Ernesto Gastaldi (1934 - )
Related: Italian horror - Dario Argento - Mario Bava - Lucio Fulci - giallo - Italian film - European horror - Barbara Steele
Films: I Vampiri (1957) -
giallo cover of story by Ernesto Gastaldi
image sourced here. [Aug 2005]
Intro
The Italian horror film industry started in the late 1950s with the works of Riccardo Freda and Polselli, the 1960s saw the rise of Mario Bava, the 1970s introduced Dario Argento and the 1980s Lucio Fulci. One constant element has been the screenwriting of Ernesto Gastaldi. [Aug 2005]Biography
Ernesto Gastaldi (1934 - ), born in Graglia, Vercelli, Italy on September 10 is an Italian screen writer.
He has written under the pseudonyms Julian Berry, Gastald Green, Julyan Perry and Ernst Gasthaus.
He has collaborated with Mario Bava , Lucio Fulci, Riccardo Freda and Dario Argento, , as such he can be regarded as a chief architect of the giallo film.
The 1973 Italian western comedy film My Name is Nobody (also known as "Mio nome è Nessuno" and "Lonesome Gun"), is based on his story. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernesto_Gastaldi [Aug 2005]
Profile
ERNESTO GASTALDI is one of the most important Italian screenwriters. He wrote more than 100 films, acted by the greatest actresses and actors of the world, as Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn, Telly Savales, Jack Palance, Barbara Steele, J.L.Trintignant, Carrol Baker, Terence Hill, Budd Spencer, Jack Palance, James Mason, Steve McQueen,Van Johnson, Daliah Lahvi, Pamela Tiffin, Lee VanCleef, J.L. Trintignant, James Coburn, Mel ferrer, Glenn Ford, Giancarlo Giannini, Robert DeNiro and many others. His films were directed by very famous directors, as Sergio Leone, Tonino Valerii, Mario Bava, Riccardo Freda, Mario Camerini, Sergio martino, Damiano Damiani, etc., but his cult movies are over all those ones full of fear. --http://ernesto.gastaldi.tripod.com/chiSono.htm [Aug 2005]
see also: Italian horror - Italian cinema
La Decima vittima / 10th Victim (1965) - Elio Petri
image sourced here.
La Decima vittima / 10th Victim (1965) - Elio Petri [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Amazon.com
Long before reality shows took over the TV airwaves and violent parodies like Series 7 and Battle Royale hit international screens, Elio Petri made this campy social satire of a future in which the bored, the ambitious, and the just plain violent can sign up for a deadly game of cat and mouse. "The Big Hunt is necessary as a social safety valve," explains one TV personality. "Why control births when we can control deaths?" Marcello Mastroianni, who plays the womanizing Italian media darling with a gift for ingenious assassinations, becomes the target of sexy champion Ursula Andress, a New York Amazon with a wardrobe as deadly as it is chic. She'll pocket $1 million if she can successfully kill Mastroianni, her 10th and last victim, but on the side she concocts a deal to do the deed in concert with a live song-and-dance extravaganza mounted by a tea company.
Directed with tongue firmly in cheek, Petri lampoons the whole media obsession with high-risk contests and games of chance with cool style, absurdly chic fashions, a bouncy score of organ riffs and funky lounge sounds, and a comically blasé performance by Mastroianni. It's like Fellini gone ballistic with a hint of Divorce, Italian Style: a battle of the sexes in a world where spontaneous shootouts are forever erupting in the fringes of the frame. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com
The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962) - Riccardo Freda
Barbara Steele in The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962) - Riccardo Freda
image sourced here. [Aug 2005]
The outrageous central concern of The Horrible Dr. Hichcock has never been considered appropriate material for any film openly advertised and exhibited to the public, horror or otherwise. That a film about the frustrated passions of a necrophiliac could even be released in 1962 is a censorial mystery in its own right--or, perhaps a clear testament to the way horror films were officially ignored on every cultural level back then1. Did censors perhaps not know what was going on? Did they bother to even watch the film? --Glenn Erickson via http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue05/infocus/hichcock.htm [Aug 2005]
see also: 1962 - Barbara Steele - Riccardo Freda - Italian cinema
My Name Is Nobody (1973) - Tonino Valerii, Sergio Leone
My Name Is Nobody (1973) - Tonino Valerii, Sergio Leone [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Amazon.com
My Name is Nobody is a spoof of spaghetti Westerns, but it's also a legitimate, highly regarded entry in the genre. Its pedigree is purebred, as it was executive produced by the maestro of spaghetti Westerns, Sergio Leone, as a personal farewell to the genre that he helped to create. It's a transitional film, cheekily acknowledging the impact of The Wild Bunch and Sam Peckinpah (whose name is seen on a gravestone in one scene) and the popularity of Terence Hill, whose comedic "Trinity" films represented the last gasp of the once-glorious spaghetti Western. All of these elements are beautifully combined in the amusing tale of Nobody (Hill), an ambitious young gunman in 1899 who idolizes a legendary gunslinger Jack Beauregard, played by Henry Fonda in his final Western (and his second for Leone, after the classic Once Upon a Time in the West). Before Beauregard can retire in peace, Nobody sets up a final showdown of epic proportions, and the great Ennio Morricone enhances the abundance of memorable scenes with one of his most playfully inventive scores (including a comical use of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries"). Tonino Valerii fully deserved his director's credit, but Leone also made significant contributions (including the opening scene), and the result is a delightful and surprisingly resonant film that Steven Spielberg later called his favorite Leone production. It's easy to see why: Like many of Spielberg's films, My Name is Nobody qualifies as both art and entertainment. --Jeff Shannon
My Name is Nobody (also known as "Mio nome è Nessuno" and "Lonesome Gun") is a 1973 western comedy film.
This film was directed by Tonino Valerii and Sergio Leone. It was writen by Sergio Leone, Fulvio Morsella and Ernesto Gastaldi. The cast includes Terence Hill, Henry Fonda, and Jean Martin.
My Name is Nobody was released under various names in America, Italy, France, and West Germany. It has a runtime of 111 for the TCM print, and 117 min outside of America. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_is_Nobody [Aug 2005]
see also: 1973 - spaghetti western - Sergio Leone
The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971) - Sergio Martino
The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971) - Sergio Martino
The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971) - Sergio Martino [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Description
THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH Scream queen, Edwige Fenech, (ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS) stars in this violent masterpiece, the first giallo film directed by Sergio Martino (CASE OF THE SCORPION TAIL, TORSO). Fenech portrays Julie Wardh; a restless woman embroiled in a horrifying mystery that threatens to drive her to the brink of madness...or worse. Which of the men in her life is the vicious serial killer and will Julie become his next victim? Erotic, stylish and at times excessive, THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH remains one of the most celebrated and influential giallo of all time and has been high on the list of most wanted DVDs by collectors and passionate fans of the genre. Written by acclaimed screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi (THE 10th VICTIM, TORSO), this intricate thriller also stars giallo regulars George Hilton (THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH, THE KILLER MUST STRIKE AGAIN), and Ivan Rassimov (Mario Bava's SHOCK, EATEN ALIVE). The haunting and mesmerizing sound track by Nora Orlandi (KILL BILL: VOL. 2) --via Amazon.com
see also: Italian cinema - Edwige Fenech
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