More bad news, director Guido Zurli died a few days ago. Zurli was one of the more prolific directors of Italian b-movies from the mid sixties until the beginning of the 80s, and was in fact pretty good at what he did. Some of his films are rubbish, but some of them show a degree of talent which implies that – had he ever had the chance to work with a decent budget – he could have made something really quite good. He also worked as a scriptwriter and was a highly respected assistant director before going solo.
Here’s a tranlsation of an article I found:
Guido Zurli has died at the age of 80. In his career, spanning nearly 50 years, he worked in a variety of genres, from spaghetti western to peplum, from horror to porn (he worked on the film debut of Moana Pozzi, Valentina ragazza in calore, before leaveing the set). He also directed operas, documentaries and television programs.
Born January 9, 1929, at Foiano della Chiana, Zurlo hadbecame especially popular in the Islamic world, after directing Le verdi bandiere di Allah, which he’d originally scripted for Sergio Leone, and also because he worked regularly in Turkey, where he shot the western Cowboy Kid and others. Recently there was talk of him as being the possible director of a film on the life of Licio Gelli.
There’s a neat interview with him (in Italian) that was broadcast on Stracult quite recently: