Aldo Dalla Vecchia’s “La Tele a Torino”

An agile and economical pocket manual, like a small precious treasure chest. It brings together 70 years of television linked to a city that is not Rai’s Rome nor Mediaset’s Milan, but rather the austere, elegant and profitable Turin.

“It’s a destiny, or perhaps it’s part of the character of the people of Turin: cinema was born in Turin and was stolen, television was born in Turin and was stolen, the book fair was born in Turin and they tried to steal it… ” (page 82)

Aldo Dalla Vecchia, a television author who has always been in love with the medium, tells us about the Piedmontese roots of Italian TV, listing, in a sort of minimal dictionary, all the characters who laid the foundations of this great cultural and entertainment operation. Well-known and lesser-known names, hosts like Mike Bongiorno, but also great intellectuals of the past like Umberto Eco.

Strong-willed and passionate men, emancipated women who were an example for their gender; roaring and romantic years that unfortunately will never return. Although programs continue to exist in various forms, the golden moment of television now seems to have passed — let’s face it — just as the giants, who made this then pioneering medium great, are sadly deceased.

The work is completed by beautiful interviews with great ladies of TV such as Enza Sampò, Raffaella Carrà and the director Alda Grimaldi, an in-depth analysis of the Museum of Radio and Television, and a tasty unpublished story with a Piedmontese setting, a cathode theme and thriller genre.

Overall, another unmissable cameo by Aldo Dalla Vecchia.