IL GLADIATORE INVINCIBILE The Invincible Gladiator
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961 WAS BY FAR the busiest year of Mario Bava’s career—so busy that it is sometimes impossible to deter-
mine, from the release dates of the many films he directed and assisted, the precise order in which they were made. There are instances when the release dates of these pictures sometimes coincide on the same day, or within a week of one another. At some point during the year, either between the two Hercules films, or immediately fol- lowing them, Bava provided some maquettes and additional special effects photography to yet another sandaloni costume drama called Il gladiatore invincibile/The Invincible Gladiator, produced by Italo Zingarelli. Of the many supporting characters in the story of Bava’s career, Zingarelli is comparatively minor, at least on the surface, but he is deserving of special attention because, of the numerous members of the Italian film community who prevailed on Bava during
this period for his help, he was the only colleague from Bava’s prime years to attend his very private funeral in 1980. Italo Zingarelli was born on January 15, 1930, in Lugo di Romagna, Italy. The son of two academics, a secondary school teacher and a professor, he was a husky, athletic child who did some semi-professional boxing as a young man. He broke into motion pictures as a stuntman on Quo Vadis (1951), then pro- duced his first film in Britain: Night of the Silvery Moon (1954), a 67-minute B-picture starring Kathleen Byron and Dermot Walsh. When it failed to make his career, Zingarelli returned to Rome and determined to learn more about the film business from the inside, work- ing first as a production secretary and then as a production manager. By 1960, he was finally in position to produce once again. The result was Le legioni di Cleopatra/Legions of the Nile, a critically and popularly well-received picture directed by Vittorio Cottafavi.
