Alberto Cavallone

Alberto Cavallone
Alberto Cavallone in 1965
Born	(1938-08-28)28 August 1938 Milan, Italy
Died	12 November 1997(1997-11-12) (aged 59) Rome, Italy
Occupation(s)	Film director and screenwriter

Alberto Cavallone (28 August 1938 – 12 November 1997) was an Italian film director and screenwriter. He was born in Milan, Italy.

Career

When Cavallone was 17 years old, he traveled to Algeria, then in the throes of a war of independence, with a 16mm Paillard motion picture camera. The footage he gathered there formed the structure of his first film effort, La sporca guerra (The Bloody War), intended as a non-aligned political documentary . The film featured an early score by Pino Donaggio. The film, released in 1959, is now lost. His feature debut, Lontano dagli occhi (Out of Sight), the story of an Italian reporter's coverage of a trial in Frankfurt of former Nazi officers for crimes against humanity, was never completed and remains unseen.

After a five year period of apprenticeship, assisting direction on a score of Italian pictures, Cavallone returned to directing in 1969 with the feature Le salamandre, a story of an interracial ménage-à-trois between a Swedish-American fashion photographer, her lover, a black model, and a French psychologist. It was shot in Tunisia. The film was well-received and Cavallone's profile increased tremendously. The following year, Cavallone directed the feature Dal nostro inviato a Copenaghen (From Our Copenhagen Correspondent). That film was a story of two U.S. servicemen fresh from Vietnam who go A.W.O.L. from an American base in Germany. They travel to Copenhagen, where both remain haunted by the experiences in Vietnam. One drifts into acting in pornographic films while the other loses his ability to distinguish reality from fantasy and succumbs to violent impulses. Hot on the heels of that picture, Cavallone began directing a musical-comedy that he was forced to abandon in mid-production due to budgetary constraints.

In 1971, Cavallone directed Quickly, spari e baci a colazione, a low-budget affair that utilized discarded sets from bigger pictures and incorporated footage from the uncompleted musical. In 1973, he directed Afrika, set in Ethiopia, a story of two Italian expatriates, a sexually-conflicted painter and his young male lover. In 1974, Cavallone directed Zelda, an erotic thriller. The following year, he directed in Turkey and Italy Maldoror, inspired by Comte de Lautréamont's poem Les Chants de Maldoror. The picture failed to secure a distributor and remains unseen by the public.

In 1977, Cavallone released the surreal Spell – Dolce mattatoio, known in the English-speaking world as Man, Woman and Beast. The film is generally regarded as Cavallone's masterpiece and remains his most-exhibited work. Cavallone followed this success with Blue Movie[/i] in 1978. This film, too, was a modest success, something that bewildered its director. In 1980, Cavallone directed the surrealist erotic-mystery Blow Job – Soffio erotico and later that year La gemella erotica – Due gocce d’acqua, a project along similar lines. The latter film failed to reach theaters due to the bankruptcy of its distributor.

In 1981, Cavallone directed two surrealist erotic-thrillers, each featuring an achondroplastic dwarf in the lead role: Baby Sitter and Pat. His work after this time devolved into journeyman efforts in various "porns with plots". In 1983, he contributed the story to Umberto Lenzi's fantasy film Iron Master – La guerra del ferro. The early 1990s saw him contribute revisions to screenplays by other screenwriters, commercials, and storyboards for at least one animated feature. At the time of his death, Cavallone was attempting to helm a comeback feature he called Internet Story.

Partial Filmography

• 1959 La sporca guerra (The Bloody War)
• 1969 Le salamandre
• 1970 Dal nostro inviato a Copenaghen
• 1971 Quickly, spari e baci a colazione
• 1973 Afrika
• 1974 Zelda
• 1976 Maldoror
• 1977 Spell – Dolce mattatoio (Man, Woman & Beast)
• 1978 Blue Movie
• 1980 Blow Job – Soffio erotico
• 1980 La gemella erotica – Due gocce d’acqua
• 1981 Baby Sitter
• 1981 Pat, una donna particolare
• 1983 I padroni del mondo

References

External links

• Alberto Cavallone at IMDb