Thirty years ago, on December 9, the great Sicilian actor Franco Franchi died. An unforgettable character to whom – on Friday 9 December – Rai Storia and Rai Teche are dedicating a special tribute. On Rai Storia, at 12.00, the episode of “Ieri e oggi” of 7 June 1980 is re-proposed, presented by Luciano Salce, with Franco Franchi and his almost inseparable cinema and TV partner, Ciccio Ingrassia. It wasn’t the first time that the two had participated in that historic broadcast, where they had already reconciled in ’76, after a period of misunderstanding, in front of the spectators. In the broadcast, Franchi and Ingrassia meet again in their historic TV appearances: the debuts in “Il Cantatutto” of 1964, as Gatto and Volpe in “Pinocchio” of ’72, in vaudeville numbers in “Milleluci ’74”, in a parody of “Due incorrigible boys” of ’76, and in the musical comedy by Garinei and Giovannini “The grand duchess and the waiters”, in the adaptation of ’77 with Valentina Cortese. The two also meet again in “single” appearances: Ciccio Ingrassia in “Tanto Piacere”, where he parodies “Tanto pe’ cantà” and Franco Franchi in “Teatro 11” of 1972.
“Teatro 11” is re-proposed in full by Rai Teche on RaiPlay. In this brilliant parody of the famous “Teatro 10” by Antonello Falqui, broadcast on 18 January 1972, Franchi for the first time tried his hand at a television show without Ciccio Ingrassia, paired with whom he had already made a couple of broadcasts on the wave of the extraordinary popular success of their cinema, over one hundred films released starting from 1960. One of the first “solo” occasions for Franchi was precisely the special that Enzo Trapani sewed for him, together with the authors Giancarlo Guardabassi and Riccardo Pazzaglia, in the wake of the Alberto Lupo and Mina variety that closed its doors on May 14, 1972: only four days later, in the same scenography of the Teatro delle Vittorie, this “forbidden dream” by Franchi was broadcast, which ironically presented itself to the public as a new “beautiful” of television, after the glories of the seducer Lupo. Alongside her, in a role similar to that covered by Mina, a young woman who was exploding in that same period, Loretta Goggi, who with her singing and imitative skills offered an incredible interpretation of the Cremona tiger and its “Great , big big”. The unprecedented pair of presenters concocted a series of numbers between the comic and the musical, aided by the orchestra of maestro Mario Bertolazzi and by guests such as the singer Rosanna Fratello and the Sicilian folk choir of the “Canterini Peloritani”. But Franchi was still the giant, amazing in his execution of the instrumental piece from the film “Limelight” with a simple leaf vibrated between his lips or when he takes lessons on the art of conquering women from Alberto Lupo himself, preparing to woo the legendary Anita Ekberg.
Rai Teche’s tribute to Franco Franchi is also enriched by other titles already present on RaiPlay, from the television versions of “The Adventures of Pinocchio” (1972) and “Kaos” (1984) to the transmission paired with Ciccio Ingrassia “Two boys incorrigible” (1976/77).
