John Francis Lane on MACISTE ALL' INFERNO

John Francis Lane: MACISTE ALL' INFERNO [aka THE WITCH'S CURSE] became one of those little films that acquire a small cult among the French critics and the very young. Really the value of [director Riccardo] Freda was that he filmed quickly. I acted for him in MACISTE ALL'INFERNO and remembered that having placed the camera in a certain position, he called: "Now scene one, then 50, then 122," always from the same position, and he shot half an hour of film in a morning!

A French critic wrote that I wanted to work with him because having worked with other great Italian directors like Fellini and Antonioni, I should now be in a film by Freda! In reality, I did it for the money - a miserly forty thousand. Freda was a real tyrant! With his dog, his women, his court. He was rather sadistic, too, with the people, with the animals that he used in the scenes. The actors, the technicians, detested it, and it was something that everybody knew about.

Woody Strode gets hired by Sergio Leone

From: GOAL DUST

by Woody Strode and Sam Young

In this country, Sergio Leone was known as the king of spaghetti westerns. He's the guy that made Clint Eastwood a star. And I remember him telling me, "I'm going to make a star out of Charlie Bronson." That's how he said it, no hemming and hawing. In the United States, Charlie couldn't get arrested, but when the Italians got a hold of him, with his beautiful character face, they made a star out of him.

Sergio Leone knew me through THE PROFESSIONALS and the westerns I made for John Ford. He offered me $7,500 for fourteen days' work; Sid Gold countered at ten grand. They finally settled at $8,000 because Sid knew that this would be an outstanding film for me.

When I met the production team they were staying at a big hotel about two-and-a-half hours from the location. I wanted to meet Sergio, so I asked the production manager where I could find him. He said, "Mr. Leone is staying in the little town of Guadix," which was about ten minutes from the job.

I said, "That's where my wife and I are going to stay," and they drove us over. We moved into this little joint with Sergio, and he picked up the tab. Sergio, who loved to eat and was pretty big as a result, bought us dinner every night. I remember him asking me in his thick Italian accent why Hollywood had never made me a star. The Italians could never understand why I wasn't a star at home.

I told him, "I don't think they've gotten used to me coming off the mountain on a horse with John Wayne by my side." But Sergio saw what I could do, and that was enough for him.

Dollhouse series finale tonight.

And Fox is showing it an hour earlier than its usual time slot.

Woody on BLACK JESUS

From: GOAL DUST

by Woody Strode and Sam Young

Well, thank you, Italy. I've spent a lot of time over there, and made a lot of Italian pictures. The first was SEDUTO ALLA SUA DESTRA; SEATED AT HIS RIGHT. From there I went to C'ERA UNA VOLTA IL WEST; ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. After that, the Italians just beat a path to my door carryin' a bag full of money. I ended up living in Rome from 1969 through 1971, and in all that time, I never learned to speak Italian. The Italians never cared that I learn their language. But they made a star out of me, and for that I'll always be grateful. For me, Italy was the promised land.

It was 1968 when a director named Valerio Zurlini hired me to star in SEATED AT HIS RIGHT. Zurlini was a short man with sandy-colored hair from northern Italy. He was an artist and a poet. He'd make a picture every three or four years just like it was a painting or a sculpture.

SEATED AT HIS RIGHT is a biblical reference to Christ when he said to the priest Caiaphas, "Hereafter, shall you see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming into the clouds of heaven." Originally, the film was supposed to be a forty-minute segment for a five-part film called RAGE IN LOVE, but Zurlini must have found some extra passion for the story because he blew it up into a full-length feature. It became Italy's official entry at the Cannes Film Festival.

In the movie, I play a Christ-like character who tries to establish peaceful reform within an unnamed African country that's controlled by an overbearing white rule. I travel from village to village preaching to the people. I tell them, "As long as we are united we cannot be defeated, they know this and this is why they will try and infiltrate among you setting brother against brother, and relying on your greed."

