Mario Novelli, who died last week, may not have been one the
best known names from the world of Italian genre cinema, but he must have been
one of the most active men within the business. He worked as an actor and
stuntman on more than seventy movies, in genres as diverse as peplum (sword
& sandel), spaghetti western, poliziotesco and macaroni combat (war movies
that is). After his retirement as a stuntman he continued working within the industry as a stunt coordinator or
safety adviser, but even at a high age he occasionally doubled for an actor
when a particular scene turned out to be more dangerous than anticipated. In
2004, when coordinating a stunt for the movie The Exorcist: The Beginning, he
doubled for an actor playing a Dutch farmer, who scared away for a scene in the
last minute.
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| Mario in Gli invincibili fratelli Maciste |
As an actor he was usually credited as Ant(h)ony Freeman - so
with or without the h. Italians tend to 'forget' the h when using English
pseudonyms because the h (acca in Italian), is only used in their language to
preserve the sound [k] of a letter that would otherwise be pronounced
differently in combination with another letter (*1).
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| Mario in Februari 2016, Photo by Marco Pancrasi |
Mario made his debut (as an extra) in 1962 in the peplum movie L'Ira
di Achille and was credited for the first time for his appearance in La
Vendetta di Spartacus and Gli schiavi
più forti del mondo (the films were made back to back, the director using some
of the same cast, locations and sets). He made his first appearance in a
spaghetti western, as a bounty hunter, in 1966, in Ferdinando Baldi's Texas,Addio, and his last, in 1977, as the brother of a Northern soldier, in Michele
Lupo's California. His most remarkable spaghetti western appearance, must have
been his role as the villanous Chiuci in Ballata per un Pistolero (1967). Not
only was this one of his rare leading roles - he was billed third - but he also
appeared alongside his colleague and good friend Alfio Caltabiano (who played
his brother and also directed the movie).
And again: Alfio Caltabiano may not be a name most people
will be familiar with, but within the Italian genre industry he was one of the
most illustrious stuntmen, thanks to his work on the movie Ben Hur (as most of
you will know partly shot in Rome): it was he who doubled Charlton Heston
during the famous chariot race. And by the way: on the set he befriended a
young man who worked as a second-unit director on the movie and on this
particular sequence: Sergio Leone
***
THE FILM: BALLATA PER UN PISTOLERO (Pistoleros)
It's probably not one of the very best spaghetti westerns in history, but it's still an underrated film. It combines the older man/younger man theme with a vengeance
tale, like in Sergio Leone's Per Qualche Dollaro in Più (For a Few Dollars More), but it's unique in the sense that it takes a positive stance towards religion (most spaghetti westerns were virulently anti-clerical).
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| Mario Novelli (right) and Alfio Caltabiano in Ballata per un Pistolero |
- Read a full review of the movie here: Pistoleros Review
R.I.P. Mario Novelli
Note:
* (1) For
instance: c is usually pronounced [k] (as in cold), but in combination with i
and e it is pronounced [tsj] (as in cheap), so when they want to preserve the
k-sound, an h is inserted: chi [ki], che [ke]
Links:
* Mario
Novelli has his own facebook page: Mario Novelli Stuntman
* For Alfio
caltabiano and his work on Ben Hur and with Sergio Leone, see (Italian text): Un Villa d'Autore
DVD releases of Ballata per un Pistolero/Pistoleros
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