Interview with director Mario Caiano, edited by Matteo Mancini

Edited by Matteo Mancini

I had the pleasure of hosting on the pages of my blog a great Italian director who has made the history of genre cinema, especially in the context of the spaghetti-western and the "poliziottesco". I'm talking about Mario Caiano, director of the '33 class with about thirty films he worked on, between 1962 and 1977, preceded by decades of experience as assistant director serving above all with Sergio Grieco (ten collaborations) and Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia ( four collaborations) and culminated with a series of tv-movies directed starting from the early 80s until a well-deserved retirement.

What better format than an interview to retrace his long career? Anecdotes and memories told directly by the person concerned, who kindly offered me a part of his free time to answer the questions below. Moreover, I immediately underline that Caiano is fresh from the editing of the autobiography MARIO CAIANO - Autobiography of a director of B-Movie, released in July 2014 for the Edizioni Il Foglio Letterario di Piombino. Needless to say, the answers to the questions you are about to read are an integral part of the book, which I therefore recommend you buy to learn more and to learn about a part of Caiano that, perhaps, does not emerge from the vision of individual films or even from this interview.

M.M.:

We come now to the interview, first of all thank you for having granted me your availability so that you can make a long journey back in time. But before brushing up on the past, let's talk about the autobiography you published a few months ago and which I read and reviewed here on the blog.

When did the idea of ​​writing it mature and what were the reasons that led you to take this step?

M.C.:

The idea of ​​writing some memories of my activity was born perhaps a year after my decision not to work anymore. Maybe I was bored, maybe the memories flooded ... The reasons? Always the same: I've always liked to tell stories, even about myself.

M.M.:

Unlike other autobiographies, I noticed a very personalized structure, almost as if you wanted to write a novel about your travels and life experiences gained thanks to your work as a director, rather than focusing on the cinematographic anecdotes related to the production and realization of his films or relationships with individual actors. Moreover, the same exhibition route that followed is not so closely linked to historical-chronological development, but is more connected to the sensations, flavors and emotions experienced during your career. I almost had the impression that this decision is the result of a very humble approach, a bit like if he didn't like most of his films. Is there something true in my last sentence or are there other reasons that have guided it in this way?

M.C.:

It's true, I never loved most of my films, even though I loved my work very much. Then, in the memory of a film there is always much more: people, landscapes, atmospheres, moods. This is what I liked to talk about, not the shooting technique, the relationship with the actors and the producers, and us of the genre.

M.M.:

How did you come to choose the Il Foglio Letterario editions of Piombino and what was your relationship with the publisher Gordiano Lupi?

M.C.:

I know Giordano Lupi only by e-mail, he seems to me to be a very good person, especially since he proposed to publish the book. Perhaps at the suggestion of a journalist from the "Manifesto", Castellano.

M.M.:

Did you present the book or do you plan to make any presentations in the coming months? How did your fans react to the text?

M.C.:

I don't know if I have fans besides two carpenter brothers from Vicenza who often call me to let me know that they have found a Japanese edition of “A Bara for the Sheriff” or something like that. They are wonderful. A certain Mr. Pallanch, from some institutional film agency, told me he would like to make a presentation of the book next winter.

The cover of the director's autobiography.

M.M.:

Well. We come now to retrace your career. We make a leap in the past, when Italian cinema was able to challenge the American one. Of course I will not ask you questions about the issues he focused on, because I don't want to spoil the surprise of those who buy the book, I hope also thanks to this interview.

So, after entering the world of cinema and having done a long apprenticeship at the court especially of Grieco and Bragaglia, as a helper and assistant (as you well explained in the text), you debuted very young as a director with a poker of peplum shot between 1962 and 1964, directing symbolic actors such as Gordon Scott or Richard Harrison or like the emerging Claudio Undari who seemed to be able to become an actor symbol of the Italian western. You also worked with Giuliano Gemma in the adventurous “Erik the Viking”. Even if it's films, perhaps, not particularly idolized, what memories do you keep?

M.C.:

I have a great memory of when I was helping, everything was much easier and I had less responsibility. For example, I remember with great pleasure “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” with Mastrocinque, a great gentleman, an intellectual. Grieco then was the one who taught me everything, a friend, a teacher and an example of how you are on set. The peplums (or perhaps you should say pepla) amused me, especially the first, “Ulysses Against Hercules” because it was the film of my debut as a director and I could invent what I wanted. And then at university I did classical philology and archeology, so there is a certain relevance. I would still want to be an archaeologist, maybe if I could start all over again ...

