Tribute to Lex Barker

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.