Neapolitan coffee and cinema: Neapolitan Carosello with Sophia Loren

Article written by Michele Sergio and published in L’Espresso Napoletano of June 2018

Naples, Belle Epoque: along the main streets of Naples there are alluring and elegant cafés frequented mainly by the exponents of the aristocracy and the bourgeois citizens. They were the places to drink coffee considering that espresso did not exist yet nor, consequently, the possibility of drinking it at the counter.

The clientele, therefore, sat at the coffee tables arranged not only inside the same – finely furnished with red sofas, mirrors, marbles, paintings – but also outside. The mild climate of Partenope favored, unlike in other European cities, the setting up of rooms placed outside the rooms, graceful courtyards bounded, normally, by slender wrought iron railings, uncovered terraces of old, sometimes placed as well as on the sidewalks and the spaces in front, even in the streets adjacent to the exercises.

Ever more inviting and comfortable, among marble tables, Viennese straws, flower boxes and gazebos, the terraces attracted the patrons, even more than the internal rooms. It is here that the frequenters of the Neapolitan Cafés loved to spend the idle hours at the end of the 19th century, in the welcoming courtyards of the most exclusive locations of the time, where politics, culture and art were made, tasting the most fashionable delicacies – chocolate, coffee, ice cream – and admiring performances, singing and dancing.

More than a film told about the fashion of spending long moments of the day at the coffee tables. Particular mention deserves among these the first Italian musical in color, Carosello Napoletano, a very successful cinematographic work, with, however, flattering critical reviews.

The film, from 1954, is a revisitation of the homonymous theatrical work represented a few years earlier in the theaters of Florence and Rome. Signed by the director Ettore Giannini includes a multitude of great actors and singers, including a very young Sophia Loren, Giacomo Rondinella and Paolo Stoppa.

And ‘music is the common thread that unites decades of Neapolitan life, foreign dominations social-political developments and customs: Naples told through the centuries, through its great song, common denominator of our tradition. Among the most beautiful and touching scenes of the film is the one that takes place in front of the terrace of the historic Cafe par excellence of our city, the Gambrinus. Sitting comfortably at the table appears a large high-ranking family, intent to enjoy, in each of the components, an inviting and tasty ice cream, with their children in particular, all rigidly dressed as a sailor (according to the custom of the time), to lick it voluptuously. All in a row, behind, the members of the poor family of Paolo Stoppa, dedicated to the spread of street music with a pianino, who are satisfied (not being able, otherwise they do) to look at the life that flows before their eyes: the lucky ones while eagerly eating their ice creams, singers and dancers who amuse and passionate with their art patrons and passers-by, even more unfortunate sciences who undertake to polish shoes of detached and pretentious gentlemen, while ramshackle and luxurious carts cars parade along the way.

In front of the Cafés, to their terraces, the life of the Neapolitans takes place, with its contrasts of census and condition, its miseries and its comforts. The whole world is in constant motion in front of the courtyards of the most important places in Naples, huge containers of a variegated world that, with the necessary differences, is still there, between differences and contradictions.