A journey through fascinating facts for film history enthusiasts, in the order in which they were discovered.

The Excelsior Palace Hotel in Rapallo was the set for some of the first external film shoots with Battesimo di Nave (1914), played and directed by Giano Paolo Rosmino, a historic name in Italian cinema. For the now virtually lost film Vita Futurista, the brainchild of Marinetti, the father of Futurism, and the painter Balla, amongst others, Arnoldo Ginna chose Caffè Ristorante La Loggia in Florence, in the summer of 1916, as the set for the scene in which the old gentleman is abruptly addressed by the young Futurists, symbolising the contrast between a rearward-looking world and their dynamic new culture. In Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America (1984), the solitary and exquisitely tender dance scene with De Niro and McGovern in the luxury restaurant with all the tables laid was actually shot at the Excelsior in Venice. The battle scenes in Visconti’s Senso (1954) were filmed around the Antica Locanda Mincio in Valeggio. Hitchcock created some shots for his To Catch a Thief (1955) at the Hotel Bristol Palace in Genoa, and a scene in Mario Monicelli’s The Organizer (1963), with Marcello Mastroianni and Annie Girardot, was played out at Pasticceria Arione in Cuneo. Caffè Meletti in Ascoli Piceno formed the backdrop for scenes in Francesco Maselli’s I Delfini (1960), with Claudia Cardinale and for Alfredo, Alfredo by Pietro Germi (1972), with Dustin Hoffman; Caffè Fiorio in Turin features in Mario Soldati’s “Piccolo mondo antico” (1941) and in Davide Ferrario’s “Tutti giù per terra” (1997); and Caffè Mulassano in Turin was the setting for a scene in Addio Giovinezza (1940) and Dario Argento’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971). The Bicerin in Turin appears in the TV drama Amore e Ginnastica (1973) by Luigi Filippo D’Amico, taken from the writings of Edmondo De Amicis.
Silvio Soldini set a scene in Agata and the Storm (2004) at the Ö Vittorio restaurant in Recco. At Caffè dei Costanti in Arezzo, Roberto Benigni shot the scene of the boy who reads the words “Access forbidden to dogs and Jews” in the Oscar-winning Life is Beautiful (1997); Martin Scorsese filmed scenes from *The Departed* (2006), starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson, at the Barbetta Restaurant in New York. In 1925 Alfred Hitchcock set the brief honeymoon scene of his first feature film, The Pleasure Garden, with Virginia Valli and Miles Mander, in the splendid gardens of the Grand Hotel Villa d’Este in Cernobbio. And it was here that Carlo Lizzani’s Mussolini. The Last Four Days was shot with Rod Steiger and Henry Fonda in the winter of 1974, when the hotel was closed, to ensure the privacy of its guests. The hotel gardens were also used as a setting for the soap opera Beautiful. Making an exception before the opening, Villa d’Este opened its doors on 29 February 2008 to the troupe of the film The Other Man with Richard Eyre, Liam Neeson, Antonio Banderas, and Laura Linney. In 1957 Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones, the lead characters in A Farewell to Arms, based on Hemingway’s novel,stayed at the Hotel de La Poste in Cortina d’Ampezzo, and the director, Charles Vidor, shot a scene from the film here. The Caffè Reggio in New York was the set for John Huston’s The Kremlin Letter in 1969, with Patrick O’Neal and Bibi Andersson and for Next Stop, Greenwich Village of 1975, directed by Paul Mazursky, with Lenny Baker, Shelley Winters and Christopher Walken; in the 2013 film Inside Llewyn Davis, by Ethan and Joel Coen, which paints a splendid portrait of Greenwich Village in theyears when it was the cradle of folk music, Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac), the protagonist, explicitly mentions the establishment: “See you at the Reggio” – which was one of the cultural landmarks at the time – and here, at a table, he is subjected to a tragicomic outburst from Jean Berkey (Carey Mulligan). Barbetta Restaurant in New York was the setting for Mervyn LeRoy’s 1959 film “The FBI Story”, starring James Stewart and Vera Miles; Woody Allen’s 1990 film “Alice”, starring Mia Farrow, William Hurt and Alec Baldwin; the television series “Sex and the City”, which ran from 1998 to 2004, created by Darren Star and starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall and Kristin Davis; and “The Departed” (2006), directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson.
In 2012, a scene for Pupi Avati’s television drama Un matrimonio, with Christian De Sica and Andrea Roncato, was shot at the Pasticceria Paolo Atti in Bologna. The opening shot of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1975 Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom contains a view of the Grand Hotel Gardone. And some scenes of The Yes Man of 1991, with Nanni Moretti and Silvio Orlando, were shot by the director Daniele Lucchetti also at the Grand Hotel Gardone. Some scenes in Hanno rubato un tram, of 1954, starring and directed by Aldo Fabrizi, with Carlo Campanini, and stunning photography by Mario Bava, were shot on the first floor of the Hotel Baglioni, now the Grand Hotel Majestic, in Bologna. A theatre anecdote: the unforgettable Gilberto Govi, life and soul of Genoese theatre, mentioned the Confetteria Romanengo in Genoa in every performance in Genoa of the comedy Maneggi per maritare una figlia: he would come on stage with a little package wrapped in sugar paper and, dangling it on a string like a bow, he would joyfully repeat a gluttonous “Romanengo zuccari!” causing great hilarity among the audience. Gabriele Salvatores shot “Happy Family” in 2009, choosing the Pasticceria Cucchi in Milan for a scene in which Fabio De Luigi purchases a delicacy for the girl he cares for, and says “this is the best zuccotto in the world”. The Royal Victoria Hotel in Pisa has been the set for many films and even more episodes of TV drama: of particular note the movies “L’amore ritrovato” by Marco Mazzacurati, “La fanciulla del lago” by Paolo Benvenuti, “Che resti tra noi” by Cristina Comencini and “Niente di serio” directed by Laszlo Barbo were filmed here. Also set at the Royal Victoria Hotel is the second season of the successful series “L’amica geniale”, and many theatre plays took place in various rooms of the hotel. Scripts and screenplay for the television series “I bastardi diPizzofalcone” directed by Carlo Carlei, first took shape at a table at the Gran Caffè Gambrinus in Naples. And – who’d have thought it! – Maurizio de Giovanni, who wrote the stories, made his artistic debut at the Gambrinus, where he won the first Porsche 911 Creative Writing Contest.