Frank Kramer on his beginnings.

Gianfranco Parolini: I'm a different person on set. The set is my whole life.

Let's go back to the start. I lived in a house with a leaky roof in the centre of Rome, near the Trevi Fountain. I used to write thrillers back then. I wrote a hundred of those books that are a hundred pages long. I didn't have any heating and in winter it was freezing, so I used to put newspapers in these big boxes to keep my feet warm while I wrote. They were published by someone called Cantarella.
I started working with Giuseppe D'Amato, an important producer with an office on Via Sistina. I was a director's assistant. I worked on YVONNE OF THE NIGHT, TOMORROW IS TOO LATE and THE FLOWERS OF ST.FRANCIS with Rossellini. And lots of others. I was an assistant on CLEOPATRA and I was disgusted by the way money was wasted. I remember Elizabeth Taylor with pleasure: those violet eyes that changed colour, even though she wasn't anything that special physically. But above all, I was crazy about Richard Burton as an actor. He had a lot of character, he bowled me over. He was splendid!

Sergio Leone and Time Magazine

Sergio Leone: When I went to America after FISTFUL OFDOLLARS and FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE, and stayed at the Plaza, a journalist from Time came to visit me. Every week, Time publishes a color insert, with articles and exceptional photos. And so, while the photographer readied his Nagra, he dropped this insert on the end table, and I began to leaf through it, almost mechanically, past the introductory pages until I reached at the very center some very interesting pictures snapped during a riot in New York. As in a cinematic sequence the photos showed in succession: the entrance of two blacks into a burned out store. Then, we see the two taking a case of beer. Next, the police waiting outside by the exit of the store. Then the youths leaving with their bottles. And the police unleashing a volley of gunfire upon the two in flight. Then The killing of one of the pair. And in the last shot, a policeman with his foot on top of an agonized black man, looking around with the same satisfied expression as a lion hunter in the jungle.
Well, I'd just barely finished surveying this chilling photo sequence, when the photographer turned his Nagra on me and fired away with his first question: " Mr. Leone, how come there's so much violence in your films?" My only response was to ask him if he hadn't yet leafed through the magazine he worked for. It's clear that certain films can be detrimental. RIFIFI might encourage burglary etc. But a certain type of violence belongs to life, it's life that informs art, and not the other way around. Otherwise, it would be sufficient to make only films like CINDERELLA and SNOW WHITE, and we'd have solved all our problems concerning sin and virtue.

Director Duccio Tessari on the Ringo films

Duccio Tessari: Originally, I thought of doing an (ironic) anti-Western, with an actor who did things unconventionally. That is, a hero who shot his enemies in the back because it's much less dangerous than shooting face to face; who'd be inclined to sell himself to the highest bidder; who'd bring an ironic attitude to the character and to the situations he got involved with; committed to a constant jousting between himself and the other characters. I hadn't thought of an actual story yet, but I had some ideas in mind. Then I left for a trip to Spain, I saw a certain house, and I changed my idea completely, because it reminded me of DESPERATE HOURS with Humphrey Bogart. (None of us invents anything. Homer and Tolstoy invented everything, and everyone else just continues to recycle their ideas). So I redid DESPERATE HOURS as a Western, and having written it that way, I did a second draft in a completely ironic anti-Western vein.
Gemma had no difficulties with the acting in UNA PISTOLA PER RINGO (A PISTOL FOR RINGO). Gemma's a young guy who's completely attuned to irony. I must say that having chosen him as the actor ahead of time, writing the part with him in mind made my job much easier. On my first encounter with Gemma I was struck by a man who treated himself and his affairs with a full measure of irony, always taking any situation easily in stride. For IL RITORNO DI RINGO (THE RETURN OF RINGO) I was inspired instead by The Odyssey, blatantly retelling the tale of Ulysses' return home, with Penelope, the Suitors and all the rest. Homer was stupendous at writing stories, so why bother making the effort to think up one of my own? The Odyssey came spontaneously to mind as a source. It's not like I had to torture my intellect to come up with the notion. I truly love the classics, and any time that there's an excuse to retell one of them, I leap at the chance.

In Praise of Canadian Actresses

I've been struck recently to realise that a good many of the female performers in Movies and TV that fascinate me are from that country north of the USA. This has inspired me to list some of them along with where they first captured my attention. These are mostly recent attention grabbers, so I'm not including Fay Wray, Genevieve Bujold and Lois Maxwell.

Mia Kirshner (pictured above - Wolf Lake, TV series)

Sarah Polley (THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN)

Jessalyn Gilsig (Boston Public, TV series)

Laura Regan (THEY)

Polly Shannon (THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, TV movie)

Jewel Staite (Firefly, TV series)

Emily Perkins (GINGER SNAPS)

Katharine Isabelle (GINGER SNAPS)

Sonja Bennett (PUNCH)

Neve Campbell (SCREAM)

Emmanuelle Chriqui (SNOW DAY)

Caroline Dhavernas (Wonderfalls, TV series)

Laura Harris (Dead Like Me, TV series)

Leslie Hope (Line of Fire, TV series)

Missy Peregrym (Reaper, TV series)

Carrie-Anne Moss (THE MATRIX)

Kari Matchette (Invasion, TV series)

Rachel McAdams (Slings & Arrows, TV series)

Ellen Page (JUNO)

Molly Parker (INTENSITY, TV movie)

Sarah Strange (Da Vinci's Inquest, TV series)

Dollhouse #6 "Man On the Street"

I finally took the time to catch up with last week's episode and it "knocked my socks off". I laughed, I teared-up and it didn't cost me nothing. I look forward to tonight's episode with a great deal of anticipation.

Look what I found at the Central Burbank Library on Glenoaks.

I've been thrilled at the selection of DVDs at the Burbank libraries, but was quite astonished to find the unrated DVD version of CALIGULA on the shelf.

Sergio Leone on Clint Eastwood

Sergio Leone: Clint Eastwood was a champion swimmer, and then he spent nine years as second lead on one of those American television series that survive through sheer force of inertia. Of our first meeting, I recall his indolence, the posture and attitudes of a cat-like man. And there was his lazy gait, he moved almost like a sleepwalker. I'd chosen him after the studio turned down James Coburn claiming he was too expensive (at one point, I'd also thought of Henry Fonda, however). Back then, Coburn was asking 25,000 dollars a picture. Clint was prepared to accept 15,000. Naturally, I changed the character to suit him. I had no particular problems directing him. The major difficulty was convincing him that his character ought to clench a cigar between his lips. Eastwood didn't smoke: the smell turned his stomach. I wore myself out teaching him the various tricks of a seasoned cigar aficionado. I also recall that whenever he wasn't needed on the set, he was inclined to nap, and that, although almost two meters tall, he'd found a system of curling himself up into a "topolino" (tiny car), and sleeping as if in the most comfortable of beds. But when the moment came to act, he suddenly acquired dynamism, an incredible speed, in strict contrast with the rest of his personality.