Popular actors’ comedy: Reception and influence, Italy–Argentina

Abstract

During the 1950s, Italian film releases increased exponentially in Buenos Aires. This growth occurred not only as a result of the popularity of this type of cinematography around the world but also because of the interest that it produced in local spectators. In this article, I map a quantitative overview about the arrival of this category of cinema to Buenos Aires. Next, I focus on a key aspect: the reception of commedia all’italiana (‘comedy Italian style’). Then, I delve into the kind of comedy in which the comedian occupies the centre of the mise en scène (as Totò or Alberto Sordi). The hypothesis that guides this article is that popular actors, both in Italian and Argentine films, constitute a key issue that allows one to see the continuity between both types of cinematography (through appropriations and reconfigurations of its procedures), as it also allows one to understand the way in which the represented worlds were projected to popular audiences.