M.M.:

Beyond the debuts with the peplum, he is also the first Italian director to experiment with spaghetti-western. He initially collaborated with the Spanish specialists, writing the subject of Cavalca and Uccidi by Borau and “I Tre Implacabili”, the latter then elaborated by the specialist Josè Mallorquì and directed by Joaquìn Romero Marchent (a director, in my opinion, should be re-evaluated) for the co-production consisting of the PEA of Alberto Grimaldi and the Copercinese of Eduardo Manzanos. It is, for the time, the elite, also because Marchent is the only one to do westerns of a certain level between 1961 and 1963. Almost with the same technical cast he directs “Il Segno del Coyote”, the third episode of a mini-saga based on the character of Zorro and conceived in the mid-50s by the pair of Mallorquì-Marchent. The latter is a difficult-to-find film that did not go well at the box office that it is said because of a certain dispute between him and Grimaldi, with the latter dissatisfied with the takings. What do you remember about these Spanish specialists and these films.

M.C.:

I never knew Mallorqui. Marchent was good but he felt very good and at the Copercines he was considered a sort of master. “The Sign of the Coyote” went wrong because it was a brazen takeoff of Zorro. The protagonist was a former Mexican bullfighter, Fernando Casanova olè, the protagonist was the producer's friend, the production designer was the brother of the girlfriend and so on but I don't remember having ever quarreled with Grimaldi on cinema, at least in the beginning, he knew nothing, my father taught him everything. His first office was a sublet room near Termini station. He always smelled of fried food (the room, not Grimaldi) and the door was opened by the lady of the house in slippers and a dressing gown.

The poster of Caino’s first Spaghetti Western.

M.M.:

After the stormy episode linked to the co-direction of “Il Segno di Zorro”, well described in the text, perhaps your great opportunity arrives. The duo Papi & Colombo, of Jolly Film, in difficulty in managing the Spanish Ricardo Blasco in clear crisis in directing the action scenes of “Duello in Texas”, calls on you to solve the director's impasse entrusting you with the task of filming some sequences. The result is one of the most interesting pre-Leone westerns, with a rather original Giallo under plot and a recess that elevates it to the third most popular spaghetti-western of the 1963 season. Richard Harrison appears once again in the cast, although in my opinion he was not yet comfortable with the western.

There are those who list this film among your films, as can be read on the back cover of your autobiography, who instead, like Roberto Poppi, omits it completely not indicating it as a production. What can you tell us about it and how much of you is in this film?

M.C.:

My father was the distributor of the film and advised Papi and Colombo (two cold characters) to call me to shoot the scenes that Blasco (who knows why) had not filmed. I shot three or four days, maybe twenty minutes of film, so I don't have in in my filmography.

M.M.:

In this first part of your career, I think I can say, tour father Carlo has a decisive role. How much did he help you and how do you remember him, cinematically speaking?

M.C.:

He was an experienced but somewhat naive idealist. He introduced me to the cinema making me be the volunteer assistant with Grieco in "Non è vero ma ci credo ". Then I went ahead on my own.

M.M.:

Your excellent work in Duel in Texas and above all an undoubted talent in directing the action scenes, so much to be considered at the time perhaps the best director in circulation in Italy, lead Papi & Colombo to promote you to their leading director. The two prefer you to Sergio Leone, and they are not the only ones to think of you in the same way (even Domenico Palmara rejects the role of Ramon offered by Leone to make his film), which is also produced, but with a much lower budget compared to what was made available for your film. The result is “Le Pistole non Discutono”, a western that was born with the hope of breaking the box office and that you bring to the stage some great talent, making use of top-level professionals such as Carlo Simi on set design, Enzo Barboni on photography, Ennio Morricone on the soundtrack, so much so as to realize, in my opinion, one of the three best pre-Leone spaghetti-westerns ever. I wouldn't want to go too far, but I think we could point to this film among its five most successful films, so much so that it deserves to be re-evaluated properly.

