Palio

Leda Gloria agrees to marry Guido Celano if he wins the Palio for their ward. When he is chosen to ride for Lupe, there is much jubilation. There are offers of bribes, which he rejects. But the evening before the race, a singer slips him the key to her room. The next morning, he is found in the street with a concussion.

The Palio is a bareback horse race run in July and August each year in Siena. In 1590, bullfighting was outlawed in Tuscany, so the people replaced it with a buffalo riding race, then donkeys. In 1633 in became a bareback horse race. Ten of the seventeen wards puts up a rider, and after a day of festivities, it's run after seven. Typically the race takes only ninety seconds, and a lot of horses finish without a rider.

The movie was shot in Siena, so there's lots of its medieval architecture on view, as well as the pageantry that accompanies the race; that makes this movie worth watching, even more than than the beefy Celano, who doesn't look like anyone I would think of as a jockey. Cameraman Anchise Brizzi shoots him like they're planning a revive Maciste with Celano as the strong man -- Brizzi had shot the last few starring Bartolomeo Pagano.

An anticipation of Blasetti's style. A great movie about the Siena Palio. Guido Celano (Zarre) is a very good actress and Leda Gloria too. The Tuscany environment is very well depicted. The performing style is influenced by the period, but it is quite good anyway. It is a very uncommon movie and the best representation of Palio, a religious and sporting event in Siena. Blasetti, then, after Il Palio and Terre Sole, start a wonderful career as director and will anticipates the "neorealism" with his 1942's movie "Quattro passi fra le nuvole". Very impressive the opening scene with Zarre riding a horse in the Siena countryside.