Gianfranco Parolini on Serge Gainsbourg

Gianfranco Parolini: Serge Gainsbourg was someone I liked very much. I was given him by the French co-producer, a certain De Nesle who owned "Le Comptoir Francais du Film Production". And he came to do the films (SAMSON and FURY OF HERCULES). He thought he was God Almighty and one day he indulged himself by lighting a cigarette with a Yugoslavian dinar. They arrested him! I went through hell to get him out of jail! And tomorrow... it will be Samson's turn. He didn't realize what he'd done. This is... a kind of indication of the man's character. The rest went okay, nothing out of the ordinary.

Gemma on making Westerns

Giuliano Gemma: UNA PISTOLA PER RINGO (A PISTOL FOR RINGO) cost 115 milion lire it seems to me, and Ferroni's PER POCHI DOLLARI ANCORA (FORT YUMA GOLD) 195 million, a film that then went on to make three billion. So, Westerns were doing colossal business, especially if you consider that tickets still cost just 500 lire in those days. PER POCHI DOLLARI ANCORA was shot in twenty-eight days. One would leave Rome at five in the morning, and be on location at Manzara, all made up and ready to film at seven because it was winter, and the light wasn't any good by three in the afternoon. I think it was the first film for Turchetto and Montanari, the producers. I believe one of them had been an accountant at a firm, and the other one a lawyer. They'd already had dealings with film, though not as producers, and they're among the few from that period still involved in production. I've never worked with them again. I didn't like them at all. They'd show up on the set, look all around, rap you on the head, as if to say " My God, what are you doing?!" They didn't understand a thing, they just flapped their jaws. They wanted to teach me how to shoot a pistol! And, when I asked them if they knew how to shoot a gun, they responded no, they didn't. They believed so little in that film that it's been claimed they were the first people out the exit, and that later they had to eat their words.

Sergio Leone's DP

by Nighteagle

Tonino delli Colli: Leone used to shoot a humongous amount of film. He would shoot a scene from different angles, using different lenses. The magic was done then during the editing phase. There, and only there, he selected what he really liked.Editing lasted much longer than shooting the movie. In ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA we shot 300.000 meters of film.The editing took 6 months! THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY was finished at 5 o´clock in the early morning of the day when its first grand showing was scheduled. The distributors from all over Italy had flown into Rome to try to get copies! And what a memory Leone had! Sitting with Baragli in the cutting room, he remembered each and every take, every detail.... for example in one take, there was a piece of paper on the ground at about 50 meters distance from the camera, he remembered that and discarded that scene. I told him..Sergio, nobody sees it! And he: ..don´t care, I know that the paper is there! He was a maniac of precision, indefatigable, suffocating sometimes with his excess of attention to the particular... but in the end , you see the results, he was right! One other example: he was sitting high in the air on the chapman while shooting one scene with a crowd in ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA. Suddenly he starts shouting, pointing at a person in the far distance:...get him out of here, this idiot,...he looked into the camera!! This was Sergio, demanding but unforgiving with himself ,too. He was at the set location BEFORE everybody else. In ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, he was on the set a 7 o´clock in the morning, when the drivers were scheduled for 7.30. He started complaining, walking restlessly up and down...where are the drivers? He lived inside his own world and assumed that everyone else would perceive his world view, even without verbal communication.

Robin Hood Was A Commie!

