duarte Silva (il mugnaio), Ana De Oliveira; Prod.: Henrique Alegria, Alfredo Nunes de Mattos per Invicta Filmes ■ 35mm. L.: 1663 m. D.: 81’ a 18 f/s. Imbibito, virato / Tinted, toned.
Film Notes
Rino Lupo (1884-1934?) was the author of Os Lobos (1923 and 1924 – second version), often considered the greatest of all Portuguese silent films, showed at the Cinema Ritrovato last year. Mulheres da Beira was Lupo’s first Portuguese film, shot in 1921 almost entirely on location at the mountain range of Arouca, near Oporto, thus breaking away from Invicta Film’s growing list of studio adaptations of Portuguese XIXth century literature. The story tells of a naïve country girl tricked into fleeing her brutal father to follow a rich farmer she has just met and what she believed was true love. But the rich farmer soon grows tired of his new playmate and leaves her for a more sophisticated woman. Brunilde Júdice plays the naïve girl in a strongly erotic and sensual manner that was entirely new to Portuguese cinema and which is accentuated by Lupo’s use of the impressive landscape.
Tiago Baptista – Cinemateca Portuguesa-Museu do Cinema