De Laurentiis pt 3: Starting over in America

This week at TFE we're celebrating the centennial of one of cinema’s most prolific and legendary producers, Dino De Laurentiis.  In part one we looked at his breakout Italian hit, in part two an expensive epic flop. Here's Mark Brinkerhoff as Dino crosses the Ocean... 

Dino in 1970, and Al Pacino in Serpico (1973)

Dino De Laurentiis stormed Hollywood in the early ‘70s, quickly on the heels of fantastic successes like 1968’s Barbarella and Danger: Diabolik, which essentially closed out his previous decade (“essentially” because, man oh man, was this man ever prolific). 

 

Having branched from Neo-Italian into more international, English-language cinema, De Laurentiis set his sights on riding the New Hollywood wave then cresting. While still making the occasional spaghetti western and period piece, his films began to dabble more in contemporary themes. In fact, aside from The Valachi Papers (1972), his The Godfather manqué, De Laurentiis’ initial forays into filming stateside resulted in his grittiest, most modern productions to date...

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