In your book you have already talked about the protagonist Rod Cameron and how he was chosen, I come here to ask instead a thought about Horst Frank that provides an intense performance like Kinski in the role of the antagonist. Did you choose him directly or was it imposed by German co-producers?

Another curiosity is linked to the choice of the title adopted, which I find far ahead of its time with respect to the more banal titles in vogue in those years, at least before the advent of Leone. To whom is the choice attributable?

Finally, it is curious to find among the names of the authors of the script those of Castellano & Pipolo, who will then make their fortune in comic cinema. What can you tell us about the relationship you had with them.

M.C.:

The name of the film is due to Castellano and Pipolo, two friends with whom I worked without any problems. That the budget was higher than that of Leone I'm not sure, it seems to me that they were equal. We went together, Sergio and I, to Munich to choose the actors for the respective films, there I met Horst Frank, a better and less stupid Kinski.

Palmara told many things that were nonsense as, for example, that he had chosen to appear in his role in my film: Sergio probably didn't decide, he was not convinced and Mimmo wanted to tighten. He also said he went to Colombo, unhappy with Sergio's dailyies, to convince him to stop shooting. Nonsense, Columbo would not even have received him. But you know actors ...

M.M.:

What types were Papi & Colombo? One reads of their bad relationship with Sergio Leone, so much so that they wanted to fire him before he finished filming “Per Per Pugno di Dollari”, because he was too revolutionary in the staging. Eventually they will also end up suing each other in court. Did they create problems too, since they changed producers?

I had no problems with the two, they were simply disappointed that my film, despite having had excellent reviews, did not make a lot of money. They were two dry and rather disjointed people, we understand how Leone, a colossus compared to them, did not agree.

M.M.:

At this point your career is almost at a turning point, even if Leone's sudden success perhaps penalizes you. How did you feel when you saw how successful it was for a “Fistful of Dollars”? Were you happy or did you have a bitter taste in his mouth? How did “Pistols Don’t Argue” do at the box office?

Envy is one of the few flaws that I don't recognize in myself and then I loved Sergio a lot. “Pistols ...” had good reviews but didn't make much, then. But from the data of the SIAE it is clear that it works well over time, so much so that they rerun it with a certain frequency on TV.

Rod Cameron and Domenico Palmara in action.

M.M.:

You arrived in 1965, in Italy as it is catching on, thanks above all to Mario Bava, Riccardo Freda and Antonio Margheriti, a new genre: Italian Gothic. These are horror films closely linked to the narrative tradition of the early nineteenth century, much appreciated abroad especially after the international success obtained in 1960 by “La Maschera del Demonio” by Bava.

You also decide to dive into adventure writing and self producing “Lovers of the Underworld”. The film does not have success comparable to that of the westerns, I understand 154 million were the takings, but it turns out to be of great quality, to the point of being able to be inserted in a high position in a hypothetical ranking of the best gothic films. The star queen of the genre, the Irish Barbara Steele, is the leading actress. How did you find herself working with her and how did she go about choosing her?

M.C.:

I had an early attraction for horror since, in 1943, during the long hours of the curfew, I read in a breath the stories of E.A.Poe. Then it passed. B.Steele was an excellent professional, I had a good relationship with her and they tell me that she still remembers me with pleasure.

M.M.:

The subject of the film instead focuses on the theme of the double, a true horror subgenre linked to the theme of lost beauty, particularly in vogue in those years. A genre almost on the edge of science fiction, in the wake of “Il Diabolico Doctor Satan” by Jess Franco, who in turn owes French and German films, characterized by scientific experiments conducted by mad doctors and with a certain necrophilic taste. Barbara Steele, for this reason, is called to fill two roles and is joined by another great of cinema bis: Paul Muller, a fetish actor of Jess Franco. What relationship did you have with Muller and did you ever know Jess Franco, since he collaborated with his two masters (Mallorquì and Joaquìn R. Marchent) ?.

How did he elaborate the script, he was inspired by narrative sources and how does he relate to the narrative of terror?

M.C.:

I was a cinematographer, not a cinephile, so I didn't know anything about Jess Franco. I loved things like “The Monk of Lewis”, “The Manuscript Found in Zaragoza”, and then “Il Castello d'Otranto” and, on another side, “Lovecraft”, S.King, the famous anthology of Fruttero and Lucentini etc. There were so many readings behind the script of "Amanti d'oltretomba". Muller was a kind, sad person, who for years phoned me once a month, as well as Marino Masè, another sad and kind person.

