Camillo Pilotto Movies

In this epic, a medieval adventurer heads to China and winds up saving the Grand Khan's daughter from bandits. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Brigitte Bardot stars in this romantic thriller about love and high treason in WWI-era Italy. Matinee idol-turned-filmmaker Mario Bonnard directs this opus. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Maria Montez made her final screen appearance in the Italian-American co-production Thief of Venice. Montez is cast as Tina, an 8th-century Venetian tavern keeper, caught in the crossfire during the Italian city-state's war with Turkey. Aligning herself with naval officer Alfiere Lorenzo Contarini (Paul Christian), Tina does her best to prevent a Turkish takeover of Venice. First, however, she must neutralize the chief villain, scheming Scarpa the Inquisitor (Massimo Serato). Production values are quite impressive, even though the script (by Hollywood's Jesse Lasky Jr. and England's Michael Pertwee) is nothing special. Maria Montez died in 1951, a full year before the American release of Thief of Venice. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Scorned Flesh first saw the light of day in Italy under the title Statua Vivente. Fosco Giachetti plays a sailor who intends to break a few female hearts while on leave. Putting the make on shy young Laura Solari, Giachetti at first regards the girl as yet another conquest. Imagine his surprise when he realizes he's actually fallen in love with her! On the eve of their wedding, Solari is killed, sending the grief-stricken Giachetti off on a bender. While drowning his sorrows in a seedy dive, he meets a hard-bitten woman who happens to be the exact double of his lost love (and who happens to also be played by Laura Solari). In Vertigo fashion, Giachetti tries to make his new girlfriend over in the image of his deceased fiance -- and like Vertigo, his efforts are doomed to tragic failure. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A lesser but fascinating example of earthy postwar neorealism, Furia stars Isa Pola as Clara, the randy wife of horse-breeder Oreste (Gino Cervi). Whenever the opportunity presents itself, Clara cheats on her husband in the arms of Oreste's stud-keeper Antonio (Rossano Brazzi). Meanwhile, moronic stablehand Rocco (Umberto Spadaro) lusts after both Clara and Oreste's daughter by a previous marriage, the virginal Marietta (Adriana Bennetti). And meanwhile, Clara and Marietta jealousy vie for the attentions of Oreste, who spends most of his time trying to prove that his wife is an adulterer. At this point, the viewer will prognosticate that one or more of the characters will meet a bad end-and the viewer will be right. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Abuna Messias (Cardinal Messias) features Camillo Pilotta in the title role. Designed as propaganda to justify Italy's recent invasion of Ethiopia, the film details the efforts of the Franciscan Monks to spread Christianity among the Ethiopian Melenik tribe. On the verge of total success, Cardinal Messias is challenged by Abuna Atansio (Mario Ferrari), spiritual leader of the tribal Coptic church. Hostilities develop into open warfare, with Atansio urging Ethiopian chieftan Negus Johannes (Ippolito Silvestri) to decimate the Meleniks and their Franciscan brethren. It is perhaps not surprising that Abuna Messias was the 1940 winner of the Mussolini Cup award. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Giuseppe Verdi was also released as The Life of Verdi for the benefit of filmgoers who had trouble grasping the obvious. Fosco Giachetti stars as the title character, aging nearly 30 years in the course of the film. The story begins when the teenaged Verdi leaves his hometown behind to study music in Milan, only to face rejection from the school's hide-bound board of directors. He is forced to endure several subsequent setbacks until he is helped along the road to success by sympathetic opera diva Giuseppina (Gaby Morlay), whom he eventually marries. An amusing later moment finds Verdi and a pompous tenor (Beniamino Gigli) rehearsing the La Donna e Mobile aria from Rigoletto, all the while attempting to keep this composition secret from potential music thieves. The film ends with the triumphant premiere of Aida in Egypt, in commemoration of the opening of the Suez Canal. