I'll start:
1) "The Two from the Legion". I know it's too easy! I know that starting with Franco and Ciccio is philologically inevitable: they are the embodiment of that improvised and ragged cinema on which Italian cinema was born and found its training ground. I also know that no one expected me to re-evaluate them; it has long been established that they are pillars of our cinema. But it's not so easy to navigate through a truly oceanic list of titles (almost 130 films!), and I don't believe there is anyone among us who has really seen them all. So I suggest this, which is their first true film. This is where the myth is born! And it remains one of their best-packaged films (directed by Lucio Fulci!). The film was originally created (with other expectations) for the Tognazzi-Vianello duo, but Franco and Cicco hold their own. The cast also includes Alighiero Noschese and Aldo Giuffré. But if we want higher quality, then here comes “00-2 Secret Agents,” probably their best film (still with Fulci).
2) "Zorro Against Maciste". No true capish's filmography would be complete without a Maciste movie! You will watch it with some gentle lady, and you will look good saying that the name Maciste comes, no less, from D’Annunzio! That the character first appeared in “Cabiria” and that, at the beginning, he lived in the 20th century (contemporary to his first creators). Then, in the 1960s, during the peak of "peplum" fashion, he was placed in an indeterminate mythological past alongside people like Hercules or Ursus. Maciste, in more than forty films, has fought against all: vampires, monsters, Cossacks, legionaries, demons… But the best is this “Zorro Against Maciste” in which Maciste ends up in Spain around the 1600s! It is directed by Umberto Lenzi, not just anyone! And then there’s Moira Orfei, super sexy, playing the evil queen and the usual Massimo Serato as the villain with fiery eyes!
3) “The Trucido and the Cop”. Lenzi’s film (him again!) is not only one of the best poliziotteschi of the 1970s but is also the movie that introduces the character of “Monnezza.” The “Monnezza” (not to be confused, please, with Nico Giraldi!) is one of the best-drawn “masks” of that genre cinema, a character that does not pale in comparison to the best picaro tradition. The “Monnezza,” like every son of a bitch (literally: the mother is a prostitute), has many fathers. 5 to be exact: Dardano Sacchetti, the screenwriter who first conceived him, Umberto Lenzi who brought him to life and movement, Tomas Milian (what a great actor!) who gave him a face and body, Ferruccio Amendola who gave him a voice (and more…) and – most importantly of all – “er patata” (or “er pesciarolo”) that is Quinto Gambi, the stunt double and friend of Milian who was the “real” Monnezza. I also like to remember Claudio Cassinelli, co-star and actor (as well as partner of that silly Bignardi) of great worth, who died too soon. Equally valid is “La banda.
1) "The Two from the Legion". I know it's too easy! I know that starting with Franco and Ciccio is philologically inevitable: they are the embodiment of that improvised and ragged cinema on which Italian cinema was born and found its training ground. I also know that no one expected me to re-evaluate them; it has long been established that they are pillars of our cinema. But it's not so easy to navigate through a truly oceanic list of titles (almost 130 films!), and I don't believe there is anyone among us who has really seen them all. So I suggest this, which is their first true film. This is where the myth is born! And it remains one of their best-packaged films (directed by Lucio Fulci!). The film was originally created (with other expectations) for the Tognazzi-Vianello duo, but Franco and Cicco hold their own. The cast also includes Alighiero Noschese and Aldo Giuffré. But if we want higher quality, then here comes “00-2 Secret Agents,” probably their best film (still with Fulci).
2) "Zorro Against Maciste". No true capish's filmography would be complete without a Maciste movie! You will watch it with some gentle lady, and you will look good saying that the name Maciste comes, no less, from D’Annunzio! That the character first appeared in “Cabiria” and that, at the beginning, he lived in the 20th century (contemporary to his first creators). Then, in the 1960s, during the peak of "peplum" fashion, he was placed in an indeterminate mythological past alongside people like Hercules or Ursus. Maciste, in more than forty films, has fought against all: vampires, monsters, Cossacks, legionaries, demons… But the best is this “Zorro Against Maciste” in which Maciste ends up in Spain around the 1600s! It is directed by Umberto Lenzi, not just anyone! And then there’s Moira Orfei, super sexy, playing the evil queen and the usual Massimo Serato as the villain with fiery eyes!
3) “The Trucido and the Cop”. Lenzi’s film (him again!) is not only one of the best poliziotteschi of the 1970s but is also the movie that introduces the character of “Monnezza.” The “Monnezza” (not to be confused, please, with Nico Giraldi!) is one of the best-drawn “masks” of that genre cinema, a character that does not pale in comparison to the best picaro tradition. The “Monnezza,” like every son of a bitch (literally: the mother is a prostitute), has many fathers. 5 to be exact: Dardano Sacchetti, the screenwriter who first conceived him, Umberto Lenzi who brought him to life and movement, Tomas Milian (what a great actor!) who gave him a face and body, Ferruccio Amendola who gave him a voice (and more…) and – most importantly of all – “er patata” (or “er pesciarolo”) that is Quinto Gambi, the stunt double and friend of Milian who was the “real” Monnezza. I also like to remember Claudio Cassinelli, co-star and actor (as well as partner of that silly Bignardi) of great worth, who died too soon. Equally valid is “La banda.
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