Abstract

This article explores the major textual strategies devoted to star-building in post-World War II Italian cinema. In particular, the article focuses on star-entrance, that expressive trope where stars are given particular attention in film, in order to provide movie fans with a moment of distinctive spectacle and to introduce properly the character they will play in the story. The close examination of a sample of star-entrances, taken from a representative sample of star-vehicles, shows patterns of continuity and discontinuity on the narrative, stylistic and rhetorical levels that justify a first rough model: there are early star-entrances (low delayers), which immediately yield to the spectator’s desire for reward, relying either on surprise or suspense effect; and there are late star-entrances (high delayers), which, at the risk of frustrating audience expectations, defer the pleasure of recognition with more complex and potentially gratifying procedures