Mario Caiano was born in Rome, Italy, on February 13,
1933, the son of producer Carlo Caiano. After grade school he registered for
college under the alias of Mariano Cajano. He alternated his university studies
in philology with his apprenticeship in the film business, working as an
assistant director and occasionally a scriptwriter for such famous directors as
Sergio Grieco, Fernando Cerchio, Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, Vittorio Sala,
Riccardo Freda, Edgar G. Ulmer and Camillo Mastrocinque. In 1962 Caiano made
his film debut as a director with “Ulisse contro Ercole” (Ulysses Against the
Son of Hercules) (1962). From then on he made films in virtually every genre.
He directed one of the first Italian westerns, “The Sign of the Coyote” (1963),
the interesting gothic horror flick “Nightmare Castle” (1965), which starred
Barbara Steele, the psychological thriller “L'occhio nel labirinto” (1972) and
the captivating detective thriller “Calling All Police Cars” (1975). In all
he’s been involved in over 45 films and TV series among which are thirteen
Euro-westerns including: “A Fistful of Dollars” 1964 as an assistant director,
“Bullets Don’t Argue also 1964 as director, “Ringo, the Face of Revenge” (1967)
producer, writer and director, “A Train for Durango” (1968) writer and director
and “Shanghai Joe” (1973) writer and director. Caiano at times used the aliases
Allen Grünewald, William Hawkins, Nick Jordan, Mike Perkins, Manfred Rieger and
Edoardo Re. Caiano’s last work was as a director on the TV film “Io ti salver”
in 2002. Today we celebrate Mario Caiano’s 80th birthday.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Robert Mahaney - Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe is awesome!
ReplyDelete