''Go Gorilla Go'' ( it, Vai gorilla) is a

1975 It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...

Italian

poliziottesco Poliziotteschi (; singular ''poliziottesco'') constitute a subgenre of crime and action films that emerged in Italy in the late 1960s and reached the height of their popularity in the 1970s. They are also known as ''polizieschi all'italiana'', ...

film directed by

Tonino Valerii Tonino Valerii (20 May 1934 – 13 October 2016) was an Italian film director, most known for his Spaghetti Westerns. Tonino (Antonio) Valerii started his film career as an assistant director on Sergio Leone's ''A Fistful of Dollars'', before mo ...

. The script of the film continued some scenes from the debut film of Valerii, '' Per il gusto di uccidere'', including the final duel between

Fabio Testi Fabio Testi (born 2 August 1941) is an Italian actor. After growing up witnessing film work done around Lake Garda, Testi entered the sets of the film and began work as a stuntman and a double on set, where he worked as a stuntman on ''The Good, ...

and

Antonio Marsina Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language-speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 400 most popular male ...

. The censorship commission banned the film to people under 18 years old and Valerii refused the cuts requested by the production to lower the ban; the film eventually had a significant commercial success, grossing over 1 billion and 800 million lire.Maurizio Baroni, ''Platea in piedi 1969-1978. Manifesti e dati statistici del cinema italiano'', Bolelli Editore, Bologna 1996.

Cast

as Marco Sartori *

Renzo Palmer Renzo Palmer (20 December 1929 – 4 June 1988) was an Italian film, television and stage actor. He appeared in more than 60 films between 1957 and 1988. Life and career Born in Milan as Lorenzo Bigatti, Palmer was the adopted son of the ...

as Gaetani Sampioni *Claudia Marsani as Vera Sampioni *

Al Lettieri Alfredo Lettieri (February 24, 1928 – October 18, 1975) was an American actor. Active during the 1960s and 70s, he commonly portrayed villainous characters. He achieved recognition for his performance as mobster Virgil Sollozzo in the crime fi ...

as Ciro Sartori *

Saverio Marconi Saverio Marconi (born 1 April 1948) is an Italian stage director and actor. Life and career Born in Rome, after his debut as a stage actor, Marconi had his breakout role in 1977 playing Gavino Ledda in the Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's drama fi ...

as Piero *Adriano Amidei Migliano as Police Commissioner Vannuzzi *Antonio Marsina as Berto *

Luciano Catenacci Luciano Catenacci (13 April 1933 – 4 October 1990) was an Italian actor and production manager who worked on mainly Italian produced films during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Life and career Born in Rome, Catenacci started his career as ...

as Manager of the Shooting Range *

Giuliana Calandra Giuliana Calandra (10 February 1936 – 25 November 2018) was an Italian film, television and stage actress, journalist and television hostess. Life and career Born in Moncalieri, Giuliana Calandra debuted in 1963 Pier Paolo Pasolini's ''La ric ...

as Sampioni's Wife

Production

Gori contacted

who specialised in

spaghetti westerns The Spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...

. Valerii's latest film ''

My Name is Nobody ''My Name Is Nobody'' ( it, Il mio nome è Nessuno) is a 1973 Italian/French/German international co-production comedy Spaghetti Western starring Terence Hill and Henry Fonda. The film was directed by Tonino Valerii and based on an idea by Sergi ...

'' (1973) was his most popular to date. Valerii and screenwriter Massimo De Rita started developing a few ideas and had three story outlines for the film. These ideas were an omnibus film about a police patrol on a night shift, the second was a revenge film that Valerii described as "in the vein of '' Death Wish''" about a lawyer who uses his knowledge of crime to seek revenge on gangs. The last idea was a story about a bodyguard. Valerii saw a newspaper on Gori's desk about a wealthy Italian industrialist who moved abroad in fear of being kidnapped. Feeling that the story captured the era that Italy was in, they decided on the story of the bodyguard (or gorillas as they were nicknamed). Valerii says they convinced Gori on the film when De Rita told him the title "Go Gorilla!". Valerii cast

in the role after he had been in a few films (''Blood River'' and ''Red Coat'') that did poorly in the box office. Al Lettieri had a small role as Testi's best friend in the film. It would be one of Lettieri's final roles as he died of a heart attack on October 18, 1975. For the villain, Valerii cast

who had recently given up acting after a few roles in 1960s Westerns and had become a photographer. Marsina arrived with his girlfriend who auditioned for a part but was not cast. Valerii thought that Marsina had an interesting face and got him to do a screen test which got him the role. Valerii stated that the film's script was written quickly with a lot of dialogue being re-written in the editing room to "rescue" a few scenes. The film was shot at De Paolis Studios in Rome.

Release

''Go Gorilla Go'' was distributed in Italy by

Cineriz ''Cineriz'' was an Italian media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films, founded in the early 1950s by the businessman Angelo Rizzoli. The company catalogue counts also many films directed by Federico Fellini, Gil ...

on November 14, 1975. The film received a v.m. 18 rating in Italy, making it not permitted to an audience under the age of 18. When this happened, Cecci Gori insisted that Valerii cut the most violent scenes as requested. Valerii did not accept this and no cuts were made. The film was a great box office success in Italy, where it grossed a total of 1,846,285,530

Italian lire The lira (; plural lire) was the currency of Italy between 1861 and 2002. It was first introduced by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1807 at par with the French franc, and was subsequently adopted by the different states that would eventually f ...

. It re-launched

's career as one of Italy's most popular action film actors.

Footnotes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Go Gorilla Go Films directed by Tonino Valerii Poliziotteschi films Films scored by Fabio Frizzi 1970s Italian films