Telefoni Bianchi (Italian pronunciation: [teˈlɛːfoni ˈbjaŋki]; "white telephones") films were made in Italy in the 1930s in imitation of American comedies of the time. For example, there would be expensive Art Deco sets featuring white telephones (status symbol of bourgeois wealth and generally unavailable to the movie-going public), and children would have Shirley Temple curls. The films tended to be socially conservative, promoting family values, respect for authority, a rigid class hierarchy, and country life, all stances perfectly in line with the ideology of the fascist regime. The genre is also referred by modern film critics as "Hungarian style comedies", because they were often adaptation of stage plays of Hungarian authors (a popular source material also for Hollywood productions of the time). In fact, to avoid the limitations imposed by the censure of the fascist authorities, when potentially controversial topics were addressed in the plot (for instance divorce, at the time illegal in Italy, or adultery, a punishable offence by the contemporary Italian law) the action was often set in various, and sometimes imaginary, Eastern European countries, but always with Italian protagonists.
Telefoni bianchi (English:White Telephone, internationally released as The Career of a Chambermaid) is a 1976 Italian comedy film directed by Dino Risi. For this film Agostina Belli was awarded with a Special David di Donatello for her performance. The title refers to the White Telephone comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. The film is a comic portrayal of the Italian film industry during the Fascist era in which an ambitious young woman briefly rises to become a film star.