Okay, this breaks down into three questions:

What were the earliest Italian films to feature American stars?

What were the earliest Italian films to feature Hollywood stars?

What were the earliest Italian films to feature American actors?

I want to rule out co-productions between the U.S. and Italy and Italo films made by Hollywood directors. I can’t say I did the most extensive research (mostly checking random credits on IMDB) but here’s what I found:


What were the earliest Italian films to feature American stars?

CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA (1953) dir.: Carmine Gallone
Anthony Quinn
UOMO, LA BESTIA E LA VIRTU L' (aka MAN, BEAST, AND VIRTUE (1953) dir.: Steno
Orson Welles

If you want to argue that Quinn and Welles weren't exactly stars at that point, I'll throw in:
SENSO (1954) dir.: Luchino Visconti
Farley Granger
ULYSSES (1954) dir.: Mario Camerini
Kirk Douglas (AND Anthony Quinn)

What were the earliest Italian films to feature Hollywood stars?
(not necessarily American)

STROMBOLI (1950) dir.: Roberto Rossellini.
Ingrid Bergman
(followed by several more)


What were the earliest Italian films to feature American actors?

CITY OF PAIN (1948) dir.: Mario Bonnard
w. Constance Dowling (sister of Doris Dowling) – she made six Italian films

BITTER RICE (1949) dir.: Giuseppe De Santis
w. Doris Dowling (from THE LOST WEEKEND and THE BLUE DAHLIA). Co-stars include Vittorio Gassman and Raf Vallone, both of whom would make their mark in Hollywood.

YVONNE LA NUIT (1949) dir.: Giuseppe Amato.
w. Frank Latimore
This is a film starring Italian comedy star Toto and co-starring one-time Fox contract player Latimore (13 RUE MADELEINE, THE RAZOR’S EDGE) in the first of many Italo films he made right after being in BLACK MAGIC, shot in Italy, with Orson Welles.


The most fascinating one I found appears to be an Italian film made in Hollywood and, hence, a co-production. But I’ve never heard of it before and it’s intriguing to me to read of all these classic Hollywood actors being directed in postwar Hollywood by a veteran Italian director:
ADDIO MIMI! (aka HER WONDERFUL LIE) 1947 – dir.: Carmine Gallone. Italy/USA co-prod.
With: John Abbott, Janis Carter, Constance Dowling, Sterling Holloway, Franklin Pangborn, Douglas Dumbrille


Co-productions that I would love to include if I wasn’t ruling them out:

STRANGER ON THE PROWL (1952)
Paul Muni / dir. Joseph Losey

PIRATES OF CAPRI (1949) Italy/USA
Louis Hayward, Binnie Barnes. Dir.: Edgar G. Ulmer.


In each of these categories, there've gotta be even earlier ones. Anyone?

Harriet White was the first American actress to relocate to Rome to participate in Italian cinema, beginning with Rossellini's PAISAN (1946). William Tubbs was an American actor who also appeared in the film. Of course, neither were "stars," but White did star in her second picture, a version of GENOVEFFA DI BRABANTE, the biography of a saint.

New York-born Constance Dowling began working in Italian films in 1948. There were also some British actors, like Jean Kent, who made early arrivals in Italian films.

In the "not [big] stars but American" category Tim touched on, there are plenty more early folks, among them Gar Moore (not...Wood, as I mistakenly posted originally, thinking of the boat designer of that name) who appeared as a GI in a slew of films, including PAISA and ROMA: CITTA LIBERA (both 1946, the latter featuring the Huckleberry Hound/Hoagy Carmichael-esque lowkeyed and amiably drawling Wood performing a nice number at the piano). In an odd reversal, Moore later played the part of an Italian in Robert Florey's VICIOUS YEARS (1950).

The Dowling sisters were only a couple of the folks who attempted to leverage a little celebrity acquired in America for bigger stardom abroad. Another example: Miss America of 1946, Marilyn Buferd, a regular in Italian films from 1949.

continued...I just found an even earlier American participation: Lawrence Parke (apparently an occasional TV actor, as well as an acting coach and guru, in later years) did his Yank GI service in Mario Mattoli's La Vita ricomincia way back in 1945. The title of the film is emblematic: 'Life recommences', referring both (I'd argue) to life-after-wartime and to the making of Italian movies; this was one of the very first post-war productions.

CROSSED SWORDS (IL MAESTRO DI DON GIOVANNI) 1953 with Errol Flynn must be an early example of a very big star working in Italy, not long before is ill fated attempt to make WILLIAM TELL which would have amde him a significant figure in Italo - American co-production.

It took me years to get a copy of CROSSED SWORDS but in very poor quality. I'd love to see a good print as Jack Cardiff photographed it and it's a pretty decent swashbuckler.

Michael