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Caltiki – The Immortal Monster
''Caltiki – The Immortal Monster'' ( it, Caltiki, il mostro immortale) is a 1959 black-and-white science fiction-horror film with similarities to ''The Blob'' that was released in the previous year. The film's storyline concerns a team of archaeologists investigating Mayan ruins, who come across a creature that is a shapeless, amorphous blob. They manage to defeat it using fire, while keeping a sample of the creature. Meanwhile, a comet, which previously passed near the Earth around the time of the collapse of the Mayan civilization, is due to return, raising the possibility of a connection between the creature and the comet. After the success of their film ''Hercules'' (1958), Galatea Film began production on films in other genres that they hoped would entice the international market, which led to Riccardo Freda being hired to direct ''Caltiki – The Immortal Monster''. Freda left the project during filming, later explaining that he wanted to give his friend Mario Bava, who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riccardo Freda
Riccardo Freda (24 February 1909 – 20 December 1999) was an Italian film director. He worked in a variety of genres, including sword-and-sandal, horror film, horror, ''giallo'' and spy films. Freda began directing ''I Vampiri'' in 1956. The film became the first Italian sound film, sound horror film production. Biography Riccardo Freda was born in 1909 in Alexandria, Egypt to Italian parents. Freda attended school in Milan where he took art classes at the Centro Sperimantale. After school he took on work as a sculptor and art critic. Film career Freda first began working in the film industry in 1937 and directed his first film ''Don Cesare di Bazan'' in 1942. Freda began directing ''I Vampiri''. ''I Vampiri'' was the first Italian horror film of the sound era, following the lone silent horror film ''The Monster of Frankenstein (film), Il mostro di Frankenstein'' (1920) Despite being the first, a wave of Italian horror productions did not follow until Mario Bava's film ''Blac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mayan Civilization
The Maya civilization () of the Mesoamerican people is known by its ancient temples and glyphs. Its Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. It is also noted for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical system. The Maya civilization developed in the Maya Region, an area that today comprises southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador. It includes the northern lowlands of the Yucatán Peninsula and the highlands of the Sierra Madre, the Mexican state of Chiapas, southern Guatemala, El Salvador, and the southern lowlands of the Pacific littoral plain. Today, their descendants, known collectively as the Maya, number well over 6 million individuals, speak more than twenty-eight surviving Mayan languages, and reside in nearly the same area as their ancestors. The Archaic period, before 2000 BC, saw the first developments in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergio Corbucci
Sergio Corbucci (; 6 December 1926 – 1 December 1990) was an Italian film director, screenwriter and producer. He directed both very violent Spaghetti Westerns and bloodless Bud Spencer and Terence Hill action comedies. He is the older brother of screenwriter and film director Bruno Corbucci. Biography Early career Corbucci was born in Rome. He started his career by directing mostly low-budget sword and sandal movies. Among his first Spaghetti Westerns were the films ''Grand Canyon Massacre'' (1964), which he co-directed (under the pseudonym, Stanley Corbett) with Albert Band, as well as '' Minnesota Clay'' (1964), his first solo directed Spaghetti Western. Corbucci's first commercial success was with the cult Spaghetti Western '' Django'', starring Franco Nero, the leading man in many of his movies. He would later collaborate with Franco Nero on two other Spaghetti Westerns, ''Il Mercenario'' or '' The Mercenary'' (a.k.a. ''A Professional Gun'') (1968) - where Nero pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sound Film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before sound motion pictures became commercially practical. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, and amplification and recording quality were also inadequate. Innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923. The primary steps in the commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid-to-late 1920s. At first, the sound films which included synchronized dialogue, known as "talking pictures", or "talkies", were exclusively shorts. The earliest feature-length movies with recorded sound included only music and effects. The first feature film originally presented as a talkie (although it had only limited so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arturo Dominici
