Yet one cannot underestimate di Leo’s output outside the noir genre: with such films as Brucia ragazzo brucia ( A Woman on Fire/ Burn, Boy, Burn, 1969), Amarsi male ( A Wrong Way To Love, 1969) and La seduzione ( Seduction, 1973), the director portrayed female psychology and desire on screen with a sensibility that was quite different from Italian erotic cinema of the period. With his crime films based on the novels of Giorgio Scerbanenco, di Leo described the Milanese underworld with harsh, at times brutal realism, and with memorable results. To consider him as just the director of Milano calibro 9 (shot in 1971 but released in Italy in early 1972) would be a mistake.

Born in San Ferdinando di Puglia in 1932, the literate, open-minded, nonconforming di Leo always chose to do things his own way. With 17 films as a director and about 50 scripts from 1964 to 1985, when the inexorable crisis of Italian cinema pushed him into a forced retirement, Fernando di Leo is one of Italy’s most interesting yet underestimated personalities of the period.

Calibre 2018 christian review