The government arrests me for being a revolutionary and orders me to sign papers that would make me forsake my teachings. I refuse. They begin to torture me; I suffer and anguish. They nail my hands to a table. They beat me until I lose my sight. My left side is pierced. The life slowly drains out of me. My face is twisted in pain, and my legs go limp as they drag me from the interrogation room back to my cell. The violence is unbelievable.

Zurlini was trying to show the total devotion to violence of the men who were torturing me, and the horrors of a dictator-style government. For a good third of the film I anguish in pain, and that was probably my most difficult performance ever. The courtroom scene in SERGEANT RUTLEDGE was probably my most emotional scene, but SEATED AT HIS RIGHT had the most sustained emotion. And Zurlini was a good director; he got everything out of me.

We shot the film inside an old warehouse in Rome. The Italians are great set designers, and they built everything we needed. Most of the movie takes place in my prison cell, but all of the exteriors were also done on stage. It took about ten days to shoot the whole thing, and right after I got finished was when Sergio Leone came after me to star in the opening scene of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST.

Rock Hudson on HORNETS' NEST

From: ROCK HUDSON HIS STORY

by Rock Hudson and Sara Davidson

Rock came home for a few months [after making THE UNDEFEATED in Durango, Mexico with John Wayne] and then went to Italy to make an action adventure picture, THE HORNET'S NEST, with Sylva Koscina. He had been told Sophia Loren would be his co-star; Koscina had been substituted at the last minute. Rock wrote Jack funny letters. "This is my new Italian secretary (actually she is a portable Olivetti). She doesn't spell very well and you have to press her kind of hard, but she's a faithful girl." Rock wrote that he had a good feeling about the film and that one of the young boys in the cast was a "great natural talent". Rock was never able to tell, while shooting a picture, whether it was working, but in the process of investing himself in the character, he became emotionally involved, and inevitably he was infused with hope.

More often than not, he was disappointed, as he was with THE HORNET'S NEST. Rock returned to the Castle in time for Christmas, and his concerns with career and business fell away.

Woody Strode on Sergio Leone and John Ford

From: GOAL DUST

by Woody Strode and Sam Young

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST was the only picture I did for Sergio Leone, but he always gave me a good word of mouth, and that helped me alot in Italy. And he was quite fond of Luana, too. He called her Mama. One night at dinner, he said, "I need an Indian woman to be the scrub woman that runs out of the train station in the opening scene. Why don't you do it, Mama?" So if you ever see the picture, that woman was Luana. Sergio gave Luana a salary plus an extra thousand bucks when it was over.

The first time I saw the film was in Italy, in Italian. When the lights went down, I said to Luana, "Here we go, Mama." The scene with the water was a complete surprise. And the close-ups, I couldn't believe. I never got a close-up in Hollywood. Even in THE PROFESSIONALS I had only three close-ups in the entire picture. Sergio Leone framed me on the screen for five minutes. After it was over I said, "That's all I needed."

When I got home and I saw Papa Ford, I told him, "Papa, there's an Italian over there that just loves the West, and he's not going to do another western because they call them spaghetti westerns," I said, "Will you autograph a picture for him?"

Unfortunately, Sergio is dead today, but if you checked with his office, you'd find he has an autographed picture from John Ford. On the picture Ford wrote, "If there's anything I can do to help make Woody a star, I'll do it for free." Those are the little things that make those guys immortal.

Riccardo Freda on Maciste

Riccardo Freda: The series was not launched by me, but it was I that gave it a resolute tone. The audience loved the type of superman embodied by Hercules and Maciste. Unconsciously they were also loved, because in the final analysis you want to deal with a strong or bold or brave hero, with which the public can identify, for all those who dream of proving themselves a superman in front of a woman. The love interest had an importance that had great relevance, because it dealt with a love that was romantic and touching. The sadistic side of love was nonexistent.

There was instead simply adventure for the sake of adventure. For MACISTE ALLA CORTE DEL GRAN KHAN (SAMSON AND THE SEVEN MIRACLES OF THE WORLD) I was able to do the earthquake of Peking in a meadow on the outskirts of Rome. I really enjoyed shooting it and it gave me great satisfaction to see the footage in projection, because it seemed as if it was the real Peking that came crashing to the ground.