M.M.:

Despite the good work with Amanti d'Oletomba you were no longer interested in the horror genre, except for the film “Ombre Roventi” which suffered the shame of the arrest of William Berger and his companion, so much to be half-known. Is it the result of chance or was it a genre that did not feel too much in its strings?

M.C.:

Simply, the genre ceased to attract me. Bill Berger was a friend, perhaps ruined by Leary and the Living Theater. However, he and his wife's arrest was a scandal. The story of “Burning Shadows” is strange: fundamentally it was a robbery made by an unscrupulous organizer to a naive young man. Suffice it to say that until one hour before the start of filming the protagonist had to be a large American actor who disappeared into thin air and was replaced by Beger who was in Cairo for another film.

M.C.:

“Le Spie ...” I was commissioned by Giorgio Venturini. I wrote it thinking above all of the history of the Old Man of the Mountain and the haschashin sect, then the cue was lost on the way.

Please don't shoot ... it was my idea that I liked, but Continenza didn't want to work anymore and Mondello, the producer, didn't have a lira.

M.M.:

Back to the western cinema, perhaps due to the incomes you were able to guarantee. Were you dissatisfied with the results obtained with other genres?

The fact is that it is unleashed by directing one film over the other. In three years you shoot five westerns not always having a budget at his height and, in my opinion, almost all inferior compared to “Le Pistole non Discuss”. The first is “Una Bara per il Sceriffo” (1965) where he debuted in the genre of the indolent Brazilian Anthony Steffen who then became a real star performer (he will play more than 20 westerns in about seven years). What do you remember and how was it on the set?

The script is written by the director Guido Malatesta, much more suitable for peplum and adventure cinema, and his name does not appear on the screenplay: it is one of those commissioned films commissioned by Manzanos and shot with little personal involvement as shown by the rather traced script on the canvases of the revenge movie and the gunslinger who wants to enter a given band to exterminate them from the inside?

M.C.:

Most of the time, we didn't choose which film to make. The producers chose based on the distributors' requests, that is the box office. Malatesta was a friend of Mondello, the producer, who wrote it for a few lire, so things were going well then. We all needed money, very few turned and those few came from merchants, not very refined people.

Steffen was a good boy, he was good on horseback but he loved his mirror image above everything else.

M.M.:

The next two westerns are, if you wish, even less known than “Una Bara per il Sceriffo”, but always with specialists of the genre. These are “Ringo the Face of Rebenge” (1966) and “Seven Pistols for a Massacre” (1967). The first is an apocryphal version that reproposes Anthony Steffen as the protagonist, always produced by Manzanos but this time the script bears his signature and even that of Duccio Tessari, the latter eventuality which seems rather strange to me. Do you remember a Tessari involvement?

The screenplay is more elaborate than that of “Una Bara for the Sheriff”, proposes a fratricidal struggle for the conquest of a treasure of which Steffen's rivals, the great Fajardo and Armando Calvo, possess part of the map tattooed on their backs. Everything revolves around the themes of greed, betrayal and lust, yet something is not as it should be and the film is not successful as it could have been anticipated so much that it is not even loved by fans.

Even “Seven Guns for a Massacre” takes the apocryphal path with a title, perhaps once again wanted by Eduardo Manzanos, who winks at “Seven Pistols for the MacGregors” that Papi & Colombo had just distributed for Giraldi. Once again the artistic cast sees the specialists of the genre involved, in place of Steffen Craig Hill takes the leading role, there is also Piero Lulli, yet the result is even less successful than “Ringo the Face of Revenge”, so that Marco Giusti forgets to mention the film in his book Il Dizionario del Cinema Western. But you speak well of these two westerns in some interviews released, how do you evaluate them compared to your other westerns?

M.C.

“Ringo the Face of Revenge” was a story of mine, I liked the idea of ​​a tattooed map, of the other I have a very vague memory, I remember that Craig Hill was rather colorless.

