RONIN FILM PRODUCTION : agosto 2019

This documentary was subtitled

thanks to a contribution of the

Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

and International Cooperation

This story collects testimonies of Luciano Vincenzoni’s life, a scriptwriter who was involved with the cinema for half a century.

Appreciated in Italy, Europe and Hollywood he collaborated with Pietro Germi, Carlo Lizzani, Mario Monicelli, Mauro Bolognini, Sergio Leone, Billy Wilder, Peter Bogdanovich, Renè Clemont and many others.

Pietro Germi called him "the false liar" because he told incredible stories that later turned out to be true ...

LUCIANO VINCENZONI
In a certain way, I owe my career to Luis Ferdinand Celine, the author of Journey to the End of the Night...
The discovery of this novel happened in an adventurous way, I was in Padua it was 1944 there had been a bombing, a rain down of bombs,
as the bombing finished, I was running away from the shelter to the house and passing through a square there was...
they sold second hand books and among these books I was impressed by the title Journey to the End of the Night...
because at that time us guys... I was 16, it was night time, a night in the war, I took it, I read it and was impressed by it, you know that I still have the copy here that is disintegrating and has pushed me, in a sense, to write, so I owe a lot of my career to this discovery.
In America I spoke about it with Kerouac, that it was the only book he had read and I asked him "why did you not read other European books?" "Because nothing could be better than Celine" and the same answer was given to me 30 years later by Bukowskij, I asked him the same question and he gave me the same answer, so I am very grateful to Celine.

LUCIANO VINCENZONI

As it is my habit, and my family's habit, I squandered all the money and I found myself without a penny and did not know how to come out of this situation, and I remembered that I had a story tucked away in a suitcase that I had written from a story I had read in a newspaper which had happened in Vienna of a father who worked on the trams and who had stolen a tram because he was ashamed that his son would discover that he was a ticket collector.

I had written 20 pages I thought Fabrizi would be the right actor so I went to all the clubs at night until I found him at the Rupe Tarpea and he very kindly told me "give me a phone number I will call you as soon as I’ve read it".

I gave him the telephone number of the boarding house where I was staying that was called "California" where I had not paid the board and the landlady, Mrs. Camellini who was paralyzed, was in bed but had two parabolic mirrors at the corners of the door with which she controlled the corridor to see customers who owed the board that passed by, and her voice would hit you like a stone in the nape of your neck, "Vincenzoni I saw you, if you do not pay, I'll call the police!"

So I learned from American films to army crawl …… and I used to slide on my belly along the corridors.

One night in this boarding house I got a call from Fabrizi, he liked the story he wanted to buy it and he invited me to the hotel Bernini Bristol, where he lived, the next day I went he paid me 300 thousand lire, an amount at that time ... which would be as 6, 7 or 8 million, and we started working on the screenplay together with Ruggero Maccari.

LUCIANO VINCENZONI

And some time later I met Germi at Piazza del Popolo, who of course was one of the reasons why I did cinema, I stopped him and told him I had ideas and I would like to work with him and so he took a liking to me and we made a screenplay, it was called Camorra , beautiful screenplay but at that time Germi had fallen in disgrace because he got two or three movies wrong and could not find any backers, so I remembered that I had read a beautiful book by a French writer Gilbert Cesbron, I santi vanno all’inferno on worker priests and I made him read it, he liked it too, very much, but he had to buy the rights, we were poor, he had to go to Paris, so he took his Laica, his watch, my watch, my gold chain to the pawnshop, to get the money for the ticket to go to Paris, and he went to Paris, he went and Gilbert Cesbron said "look I cannot sell the rights of this book because I promised to the Cardinal of Paris Monsignor Felten that I would never permit to make a film of it because the church is very worried, one of the characters was a revolutionary parish priest ...

And so he came back without a book we were without Laica without our watches etc etc ... and at that moment he had me read a script treatment written by Alfredo Giannetti entitled the train, really beautiful.

CARLO LIZZANI

The Hunchback of Rome was a great commercial success, it cost 250 million, I’m talking about Lire of course, and collected 1 billion, as it was a dramatic film with semi-unknown actors, it was a true record.

It is the story of this young partisan who then, at 19 becomes a criminal in Rome, who then becomes the king of the working class suburbs, in short, a wonderful story that he knew, by narrating it, he managed to sell it immediately and I immediately committed to it ...

then he also told the idea of The Great War another great success, Monicelli also owes this success to Luciano, so much so that from then on, Luciano Vincenzoni had great familiarity with the company De Laurentiis and together we then filmed Roma Bene, Torino nera and then la vita Agra, a film of which I am very proud because it is a great comedy, there was the book by Bianciardi, but the contribution of Vincenzoni had been essential.

