Fernando Di Leo

Fernando Di Leo 11 January 1932 2 December 2003 was an Italian film director and script writer He made 17 films as a director and about 50 scripts from 1964 to 1985 Fernando Di Leo was born on 11 January 1932 in San Ferdinando di Puglia After briefly working in Romes film school Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia di Leo made his debut as a director as part of the omnibus comedy Gli eroi di ieri oggi domani with his episode titled Un posto in paradiso transl A Place in Heaven Following this Di Leo wrote several scripts for Westerns often uncredited This included work on A Fistful of Dollars For a Few Dollars More Some of his Westerns had uncredited literary sources such as Days of Vengeance which is loosely based on Alexandre Dumas The Count of Monte Cristo Di Leo was a fan of film noir and wanted to make an Italian version of these films Among his first efforts was the script for Mino Guerrinis Date for a Murder based on Franco Ennas novel Tempo di massacro written in 1955 In Di Leos version the setting is moved to a contemporary Rome and has elements of contemporary spy films Di Leo worked with Guerrini again on the film Gangsters 70 which did not do well at the box office Di Leo began directing more of his own films at the time including the war film Red Roses for the Fuhrer and a few erotic films A Woman on Fire A Wrong Way to Love and Seduction From 1969 to 1976 di Leo was able to produce many of his own works with his production company Duania cineproduzioni 70 He followed this with a return to noir with Naked Violence a film adapting a novel by Giorgio Scerbanenco a writer who Di Leo would adapt for several future film productions Di Leo would make a giallo film with Slaughter Hotel starring Klaus Kinski and Margaret Lee Following this Di Leo worked on Caliber 9 and The Italian Connection which were both inspired by the writing of Scerbanenco He followed up this film Il Boss a film which got Di Leo in trouble with politicians and authorities due to the films display of connections between the mafia and Italys major party Democrazia Cristiana Di Leo followed this up with Shoot First Die Later in 1974 Di Leo worked through the latter half of the 1970s directing Mister Scarface Kidnap Syndicate and Nick the Sting He also wrote scripts for other directors such as Romolo Guerrieris Young Violent Dangerous and Ruggero Deodatos Live Like a Cop Die Like a Man Di Leos last film produced by his company Duania cineproduzioni 70 was Rulers of the City in 1976 He continued with a few more films after with the film noir Blood and Diamonds the erotic drama To Be Twenty both in 1978 and Madness in 1980 Di Leo worked in television in the 1980s starting with the television series Lassassino ha le ore contate which involved six onehourlong madeforTV films produced by RAI Uno which as of 2013 are unreleased Di Leo also made The Violent Breed and his last film Killer vs Killers in the mid1980s Killer vs Killers wasnt released theatrically in Italy and only surfaced 20 years later on DVD Di Leo died in December 2003