If Cortina has always been an ideal and ‘natural’ film set, its Jewel, the Cristallo Hotel Spa & Golf, is its most fascinating example: a wonderful location for films, both past and present, it actually has adapted its Neoclassical halls to the requirements of the seventh art.
Not only a film set with a spectacular backdrop, but a real life for dreamworld people who have often chosen this resort, lying in the shadow of the Dolomites, for their own holidays: kings and queens, aristocrats, actors and actresses, artists and ‘prima donnas’, such as Brigitte Bardot, Frank Sinatra, Peter Sellers, Claudia Cardinale, Vladimir Nabokov, Ira Furstenberg and Alberto Sordi.

Aided and assisted by the breathtaking panorama of the Tofane mountain slopes, by its refined architecture and by its fin de siècle atmosphere, for about one hundred years the Cristallo Hotel Spa & Golf has been one of the most sought-after, international destinations, made especially famous by films which have immortalized its charm and glamour; but also by famous names – kings, queens, actors and actresses, aristocrats and artists – who have made it their personal buen retiro. The most aristocratic hotel of the Dolomites has offered hospitality to both Italian and international film stars, who have enjoyed their life there, far away from the spotlights. From Brigitte Bardot to Frank Sinatra, from Peter Sellers to Claudia Cardinale. Stories of daily, hardly ordinary life, experienced between fiction – that of the seventh art – and reality.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Hotel’s registers already held the signatures of distinguished people, such as Leo Tolstoy, but it is at the end of the 1920’s that the Cristallo Hotel entered a truly golden era: musical evenings, tea dances and a frenetic, high society life, enjoyed by the most important names of the Italian cultural and aristocratic world: Umberto di Savoia, Duke Amedeo d’Aosta, King Faud of Egypt and Gabriele d’Annunzio. This carefree and delightful period in Cortina d’Ampezzo was interrupted by World War II; but then it began again, at full steam, during the Dolce Vita years when, once again, it offered its famous guests - such as the Nobel Prizewinner Saul Bellow and Vladimir Nabokov - the elegant and exclusive atmosphere that has always been its hallmark.

The fabulous Sixties were, in fact, a period of intense, cultural turmoil which the Ampezzo valley was not excluded from, leaving behind indelible signs even inside the Cristallo Hotel. Some can still be seen in famous films, which are indeed realistic and valuable documents that show the irrestible fascination of this high altitude, 5-star, luxury hotel to its very best. In 1962, Frank Sinatra booked the entire hotel, in exclusive use for himself and his troupe for the whole of September, while filming Von Ryan Express – in which Raffaella Carrà made one of her very first appearances. Sinatra was known to be a natural loner but, while staying in Cortina d’Ampezzo, a surprisingly warm soul emerged. Brad Dexter, too, playing an SS sergeant in the same film, was no less eccentric: on arriving, the Hotel porter almost fainted, fearing – for one day – a return to the war years.

Instead, 1963 was the year of the famous film The Pink Panther directed by Blake Edwards, which brought to Cortina, and to the Cristallo, David Niven, playing the role of a gentleman thief; Peter Sellers, the unforgettable Inspector Clouseau; and the enchanting Claudia Cardinale at her first Hollywood experience, in the role of a wealthy princess.

More or less at the same time, the Monkey club opened inside the Cristallo, one of the most famous Italian nightclubs, where the golden youth of the period loved to spend their time, at its renowned parties, and which was the birthplace of many, passionate love stories. The club soon became a meeting place for the young élite of the 60’s and 70’s, amongst whom were wealthy industrialists, royal family members, film actors and actresses, artists and writers who took to spending their time there, more and more frequently: famous names that stand out are Brigitte Bardot, the Liechtenstein princes, Ira Furstenberg, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo.

In the luxurious, Cortina winter setting, the four episodes were shot for the film Vacanze d’Inverno which brought, for the first time, the ‘maestro’ Vittorio de Sica, Renato Salvatori, the lovely Michelle Morgan and Alberto Sordi to the Cristallo. In fact, Alberto Sordi appreciated Cortina to such a point that he returned in 1974 to shoot Finché c’è guerra c’è speranza, which he both directed and acted in.

In the 1980’s, the Vanzina brothers made Cortina home to the Italian cinema, full of cheerful, easy-going and vivacious film stars. Thus, in 1983, the first of a successful series of films, which went on to become cult movies, was made here: Vacanze di Natale, with Jerry Calà, Christian De Sica, Claudio Amendola and Stefania Sandrelli, set – of course – in the splendid and deluxe, 5-star hotel, overlooking the Pallidi Mountains. And so we come up to 2011. Twenty-eight years later, Carlo and Enrico Vanzina returned to the Cristallo, to shoot another film, once again together with De Sica, with a seductive Sabrina Ferilli and with an amusing and likeable Ricky Memphis. Vacanze di Natale a Cortina is yet another confirmation of the solid bond between cinema, pleasure and Dolomitic landscapes.

The Cristallo Hotel Spa & Golf has been working for more than a century and can recount a part of not only Italian, but also international, history and customs: the rooms of this luxurious Hotel, with a view over the Tofane slopes, have offered hospitality to leading and prominent figures and have enchanted the best film directors who, via the films they made there, have immortalized the image and the sophisticated elegance of this fairy-tale hotel.