Enrico Caruso: Leggenda Di Una Voce (aka The Young Caruso) (1951)

The story of the legendary tenor Enrico Caruso (Ermanno Randi) from childhood poverty in Naples to the beginning of his rise to fame. Based on the book NEAPOLITAN LEGEND by Frank Thiess and directed by Giacomo Gentilomo (THE BLIND WOMAN OF SORRENTO). The same year (1951) as MGM's lavish Technicolor THE GREAT CARUSO with Mario Lanza, this Italian feature dwells on Caruso's younger years. It's hopelessly over sentimental and fabricated. Its one asset is that it was filmed in Naples in B&W which is about the only bit of authentic feel to the film. The rest is as cliched as any Hollywood bio of the period. Two actors play Caruso. Maurizio Di Nardo plays Caruso as a boy and Ermanno Randi plays him as a young man with Mario Del Monaco dubbing Randi's singing voice. Curiously, the actors who play Caruso's friends are played by the same actors through out the film. Thus you have a 23 year old Gina Lollobrigida playing a peer of 12 year old Di Nardo with 26 year old Carlo Sposito as his best friend! Randi doesn't have the strong presence of Lanza in the MGM film and unlike Lanza, he's dubbed so there's no one to hold the film together. Sadly, Randi was murdered just one month after this film debuted. This was the American version I viewed which is some 14 minutes shorter than the Italian version. I suppose I should be grateful that it wasn't the "uncut" version.