The collaboration of Sergio Amidei was also essential, great screenwriter but also known for his bad temper and with whom Luciano Vincenzoni got along well.

Amidei was a bit of a teacher for all of us, the writer of Rome Open City, of Paisà he was older than us, humoral too ...

in fact, I still ask myself how Luciano Vincenzoni and Sergio Amidei managed to get along, because Sergio Amidei would get angry very easily, a wrong word was enough to infuriate him, Luciano also had a particular temper, so ... but I remember that they met around this project of La vita agra with a lot of luck, and the author of the book Luciano Bianciardi also liked the film very much, so this is also a very dear memory of Vincenzoni.

... and then with Vincenzoni, we dreamed of doing so many other films together so many times, but this is not always easy, so now it's been a long time since we've been able to collaborate.

DINO DE LAURENTIIS

From that moment on, Vincenzoni worked a lot with me until we did The great war that he wrote together with Age and Scarpelli.

FURIO SCARPELLI

And I met him in the room of Dino De Laurentiis who spoke of this young man from Veneto full of lively ideas and after some time his story of The great war came about, which he said was vaguely inspired by the idea of a story by Maupassant.

LUCIANO VINCENZONI

Strangely I owe everything to Stanley Kubrick, because I went with Peppino Amato to see this film, Paths of Glory, we were amazed, it was a beautiful film, and when we came out, Peppino Amato, a good Neapolitan, took off his hat, threw it on the ground, trampled it "these are the films we need to do, we are not able to do them!" , in short, all of this urged me, so when I got home I remembered that I had read a story by Guy de Maupassant entitled Deux Amis, two friends, which is about two guys that during the spring of '70, 1870, while Paris was surrounded by German armies one day, as they were used to fish, they go fishing, they were walking, talking, fishing and basking in the sun, without realizing it they enter the ground occupied by the Germans who arrest them ...

not only they arrest them but they are convinced that they know a word, the passepartout, to get out of the city, so they are clearly ordered, to either tell them the word they used to come out with, or they would get shot, they did not know the word, they had not been told it, because they were just wandering around, they did not know what to say and they were shot, I liked this story of two unaware heroes, so I jotted down a story which I imagined took place in Italy during the First World War, the two were two antagonists, a Roman and a Milanese, but as they keep teasing each other, they became great friends, then they find themselves in a situation very similar to that of Maupassant, and they end up ... two cowards in reality... who also confess that they are cowards, but they end up being shot like two heroes, it was a story of 20, 30 pages.

FURIO SCARPELLI

...and we began to work together, on an ambiguous ground, mined in the end, let's say that of De Laurentiis, Dino wanted to do it as a great comedy film, so true that the protagonists were Alberto Sordi and Gassmann who was becoming at that time a comic movie actor.

DINO DE LAURENTIIS

But the Great War it's a rather unusual film because when the film was about to be made, it was supposed to be dramatic.

FURIO SCARPELLI

Monicelli, Luciano Vincenzoni and I strongly felt the dramatic substance of the theme.

DINO DE LAURENTIIS

And I said, "I do not know if as a dramatic film, today a movie like The great war can have a great success.

FURIO SCARPELLI

This version of the Great War came about from these two intentions.

LUCIANO VINCENZONI

I had read a book by Dorgeles, a beautiful book, Croix de Bois, about the first world war, it was beautiful and there was a scene that was even reported in the preface, the return of this unit from the front lines and a town that is preparing to receive them with rhetoric, with flags ... and instead a group of desperate, wounded, hungry men arrived looking like tramps, so that all the happiness and the sumptuousness of the welcome turns into emotion and tears.

I liked it then I wrote it from scratch, we had already finished the screenplay, and I took it to read to Monicelli and liked it so much that he immediately wanted to include it in the film and luckily the director of the Venice Film festival that year was René Clair, on the evening of the screening of the film in the dark after this scene René Clair stood up and began to applaud, all the audience did the same and I realized that this was the signal that we had won the Golden Lion , and in fact ... the same evening there was a large reception, René Clair came close to me and asked me "but ... who wrote that beautiful sequence of the soldiers returning?" and I understood that it was a trick question, I understood that he knew Dorgeles's book, it was obvious, so I said "Master Dorgeles wrote it, there is no doubt", then he smiled and told me "Good, good, you're a good guy".

LUCIANO VINCENZONI

Obviously my life with the contract of De Laurentiis had changed I could afford some luxuries, De Laurentiis loved me very much and so he always wanted me with him at the festivals, after all I also learned to gamble, that then became a constant in my life, all right ... exceptionally well ...

