in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco and with the support of Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività CulturaliTotò RecallA 15-Film Retrospective Honoring Italy's Comic GeniusCurated by Paolo Pistolese, translated and subtitled by Gordon Poole. With special thanks to the de Curtis family for their generous support."The most popular film personality in the history of Italian cinema-as well as one of the most naturally funny individuals to ever mug before the movie camera."-J. Hoberman, Village VoiceForget Roberto Begnini; in Italy, Totò is still the King of Comedy, and he's been a long time coming to America. In a screen career that spanned over thirty years and a hundred-odd films, Totò regularly attracted millions of viewers, reaching the peak of popularity in the 1950s and '60s. This was the peak of commedia all'italiana, but Totò was a genre unto himself. He was born a Neapolitan baron-albeit an impoverished one-Antonio de Curtis Gagliardi Ducas Commeno di Bisanzio, in 1898. A music-hall comedian, his vagabond personality was an Italian Charlot, but his comic timing and physical antics were absolutely unique-distinctly regional but universally appreciated, and immediately cinematic. Totò used both his body and his words like finely tuned instruments in concert. With this panoply of gestures he played everything from Everyman to Übermensch, con man to sad clown, twisting the language of his people into the language of comedy. Like Chaplin, he was a master of gesture (Italian Without Words, Totò style), like Keaton, a master of facial expression; but to this we can also add Abbott and Costello, the Marx Brothers, and Jerry Lewis for the brilliant verbal manipulation that is at the core of every Totò film. So in the end he's all of these and none of these: he's totally Totò. The catalog for this first retrospective of the comedian's work in America, Totò Stars and Stripes, published by Cinecittà Holding and Lindau, with essays by Paolo Pistolese, Gordon Poole, Liliana de Curtis, and others, is sold at the PFA Box Office.We wish to thank the Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York, and Amelia Antonucci, Lucius Barre, Camilla Cormanni, Felice Laudadio, and Peter Scarlet for their assistance. Our series title, "Totò Recall," is borrowed with permission from J. Hoberman in the Village Voice. Please Note: A special opening night screening of The Poor and the Noble and Big Deal on Madonna Street is presented by the San Francisco Film Society at the Castro Theater in San Francisco on Friday, February 2. (For information, call 415-931-FILM or visit the Film Society's website at www.sfiff.org) Both films will also be shown in PFA's series. Saturday February 3, 2001