M.M.:

For the two following westerns the production changes. Switch to the producer of tortellini Bianco Manini (reinforced by the partnership of Ferdinando Felicioni and Emilio Giorgi), producer of “Quien Sabe?” by Damiani. The level rises rather considerably, in the first film, “The Man Who Cried for Revenge”, supports you in the creative effort, according to the reading of the credits, Tito Carpi (historical collaborator of Enzo G. Castellari), in the second one, “A Train for Durango”, even Duccio Tessari was involved. How were these scripts conceived, were they written together, or did you intervene when the work was completed to correct what was not particularly good for him?

In addition to the aforementioned names, Enzo Barboni returns to photography and above all has a cast of highly prestigious actors. In the first we have the return of the horse Anthony Steffen, flanked by William Berger, Claudio Undari, Ida Galli (aka Evelyn Stewart), Raf Baldassarre, Mario Brega and the acrobat Alberto Dell'Acqua; while in the second, alongside the confirmed Steffen, we have a first-level cast with Mark Damon, Enrico Maria Salerno, Domenique Boschero, José Bodalo and Aldo Sambrell. So great casts, both technical and artistic. In particular, with “Un Treno per Durango”, you were able to anticipate the comic and parodic turn that would soon takeover the genre, giving life to a tortilla western (a sort of parody of “Quien Sabe?”) Highly spectacular and entertaining as few others will know how to do. Truly a first-half that stands out among the spaghetti westerns, in my opinion, the most successful and perhaps yout best genre film. Beautiful, by the way, the swirl of final twists ... simply wonderful as the Americans would say.

What differences did you find between these westerns and those of Manzanos and how were they received by the spectators?

M.C.:

About “A Train for Durango”, I wrote the subject, then with Duccio Tessari we developed a script lineup and we divided the tasks. Then Duccio had to subcontract his part to Fernando Di Leo (whom I never met), who Di Leo went around telling that he had saved the film that made water everywhere, rewriting everything. Crazy stuff, my colleagues, except Leone and Giraldi, weren't that great. Anyway, it's my favorite western. He did not cash in much then, but still on TV, a sign that it is vital.

The best western of Caiano.

M.M.:

After returning to good levels, in the following four years you try to take new, almost experimental, paths with films that are still not easy to see and that have had limited success. In the order “Lovebirds - Una Strana Voglia d'Amare” (1969), the aforementioned “Ombre Roventi” (1970) and “L'Occhio nel Labirinto” (1971) come out. Of the first you spoke extensively in your autobiography for which I do not ask for further clarifications, of the second we have already said in the course of the interview, it only remains for me then to talk about the third. It is a psychoanalytic thriller, as was the fashion in those years now in a period of full spaghetti-thriller explosion, an Italian-German co-production and scripted by you. Technical and artistic casts seem to me poorer than your westerns even though you find Horst Frank and has Adolfo Celi and Alida Valli. The protagonist is the lovely, but unconvincing Rosemarie Dexter. What do you remember about this actress?

The film does not stand out for its originality and the typical didactic end of the genre. Later, except for some rare contamination, I think of ... “At All Police Cars”, they will no longer confront the Giallo. Is there a particular reason or is it the result of mere chance? What was the genesis of the film?

M.C.:

Nello Santi, a great man from our cinema, wanted to make a film in his villa on Elba and Ninì Suriano and I wrote the story and screenplay. It wasn't bad but Dexter was weak. As for Lovebirds, I prefer not to talk about it, it was a sum of errors.

M.M.:

After this brief period, dedicated to experiments and attempts to test new cinematographic genres, you return to the western and do so with what is perhaps your most famous film: the crazy and original “My Name is Shangai Joe” (1973). In the wake of Luigi Vanzi and Terence Young who, with “Lo Straniero di Silenzio” (1968) and “Sole Rosso” (1971), I first tried to mix the western with the oriental story of the samurai, and taking advantage of the concomitant success of the films with Bruce Lee as protagonist, you pack what is considered the best example of the cd spaghetti-kung fu and that will be immediately imitated by the various Bruno Corbucci, Tonino Ricci and Antonio Margheriti. These are films in which, both for the extremely extreme situational moments (a bit like Quentin Tarantino in “Kill Bill”) and for the use of martial arts, the styles of the Hong Kong film school almost swallow up the cut typically Italian. What was your thought when they proposed to write and direct a story, on paper, crazy and brave like this? Was you not afraid of falling into ridicule?

