Special Birthdays

Fernando García Morcillo (composer) would have been 110 today but died in 2002.

Urs Althaus (actor) is 70 today.

Little Known Spaghetti Western actors ~ Franco De Rosa

[These daily posts will cover little known actors or people that have appeared in more recent films and TV series. Various degrees of information that I was able to find will be given and anything that you can add would be appreciated.]

Franco De Rosa was born on July 16, 1944, in Viareggio, Italy. He is an Italian actor best known for his supporting roles in Italian and British films and television series during the 1960s through the 1980s.

De Rosa began his career in 1964, debuting in the British television anthology series ‘Armchair Theatre’ before making his film debut in the thriller “Return from the Ashes” (1965), directed by J. Lee Thompson, where he played a minor role alongside Ingrid Thulin and Maximilian Schell. Over the next two decades, he appeared in a variety of genres, including spaghetti Westerns such as “Yankee” (1966) and “Ringo and His Golden Pistol” (1966), as well as horror and giallo films like “The Young, the Evil and the Savage” (1968), directed by Antonio Margheriti. His work extended to British productions, including the comedy “Holiday on the Buses” (1973) and the drama “Richard's Things” (1980), often portraying characters with Italian heritage or in international settings

Though not a leading man, De Rosa contributed to over 20 film and television projects, frequently collaborating with notable European directors and showcasing versatility across action, mystery, and light entertainment formats before largely retiring from acting in the 1980s. His career reflects the cross-cultural exchanges in post-war European cinema, bridging Italian genre filmmaking with Anglo-American influences

De Rosa's final feature films were in the early 1980s, focusing on dramatic supporting roles in British cinema.

Altogether Franco appeared in thirty-four films and television appearances between 1964 and 1982.

De Rosa appeared in four Spaghetti westerns: “Johnny Oro” (Ringo and His Golden Pisto) as Juanito Perez, “Uno straniero a Paso Bravo” (A Stranger in Paso Bravo) as José, “L'Americano” (Yankee) as Angel Face all in 1966 and “Sartana nella valle degli avvoltoi” (Ballad of Death Valley) as Peter Douglas in 1970.

De ROSA, Franco (aka Franco DeRosa Francesco Derosa Franco Derosa) [7/16/1944, Viareggio, Tuscany, Italy -     ] – film, TV actor.

Ringo and His Golden Pistol - 1966 (Juanito Perez) [as Franco Derosa]

A Stranger in Paso Bravo - 1966 (José) [as Franco Derosa]

Yankee – 1966 (Angel Face)

Ballad of Death Valley – 1970 (Peter Douglas)

Spaghetti Western Directors, Screenwriters, Cinematographers

Spaghetti Western Director ~ Julio Buchs

Julio Buchs García was born on March 10, 1926, in Madrid, Spain. He was the son of José Buchs Echeandía, a pioneering Spanish film director known for his work in the early decades of Spanish cinema.

Buchs was a Spanish film director, screenwriter, and assistant director known for his contributions to genre cinema, particularly westerns and thrillers, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He began his career in the film industry as an assistant director during the 1950s and later transitioned to directing and writing his own projects. His directorial works include notable titles such as “A Bullet for Sandoval” (1969), “Murder by Music” (1969), “Alta tension” (1972), and “El apartamento de la tentación” (1971), reflecting a style marked by technical care and engagement with popular genres of the era.

Buchs’ father’s career influenced his entry into the industry. He directed approximately fifteen films (including shorts) as a director, often handling writing duties as well, before his untimely death from a heart attack on January 20, 1973, in Madrid at the age of 46. His output, though relatively brief, exemplifies the vibrant and diverse landscape of Spanish commercial filmmaking during the Franco era's later years

Julio Buchs directed three Spaghetti westerns: “El Mestizo” (Django Does Not Forgive) in 1966, “El hombre que mató a Billy el Niño” (A Few Bullets More) in 1967 and “Los desesperdados” (A Bullet for Sandoval) in 1969.

BUCHS, Julio (aka J. Buchs, Julio Busch) (Julio Buchs Garcia) [3/10/1926, Madrid, Madrid, Spain – 1/20/1973, Madrid, Madrid, Spain (heart attack)] – director, assistant director, writer, married son of producer, production manager, production designer, director, writer, actor José Buchs (José Buchs Echeandía) [1896-1973].

