Roman emperor Nero is used to getting what he wants. He has grown tired of his wife Octavia, and has become infatuated with Poppea. He succeeds in making Poppea the new empress, but soon he faces opposition from an outraged populace. Informed of the danger of an imminent popular uprising, Nero orders to set fire to the city, which he watches from a terrace, rejoicing and playing his lyra.
"Tigre Reale" (1916) was the film that consolidated Frau Menichelli's stardom, a film more than suitable for her performing skills and silent idiosyncrasy that any silent diva would kill to star in… In "Tigre Reale", Frau Menichelli performs the part of Frau Natka, a Russian countess with a troublesome past and an uncertain future. She was married to a revolutionary and the matrimony ended in tragedy. She likes to flirt with men but due to her traumatic sentimental past, she doesn't allow herself attachments. That is until she meets a young diplomat who will help her to make up her mind and exorcize her old sentimental traumas.
While making fun of the frailty of an old lady in the street, a little devil is immediately taken home by the offended policeman who catches him carrying out his nasty prank. Arriving at the child’s home, the keeper of order vehemently lists the facts. However the scallywag doesn’t bow to authority and stands up to the policeman, even mocking his mother who he leaves in despair. But soap bubbles with a strange divinatory power help him to make amends. A film from the catalogues of the company founded by Arturo Ambrosio in Turin in 1904.
