Giuseppina

Lovely stuff ... I must have seen this Oscar winning BP film more often than any other film, even including Laurel & Hardy shorts and Tom & Jerry cartoons, but until tonight not since 24th August 1973. And tonight was the first time actually in colour! Apparently this was the last trade test colour film that UK BBC2 showed (I remember watching that day but couldn't recall which were on), one of over a hundred information/educational films multi-repeated throughout the 60's – Giuseppina was broadcast 158 times and was nowhere near the most frequently shown. They were virtually the only programmes on UK TV until teatime during school holidays during that supposed golden age.

I must have been as bored as the teenage girl Giuseppina was in this to see it so often – it's a languid tale of a slow sunny day at a small Italian BP garage, a couple of episodes involving passing good humoured eccentric customers enlivening the day for the family living at the garage. But all Giuseppina wanted was to be taken to the Fair. How could her philosophical father Rossi make a profit from such meagre trade? It struck me (many times) he even had time to oil the axles of a donkey cart squeaking by slowly. To paraphrase The Magnificent Ambersons, it seems we had time for everything back then – the faster we're carried, the less time we have to spare.

I wish the roads were as busy and full of people as pleasant now, and that short films could still be as inconsequential and entertaining as this was. Currently on youtube in 3 parts for anyone interested.

Like other reviewers I remember watching this film as a BBC2 "Trade Test Transmission" and I suppose the last time I saw it was in 1973...until BP recently released it on DVD.

Although I enjoyed watching the film again, I have a very strong feeling that the incidental music-track has been changed. I distinctly remember a jaunty little tune which perfectly fitted the mood of the film, but it's not on the BP DVD. Either my memory (usually very reliable) is playing tricks on me, or the music in this film has been changed, perhaps for copyright reasons. Does this ring any bells for anyone?

This is a modern classic in the guise of a half-hour industrial film. Why is it not better known? It should be celebrated in books, magazines, websites and fan discussion groups!

GIUSEPPINA, filmed in color, became known to British tv viewers in the mid- to late 1960s because it was often broadcast in off-hours as a kind of moving test pattern, a sales incentive in tv dealerships showing off their latest colour television sets.

The film itself, largely dialogue-less and reminiscent of the visual comedy of Jacques Tati, is an endearing story, told with utmost simplicity. Filmed on one location in rural northern Italy, it is centered on the life of 9-year-old Giuseppina whose father runs a BP petrol station.

The film won numerous awards, including an Oscar.

I enjoyed watching my Dad in this film as the American Tourist and wife driving the black Cadillac. He was an American character and stage actor in Italy while in the US Army assigned to the embassy in Verona. We had James Hill visit our home in Palm Springs Ca introducing us as children to rough cut films of his referencing African Tribes and wildlife for potential documentaries. This film is uploaded to YouTube in 3 parts, great story and film!

A truly international film in pristine colour with a British director, a Czech cameraman and an Italian cast.

Director James Hill was presumably familiar with the films of Jacques Tati of which this seems a more benign version. Like Tati it explores the possibilities of colour, notably in the use of BP's green & yellow colour scheme of the petrol station, complete with two canaries in a cage, at which an enormous green & yellow petrol tanker arrives to fill it up.

The only language we hear spoken is Italian, but the subtitling is largely unnecessary since the dialogue as in Tati serves predominately as sound effects.