The protagonist has already been exhaustive in your volume, I would now like to underline how, as a corollary of the presence of this Japanese actor, there is a lot of actors called to perform small but tasty cameos. In fact, Klaus Kinski, Claudio Undari, Gordon Mitchell and Giacomo Rossi Stuart all follow each other, one after the other, to challenge the Chinese character who prefers karate to the use of weapons (I presume the remarkable work of choreography that the master had to accomplish of arms Nando Zamperla). What was your relationship with these actors? Because of Kinski, about twenty years later, on the occasion of the filming of “Nosferatu in Venice”, you he find himself having to leave the set, it is even said that he threw a mirror, I imagine that on this occasion he behaved well ...

M.C.:

The protagonist of Shangai Joe was not an actor, he was a martial arts teacher. The idea came to a small producer, a certain Alfieri and the executive producer was Renato Angiolini.

The history of the mirror must have been invented by Kinski, I have already read it somewhere and also told that I chased him on the set with a stick. I have no words and it is not worth looking for.

However making the film was fun, as it was to see him again in Venice where he was presented in a review sponsored by Tarantino, who had invited me to present his latest film, but I was sick.

  

M.M.:

We talked about “My Name is Shanghai Joe” a really crazy and funny movie, How did it go at the box office? Today almost everyone knows it, Tarantino loves it in a special way, probably due to the strong pulp component. Have you ever met the American director or ever talked to him? If so, how did he behave and what did he say? What is your favorite Tarantino movie?

M.C.:

My favorite Tarantino movie is “Pulp Fiction” but the last one (“Django Unchained” n.d.r.) is very strong.

Forerunner of Spaghetti Kung-Fu.

M.M.:

After this brief spell of stars and stripes, let's get back to us. The western has exhausted its cues and is close to exhaling its last breaths, supplanted by the police films. So after a brief taste of late decamerotic with “I Racconti di Viterbury” (1973), you made an agreement with Renato Angiolini of Capitolina Prod.ni Cin.che and launched yourself decisively into the new adventure, marrying the fashions of the moment. In two years you direct four films of excellent level and with great sense for the spectacular, staging, three times out of four, scripts of others (a rather unusual choice for her) written by always different screenwriters (Pittorru & Felisatti, Clerici & Mannino, Barberio , Longo & Petacco). Probably it is the lot, as a whole, more qualitative: you preferred the poliziottesco or for you there was not much difference, being able to define the poliziottesco which inevitable evolution of the spaghetti-western? Is there a reason why these films are hardly ever played?

M.C .:

(Answer not given).

M.M.:

The first detective story that turns, ... “To All Police Cars”, it is a very curious and particular hybrid, quite distinct from the other products belonging to the vein. Moreover it is your first film that I saw, recording at an absurd time on television. To a first detective part a second one is added with yellow contours, centered on the theme of pedophilia and with strong erotic veins. The protagonist is the Sicilian Antonio Sabato supported by Enrico Maria Salerno, who form a well-matched and rather fit couple. In the end a masterpiece does not come out, but it is certainly one of the policemen who remember for its originality. The music is by Lallo Gori, what can you tell us about him?

M.C.:

In “All Cars ...” I consider it a more than decent film, it went very well. The authors of the story, Felisatti and Pittorru, were skilful Giallo writer. Lallo Gori was a jazz lover, like me.

M.M.:

Thanks to the discreet success of your first detective story, you shoot “Napoli Spara!” (1976), structured on a script by two specialists of genre cinema: Clerici and Mannino. Did you have any relations with them or was the script presented to you without having the possibility of a voice?

The plot is the tested one, inspired by Napoli Violenta (1976) and constitutes a sort of sequel. The two actors called to face each other are also tested: on one side the Italian-American Leonard Mann (Leonardo Manzella) on the other side the leather face of Henry Silva. What types were they?

Beyond the duo of first actors, the film is notable for the increase in action, tight editing and an annoying cruelty with splatter tips and an epilogue among the saddest of its kind, a little in the wake of “La Polizia Incrriminates, La Legge Assolve” (1973) and the forerunner of the Neapolitan drama with which your former collaborator Alfonso Brescia will make a fortune. What memory do you have of this director who, if I'm not mistaken, you helped at the beginning of his career?