Then I also went through a crisis with De Laurentiis, I managed to argue with him and I left and I was lucky that the day I resigned I went to eat in a Tuscan restaurant and I met Germi I had not seen from Il Ferroviere ...

and I sat down to eat with him and did not know he had just finished Divorce Italian Style and had quarrelled with his collaborators including Giannetti and at one point he told me "but are you under contract?"

"No, no, no I got rid of it today" "ah well do you have any ideas?" I said "of course I have" I had Seduced and Abandoned I told him the story, as soon as I had finished he said "we’ll do this one", my work started with him we did Seduced and Abandoned which was a great success that also won an award for best actor in Cannes, and at that time one day I met Roberto Haggiag.

ROBERT HAGGIAG

He told me about Germi and I congratulated him on all the films Germi had made and on his collaboration and I told him that Cristaldi is lucky to have a man like Germi under contract.

LUCIANO VINCENZONI

He asked me "how much money did you and Germi get from Cristaldi?" and I told him the figures ... and he said "you are naive children, I say, Germi is one who won an Oscar, but do you know that a Major Company could pay you 10 times, 20 times more than what Cristaldi pays not only, but if you want to become the producers you can be the producers and planted this seed in my head.

ROBERT HAGGIAG

And I offered him $ 150,000 Germi immediately accepted and so the friendship with Germi began and I inaugurated the one with Vincenzoni.

For a Few Dollars More

LUCIANO VINCENZONI

Then of course during ... at the end of The birds, the bees and the Italians I argued also with him ... I was desperate because we had been working together for 10 years, I loved him for me he was like a father, an older brother ... in order to forget I went to the casino in Venice and I squandered everything, I was there for 8 days, I returned to Rome penniless, no money on my bank account, but I had all the bills in the post box to pay, light, gas, telephone etc ... desperate, another time in misery ...

However somebody knocked on the door ... Sergio Leone entered the room almost rolling, to propose, he was afraid to make the second film after the success of A fistful of Dollars to propose to me to make the next film, he had a treatment that was called la collina degli stivali ...

they paid me well, they also gave me a percentage on profits and I had fun and in 9 days I wrote For a Few Dollars More, also changing the title, giving it the title, For a Few Dollars More not la Collina degli stivali , "you made A fistful of dollars didn’t you? let's make For a Few Dollars More ! " and there were many millions of dollars more for the film!

TONINO VALERII

I met Luciano immediately after Sergio Leone one day bursting into the office of the lawyer Grimaldi who was supposed to produce his second film that was For a Few Dollars More he said to the producer, to Grimaldi, "we were looking for this important writer I found him", Grimaldi asked "but who is this great screenwriter?" "Luciano Vincenzoni", "but do you really think that Luciano will do ..."

"But he will, we've known each other for a long time, I asked him if he would do it and he told me he will."

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

TONINO VALERII

This continuous relationship between Sergio and Luciano started, which led to the screenplay that I read at the time of For a Few Dollars More that was something really full, sapid, full of characters, full of jokes, full of situations, which in a sense took Sergio Leone to a much higher level in fact I like For a Few Dollars More much more than a Fistful of dollars and I think it's one of the best movies Sergio has ever made.

LUCIANO VINCENZONI

I sold the film to the Americans of the united Artists, while we were closing the deal they asked what would be the next one ... which we did not have yet, and before neither Leone nor Grimaldi could speak I made up the good, the bad and the ugly there on the spot, and they decided to finance it right there on the spot.

SILVIO TONAZZI

The managers of the American company were enthusiastic and wanted to make a second film immediately that was not yet ready nor planned and Luciano improvised during a meeting at the Grand Hotel with the representatives of United Artists he invented there and then a story from which the film the good, the bad and the ugly was created.

This documentary was subtitled

thanks to a contribution of the

Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

and International Cooperation

LUCIANO VINCENZONI

We were in Hollywood probably looking for the costumes for Duck you sucker, and a very nice American writer, famous in America because he is a criminal who is in and out of jail all the time, but he writes awesome movies always about criminals, he was very nice, he recognised us and at one point he said

"Friday if you want come over to Sharon Tate's house because it is a very hospitable home there are always beautiful girls" and we accepted ...

Bear in mind that it was Monday, on Wednesday the president of the TransAmerican Corporation, the one who has the pyramid on the port of San Francisco, who was also the owner of United Artists, called me and said "I know you're in Los Angeles come and spend the weekend with us "... ... so I decided to go to San Francisco

and I told Sergio "Look, I will not be there on Friday".

