Mauro Bolognini (28 June 1922 – 14 May 2001) was an Italian film director of literate sensibility, known for masterful handling of period subject matter.

Mauro Bolognini was born in Pistoia, Tuscany.

A former architectural student, Bolognini began his film career as an assistant to director Luigi Zampa in Italy, and directors Yves Allegret and Jean Delannoy in France. He began directing his own feature films in the mid 1950s, and had his first international success with Gli innamorati (“Wild Love”).

His other notable films of the 1950s and early 1960s include Giovani mariti (“Young Husbands”), La notte brava, La giornata balorda (“From a Roman Balcony”), and the Marcello Mastroianni-Claudia Cardinale starrer Il bell’Antonio (arguably his masterpiece), all written by Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Parting professionally with Pasolini in 1961, Bolognini went on to direct two sensual love stories starring Cardinale, La Viaccia and Senilità, before turning his talents… read more

Mauro Bolognini (28 June 1922 – 14 May 2001) was an Italian film director of literate sensibility, known for masterful handling of period subject matter.

Mauro Bolognini was born in Pistoia, Tuscany.

A former architectural student, Bolognini began his film career as an assistant to director Luigi Zampa in Italy, and directors Yves Allegret and Jean Delannoy in France. He began directing his own feature films in the mid 1950s, and had his first international success with Gli innamorati (“Wild Love”).

His other notable films of the 1950s and early 1960s include Giovani mariti (“Young Husbands”), La notte brava, La giornata balorda (“From a Roman Balcony”), and the Marcello Mastroianni-Claudia Cardinale starrer Il bell’Antonio (arguably his masterpiece), all written by Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Parting professionally with Pasolini in 1961, Bolognini went on to direct two sensual love stories starring Cardinale, La Viaccia and Senilità, before turning his talents to a series of international anthology films, including Le bambole (The Dolls), I tre volti (“Three Faces of a Woman”), Le fate (“The Queens”) and Le streghe (The Witches).

Returning to features in the late 1960s with Mademoiselle De Maupin, his later works included the accomplished period dramas Metello and Bubu (both featuring Massimo Ranieri), Fatti di gente per bene (La Grande Bourgeoise) starring Giancarlo Giannini, Catherine Deneuve and Fernando Rey, L’eredità Ferramonti (The Inheritance) with Anthony Quinn and Dominique Sanda, and La Dame aux camélias featuring a young Isabelle Huppert.

In his later years, Bolognini continued directing feature films, as well as opera and the television miniseries The Charterhouse of Parma and The Time Of Indifference. His final movie feature was the soft-core erotic drama Husbands and Lovers, released in 1992. In 1994 he directed the show that the top female Greek singer Haris Alexiou appeared in the world famous Odeon of Herodes Atticus. He died in Rome in 2001. —Wikipedia

read less

Luciano Salce

Luciano Salce (25 September 1922 – 17 December 1989) was an Italian film director and actor. His 1962 film Le pillole di Ercole was shown as part of a retrospective on Italian comedy at the 67th Venice International Film Festival. He was born and died in Rome. —Wikipedia

Alberto Sordi

Alberto Sordi, also known as Albertone, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (June 15, 1920 – February 25, 2003) was an Italian actor. He was also a film director and the dubbing voice of Oliver Hardy in the Italian version of the Laurel & Hardy films.

Born in Rome to a schoolteacher and a musician, Sordi enrolled in Milan’s dramatic arts academy but was kicked out because of his thick Roman accent. It was his accent that would later prove to be his trademark.

In a career that spanned seven decades, Sordi established himself as an icon of Italian cinema with his representative skills at both comedy and light drama. His movie career began in the late 1930s with bit parts and secondary characters in wartime movies. After the war he began working as a dubber for the Italian versions of Laurel and Hardy shorts, voicing Oliver Hardy. Early roles included Fellini’s The White Sheik in 1952, Fellini’s I vitelloni (1953), a movie about young slackers, in which he plays a weak, effeminate… read more

Alberto Sordi, also known as Albertone, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (June 15, 1920 – February 25, 2003) was an Italian actor. He was also a film director and the dubbing voice of Oliver Hardy in the Italian version of the Laurel & Hardy films.

Born in Rome to a schoolteacher and a musician, Sordi enrolled in Milan’s dramatic arts academy but was kicked out because of his thick Roman accent. It was his accent that would later prove to be his trademark.

In a career that spanned seven decades, Sordi established himself as an icon of Italian cinema with his representative skills at both comedy and light drama. His movie career began in the late 1930s with bit parts and secondary characters in wartime movies. After the war he began working as a dubber for the Italian versions of Laurel and Hardy shorts, voicing Oliver Hardy. Early roles included Fellini’s The White Sheik in 1952, Fellini’s I vitelloni (1953), a movie about young slackers, in which he plays a weak, effeminate immature loafer and a starring role in Lo scapolo (The Bachelor) playing a single man trying to find love. In 1959 he appeared in Monicelli’s The Great War, considered by many critics and film historians to be one of the best Italian comedies. The Hollywood Foreign Press recognized his abilities when he was awarded a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actor in a Musical or Comedy for Il diavolo (1963). Sordi acted alongside Britain’s David Niven in the World War II comedy The Best of Enemies and in 1965 he was in another highly regarded comedy, I complessi (Complexes).

Sordi also succeeded in dramatic roles, most notably in 1977’s Un borghese piccolo piccolo (An Average Little Man) in which he portrays an elderly whose son is killed in an armed robbery, and sets out to exact revenge.

In 1984, he directed and co-scripted Tutti dentro (Off to jail, everybody), in which he played a judge who has warrants for corruption served on ministers and businessmen. Alberto Sordi was really masterful in two broad roles: one being the one of the underdog, militating against injustices and prevarications, the other that of the prevaricator himself. One has only to watch his performances as the returning emigrant unjustly convicted in Detenuto in attesa di giudizio or the miserly sub-proletarian of Lo scopone scientifico teased by the old millionaire Bette Davis into endless card games where he hopes to find release from his poverty to appreciate his skills in the first role, while the rampant, unscrupulous doctor he plays in Il medico della mutua is the perfect example of his aptness at rendering characters who were both truly despicable and completely believable. In 1985, he was a member of the jury at the 35th Berlin International Film Festival.

Sordi died shortly before his eighty-third birthday following a heart attack. A crowd in excess of a million gathered to pay their last respects at his funeral by the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the largest of such event ever attended in Rome, second only to that of Pope John Paul II who died two years later. — Wikipedia

read less