 |
| Brancaleone at the Crusades | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Mario Monicelli |
| Written by | Agenore Incrocci Furio Scarpelli Mario Monicelli |
| Produced by | Mario Cecchi Gori |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Carlo Rustichelli |
| Distributed by | Titanus Film |
Release date |
|
Running time | 116 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | Italian |
Brancaleone at the Crusades (Italian : Brancaleone alle Crociate) is an Italian comedy film directed by Mario Monicelli and released in 1970, the sequel to L'armata Brancaleone .
The film starts where L'armata Brancaleone has ended. Brancaleone da Norcia leads the mad monk Zenone and his ragtag army of underdogs to the Holy Land. However, they meet another band of Christian warriors who accuse Brancaleone's band of heresy and attack. Temporarily incapacitated, Brancaleone struggles to join the battle, only to find Zenone and most of the others slaughtered. Despairing over having failed his comrades, Brancaleone asks for the Grim Reaper to cleanse him of his shame. The Reaper actually responds, but gives him the chance to redeem his honor by saving an infant of royal blood before his demise.
Brancaleone thwarts the assassin, Thorz, rescues the baby and resolves to bring him to his father, Bohemond of Taranto, who is fighting in the Crusades. As in the first film, in his quest he goes through a series of grotesque episodes, each a hilarious parody of Middle Ages stereotypes. These include the saving of a young witch, Tiburzia, from the stake, the annexion of a leper to the band, and a meeting with Gregory VII, in which Brancaleone has to solve the dispute between the pope and the antipope Clement III.
On reaching Palestine, Brancaleone delivers the child to Bohemod, but it is missing a birthmark confirming its lineage. Tiburzia admits that she truly is a witch and used magic to remove the mark. Bohemod calls for her execution, but upon Brancaleone's defense he banishes her instead. Brancaleone obtains the title of baron and is chosen as a champion in a tournament to solve the dispute between the Christians and the Saracens in the siege of Jerusalem. The award for the winner is the former leper, who is in fact revealed to be a beautiful princess, Berta, who adopted the disguise to travel to the Holy Land in relative safety. After having nearly defeated all the Moor warriors, Brancaleone is, however, foiled by a spell cast on him by Tiburzia, who, having fallen in love with him, could not stand seeing him married with the princess.
Furious at his humiliation, Brancaleone chases Tiburzia through the desert, and again Death comes to claim his prize. Brancaleone asks to be allowed to die in "knightly" fashion, in a duel with the Reaper himself, and Death agrees. After a fierce exchange of blows, Brancaleone is about to be cleft by Death's scythe but is saved by Tiburzia, who gives her life for the man she loves. Brancaleone and Tiburzia declare their love for each other just before she dies, and as Brancaleone later wanders the desert, she rejoins him in the form of a raven.
Vittorio Gassman, popularly known as Il Mattatore, was an Italian actor, director, and screenwriter.
Mario Alberto Ettore Monicelli was an Italian film director and screenwriter, one of the masters of the commedia all'italiana. He was nominated six times for an Oscar, and received the Golden Lion for his career.
Carlo Rustichelli was an Italian film composer whose career spanned the 1940s to about 1990. His prolific output included about 250 film compositions, as well as arrangements for other films, and music for television.
Evil-Lyn is a supervillainess in the Masters of the Universe toy line and the accompanying cartoon series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.
Gian Maria Volonté was an Italian actor and activist. He is best known for his roles in four Spaghetti Western films: Ramón Rojo in Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964), El Indio in Leone's For a Few Dollars More (1965), El Chuncho Munoz in Damiano Damiani's A Bullet for the General (1966) and Professor Brad Fletcher in Sergio Sollima's Face to Face (1967).
L'armata Brancaleone is an Italian comedy film released on April 7, 1966, written by the duo Age & Scarpelli and directed by Mario Monicelli. It features Vittorio Gassman in the main role. It was entered into the 1966 Cannes Film Festival.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, known in Japan as Ozu no Mahōtsukai (オズの魔法使い), is a Japanese anime television series adaptation based on four of the original early 20th century Oz books by L. Frank Baum. In Japan, the series aired on TV Tokyo from 1986 to 1987. It consists of 52 episodes, which explain other parts of the Oz stories, including the events that happened after Dorothy returned home.
The Survival of St. Joan is a rock opera by Smoke Rise from an original concept and libretto by Off-Broadway playwright and screenwriter James Lineberger.
Fantaghirò, also known as The Cave of the Golden Rose, is an Italian fantasy romance adventure series consisting of five television films directed by Lamberto Bava and released between 1991 and 1996. The first film was originally based on Italo Calvino's "Fanta-Ghiro the Beautiful", and takes place in a fairy tale setting, featuring princesses, princes, witches, wizards and talking animals. Shot mostly in the Czech Republic and Slovakia with the participation of local actors, and highly popular in Italy during the 1990s, it was loosely adapted into a cartoon series of the same title. A reboot series was announced in 2021.
More Than a Miracle is a 1967 film also titled Cinderella Italian Style and Happily Ever After. It stars Sophia Loren, Omar Sharif and Dolores del Río. The movie has a fairy tale narrative. Filmed in the countryside outside Naples, Francesco Rosi directed and Carlo Ponti produced. The theme music was a hit for Roger Williams, reaching #2 on Billboard's survey. Sergio Franchi recorded the title song on his 1968 RCA Victor album, I'm a Fool To Want You.
The Decameron is a 1971 anthology film written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, based on the 14th-century allegory by Giovanni Boccaccio. It is the first film of Pasolini's Trilogy of Life, the others being The Canterbury Tales and Arabian Nights. Each film was an adaptation of a different piece of classical literature focusing on ribald and often irreligious themes. The tales contain abundant nudity, sex, slapstick and scatological humour.
Desideria e l'Anello del Drago is an Italian fantasy television miniseries directed by Lamberto Bava and starring Anna Falchi. The story is similar in style and direction as Lamberto Bava's more successful Fantaghirò series.
Carlo Pisacane was an Italian actor who performed in over 70 films, including spaghetti Westerns like Death Rides a Horse (1968) and parodies like For a Few Dollars Less (1966). He's best remembered for his appearances in comedic classics, such as Big Deal on Madonna Street and its sequel Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti, where he played the elderly and gluttonous small-time crook Capannelle. He also is known for his role as the miserly Jewish merchant Abacuc in L'Armata Brancaleone.
Enrico Maria Salerno was an Italian actor, voice actor and film director. He was also the voice of Clint Eastwood in the Italian version of Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy films, and the voice of Christ in The Gospel According to St. Matthew directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Carlo Di Palma was an Italian cinematographer, renowned for his work on both color and black-and-white films, whose most famous collaborations were with Michelangelo Antonioni and Woody Allen.
Fantaghirò is a fantasy television film produced by Reteitalia, directed by Lamberto Bava and starring Alessandra Martines. It originally aired in 1991 as a two-parter, and hence has been known in certain video releases and airings as double-set of Fantaghirò 1 and Fantaghirò 2. It is the first installment in the Fantaghirò series and is loosely based on the Italian folktale Fanta-Ghirò the Beautiful.
The Leper of Saint Giles is a medieval mystery novel by Ellis Peters, set in October 1139. It is the fifth novel in The Cadfael Chronicles and was first published in 1981.
I picari, internationally released as The Rogues, is a 1987 Italian comedy film written and directed by Mario Monicelli. It is freely inspired by the Spanish novels Lazarillo de Tormes and Guzman de Alfarache.
Fulvia Franco was an Italian actress, model and beauty pageant titleholder.
Veriano Ginesi was an Italian actor.