Arturo Dominici (2 January 1916 – 7 September 1992) was an Italian film, television and voice actor. Biography Born in Palermo, Dominici became best known for his many villainous roles in horror and fantasy films. He is best remembered for his performance as the monstrous Igor Javuto in Mario Bava's ''Black Sunday (1960 film), Black Sunday'' (1960) and the evil Eurysteus in the 1958 Steve Reeves epic ''Hercules (1958 film), Hercules''. His filmography includes more than 80 titles, including Antonio Margheriti's ''Castle of Blood'' (1964), in which he appeared with ''Black Sunday'' star Barbara Steele. Dominici dubbed the voice of Austrian actor Walter Ladengast in the Italian release version of Werner Herzog's ''Nosferatu the Vampyre'' (1979). Dominici's daughter, Germana, is an Italian stage actress; at the age of 14 she had a small role as a farm girl in ''Black Sunday''. Death Dominici died of cancer on 7 September 1992 and is buried in Rome. Partial filmography ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nerio Bernardi
Nerio Bernardi (23 July 1899 – 12 January 1971) was an Italian film actor. He appeared in nearly 200 films between 1918 and 1970. He was born in Bologna, Italy and died in Rome, Italy. Selected filmography * ''Nero'' (1922) * ''The Shepherd King'' (1923) * '' Full Speed'' (1934) * ''Port'' (1934) * ''Loyalty of Love'' (1934) * '' God's Will Be Done'' (1936) * ''King of Diamonds'' (1936) * ''Bayonet'' (1936) * ''The Black Corsair'' (1937) * '' Abandonment'' (1940) * '' Captain Fracasse'' (1940) * ''Lucrezia Borgia'' (1940) * ''Antonio Meucci'' (1940) * '' The Last Dance'' (1941) * ''The Mask of Cesare Borgia'' (1941) * '' A che servono questi quattrini?'' (1942) * ''The Queen of Navarre'' (1942) * '' Fedora'' (1942) * '' In High Places'' (1943) * ''Special Correspondents'' (1943) * '' The Two Orphans'' (1947) * ''The Courier of the King'' (1947) * ''The Lady of the Camellias'' (1947) * ''Mare Nostrum'' (1948) * '' Be Seeing You, Father'' (1948) * ''The Charterhouse of Parma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daniele Vargas
Daniele Vargas, stage name of Daniele Pitani (20 April 1922 – 7 January 1981) was an Italian film actor. Life and career Born in Imola, a small town in the district of Bologna, after attending high school with Pier Paolo Pasolini, Daniele Vargas enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine of Bologna University. After graduation in 1957 he moved to Rome to follow his passion for cinema. He began to appear in small roles in costume films and sword-and-sandals at the end of the 1950s and rapidly became one of the most active character actors, specializing in villain roles and sometime in characters of Spanish language. Selected filmography * ''Hercules Unchained'' (1959) - Amphiaraus * ''Non perdiamo la testa'' (1959) - The Butler * ''Le cameriere'' (1959) - Il baritono Marini * ''Caltiki – The Immortal Monster'' (1959) - Bob * ''The Pirate and the Slave Girl'' (1959) - Gamal * ''The Giant of Marathon'' (1959) - Darius I, King of Persia * ''La strada dei giganti'' (1960) * '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daniela Rocca
Daniela Rocca (12 September 1937 – 28 May 1995) was an Italian actress, model and writer. Biography Rocca was born and raised in Acireale, a small town near Catania. She became Miss Catania in 1953, and was discovered by talent scouts after competing in a Miss Italy competition. Rocca made her film debut in French director Maurice Cloche's ''Marchands de Filles'' (1957) and also appeared in the Riccardo Freda film ''Caltiki – The Immortal Monster'' (''Caltiki – il mostro immortale'', 1959), and ''Esther and the King'' (1960). More film roles followed, but Rocca gain a profile until ''Divorce, Italian Style'' (''Divorzio all'Italiana'', 1961). Rocca became a star after playing the part of the smothering wife Marcello Mastroianni is desperate to escape in Pietro Germi's international box-office hit. Rocca fell in love with Germi during filming and attempted suicide when he rejected her. After that, she was considered unstable and was not offered significant roles. A nervous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