Django Does Not Forgive – 1966

A Few Bullets More – 1967 [as J. Buchs]

A Bullet for Sandoval – 1969

Spaghetti Western Screenwriter ~ Jan Bartošík

Born in Piestany, Slovakia on June 2, 1944, to parents Otto Bartosik and Jolanka Takac, Jan received his master’s degree at the Technical University of Architecture in Bratislava in 1967. After enduring years of Communist oppression and imprisonment for an attempted escape during his college years, Jan, his sister, and nephew departed for Austria on August 20, 1969, one year after Czechoslovakia fell under the “Iron Curtain” and one day before the borders were closed. Immigrating to Seattle, Washington on November 13th, 1969, and later arriving in Los Angeles in the Spring of 1970, Jan began his life in California. Jan died in Manhattan Beach, California on February 9, 2022, from heart failure. He was 77 years old.

Jan Bartošík wrote the screenplay for one Euro-western “Covbojka” in 1967.

BARTOSIK, Jan (Jan A. Bartošík) [6/2/1944, Pieštany, Slovakia, 2/9/2022, Manhattan Beach, California, U.S.A. (heart failure)] – producer, director, writer, cinematographer, composer, married to Carmel C. Brinkman [1961-    ] [1992-    ] father of Blaise Bartošík [1998-    ], Bridget Bartošík [2002-    ].

Covbojka – 1997

Spaghetti Western Cinematographer ~ John Cabrera

John Cabrera Puig was born on January 14, 1925, in Liverpool, England. He was a Spanish-British cinematographer.

Cabrera applied to The Rank Organisation at the age of 16 and got to know the film industry from the ground up. During World War II, Cabrera took part as a photographer in the Allied landing operations in Normandy in 1944 and in 1945 in the invasion of German territory by Allied troops. After the end of the war, Cabrera returned to civilian life, first serving as a material assistant, then as a second and finally as a first camera assistant. In 1952, he returned to his parents' country of Spain, where he initially served as a contact person for the British and American film crews filming here, beginning this year with the costume and romance drama "Boccaccio's Great Love", which was filmed on site, both in English and Spanish. Here, too, Cabrera had to make do with menial jobs, such as as a camera assistant, but also repeatedly served as an intermediary between the foreign film teams and the Spanish authorities or the local extras. In this capacity, Cabrera was also involved in Robert Rossen's colossal ham “Alexander the Great” in 1955 and in David Lean's masterpiece “Lawrence of Arabia” in 1961/62.

Even at the age of more than 40, John Cabrera had not progressed beyond the post of a simple cinematographer and in this subordinate function served second-unit film crews in major international productions produced in Spain in the second half of the 1960s.

In 1970, John Cabrera finally made his debut as chief cinematographer in the British western “Captain Apache”, which was also shot in Spain. Initially, he was allowed to continue photographing internationally produced films (“Call of the Wild”, “The Man Called Noon” and "Paper Tiger"), but then Cabrera was mainly behind the camera for purely Spanish films, which were usually rarely shown abroad. In 1981, he once again took over the second-unit camera role in a Hollywood production made outside the USA, “Conan the Barbarian” with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Cabrera's last work remained the unfinished, large-scale international production "Genghis Khan" (Genghis Khan), which could not be completed in 1992 due to considerable financing difficulties of the Italian co-producer.

John Cabrera was cinematographer on five Spaghetti westerns: “Capitán Apache” (Captain Apache) in 1970, “The Call of the Wild” in 1972, “The Man Called Noon” in 1973, “Triumphs of a Man Called Horse” in 1982 with John Alcott and “Yellow Hair and the Fortress of Gold” in 1984.

CABRERA, John (John Cabrera Puig) [1/14/1925, Liverpool, Merseyside, England, U.K. - 4/18/2014, Dénia, Alicante, Spain] – cinematographer, cameraman, photographer, married to Gertrude Leadbetter (1951-19??) married to Irene Cabrera (19??-2014) father of John Cabrera, Edward Cabrera.

Captain Apache – 1970

The Call of the Wild – 1972

The Man Called Noon - 1973

Triumphs of a Man Called Horse – 1983 (co)

Yellow Hair and the Fortress of Gold – 1984

Voices of the Spaghetti Western “The Long Day of the Massacre”

As we know most of the Euro-westerns were co-productions from Italy, Spain, Germany and France which incorporated British and American actors to gain a worldwide audience. The films were shot silent and then dubbed into the various languages where they were sold for distribution. That means Italian, Spanish, German, French and English voice actors were hired to dub the films. Even actors from the countries where the film was to be shown were often dubbed by voice actors for various reasons such as the actors were already busy making another film, they wanted to be paid additional salaries for dubbing their voices, the actor’s voice didn’t fit the character they were playing, accidents to the actors and in some cases even death before the film could be dubbed.

