Breast outside
by Paolo Valassi
Clara Calamai (famous for having starred in Luchino Visconti's 1943 film Ossessione) and Doris Duranti (another diva of the 30s and 40s, lover of Alessandro Pavolini, fascist hierarch and Minister of Popular Culture) gave rise to an amusing polemic of a "high" cultural level. Controversy that began in the 1940s and continued until the death of both protagonists (which occurred in the case of Clara Calamai in 1998 and Doris Duranti in 1995).
The point of contention: who had the first naked breast in the history of Italian cinema.
Duranti's performance can be appreciated in the film Carmela, by Flavio Calzavara (1942) while Clara Calamai appeared in a similar scene in the film La cena delle beffe, by Alessandro Blasetti (1941).
So Calamai wins?
Not for Duranti: "... mine was the first naked breast filmed standing up, it appeared erect as it was by nature, proud, without tricks, while Calamai had herself filmed lying down, which is no small difference".
But between the two litigants there is a third who enjoys it: the first to show her naked breast in the history of Italian cinema was actually Vittoria Carpi, a simple extra (and therefore little remembered) in the film La corona di ferro, again by Alessandro Blasetti, 1940.
Aside from this quarrel (which was undoubtedly orchestrated by the astute press offices at the time, with the aim of both increasing the popularity of the two contenders and distracting Italians from much more serious problems), we can say that Calamai was a great actress (in addition to Ossessione we also remember her in Deep Red by Dario Argento, her last appearance on the big screen in 1975), and Duranti was above all a beautiful woman.
Tullio Kezich sums up well what the vast majority of Italian men thought of Duranti:
"When the gossip about the clandestine love affair between Alessandro Pavolini and Doris Duranti began to circulate insistently, Mussolini asked to see a film by the diva. The next day he summoned the hierarch to Palazzo Venezia with the frown of a great occasion. But when they looked into each other's eyes, man to man, the Duce's determination smoothed out: "I wanted to tell you - the dictator began - that last night I saw Duranti's latest film". A long pause for meditation, an alarmed expression on Pavolini's face and an unexpected conclusion: "I understand you".
