Original subtitles

So, I started working with my father more-oMess in those years,

during the period in which we made these films we're talking about.

To be precise I started working with my father in the States,

on a mm called “Cannibal Apocalypse", very much Ioved by Quentin Tarantino.

I did a bit of everything on that.

GeneraHy I began as a still photographer and then I would play small parts...

N one 9mm was a sckxxer hanümg a “amemtow er,

with a gas-mask, so I'm not recognizable.

We shot 85% of the film in the States and some of the

remaining special effects in a sound stage back in Italy.

The whole crew would play a role.

For example “we have to shoot in Rome and the Philippines, who is available?”

“The pmüucuon cuorüinauzr. 0K, kgnaixo hohe man go.

Edoardo can p\ay this, Mario can play that”.

We would all have to improvise ourselves actors,

who was good and who Iess, Iike myselfthat was a real dog!

At the end of the day we had fun and it was a way of enriching the film.

For years I would foHow also the special effects of my fathefs mm3.

I would du the models and then I became supervisor of the special effecis.

Since I was a child I have always had the hobby modelling...

Even now I fix and build furniture all around the house.

Sa huomed im my (am: im as a phomgrapher,

then as an AD, second unit director and

finally model and special effect supervisor.

After I began a career as a production manager

and general organizer and I did some mms

with him even in that department.

Immediately after that mm in the States, “Cannibal Apocalypse"

the great adventure in the Philippines began

where my father and I made 13/14 mms.

Twewe he directed while I did anothertwo...

we really vented as much as we could...

In those years afterthe success of films such as "Apocalypse Now'

and “The Deer Huntef' by Michael Cimino

this era of the Vietnam movie began.

The return of the action and war movies,

often set in Vietnam and with controversial characters.

Something that my father Iiked a Iot.

With a script written by Dardano Sacchetti,

an adventure began between my father and Gianfranco Couyoumdjian,

first with Flora Film and then with Gico Cinematografica.

The first one was “The Last Hunter" which was initially

caHed “The Deer Hunter 2". Posters had been printed

with this title

butthen Universal, or whoever had the rights of Ciminds mm,

basically threatened they would sue and so it became “The Last Hunter...

You could see the posters around with a sticker covering the old title.

That film began the \ove affair between my father and the Philippines.

He got his team of writers, Iike Dardano Sacchetti,

Giovanni Simonelli and others,

to write a series of mm3 that could be set in thejung\e.

The follow-up was “The Hunters ofthe Golden Cobra“

which I didn't participate in because I was doing

my military Service.

Immediately after came “Fuga dalVarchipelago maledetto“,

heuer known as “Tiger Aue“ .

If I recall correctly “Tiger Joe”

had a different setting, during World War II

and it takes place in Cambodia.

A (um mm sxamng Jahn Steine: am Davmwameck...

by that time a real team and been created.

With “The Last Hunter“ my father discovered David Warbeck,

that had anyway come from some important experiences,

even with the Iikes of Sergio Leone on “Duck You Sucker...

He had made some films also with Roger Corman,

and he had previously auditioned to be the next 007.

He wasn't ab\e to get that role but he nonetheless

managen k: haue a gcmd am prehüc career hexe

in Italy working with my father

but also subsequently with Fulci, Lenzi and others...

He made about seven with my father and “Tiger Joe"

is the most fun ofthe \ot.

That was also the period of Indiana Jones.

I remember {hat around 1981, roughly when "Raiders of the Lost Ark”

was released, my father came back from a trip in the States.

I wen! to pick him up at the airport and we wen! out for dinner.

There he seemed Hke that scene in “The Blues Brothers" - “I've seen the Hght“...

I had never seen him this excited:

“I have seen an amazing film in America". “This is how you make films“.

“Ihm man 1s a gemus” .

He was talking about “Raiders of the Lost Ark...

He described to me in detail the first scene with the giant

stone ball chasing Indiana Jones.

