Giuliano Montaldo, Italian Director of ‘Sacco & Vanzetti’ and ‘Machine Gun McCain,’ Dies at 93 

Giuliano Montaldo, the admired Italian filmmaker who wrote and directed Sacco & Vanzetti, the John Cassavetes-starring Machine Gun McCain and each episode of the big-budget 1982 miniseries Marco Polo, has died. He was 93.

Montaldo died Wednesday at his residence in Rome, his household introduced.

His big-screen résumé additionally included The Reckless (1965), starring Renato Salvatori; Grand Slam (1967), starring Janet Leigh; Giordano Bruno (1973), starring Gian Maria Volonté and Charlotte Rampling; And Agnes Selected to Die (1976), starring Ingrid Thulin; and The Gold Rimmed Glasses (1987), starring Philippe Noiret, Rupert Everett, Stefania Sandrelli and Valeria Golino.

Of the 20 movies Montaldo helmed, 16 have been set to music by Ennio Morricone; no different director collaborated with the famed composer extra.

Montaldo additionally served as president of Italy’s RAI Cinema from 1999-2004.

Montaldo’s gangster story Machine Gun McCain (1969), which additionally starred Britt Ekland, Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk, and Sacco & Vanzetti (1971), in regards to the Massachusetts trial and 1927 execution of accused Italian anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (performed by Riccardo Cucciolla and Volonté, respectively), each competed for the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

He co-wrote and directed all eight episodes of Marco Polo, produced by RAI and NBC. The sweeping miniseries, starring Kenneth Marshall and that includes appearances by Denholm Elliott, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud, Burt Lancaster, Ian McShane and Leonard Nimoy, was broadcast in 46 nations and received two Emmy Awards.

Born in Genoa on Feb. 22, 1930, Montaldo acted in his hometown in “mass theater” exhibits organized by the Communist Occasion that, as he typically mentioned, had “extra folks on stage than within the viewers.”

He was noticed by Carlo Lizzani and given roles within the director’s Achtung! Bandits! (1951), starring Gina Lollobrigida and Andrea Checchi, and Chronicle of Poor Lovers (1954), then promoted to assistant director.

As the most effective ADs in Italian cinema in his time, Montaldo labored for director Gillo Pontecorvo on such options as Broad Blue Street (1957), Kapo (1960) and the advanced, documentary-style The Battle of Algiers (1966), an influential political movie.

Pontecorvo additionally wished him to play the chief of the French paratroopers in Algiers, which he didn’t wish to do.

“Lastly I took him apart and mentioned, Gillo, hear: All by means of the film you hear about this paratroop chief, Colonel Mathieu. All people is afraid of him, everyone is ready for him, the viewers expects to see a fierce fighter coming,” he recalled.

“Now, think about a screening on a Saturday afternoon on the Adriano in Rome. Everyone seems to be afraid, ready for this Mathieu to indicate up, and when he seems, somebody within the theater shouts, ‘It’s that jerk Montaldo, look!’ and the cinema breaks out with laughter. Is that what you need? Ultimately he modified his thoughts.” (The function would go to French actor Jean Martin.)

Montaldo made his directorial debut with Pigeon Shoot (1961), which starred Jacques Charrier and performed in competitors on the Venice Movie Pageant, and his final movie can be The Entrepreneur (2011), starring Pierfrancesco Favino.

He additionally guided operas together with Turandot in 1983, Trovatore in 1990, Bohème and Othello in 1994, The Magic Flute in 1995, Nabucco in 1997 and Tosca in 1998.

He was given a lifetime achievement honor on the David di Donatello Awards in 2007.

Survivors embrace his spouse, Vera, daughter of famed Italian actress Vera Vergani; daughter Elisabetta; and grandchildren Inti and Jana.