Luigi Pistilli Movies
At one time Luigi Pistilli was one of Italy's most respected actors of stage, screen, and television. In theater, he was considered one of the country's best interpreters of Bertolt Brecht's plays; indeed, his most famous roles were in The Threepenny Opera and St. Joan of the Stockyards. Pistilli studied acting at Milan's Piccolo Teatro, graduating in 1955. He never completely severed his ties with the theater and often returned to appear in plays directed by Giorgio Strehler. Pistilli made his feature film debut with an uncredited role in Dark Passage (1947). He often appeared in such spaghetti Westerns as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and For a Few Dollars More (1965). Pistilli's television career has included a regular role on the popular Mafia drama The Octopus. Pistilli committed suicide in his Milan home just before appearing in the final production of Terrace Rattigan's Tosca on April 21, 1996. The show had been harshly panned by critics and audiences and this apparently threw Pistilli into a deep depression. According to his suicide note, Pistilli had suffered even deeper despair after making some bitter public comments regarding the recent termination of a four-year off-stage relationship with singer/actress Milva, with whom he was co-starring in Tosca. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1966
- R
- Add The Good, the Bad and the Ugly to QueueAdd The Good, the Bad and the Ugly to top of Queue
In the last and the best installment of his so-called "Dollars" trilogy of Sergio Leone-directed "spaghetti westerns," Clint Eastwood reprised the role of a taciturn, enigmatic loner. Here he searches for a cache of stolen gold against rivals the Bad (Lee Van Cleef), a ruthless bounty hunter, and the Ugly (Eli Wallach), a Mexican bandit. Though dubbed "the Good," Eastwood's character is not much better than his opponents -- he is just smarter and shoots faster. The film's title reveals its ironic attitude toward the canonized heroes of the classical western. "The real West was the world of violence, fear, and brutal instincts," claimed Leone. "In pursuit of profit there is no such thing as good and evil, generosity or deviousness; everything depends on chance, and not the best wins but the luckiest." Immensely entertaining and beautifully shot in Techniscope by Tonino Delli Colli, the movie is a virtually definitive "spaghetti western," rivaled only by Leone's own Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). The main musical theme by Ennio Morricone hit #1 on the British pop charts. Originally released in Italy at 177 minutes, the movie was later cut for its international release. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, (more)
This pulse-pounding follow-up to Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars brings back Clint Eastwood as the serape-clad, cigar-chewing "Man With No Name." Engaged in an ongoing battle with bounty hunter Col. Douglas Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef), the Man joins forces with his enemy to capture homicidal bandit Indio (Gian Maria Volontè). Both the Eastwood and Van Cleef characters are given understandable motivations for their bloodletting tendencies, something that was lacking in A Fistful of Dollars. In both films, however, the violence is raw and uninhibited -- and in many ways, curiously poetic. Leone's tense, tight close-ups, pregnant pauses, and significant silences have since been absorbed into the standard spaghetti Western lexicon; likewise, Ennio Morricone's haunting musical score has been endlessly imitated and parodied. For a Few Dollars More was originally titled Per Qualche Dollaro in Più; it would be followed by the last and best of the Man with No Name trilogy, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, (more)
Robert Montgomery's 1946 film Lady in the Lake attempted to tell the entire story with a "subjective camera": shooting the film from the point of view of the main character, with the camera acting as his "eyes". The first hour or so of Dark Passage does the same thing--and the results are far more successful than anything seen in Montgomery's film. Humphrey Bogart heads the cast as an escaped convict, wrongly accused of his wife's murder. After being forced to beat up a man (Clifton Young) from whom he's hitched a ride, Bogart hides out in the apartment of Lauren Bacall, while recovering from plastic surgery, and tries to set about locating the actual murderer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, (more)
