148 - Stromboli, 1950, Italy/United States. Dir. Roberto Rossellini.

Sunday, May 28, 2017

148 - Stromboli, 1950, Italy/United States.  Dir. Roberto Rossellini.

Ah, Stromboli!

One of your favorite Italian dishes.

Sweet bread flour coated with olive oil and topped with meets and cheeses--especially ham and salami, mozorella and parmesan--rolled into a wrap and baked.

Delizioso!

How wonderful that the great Italian neorealist director Roberto Rossellini would make an entire movie celebrating this legendary Italian cuisine!

Or . . . not.

This--turnover--did not exist when Rossellini made this movie.

It is also not Italian.

Stromboli is from the United States.  Invented in Pennsylvania.  Made at a pizza joint.

And named after this classic movie.

As stated yesterday, in the write-up for The Flowers of St. Francis, Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman were hot in the news at the time.

For indulging in some indulgences.

So when the movie came out, it got a lot of attention.

Because whether or not people knew about Rossellini, they sure knew Ingrid Bergman.

I mean, we are talking about Ilsa Lund from Casablanca, Maria from For Whom the Bell Tolls, Paula from Gaslight, Sister Mary Benedict from The Bells of St. Mary's, Dr. Constance Petersen from Spellbound, Alicia Huberman from Notorious, and Joan of Arc herself from Victor Fleming's Joan of Arc.  We are talking about a woman nominated for seven Oscars, who won three.

Without even being nominated for Casablanca!

The public was paying attention.

So when Stromboli came to the neighborhood theater, Nazzareno Romano of Romano's Italian Restaurant & Pizzeria in Essington, Pennsylvania, was ready to name his new dish for it.

The name Stromboli had already appeared in the movies.  In Walt Disney's Pinocchio.  The great and terrifying puppet master was named Mangiafuoco in Carlo Collodi's 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio.  Disney changed his name to Stromboli in his 1940 animated feature.

But this Stromboli has its own origin.

Stromboli is an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea.  Off the north coast of Sicily.  One of the Aeolian Islands.  With an active volcano.

Mount Stromboli.  In a continuous state of eruption for two thousand years.

Kaboom!

Antonio is a fisherman from Stromboli.  He is a prisoner of war in a prison camp.  He meets Karin.  From Lithuania.  She is in the camp.  On the other side of the barbed war.  The men and the woman are separated.  But they can talk through the wire.

Karin applies for a release.  She is not granted it.

Antonio proposes to her.  Marriage will give her the release.  She accepts.

"Our Lord Jesus Christ elevated matrimony to the dignity of a sacrament.  This matrimony will produce divine grace."

Now she is released.  She moves to the island of Stromboli with her new husband.  To begin her new life.

Let us see how things turn out.

Sometimes living the married life turns out differently than one expects it will.

Sometimes the marriage gets rocky.

Hot molten lava rocky.


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I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. - New Testament.  St. Paul's letter to the Romans.  Chapter 10, Verse 20.

Oh, God. . . . Oh, God. . . . What mystery. . . . What beauty. . . .

No.  I can't go back.  I can't.  They are horrible. It was all horrible.  They don't know what they are doing.  I'm even worse.  I'll save him, my innocent child.  God!  My God!  Help me!  Give me the strength, the understanding, and the courage!  Oh, God.  Oh, God.  Oh, my God.  Merciful God.