Lost Publications from the ’30s: The Film Novel |

Since the Venice International Film Festival is currently on, let's continue the cinematic thread for another day by looking at something that doesn't exist anymore – the film novel.

The latter was a proper magazine, entirely dedicated to a specific movie. The publication usually featured a novel adaptation of a recently released film with several images taken from it and a couple of additional features about the movie industry in general.

The cinematic novel featured in this post was published in July 1934 as the monthly supplement of Italian magazine Cinema Illustrazione. This issue was dedicated to The Scarlet Empress directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Marlene Dietrich.

Apart from being a sort of memorabilia for all the movie fans, the magazine was also a good option for those ones who couldn't afford going to the movies.

Times have changed and the film novel has died, but if you can't afford going to the Venice Film Festival there is a cheaper option – the digital schedule.

Internet users can indeed watch 8 films from the Orizzonti section and 3 films from the Biennale College laboratory online (800 admissions per screening; the films are in their original language with English subititles; tickets are priced 4 Euros each and can be purchased from the dedicated online box office; you can check out the full programme here). Dedicated to all those ones who may be able to live without the film novel format, but can't live without films…