From HOLLYWOOD EXILE or how I learned to love the blacklist

A Memoir by Bernard Gordon

"The conditions controlling the blacklist in television were not precisely the same as at the film studios. Because in those days so much television programming was produced by smaller independent venture operators and was not concentrated in the hands of a few major studios, it was easier to slip in, find producers who wanted good work done cheaply. Such people felt less vulnerable to the proliferating pressure groups that, with publications like Red Channels, made it their business to expose any blacklisted writers who might be working, or, for that matter, to expose anyone they considered left-wing, whether Communist or not. With writers working at home and having no contact with studios, it was easier to conceal identities by using people who for reasons of principle, friendship, or money were willing to act as fronts for the real writers. Increasingly, this did occur. My friends Alfred and Helen Levitt worked quite steadily under the aegis of their good friend Jerry Davis, who took credit as both writer and producer of many shows. This was true even more so in New York, where the media was more scattered than in our company town. Writers like Abe Polonsky, Walter Bernstein, Ring Lardner Jr., Ian Hunter, and others eventually began to work quite regularly. Interestingly too, after a time a very progressive woman with access to funds, Hannah Weinstein, started a serious studio operation in London where she produced the successful Robin Hood series exclusively using blacklisted writers, many of them the same writers who had been working in New York."

Hannah Weinstein was born on June 23, 1911 in New York City and has no credits before The Adventures of Robin Hood in 1955. The success of that show led her to also executive produce

Colonel March of Scotland Yard with Boris Karloff,

Sword of Freedom with Edmund Purdom,

The Adventures of Sir Lancelot with William Russell,

The Buccaneers with Robert Shaw,

and The Four Just Men with Dan Dailey.

After the conclusion of Robin Hood in 1960, she posted no known credits until 1974, when she produced CLAUDINE with Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones. Her last two credits were for the Richard Pryor movies GREASED LIGHTNING and STIR CRAZY.

But she also produced daughter Paula Weinstein, who has produced dozens of movies including THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS, CITIZEN COHN (for HBO), THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS, TRUMAN (for TNT), LIBERTY HEIGHTS, SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT, THE PERFECT STORM, BLOOD DIAMOND and RECOUNT (for HBO).

Hannah Weinstein died on March 9, 1984

Parolini's Sword and Sandal career

Gianfranco Parolini: I finished GOLIATH AND THE GIANTS and the producer was very pleased, because it made money too, with Brad Harris in an early role. Brad Harris hated Malatesta because he'd caused him to break a leg. When I met him, his leg was all plastered up. Malatesta made him do stuff he shouldn't have been doing. He had his leg in plaster and I said "Brad Harris ? Nice to meet you,I'm Gianfranco Parolini." (I wasn't Frank Kramer yet). From that day on we became great frlends, as close as brothers. I helped hlm finish the film with his leg in plaster and no one noticed on screen. So, practically... We're still friends today. Long live friendship! He had a face that easily... took on the hieratic characteristics of the period. He was very well suited to those kind of historical roles. With a beard he was perfect. If he had horns, he'd look like a buffalo !
Since the producer and distributor had discovered... someone who saved time, respected the budget and didn't overspend, they said: "Why not make two (movies) together ? The renters want it." So then I made SAMSON and THE FURY OF HERCULES at the same time! Right after these two films, I made THE OLD TESTAMENT. Jewish architecture on one side, Roman on the other! And 79 A.D., or THE DESTRUCTION OF HERCULANEUM. A thousand people in armour went past the camera. They took off their helmets and put on turbans... Reverse shot Jerusalem! I used the same extras.

I drink to the health of the victor and the glory of the vanquished!

Dollhouse #10 "Haunted"

Another fine episode taking the premise of the show in a surprisingly different direction.

Goodbye Jack Cardiff

Most celebrated as a Director of Photography for directors Michael Powell on BLACK NARCISSUS and THE RED SHOES, Alfred Hitchcock on UNDER CAPRICORN, John Huston on THE AFRICAN QUEEN, Laurence Olivier on THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL and Gabriel Pascal on CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA, Cardiff also had 15 credits as a director. THE LONG SHIPS was a big favorite of mine as a kid, but DARK OF THE SUN, aka THE MERCENARIES, was a big favorite of mine as a teenager. After making an horror film in 1974 on which Brad Harris was an associate producer - THE MUTATIONS, aka FREAKMAKER, he never directed again - returning to the role of cinematographer. He died at the age of 94 after a long and accomplished career - but he'll always be important to me as the guy who moved me to want to kill and then to question the impulse in DARK OF THE SUN.