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Dario Argento
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Dario Argento is Italy's leading director of innovative surreal thriller and horror movies. The son of Salvatore Argento, one of the big movie producers of the 60's and 70's, and Elda Luxardo, the well-known photographer, he began his career as a film critic. Together with Bernardo Bertolucci he then worked as assistant scriptwriter to his great maestro, Sergio Leone, for whom he wrote the story for ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968). In 1970, Argento made his directing debut with THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE. This was followed by CAT O' NINE TAILS (1971), and FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET (1972). This trilogy contributed to establishing Dario Argento as a recognized master of the thriller genre.
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T[H]roughout much of the world, Italian director Dario Argento is widely acknowledged as one of the modern masters of the horror and thriller genres. However, in America, he has never found a breakthrough hit. As a result, motion picture distributors have taken great liberties with his movies, slicing and dicing them like the razor-wielding villains that frequently inhabit his movies. Distributors cut 28 minutes out of Phenomena and 10 minutes from Tenebre. In addition (and adding to the confusion), distributors have frequently retitled his movies. Much to Argento's disappointment, Phenomena was retitled Creepers for American audiences and Tenebre was retitled Unsane.
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August 27, 2007 -- Dario Argento's "Mother of Tears" now has an English-language trailer -- dubbed in traditional Argento style. Tragically it appeared on YouTube with a shaky cam, but here it is:
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The streets of Rome first ran red with blood for many viewers with Dario Argento's directorial debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. Cannily featuring a vulnerable American hero and a British female love interest, the film was designed to appeal to an international audience while showcasing Argento's seemingly endless reservoir of visual and storytelling abilities. For the uninitiated, the film concerns an American writer, Sam Musante), who has been staying in Rome with his girlfriend, scream queen Suzy Kendall. One night he witnesses a woman being attacked in an art gallery; the victim survives, and Sam is informed by the police that the assailant is a serial killer slashing his way through the city. Sam feels that he has witnessed something that could lead him to the killer's identity, but he just can't put his finger on it (a narrative device repeated in Argento's Deep Red and Trauma). Thus, with some mostly involuntary influence from the police, he decides to stay in Rome and do some amateur sleuthing, leading to the expected terrifying results.
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Dario Argento directed this bloody thriller in the Hitchcock tradition about an investigative reporter who teams with a blind former newspaperman to find out who is killing all the people associated with a genetic laboratory. Karl Malden, James Franciscus and Catherine Spaak star. 112 min. Widescreen (Enhanced); Soundtracks: Italian Dolby Digital stereo, English Dolby Digital stereo, French Dolby Digital stereo; interviews; photo gallery; poster gallery; biographies; theatrical trailers; TV spots; radio spots. In Italian with English subtitles/Dubbed in English.
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Dario Argento was born of Italian/Brazilian descent in 1940 and is the son of film producer Salvatore Argento (a prominent figure in the postwar Italian film community). It is said that Dario's first memory is sitting on the knee of Sophia Loren. He started his career as a film critic for the Rome daily Paese Sera. He was asked to join Bernardo Bertolucci in storyboarding Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West (Dario contributed to the hanging flashback sequence and wrote the opening scene). The screenplay for One Night at Dinner brought Dario to the attention of Goffredo Lombardo, head of Titanus, an Italian film company. Dario made his directing debut in 1970 with the release of The Bird With The Crystal Plumage.
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Dario Argento