The next morning, Saturday, the president of Transamerican came to me, I was in bed and he came in and told me "Luciano something tragic happened my best friend’s daughter was slaughtered along with Sharon Tate in her villa by Manson’s followers".

My heart skipped a beat, oh Christ Sergio was there, I should have been there, so I immediately called the Beverly Hills in Los Angeles, I called Sergio ... and he answered ...

I said "ah, Sergio, you're alive!"

"I'm shitting myself, I saw the news, luckily last night as you were not coming and I don’t speak English I didn’t go and it saved my life!".

GIANNI BULGARI

That famous night when Sharon Tate was killed he had to go with other people to this party and for a reason that I do not remember at the last moment he decided not to go and then naturally with the pride that distinguishes him "if I had been there probably it would not have happened! ".

Charles Manson

LUCIANO VINCENZONI

I was sitting here, right here where you see me, the phone rang and a female voice told me "Mr Vincenzoni Billy Wilder wanna talk with you" and I said "fuck you" and put down the phone because I thought it was a prank by Age and Scarpelli, who knew that I was crazy about Billy Wilder.

Then the phone rang again ... "Mr. Vincenzoni we are disconnected Mr. Wilder wanna talk with you" ... or damn it, it was true!

Billy Wilder came to the phone; I was almost overwhelmed by the emotion ...

And he tells me "are you free right now?" "Yes why not"

"Because I have to make a film in Italy I wanted a writer like you I saw your movies with Germi, if you can come we can work on the screenplay ..."

I did not even put the phone down I was already on the plane and I was going to Los Angeles

GUIDO BOSCO

Billy Wilder unfortunately died a few years ago I think, and left a great hole in Vincenzoni, they were also negotiating the purchase of a story by Vincenzoni to make a comedy, which Billy Wilder liked very much, and Billy Wilder was quite a character, as it was known, very difficult and very little inclined to friendship, if not with highly esteemed people, I do not think other Italian authors are able to say things like that.

DINO DE LAURENTIIS

I remember an event, one evening he said to me Dino I cannot come to yours for dinner as I have Billy Wilder"

"and what are you going to cook for him?"

"I'm gonna make risotto"

I tell him "you are wrong, When Americans come to Italians for lunch they want spaghetti"

"no,no, no, I'm gonna make risotto for him"

And he made risotto.

The following morning he called me "Dino, you are always right, I had to make spaghetti, he didn't want to have risotto!"

LUCIANO VINCENZONI

One night I was in bed, the phone rang "hello!" it was Dino I recognized this voice that sounds like sandpaper scraping on the vocal cords ... "Luciano, have you seen Shark ... Shark? "

DINO DE LAURENTIIS

Because I saw Spielberg's movie Jaws and then I had the idea of making a film like this on a killer whale.

LUCIANO VINCENZONI

"So now you have to find me a nastier fish, a nastier fish and we’ll make a movie and I'll let you be the producer".

DINO DE LAURENTIIS

So I called Vincenzoni from Los Angeles and said "take the example of Moby Dick, copy Moby Dick, but instead of being a whale it must be a Killer Whale".

LUCIANO VINCENZONI

"Okay I’ll think about it" I only knew the fish I eat, scampi, sardine, fillets of sole, so I called my brother who is an amateur ichthyologist and I told him "listen" he is called Adriano ... "is there a nastier fish than the white shark? "

He told me "well there is the killer whale ..." and he explained to me some things about the killer whale...

"The killer whale is the only fish that the White Shark does not dare to face",

"Okay send me a whole report", my brother sent me the report and I wrote a story, I sent it to Dino, he liked it and said "we’ll do it and you are the producer".

FURIO SCARPELLI

Germi and Vincenzoni as well as Age and myself ... we were careful about things that were just reflections and thoughts that were not born as cinematographic elements, they constituted ... they were social problems.

LUCIANO VINCENZONI

All these young authors make movies looking at their “bellybutton” ... that is, concerning all things that have nothing to do with the reality that surrounds them but, compared to our generation, poor kids, they also have a strong handicap, you must know that all of us , it’s not necessary to make any names ... who lived our childhood during the fascism, our adolescence during the war, and in the post-war period, our maturity during the economic boom, we saw such important changes, so interesting, that they provided us with extraordinary material for our stories.

ENNIO MORRICONE

Certainly he has always given a great proof of professionalism, inventiveness, great domination of the subject to use, especially the organization of the subject, he is one of the good ones, one who will go to the history of cinema as one of the strongest, highest collaborators of a film ... of the authors of a film.

CAST & CREW

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