Returning to the film, “Napoli Spara!” it is the work where, perhaps, you have indulged more in the choice of shots so as to make the vision decidedly captivating, even if penalized by a script that does not add anything new but the idea of ​​"history in history" with a child protagonist (the excellent Massimo Deda) that will have a bad end. Is the policeman who achieved the greatest success among his own?

The music is from another great past from the western cinema: De Masi. Do you have a special memory about him?

M.C.:

So: Clerici was a friend of mine, we worked together many times. Leonard Mann was a good boy with a pretty face but no personality. Henry Silva a good actor and a great gentleman. Brescia an honest craftsman, far from my world.

The cruelty was nothing compared to Gomorra and was wanted by Edmondo Amati who was the producer. Even De Masi was a friend of mine, I don't know how many soundtracks he made for me. The film still often runs on commercial TVs.

M.M.:

The third film of the genre that comes out is probably your favorite, either because of the presence of your friend Claudio Cassinelli or because you wrote it completely; certainly that's what I think is the best. I'm talking about “Milan Violenta” (1976). Once again, a little like your first detective story, you try to create a different, contaminated product. This time it hangs on the side of noir, having Fernando Di Leo as a reference model. No coincidence that the protagonist is not a policeman, but a bandit in search of revenge. What was the inspiration that prompted you to make a script like this?

Angiolini probably reduces capital investment, with repercussions on the choice of the artistic cast that undergoes a qualitative downturn (apart from Cassinelli, the lack of charismatic actors is felt) even though the excellent Englishman John Steiner appears with whom you will also make your next film . The script, however, is the best of the four detective stories you directed and Claudio Cassinelli is in great shape, so much so that in the end one of his best five films ever comes out. The direction is very dynamic, the pace prompt, with a narrative point of view that, for once, leads to sympathize with the bandit and not with the policemen, which is no small feat. Another strong point is the bleak scenery and photography (Pier Luigi Santi) which contribute to creating an unhealthy atmosphere. In my opinion, a truly top-of-the-range product despite budget constraints, but curiously less successful than the others (I understand that the revenue is less, slightly, than 100 million in Italy). How is it valued by contemporary enthusiasts and also considers it among your most successful films and why?

M.M.:

I've never seen anything about Di Leo, so I wasn't inspired by him, I just know he's a liar. In the cast there was another good actor, who died prematurely, Vittorio Mezzogiorno. Irene Bignardi, then companion of Cassinelli, who read the script, told me that it made you think of Melville. It is among my detective stories what I loved most.

M.M.:

The last detective story that runs on behalf of Angiolini is “La Malavita Attacca ... The Police Responds” (1977). Leonard Mann returns, this time opposed by John Steiner, in the role of the solitary hero, who uses violence to suppress violence, trampling the law for the common good. The film is the most grim of the quartet, both for the dialogues and for the narrative developments (unlikely), but it is also the least inventive in terms of direction and above all recitative. To avoid this, you try to recreate a comic strip contour, both in the characterization of the characters (remember pens / pistol in pocket format, characters that express themselves in forced Romanesque and similar things) and in the interpretations. Steiner tends to go over the top, Mann instead lacks expression.

As if this were not enough, it is also the film with which you leave the world of cinema to enter that of television, an aspect that will perhaps make you remember it with less sympathy. What can you tell us about this latest film?

M.C.:

I just remember that it is the fastest film ever shot among my own and that literally there was not a lyre. TV competition had become ruthless, it was useless to shoot a film like that since every night you could see dozens of them on private channels.

Claudio Cassinelli in “Violent Milan”.

M.M.:

Your last film I’s like to ask you a few questions about is “La Svastica nel Ventre” (1977), a rather alien work compared to its production. Born in the wake of fashion forged by Tinto Brass with “Salon Kitty” (1975) and by Pasolini with Salò or the 120 days of “Sodoma” (1975), preceded by Cavani's “Il Portiere di Notte” (1973) and then slipped into highly perverse erotics with Nazi hierarchs protagonists. Very extreme films, often unsustainable in their desire to linger on sex and the atrocities of each species. Yours is considered one of the best of the genre, written with the collaboration of Clerici, although you have a minimalistic budget and a cast of poor actors. Today it has become a cult favorite, a fate that I think I would never have thought at the time. When they proposed it, did you accept it with enthusiasm? Who came up with the idea of ​​shooting this nazi-erotic, remembering something particular related to its production?

