WHEN THE LIGHTS went out, Primo Carnera appeared at the doors to Madison Square Garden, amid the photographers’ popping flashes and surrounded by fans trying to leap over the journalists to touch him. The giant’s presence on the screen at the Cinema Comunale was greeted by a huge uproar. He wore a fedora, which floated above the other heads, because the Italian boxer was six foot six inches tall. The entire audience stood up and applauded the recently crowned heavyweight world champion.
The titles for the newsreel suddenly came up, at the top of the screen, and scrolled downwards as a prelude to the change in scene. The new location thrilled the audience equally: the boxer reappeared on a Long Island beach, jabbing at a punchbag with his left fist. Every once in a while, when you least expected it, he switched arms for a right punch.
‘A right uppercut,’ explained Vitantonio to Giocavazzo, who was sitting beside him.
Next, the boxer was skipping on the same beach, surrounded by girls in bathing suits, and the cinema crowd again erupted in cheers. They sat back down when the camera focused on his legs jumping to the rope’s rhythm before it made its way up to a close-up of his face, scarred by his matches and marked by very thick black eyebrows. Despite his rough air, he seemed like a good kid; Primo Carnera was the gentle giant.
Soon the images showed him getting into the ring at Madison Square Garden, wearing a shiny silver silk robe. Vitantonio threw himself forward and exchanged a smile with Franco, who was sitting two seats away. Carnera was their idol and they howled like madmen when poor Jack Sharkey went down for the count in the sixth round and didn’t get back up again. The whole cinema was reliving 29 June 1933, the Feast of Sts Peter and Paul, when the hero of Mussolini’s Italy had won the gleaming belt that proclaimed him world champion.
The film sped up. The fights flickered over the screen so quickly that the spectators could barely follow the events: a title announced a match a year later with America’s Max Baer, but they weren’t shown the footage of Carnera’s defeat, which Mussolini himself had censored. Next up was a very equal exchange with the American Joe Louis in June 1935, but the report still omitted the Italian boxer’s fall to the canvas at the end of the sixth round. It had been only three months since Carnera’s latest defeat, which Italy’s fascist leaders were trying to downplay, and Vitantonio expressed his firm conviction to Giocavazzo: ‘When he gets another chance, he’ll win back the world title. He’s the strongest.’
The end of the newsreel repeated the images of the Italian boxer’s glory days. The cinema again burst into applause and calm didn’t return until Vittorio De Sica appeared on the screen, pedalling along with a charming smile, and the film What Scoundrels Men Are! began. The first few frames acted to tame the savage beasts at Bellorotondo’s Cinema Comunale. Vitantonio again leaned forward to give Franco a sign of approval, but he found him halfway to his feet and staring to one side of the theatre. Scanning the hall to see what had caught his cousin’s eye, three rows further on he saw that Salvatore had just put his arm around Giovanna’s shoulder.
As they were leaving the Comunale, Franco berated him. ‘If she was my sister, I wouldn’t stand for that. His father is a communist and he probably is too.’
‘Don’t start with that again,’ said Vitantonio, frustrated. ‘Skinny Vicino is a good man and a good worker. They’d be lucky to have more like him at the factory.’
Giovanna and Vitantonio had been at secondary school in Bari for six years now, she at the Istituto Margherita and he at the Liceo Classico Quinto Orazio Flacco, but their boarding schools were two different worlds and their paths rarely crossed in the city. They saw each other only at Christmas, Easter and special family occasions at the palazzo in Bellorotondo. But every time they did manage to meet up, they hugged each other tighter than ever. During this summer’s holidays, Giovanna had often been seen at the Cinema Comunale with Salvatore’s gang, all of them five or six years older than Vitantonio’s friends. The first time he saw Giovanna and Salvatore together he felt a very unpleasant stab of jealousy, but he soon shrugged the feeling off. If it had been someone other than Skinny’s son, he might not have been able to stand it; but, in fact, it was Franco who couldn’t bear seeing her with Salvatore.