From that moment onwards we started alternating adventure

war (“ms m mure dramaflxc war armes,

with complex characters dealing with the atrocities of war

Iike the ones set in Vietnam- things Hke

“The Last Hunter“ and “Tornado”...

Alternating these with more Iight comedic adventure

films which reminded you of Indiana Jones.

One examme woum be “Junge Raums“ wmch was a mbn bemeen

“Romancing the Stone" and the Indiana Jones films...

In that there was also Lee Van Cleef,

another iconic figure in my fathefls cinema.

That was a very rich period, we had a Iot of fun

and those were films that attracted the foreign market.

You could seH them easily.

I mean that you just needed Japan and South Korea

to cover the film's costs. AII the rest was money

for the producer and the international distributors.

The request was high. We didn't manage to finish

one that another two films were put in the making.

I would have to interrupt my work on the models of one film to run

to the PhiHppines to Start preparation on the next.

It was quick work, even because after some time

we knew exacfly where to shoot, we knew that

territory perfectly, you know 14 mms in the same p\ace...

“We can shoot that scene near the Iake"

or “do you rememberthat hut near that restaurant?

We can shoot something there...

“was a m: iun. A vew aürenaune fiuefled

perlen am: a üecade afi (anmsuc wenn.

The eighties was still a great period and not only for us.

I remember we would bump into Ruggero Deodato,

in the Philippines, shooting three kilometres away from us.

We wqum shate the Same base camp, im examme.

I also recall crossing paths with Lucio Fulci who was

there shooting “Zombi or was it number 3... “Zombi 3"

lt was fun..

I have only one bad memory of “Tiger Joe”.

As we were saying before you can't talk about this mm

without mentioning the fact that during the making,

cinematographer Riccardo Pallottini died

while shooting from a plane, as my father was filming

from the ground as the plane flew over the jungle.

The plane was flying pretty Iow, near the palm trees...

Ifs not clear what happened, and weWI never know

because out of the three people on the plane none survived.

Maybe for a malfunction in the engine or a problem with the pHot...

Anyway one of the wings hit a tree and the plane crashed

to the ground. lt was the very last day of production.

My father was desperate. They had been friends forthirty years.

The first film my father directed was with Pallottini,

actually not the very first, not “Space Men“,

butthe first important, remembered film of fathers, “Castle of B\ood...

One ofthe films most shown during retrospectives.

“Was a deep mendship, he hat: done me phomgraphy

of our first film in the Philippines, “The Last Hunter“,

and also the second one, “The Hunters ofthe Golden Cobra“

foHowed by this damned third instalment...

The crew was practically always the same,

the technicians were the same, I would always be the 1st AD...

Mario Sbrenna, the camera Operator, was afraid of heights,

and would hate to fly, so whenever we had to place

a camera thirty metres from the ground

on a tree or dangling from a window I was usually the one to du it.

So if I had been presentwhile shooting that scene

mayhe mngs wuuki have been «Metern.

Mayhe we wcum haue shm max stehe answer üay im examme,

or maybe I would have died instead of Riccardo.

I used to keep in my wallet -unti\ in disintegrated

in time- a small photo of Riccardo, taken on the set

of “The Last Hunter", with him Iying down in a

canoe ho\ding the camera, while shooting David Warbeck

an me rapids oi Paksanan. Thmwas me area which

we would oflen use as a home-base,

about 50KM from Manila, so quite convenient.

Anthony M. Dawson is recognizame for many reasons:

first of all fortechnique,

he had a great command ofthe medium.

He was able to tell you what he was going to shoot from

seven in the morning to seven in evening,

frame by frame, every single shot.

He had everything in his head, how he was going to edit,

he would never shoot what wasn't necessary.

This is the reason my fathefls films Iook so rich despite

haximg maüe xhem "m (nur o? fwe weeks.

An amount of time which now you use

to do an episode of a television series.

Films with a Iot of cuts, every ree! could contain

300 different shots. It was really quite impressive.

He would never shoot what was superfluous.

If an actor had to say one Iine in a close-up he would say

just that Iine. He knew how the film was going to be edited.