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Scipio L'Africano (aka Scipio Africanus) represented the first foray into filmmaking by Vittorio Mussolini, the war-hero son of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. It was originally intended to be an Italian-American co-production, but Hollywood producer Hal Roach pulled out of the project on the advice of his associates. Rumors have it that Vittorio's father, "Il Duce" himself, wrote the screenplay and personally demanded that Italian filmmaker Carmine Gallone return to his homeland to direct the picture. One of the most expensive historical epics in movie history, the film concentrates on Roman consul Scipio's (Annibale Ninchi) Herculean efforts to topple the regime of Carthaginian conqueror Hannibal (Camillo Pilotto). It takes 15 years, but Scipio is finally able to raise a big enough army to defeat Hannibal, first in Africa and finally at the pivotal Battle of Zama. A subplot concerns the political intrigues concocted by the treacherous Numidian Queen Sofonisba (Francesca Braggioti). To bring Scipio L'Africano to fruition, director Gallone was afforded the luxury of a 232-day production schedule. According to official files, 32,848 extras, 1,000 horses and 50 elephants (for Hannibal's journey across the Alps) were used in the film. Even so, this heavily propagandistic paean to the glories of the Roman Empire is often shoddily put together, chock full of such anachronisms as telephone wires stretching over the battlefields. The film was not the enormous flop that many people claim, but its lukewarm box-office showing was enough to convince the Italian film industry to concentrate on musicals and "white telephone" comedies for the duration of the Mussolini regime. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Allegri Masnadieri (Jolly Pirates) is a dizzy mistaken-identity farce, dressed up as a lavish costume epic. While escaping from an undesirable suitor, the heroine and her two servants are captured by pirates. Fortunately, one of the servants is mistaken for the infamous buccaneer chieftain "The Black Feather." Taking advantage of the situation, the heroine and her true love commandeer the pirate vessel as a means of escape. Complicating matters is the fact that the pirates are holding hostage the nephew of the very man that the girl didn't want to marry. Before the mess is straightened out, the fickle heroine has fallen in love with the nephew! There are times in Allegri Masnadieri that the mercurial leading lady is more frightening than the pirates. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Le Scarpo al Sole (Alpine Love) takes place during WWI. The events depicted herein are based on the diaries of Italian captain Paolo Monelli, whose opinion of his army's efficiency was somewhat higher than that of his Allies. In true Hemingway fashion, the war in the Alps provides a backdrop for the romance between conscript Giuseppe Faoro (Camillo Pilotto) and a pretty schoolteacher (Nelly Corradi). This subplot is cut short when Faoro sacrifices his life to save his comrades. After this, Le Scarpo al Sole really doesn't have anywhere to go dramatically, though the scenery is lovely. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Also known as The Great Appeal and The Last Roll-Call, Il Grande Apello was the second of three films directed in 1936 by "man of the people" director Mario Camerini. This is the story of Giovanni Bertani, who has long since left his native Italy behind to go galavanting around the world. Landing in East Africa, Giovanni assumes control of an inn which serves as a magnet for the outcasts of Europe (and this was six years before Casablanca!) From one of his guests, Giovanni discovers that his illegitimate son is now a member of the Italian Army -- fortuitously stationed in East Africa. Hoping to stage a reconciliation with his son, our hero discovers that his long-dormant Italian patriotism has suddenly and miraculously been reborn. This leads Giovanni to turn his back on a gang of mercenary gun-runners with whom he has been associated, a last-act reformation that results in his spectacular and somehow ennobling demise. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

La Vacanza del Diavolo is the Italian-language version of the 1930 Nancy Carroll vehicle The Devil's Holiday. Carmen Boni steps into the Carroll role as Lisa Hobart, a mercenary manicurist who plots to marry wealthy wheat heir Robert Stone (Maurizio D'Ancora). Despite the objections of his family, the couple elopes, whereupon Stone's father offers the girl a fortune if she'll agree to give the boy up. Never having been in love with him anyway, Lisa agrees to dump him but has a change of heart -- and conscience -- when Stone is gravely injured in an accident. Observers in 1930 felt that Nancy Carroll did it better. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide