Giuliano Montaldo

Giuliano Montaldo was an actor and director. Born in Genoa in 1930, he was a student in 1950 when Carlo Lizzani cast him in Achtung Banditi!. After that he went to Rome, where he performed in movies and on stage, and later worked as assistant director for Lizzani, Gillo Pontecorvo, Sergio Leone and Francesco Rosi. His directing debut came in 1960 with Tiro Al piccione, about the Partisan Resistance, which competed at the 1961 Venice Film Festival. In 1964 he directed La Moglie Svedese, one episode of Extraconiugale. His second feature, Una Bella Grinta, earned the Berlin Film Festival's special jury prize in 1965, and dealt with a social climber amid Italy's economic miracle. That same year he handled second unit on Pontecorvo's The Battle Of Algiers. Later he made two Paramount pictures, the heist film Ad ogni costo, also known as Grand Slam (1967), and the gangster movie Gli intoccabili, also called Machine Gun McCain.