The Press: Pastepot Wonder

When Rome's picture weekly, La Setti-mana Incom, hit the newsstands last week, Italians took one look at its cover and rushed to buy. Although Ingrid Bergman has permitted no photographs of herself and child, Incom's cover showed a joyful Ingrid cooing to her newborn babe in a hospital room, while Roberto Rossellini, the doctor, the nurse and even the Madonna (from a painting on the wall) seemed to beam with approval. Incom's teasing caption: "The Strange Story of This Photograph."

Inside, Incom told the story, which would not have sounded strange to readers of New York's old tabloid Evening Graphic.-The picture was a fake—or what Incom called a photomontage. Incom's editors had cut out the heads from an old photo of Ingrid and Roberto, and with some paste and an artist's deft strokes, superimposed them, with others, on a photograph posed against the background of a hospital room (see cut). For readers who might feel tricked, Incom ran the original photographs inside, along with a diagram showing how they were mated. The stunt paid off. Incom sold a record 260,000 copies, one-third more than its usual circulation. Among the purchasers: Roberto Rossellini, who, in a fine Italian fury, telephoned Incom's office to bellow that Incom's general manager, Sandro Pal-lavicini, was a bastard. Two rival picture weeklies were less bold and less convincing—Oggi, with a cover showing Ingrid and Roberto looking fondly at a baby that was obviously several months old, and Tempo, which showed a pensive Ingrid reclining on a pillow.