I’ll list a Euro-western and the (I) Italian, (S) Spanish, (G) German and (F) French, (E) English voices that I can find and once in a while a bio on a specific voice actor as in Europe these actors are as well-known as the actors they voiced.

Today we’ll cover “The Long Day of the Massacre”

[(I) Italian, (S) Spanish, (G) German, (F) French, (E) English]

Joe Williams – Peter Martell (I) Pino Locchi, (S) Luis Espinosa, (G) Klaus Kindler

Pedro la Muerte – Mauel Serrano (I) Corrado Gaipa, (S) Joaquin Gomez, (G) ?

Lara - Liz Barrett (I) Melina Martello, (S) Rosa Gavin, (G) Eva Kinsky

Paquita - Daniela Giordano (I) ?, (S) Toni Aviles, (G) ?

Clay – Franco Fantasia (I) Carlo Alighiero, (S) Javier Roldan, (G) ?

Judge - Andrea Fantasia (I) Bruno Persa, (S) Jesus Diaz, (G) Alexander Allerson

Joaquin Gomez  (1951 -    )

Joaquín Gómez Bujalance was born on December 12, 1951, in Cordoba, Spain. Joaquin is a Spanish actor and dubbing director. Gomez loves poetry, Pio Baroja and Stefan Zweig. He knew that he was going to be an actor when, near his neighborhood, Can Vidalet, they read him a poster in which he put: Here the Navarra Cinema will be built. A movie theater in your neighborhood!!! He always thought a producer would come knocking on his door... (he’s still waiting). He was calling a Muniesa on TVE. He made a figuration and in 1975 a prota with Lluis Ma Guell. He knows how to ride a horse. In the meantime, he’s worked for decades as a voice actor and dubber. 

Special Birthdays

Peter Ivens (actor) would have been 155 today but died in 1941.

Theo Shall (actor) would have been 130 today but died in 1955.

Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt (actor) would have been 105 today but died in 1992.

Emilio Messina (actor) would have been 90 today but died in 2007.

Smokey Roberds (singer, actor) is 85 today.

 

Little Known Spaghetti Western actors ~ Luciano DeRitas

[These daily posts will cover little known actors or people that have appeared in more recent films and TV series. Various degrees of information that I was able to find will be given and anything that you can add would be appreciated.]

Lucinao DeRitas is/was an Italian cha racter actor. According to the IMDb he only appeared in  three films between 1972 and 1979.

His only Spaghetti western role was as a bank customer in 1974’s “La pazienza ha un limite… noi no!” (Patience Has a Limit, We Don’t) in 1974 as a bank customer.

I can find no biographical information on him.

DeRITAS, Luciano – film, TV actor.

Patience Has a Limit, We Don’t – 1974 (bank customer)

Spaghetti Western Directors, Screenwriters, Cinematographers

Spaghetti Western Director ~ Vito Bruschini

Vito Bruschini was director, assistant director, journalist, writer born in Rome on March 19, 1943. He worked as a screenwriter and assistant director on a number of films in the 1970s and directed and wrote the 1977 film “White Fang and the Kid”, which won the Jury Prize at the Giffoni Film Festival. In the 1980s, he wrote documentaries and cultural broadcasts for television and instructional videos for various editorial series. He has also taught directing at the Rosebud academy, a private school of cinema and television and has made television programs for the Sky platform.

He directed the internal publication of the State Railways Diario delle ferrovie d'Italia (1839-2000): dalla Napoli-Portici all'ETR500 Edizioni Efeso, 2000. He wrote and directed “Sotto un cielo di bombe”, a screening of a documentary on the bombing of San Lorenzo interspersed with stories told by 10 actors, represented as part of the "Festival del documentario storico", a Roman event in 2009. In 2009 he published the novel The Father - The Godfather of Godfathers. In 2011 Vallanzasca; in 2012, La strage. The novel of Piazza Fontana; in 2013, Criminal Education; in 2014 The Secrets of the Bilderberg Club. The Novel of Power; in 2015 The Conspirators of the Priory, all with Newton Compton Editori.

As mentioned above Vito’s only Spaghetti western he directed was 1977’s “Zanna Bianca e il grande Kid” (White Fang and the Kid).

