Official Italy Tourism film from 1954

Thanks for sharing that; it was fun to see the atmosphere in 1954. One of my favorite movies is Summertime with Katherine Hepburn; it was filmed in Venice in 1955.

Oh, to be a tourist when being a tourist was fashionable...:)

Thank you, Tod.

In the video he says 9 million foreigners visit each year. I was curious what it is now, and it was 87.9 million in 2025. Germany led with 15.2 million and then USA with 9.6 million.

https://esploradati.istat.it/databrowser/#/en/dw/categories/IT1,Z0700SER,1.0/SER_TOURISM/DCSC_TUR_OCCYEAR/IT1,122_54_DF_DCSC_TUR_9,1.0

That was fun to watch. Those were the days! I don't imagine that Cadillacs towing trailers was something that was seen too often. Thanks for posting.

In 1954 the Italian economy was not struggling at all. Actually, '50 and '60 are the best time ever for Italy.

I know the late 50s-60s brought the "Third Economic Miracle" but the 50s "boom" were also a time of great population shifts, political and cultural change in Italy. The population shifted around chasing post-war industrial jobs and there was a lot of displacement and upheaval.

The comments in Italian on Youtube were not generally kind to the film and some specifically mentioned the parts of the country not shown in the film outside the tourist areas. So I didn't want to present it entirely without context since the film itself feels a bit like propaganda by itself. I would feel the same way about a film of smiling tourists in the US in the 50s and all it would be leaving out about internal struggles, but it's different when it is another country/culture.

My $.02 as a straniero,
=Tod

The 1950s were the time of the economic miracle, with plenty of jobs following the reconstruction and the building of the modern infrastructure (the great freeways and their endless tunnels you drive on still today were built then). Nevertheless the country was not as rich as it is today, and very few Itslians could afford a car in 1954. The video still displayed the rhetorical tone typical of the fascist era when the Istituto Luce was created.

Molto interessante.

Several of the Youtube comments did touch on the very "pro-national" tone of the movie echoed the fascist manner of talking about Italy and the political leanings of Luce Archive. I think we are much more sensitive to sources and intentions of media now than we have been in the past, but context from foreign cultures is harder to understand or see.

But either way I enjoyed watching a couple of times and will probably watch it again.
=Tod

Oh, to be a tourist when being a tourist was fashionable

Well said. And, the film has the obligatory flip off of a diving board.

I keep thinking “how can you be a tourist wearing those shoes!?!” Ouch!