TV Interview - Putting the show in show business

When Dino De Laurentiis produces a film, it's his way or the highway.

Even the great director Federico Fellini had to answer to De Laurentiis during the production of La Strada (1954) and Nights of Cabiria (1957), their two films together.

"Fellini was a creative director," De Laurentiis recalls. "You approve the script, but when Fellini starts shooting, he creates in every shot. He puts something new from his imagination, from his fantasy, and if a scene isn't in the script yet, he'll put it in!

"When we did Nights of Cabiria, I watched the first cut and said, 'Federico, it's a fantastic movie but in the middle, we have a scene when a man comes from out of the blue and makes a philosophic speech for 10 or 11 minutes. It stops the story.' It was a big mistake, but I was unable to convince Fellini.

"So one night I stole the negative of the scene. He called me the next day. 'Dino, where's the scene?' I said, 'I don't know. You lost the scene, it's your problem.' To make the story short, we released the picture without the scene and it became a big hit, fantastic credits. It won an Academy Award in the United States. Fifteen years later, Fellini calls me and says, 'Dino, Nights of Cabiria, I have a screening for some students and I would like to put in the monologue scene. I want you to give it to me, please.'"

"He knew all the time!" laughs De Laurentiis. "This is an example of the way I work with a director."

De Laurentiis, who receives the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Award at the Academy Awards ceremony March 25, first discovered the cinema as a way to escape the ruins of post-WWII Italy. "When I was a young boy, I saw movies every day. But I saw only the actors and never realized what went on behind the camera. So I went to school, the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematographia in Rome, to become an actor. After a few months, I realized my place was in back of the camera." When De Laurentiis graduated from film school, international critics were lauding the stark style of his fellow Italian directors Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica in films such as Rome Open City (1945) and The Bicycle Thief (1947).

Not a filmmaker to miss a good opportunity, De Laurentiis jumped on the Neorealist bandwagon, bringing his own style of showmanship. Bitter Rice (1948), De Laurentiis' first film as producer, focused on the backbreaking work of rice farmers in Italy's Po valley. It sounds more like a documentary exposé than a box-office hit, but the young producer kept his eye out for the glamour that would draw audiences. He cast his buxom wife, Silvana Mangano, in the lead role, ensuring an adolescent as well as an international crowd.

The formula was a success. De Laurentiis exported titillating titles to the eager American market. Il Brigante Musolino (The Outlaw Girl, 1950) and La Tratta delle Biache (The White Slave Trade, 1953), both starring Mangano, helped establish him at the Italian studio Cinecitta.

In 1953, a struggling director named Federico Fellini visited De Laurentiis looking for money and mentoring. They made two films together, both times claiming the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, but their visions were very different. When Fellini broke off their partnership, De Laurentiis turned his back forever on "art" films and concentrated on the commercial side of show business.

The producer's subsequent pictures featured gladiators, slave girls and big-budget battle scenes. Hercules' Pills (1960), Maciste Versus the Vampire (1961) and Barabbas (1962) were not prestige projects, but they filled the coffers and allowed De Laurentiis to establish his own studio, called Dinocitta. This city was built on pulpy pictures.

Then Dino had a dream. Many people might flip through the bedside Bible in their hotel room at night. But how many people think of rounding up the greatest directors to film the scriptures?

"Many times I have dreams to do movies. In New York I find the Bible in my hotel room and I start to dream to film it," De Laurentiis says. "The plan was to gather together the major directors in the world: Luc Bresson, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, and each one could do an episode. One director to be at the creation, another to do Joseph and his brothers and so on. But when I received the script from each one of these directors, each episode was two hours in length! I said, 'I can't do 10 hours of movie.' So we changed everything. I flew to Mexico and talked to John Huston who was very happy to direct the movie."

The Bible ... In the Beginning (1966) was a disaster. But for viewers who can endure the endless Garden of Eden segment, a wild-eyed Richard Harris as Cain awaits. George C. Scott brings an obsessive determination to Abraham, and Peter O'Toole seems to glide across the desert as three identical angels. When Charlie Chaplin turned down the role of Noah, Huston stepped in to fill the patriarch's sandals.

"When we cast the movie," De Laurentiis recalls, "I said, 'John, there's only one actor in the world who could play Noah.' He said, 'Who?' And I say, 'You!' He refused in the beginning, but he was very flattered with the idea. Finally when the time arrived, he understood that he would be the best actor."

From the dawn of creation De Laurentiis shifted to a sexy futuristic revelation. The nubile Jane Fonda played Barbarella (1968) in varying degrees of undress to become a cult phenom. By the 1970s and 1980s, De Laurentiis had perfected a formula for alternating prestige pictures with blockbusters. He produced John Wayne's screen swan song, The Shootist (1976), while simultaneously resurrecting the great ape for a remake of King Kong (1976). Ingmar Bergman's Serpent's Egg (1977) was followed by Flash Gordon (1980); James Cagney's final film, Ragtime (1981) was followed by Arnold Schwartznegger's breakthrough role in Conan the Barbarian (1982).

De Laurentiis claims that alternating highbrow and pulp pictures was not planned. "It's not a strategy because we go picture by picture. You have to feel inside of you that it is the right picture to do. I have to believe in it."

By the mid-1980s, it seemed that De Laurentiis was creatively exhausted. He relocated his studio to Wilmington, N.C., and proceeded to release a string of turkeys. Firestarter (1984) showcased a volatile Drew Barrymore in a weak Stephen King adaptation, while Dune (1984) bewildered audiences around the country. The losing streak culminated with Year of the Dragon (1985), nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Picture of the Year. De Laurentiis received the dubious achievement again for Body of Evidence (1993), his Basic Instinct rip-off starring Madonna. By then, Dino's Southern studio was on the skids.

But the new millennium has brought a revitalized energy to Dino De Laurentiis. He re-emerged with last year's submarine thriller U-571. His current chiller Hannibal is breaking box-office records, having earned $58 million on opening weekend.

Hannibal represents a homecoming for De Laurentiis. He produced the erudite serial killer's original screen appearance in Manhunter (1986) and is now developing another sequel, Red Dragon, based on Thomas Harris' first Hannibal novel.

De Laurentiis claims that he was never worried about losing the box office draw of Jody Foster, who starred in The Silence of the Lambs (1991). "It is my personal opinion that Jody Foster was wrong, physically, for the character in Hannibal." Why? "Sometime I'll give you an explanation," he laughs. "Right now I'll just stay with my intuition."

His intuition has seen him through more than 50 years of filmmaking, from Italian peasants to Hollywood legends to gladiators to Biblical patriarchs to space age adventurers. He has produced landmark films as well as trashy kitsch. If there is any filmmaker whose career encompasses the extremes of show and business, it is Dino De Laurentiis.

What is the producer's secret for success? Forget special effects, stars and exotic locations. For De Laurentiis, it's all about the story.

"I believe in a good script and a good director. With a better script and a great director, you'll make a better movie. Even if you have a good script and a bad director, you'll make a good movie. The script is important above everything else. Of course," he adds with a laugh, "together with a good script and a good director, if you have a good star, then bingo!"??