BRUSCHINI, Vito [3/19/1943, Rome, Lazio, Italy -    ] – director, assistant director, journalist, writer.

White Fang and the Kid - 1977

Spaghetti Western Screenwriter ~ Ramón Barreiro

Ramón Barreiro Vázquez was born in Castronuño, Castile and León, Spain on August 28, 1906. Barreiro was the son of the photographer Ramón Barreiro Barcala, first established in Mexico and then in Pontevedra. In 1925 he began to collaborate with his brother Enrique Barreiro Vázquez with the shooting of films and with his research with color cinema, such as the documentary Pontevedra, cuna de Colón, premiered at the Teatro Principal de Pontevedra in 1927. After the end of the Spanish Civil War he returned to Pontevedra in April 1939 and built his reputation with the book Metralla blanca del Madrid rojo (1939). He began a literary career, wrote a play for children, and published the book Nosotros los hombres (1943); He also contributed to the newspaper Informaciones. In the 1940s, he directed several documentary films, including the series “Retablo español”. In 1944 he directed his first feature film, “The Nephew of Buffalo Bill”, the first of his humorous and parody films.

Later in his career made programs on Spanish television such as ‘Club mediodía’ and ‘Teleclub’, returning to the cinema sporadically, such as working as a co-story writer on León Klimovsky's film “Torrejón City” in 1962.

In all he wrote stories and screenplays for ten films between 1944 and 1964. He also directed ten films between 1937 and 1970 and also acted in two films in 1944.

Ramón Barreiro died in Madrid, Spain on May 1, 1981, at the age of 74.

BARREIRO, Ramón (aka Ramon Barreiros) (Ramón Barreiro Vázquez) [8/28/1906, Castronuño, Castile and León, Spain – 5/1/1981, Madrid, Madrid, Spain] – director, writer, cinematographer, actor, son of the photographer Ramón Barreiro Barcala, brother of Enrique Barreiro Vázquez (Juan Enrique Barreiro Vázquez) [1899-1984]

The Nephew of Buffalo Bill – 1944 (co)

Torrejón City – 1962 [story writer]

 

Spaghetti Western Cinematographer ~ Hans Burmann

Hans Burmann Sánchez was born in Bad Honnef,,Rhein-Sieg-Kreis, Germany on August 9, 1937. The son of the film architect Siegfried Bürmann he came to the film industry in 1953 and worked his way up from camera assistant to second cameraman (1960) to chief cameraman (1970) for feature-length films.

In his early years, Burmann had photographed mostly unambitious entertainment productions for a mass audience and, with a workload of up to half a dozen films per year, was one of the most sought-after cinematographers in Iberian cinema. Above all, the director Mario Camus regularly engaged Burmann for his productions. Burmann's excursions into pretension-oriented art cinema include Camus's melancholic and poetic portrait of the time “The Beehive”, which has also attracted much international attention, and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's Cuban portrait of time, society and travel, “Guantanamera”. In addition, the German-Spaniard had also photographed several socio-politically committed feature films (e.g. “The Holy Fools”, “Sandino”). His camera works for the films “Tesis – Der Snuff Film” and “Open the Eyes”, which were also much discussed internationally, also attracted a lot of attention.

Burmann occasionally photographed for Spanish television (series ‘Los camioneros’ [1973]). In 1988, he was nominated for the Spanish Film Award Goya, in the category Best Cinematographer, for his performance in “The Execution”. In 1992 he was nominated for “El rey pasmado” and the following year another “La marrana”.

In 2008, 71-year-old Hans Burmann largely withdrew into private life. His brother is the theatre and film architect Wolfgang Burmann while his son Pablo Burmann is also a cinematographer.

Hans Burmann was a cinematographer on two Spaghetti westerns: “Perché uccidi ancora” (Why Kill Again?) with Vitaliano Natalucci in 1965, “El más fabuloso golpe del Far West” (The Boldest Job in the West” in 1971 with Antonio Millan

BURMANN, Hans (aka Hans Burman) (Hans Burmann Sánchez) [8/9/1937, Bad Honnef,,Rhein-Sieg-Kreis, Germany –     ] – producer, cinematographer, cameraman, actor, son of production designer Sigfrido Burmann (Siegfried Burmann) [1891-1980], brother of production designer Wolfgang Burmann (Wolfgang Burmann Sánchez) [1940-    ], father of cinematographer Pablo Burmann

Why Kill Again? – 1965 (co)

The Boldest Job in the West – 1971 (co)