I collected some travel reports I received from Barkoholics who had been travelling on Lex Barker's traces and sent me a report and/or some pics. Lex Barker had either private connections to this places or he shot movies there. Enjoy!
I want to thank those who sent me their reports, first of all my friend Tanja!
In August 2012 we travelled to Kalabrien (Italy). As we passed the "Eternal City" of Rome we decided to pay a visit to Cinecittà. But soon we got our first disappointment: the parking lot of Cinecittà was closed, and some employees demonstrated against the close-down of this movie city.
After getting a place for our camper we finally stood in front of the
entrance. As the nice lady at the check-out point didn't understand neither
German nor English we had some difficulties to communicate, but after a while we
learned that a conducted tour in English was to start just an hour later, so we
had some time to visit Cinecittà's museum.
First we visited the exhibition of famous director Federico
Fellini, who among other movies shot cult movie with Lex Barker, Anita
Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni "La Dolce Vita" (1960). One room
showed clippings of some Fellini movies, additionally lobbycards, screenplays,
production material etc. were shown. Two cabinets showed material from "La Dolce Vita",
unfortunately all labels were in Italian only.
In a nearby building documentary movies showed the production of a movie, in
other rooms scenery sets were shown and especially the wonderful period costumes
were most impressing. Here you could learn more about the craft of costume and
make-up artists. Very impressing was also a reproduction of a submarine's
interior. You seemed to enter a completely different world, where you could hear
the clicking and buzzing noises and feel the narrowness of a real submarine.
Time passed by much to soon and we joined the conducted tour through the outside
settings.
The guide gave us a short introduction before we followed her to the settings.
We passed many halls which were used for indoor sets and which we unfortunately
couldn't visit because of shootings for an Italian Telenovela. Passing an edge
we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of the movie set of "Gangs of New
York", in which Leonardo di Caprio played the leading role. The set was very
impressive but some indication of deterioration could not be overlooked.
After a short walk through the street of "Gangs of New York" we reached
another set: an awesome reproduction of a Roman main street and a Roman quarter
for a series called "Rome". The guide explained a lot of interesting facts about
the making and repairing of the set. One more set was partly used for the series
"The Borgias" which I knew so I recognized some of the buildings.
About 1½ hours later the tour was finished and our guide answered some
more questions. As it was very hot this day and we had walked a lot we entered
an air conditioned cafeteria to refresh and take a cold drink. We were very
happy that we had decided to visit Cinecittà with
all its recollections of a long gone time. It is very sad that the continuity of
this old movie city, where among others Lex Barker shot some of his movies, is
not secured at the time and we do hope that there will be a solution to this
problem so many future visiters will be able to get a wonderful insight in the
world of movies.
Tanja
Cinecittà — Rome's movie city
Entrance to the Federico Fellini museum
Costumes shown in the museum
Poster of "La Dolce Vita"
Setting from "Gangs of New York"
Set from "The Borgias"