Another characteristic of my fathefs style was

the camera movement and the Ienses he would use.

Anuthet mm9 he was am m du was know

precisely what you could see with any given Wens.

“Ifwe put an 18" then we can see from here to there".

Once you Iooked in camera you would realize {hat he was perfectly right.

Many directors nowadays wouldn't even

now what we're ta\king about.

They probably don't even know what an 18" Iens is,

but even so ifasked they aren't capable of telling you

what and how much you can frame with a 35" Iens, for examme.

He was spectacular in this.

He also hand quite a creativity when it came

to conceiving shots. I remember in “Cannibal Apocalypse"

there was a scene in a medical studio with a crystal

table and surgical instruments placed on them

and he chose to shoot itwith a doHy-shot passing under the tames,

shooting the actors through the crystal of the tab\e's surface.

Ifs not a thing that many would have thought of...

Needless to say the biggest signature of Antonio Margheriti

are the models and the explosions.

He would be the first to say so.

In the budget estimates for my fathers films there would

always be a voice, which would be pretty hefty,

forgasoline, special fuels and special effects

amounts that fot other mms were nothing for us was quiet a sum.

We made everything explode.

Lefs take one of the richest films from this point-of-view,

“Commando Leopard" - one of the instalments

of the trilogy ofmms produced by Erwin C. Dietrich for Ascot, in Berlin.

Those were expansive films with big casts and we had

at our disposal dozens, maybe hundreds, ofmillions of Iira

to do the special effects, at the end of principal photography,

when usuaHy we would have practically nothing Iefl to do them.

We built a fleet of airmanes forthe Ianding of a DC9,

six metres in Iength and seven of wing-opening.

It Ianded with cables attached to two industrial

cranes at night and it exmodes as it touches the ground.

Years Iater we saw something similar on a “Die Hard" movies,

possibly number two,

and despite their money and resources...

I don't want to say ours is better butwe are on the same Ievel.

Us Italians, building things with our own hands...

well this craftsmanship has always been a reason of pride.

On that film we blew up everything: dams, trains, planes, helicopters,

villages attacked by mercenaries.

The signature of my father are the special effects. He would say the explosions.

I have memories of my father running at night to throw buckets of gasoline

on fires to Iiven the flames as we would stay \ying on the ground.

It really was very home-made and artisan-Iike.

Itwasn't co\d and aseptic as it is today.

We would be in shorts on the ground covering ourselves with dark mankets.

Dbxecxs cm fue wouks Xnevitabb; end up an nur banks.

Then a grip would come and extinguish the flames.

This was the biggest trait of my father, plus some elements in the narrative:

characters are neverwhatthey seem, he particularly Hked giving some shades

of ambiguity to his heroes, even something negative.

If you wanted you could notice these things and elaborate

them but you could still choose to watch the film with innocence of child,

which was the way my father would Iook at his films,

he could just have fun and enjoy the action.

This was something he did inteHigently and I'm not sure

how many peopb haue nouoeü ms.

For example in “Commando Leopard" Klaus Kinski

is a character who beyond the perversions, the craziness -

which is always the most apparent aspect in Kinski-

he arrives with the machine - gun shouting and shooting Iike a mad man

but ifyou Iook closer you can find some subtlelies.

Some have even noticed political connotations in his films,

but in reaHty my father didn't Iike to talk about politics,

and especially he didn't Iike mixing his genre with political elements.

Although of course some of his films denounoe a Situation,

Iike all the films on the Vietnam war,

Iike “The Last Hunter" and "Tornado" for example,

he wouldn't approach the films with this attitude.

He would do big entertainments, full of spectacular elements

but also characters that having something to say and what they say

can be interpreted as a Statement on the cruelty of war,

on the other hand who chooses to do so can just enjoy the

story of antihero involved in a situation biggerthan he is,

fighting to protect the Ioca! population.

Ms mm 'meresimg "m ms appmach.

A secondary distinctive characteristic because

the (m are a\ways me expknsiuns.