DECAMERON NIGHTS

Eros Films

Presents

An RKO Pictures Release

DECAMERON NIGHTS

Starring: Joan Fontaine as Fiametta, Bartolomea, Ginevra, Isabella; Louis Jourdan as Boccaccio, Paganino, Guilio, Bertrando; and Joan Collins as Pampinea, Maria.

Binnie Barnes as Contessa, Countess of Florence, Witch; Godfrey Tearle as Ricciado, Bernabo; Elliot Makeham as Govenor of Majorca; Noel Purcell as Father Francisco; Marjorie Rhodes as Signora Bucca; Stella Riley, Mara Lane, and Melissa Stribling as Three Girls in the Villa.

Screenplay by George Oppenheimer Based on a treatment by Geza Herczeg. Edited by Russell Lloyd. Director of Photography - Guy Green B.S.C. Music by Anthony Hopkins, Associate Producer Montagu Mar

ks. Produced by M.J. Frankovich & William Szekely. Directed by Hugo Fregonese

Giovanni Boccaccio’s bawdy tales brought to the screen in 50’s Technicolor! Louis Jourdan plays Boccaccio who tells three tales to try and woo his love, Fiametta. “Paganino The Pirate,” tells of a young wife, married to a much older man who teaches her inattentive husband a lesson! “Wager On Virtue,” features an elderly merchant who believes his young wife is cheating on him. “The Doctors Daughter,” when Bertrando saves the life of a female doctor, Isabella, she falls in love with him and by orders of the king, he has to marry her! The love tales that millions have enjoyed are all in Decameron nights!

Buy now on DVD by clicking here! © 1953 RKO 94MINS TECHNICOLOR

Released in 1953, this was Joan’s first American produced film, shot on location in Madrid and Segovia, the film took two years to plan and research. Publicity cited the film as having a cast of 2,200! The Spanish government loaned the makers an exact replica of the “Santa Maria,” Christopher Columbus’ famous vessel used in his voyage to discover America. The film’s co-star Binnie Barnes, married to the producer Mike Frankovich, also served as assistant producer on the film. In fifties Spain, items like makeup, eyelashes, lipstick brushes and hair glue for wigs, were very scarce. Binnie made several round trips from various Spanish locations to London to pick up such items! Joan recalled that the director Hugo Fregonese was a cold man and had no great feeling for his cast. Fregonese’s wife, the fifties star Faith Domerque acted as one of nine interpreters on the internationally cast film. According to Joan, the hotel in which the cast resided during the shoot, resembled a doss house and she recalled that Segovia was filthy. Joan later referred to her role as “A mischievous minx of a lady in waiting.”

Gossip at the time claimed that Joan was almost arrested for wearing tight jeans on the street in Spain! How times have changed! Incidently, Joan Fontaine later starred with Joan in “Island in the Sun”, and co-star Godfrey Tearle played Mr. Dove in Joan’s previous film “I Believe in You.” Decameron Nights probably seemed bawdy at the time of it’s release, viewed today it is very tame with some good locations and photography and a good cast.

Joan plays two roles in the film, like many of the main cast. Her main role as the young Pampinea, who has designs on the older Boccacio, who only has eyes for Fiametta. Joan is eager in the role and conveys both innocence and sultriness. The bulk of the film’s running time is concerned with the three tales told by Boccaccio and Fiametta, and as always everything has a happy ending!

Bosley Crowther of the New York Times reviewed the film 1953:

Even though M.J. Frankovich and William Szekely, dared at least to rush in where other film-makers have feared to tread, by taking the bawdy tales of Italian courtier, Boccaccio and making a motion picture that would vaguely embrace the salty themes of marital discontent and indiscretion, contained in the great “Decameron”. This big Technicolor panorama, is a tame and generally witless trifling with the materials of naughtiness, lacking completely the vitality and the trenchant comments of the original. Jourdan’s performance consists almost entirely in looking handsome and roguish in bright costumes, while Fontaine behaves all coquettish and throwing lady-like leers. Binnie Barnes, whips about without any point or purpose and Joan Collins and Godfrey Tearle are present in lesser roles.

© 2010 Mark McMorrow