M.C.:

Probably it was an idea of ​​Venturini who commissioned the subject to Clerici. I remember that I toured Germany at Dobbiaco and the lager at the old slaughterhouse in Testaccio. Then I know they added hot scenes for foreign countries. The main character was called Shirpa Lane, she was Finnish and was said to have been the soul of a luxurious closed Parisian house. Mah ...

M.M.:

Well, we have retraced you career and then some, as you explained in yout autobiography, will continue in RAI. Do youu have an particular regrets about some of the films we talked about, maybe an actor you would have liked to have but wasn't taken or a sequence that you wanted to shoot but were prevented doing so or your disappointment for not having had a little more time, a bit like Jess Franco used to say?

M.C.:

Yes, I wanted to have more time but I didn't have a disease. The actors in general, apart from those three or four of whom I became friends with, embarrassed me, belonging to a genre apart that I always felt a bit foreign.

Stories in the drawer? There is one that I would have liked to do for TV because it is wide-ranging, it is called ‘The City and the Years’ and it tells the life of a family from the thirties to the sixties and of Italy and cinema. But it is a moderate regret, who knows, perhaps, a little bloodless thing would have come.

M.M.:

From reading your autobiography I perceive a certain love for narrative. It is you who says so when you refer to that literary occasion that you hoped you could present to him. Have you ever written novels or short stories? Recently I happened to read Umberto Lenzi's excellent thrillers, one even set in my Tirrenia (I live right in front of the place where the Cosmopolitan cinemas were built by Giovacchino Forzano and taken over by Ponti), do you think you can publish something? And in case of a positive response, what kind of novels would you like to write and what would be your sources of inspiration?

M.C.:

I worked in Tirrenia as an aid to Grieco in Lucrezia Borgia's “Le Notti” with Belinda Lee. It was a magical place, out of this world, like living in the thirties. Very beautifull.

I wrote a few little things: an adventure novel called Maybe a Day in Kandhipur, pure fun of a Victorian atmosphere, then a collection of stories more or less noir and a biography of B. Traven, the author of the Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a work of two years, very tiring because Traven spent his life hiding his tracks. All unpublished.

I also met the son of Forzano, a very sad guy who produced in RAI.

M.M.:

The publisher you have chosen, Il Foglio Letterario di Piombino, boasts a very substantial catalog of Italian cinematography. In addition to your autobiography, a very good volume by the young Czech Jan Svabenicky, with a double interview with director Aldo Lado and screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi, was released a few days ago. Have you read any of these books, how did they seem and what do you think of the promotional work carried out by Il Foglio Letterario?

M.C.:

The publisher's choices are laudable, like all his politics, but one cannot expect me to be interested in a biography of Aldo Lado, with all due respect.

M.M.:

What is the film that gave you the most satisfaction, internationally? Have they ever invited you abroad or dedicated special quotes that you recognized in a foreign film?

M.C.:

In France they really appreciate some of my films, there are those intellectual film buffs who have explored scene by scene stuff like Napoli Spara!

  

M.M.:

The last question, what did Mario Caiano dream of becoming when he was a child? From the reading of your autobiography we can deduce that you would never have thought of being a director, although you were a son of art (the reference goes to the seventh art)?

M.C .:

First I wanted to be a sailor, then, more concretely, an archaeologist, but I thank the case, or the instinct or who knows that pushed me towards the most beautiful job in the world.

Five volumes of the Scuderia de Il Foglio Literary.

My two Spaghetti Westerns together with Caiano's autobiography, and the first volume on the History of Horror Cinema by G. Lupi and to the book interview by the Czech Jan Svabenicky.

A big thank you to Mario Caiano, a humble director and one of the best in the field of Italian action cinema, first of all for having chosen, despite himself, to be a director giving us at least a dozen great entertainment products. A second and due thank you, bigger than the first because personal, for having honored me to interview him and to have fun writing the questions and above all reading the answers, my true passion, because, as my friend Svabenicky says: "For who writes about cinema (and not only of this, I might add) and has no direct experience with making a film, it is essential to take into account the work of those who make cinema. Many of the professional figures involved, in various ways, in the world of cinema can provide their own testimony in such a way as to make an authentic contribution to the history of cinema. "