{"id":40929,"date":"2026-08-18T16:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T16:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/40929\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T16:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T16:53:09","slug":"fulvio-lucisano-dead-italian-producer-of-planet-of-the-vampires-was-98","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/40929\/","title":{"rendered":"Fulvio Lucisano Dead: Italian Producer of ‘Planet of the Vampires’ Was 98"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tItalian producer Fulvio Lucisano<\/a>, who shepherded a slew of cult B-movies such as \u201cPlanet of the Vampires\u201d and \u201cWhat Have You Done to Solange?\u201d and had a close rapport with Roger Corman<\/a>, has died. He was 98.<\/p>\n

\n\tHis daughter Paola confirmed Lucisano\u2019s death on Tuesday in a statement sent to Italian news agency ANSA, writing: \u201cRest in peace, Dad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOver seven decades in the film business, Lucisano mounted more than 150 projects in a panoply of genres, ranging from Mario Bava\u2019s pulpy classic \u201cPlanet of the Vampires\u201d to Franco Zeffirelli\u2019s \u201cThe Young Toscanini,\u201d starring Elizabeth Taylor as a primadonna soprano, as well as Buster Keaton-starrer \u201cWar, Italian Style.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLucisano\u2019s genre purview included sci-fi, horror, Italian comedies and soft porn, but also highbrow works by some of Italy\u2019s most revered auteurs like Liliana Cavani, Marco Ferreri, Lina Wertmuller and European arthouse greats like Carlos Saura, whose 1999 work \u201cGoya in Bordeaux\u201d Lucisano was particularly proud of.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGenres don\u2019t exist,\u201d Lucisano said in a 2008 interview with Variety.<\/a> \u201cThe only thing I care about is the moviegoers. They are our judge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the interview, Lucisano said he had always paid heed to the advice Keaton gave him in 1966 on the Rome set of \u201cWar, Italian Style,\u201d in which Keaton played a hapless German general, one of his last roles.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe told me: \u2018Any kind of movie you make, look at what happens in the first reel, and make sure that, if it\u2019s a comedy, there\u2019s a laugh early on; if it\u2019s a drama or an action movie, then something surprising has to happen in the first 10 minutes,’\u201d Lucisano said.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Rome-born Lucisano started out in production in 1949, assisting an American company making a Catholic documentary shot inside the Vatican and St. Peter\u2019s to commemorate the coming year\u2019s Holy Year Jubilee. A lawyer\u2019s son who had a degree in law himself, Lucisano personally drafted his own contracts for most of his career.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe set up Italian Intl. Film (IIF) in 1958 and soon started collaborating with Los Angeles-based American Intl. Pictures, James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff\u2019s low-budget Hollywood studio that spawned Corman\u2019s films, which were distributed in Italy by Lucisano\u2019s Italian Intl. Film.<\/p>\n

\n\tTheir collaboration started with 1962\u2019s \u201cWarriors Five,\u201d a WWII drama starring Jack Palance; followed by \u201cSexy magico,\u201d a faux docu about sexual rites around the world; and in 1964 came campy Jane Mansfield-starrer \u201cPrimitive Love,\u201d a mondo sex farce in a similar vein.<\/p>\n

\n\tin 1965, Lucisano proudly shepherded Bava\u2019s \u201cPlanet of the Vampires,\u201d his first picture shot in Cinecitta\u2019s legendary Studio 5, later to become Federico Fellini\u2019s second home. \u201cPlanet of the Vampires,\u201d considered a major influence on Ridley Scott\u2019s \u201cAlien,\u201d was a co-production with American Intl. Pictures.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat Have You Done to Solange?\u201d is one of Lucisano\u2019s relatively early productions that he liked to reminisce about. It\u2019s a now-classic 1972 England-set giallo and a favorite of Quentin Tarantino, helmed by Massimo Dallamano with a typically atmospheric Ennio Morricone score.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2005, the Venice Film Festival celebrated Lucisano with a special Fulvio Lucisano Day as part of its Tarantino-presented \u201cSecret History of Italian Cinema\u201d retrospective, during which restored copies of both \u201cVampires\u201d and \u201cSolange\u201d screened.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut besides Italian B-movies, Lucisano also shepherded a slew of artier titles.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 1975, just three years after \u201cSolange,\u201d Lucisano made Mauro Bolognini\u2019s \u201cPer le antiche scale\u201d (\u201cDown the Ancient Staircase\u201d), a dark drama starring Marcello Mastroianni as a psychologist trying to isolate an \u201cinsanity virus\u201d in a Fascist-era asylum. It won the Locarno Film Festival\u2019s Special Jury nod.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe produced Liliana Cavani\u2019s Nazi-era \u201cThe Berlin Affair,\u201d Luigi Comencini\u2019s \u201cA Boy From Calabria\u201d and Francesca Archibugi\u2019s 1993 foreign-language Oscar-nommed debut \u201cIl grande cocomero\u201d (\u201cThe Great Pumpkin\u201d), just to name a few of his forays into auteur territory.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs a distributor, IIF has released hundreds of pics, including \u201cThelma and Louise,\u201d thanks to a strong relationship he had with MGM; Andrei Konchalowski\u2019s \u201cMaria\u2019s Lovers,\u201d as part of a longstanding deal in those days with Menahem Golan\u2019s Cannon; and \u201cFour Weddings and a Funeral\u201d through his tie at the time with Polygram. <\/p>\n

\n\tLucisano served as president of Italy\u2019s motion picture association ANICA from 1998 to 2001.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring his illustrious career, Lucisano was honored with five David di Donatello awards, including a lifetime achievement honor in 2009, as well as four Nastri d\u2019Argento Silver Ribbon awards.<\/p>\n

\n\tLucisano is survived by his daughters, Federica and Paola,\u00a0who run his now publicly traded company called Lucisano Media Group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italian producer Fulvio Lucisano, who shepherded a slew of cult B-movies such as \u201cPlanet of the Vampires\u201d and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[26973,5,20498],"class_list":["post-40929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-italy","tag-fulvio-lucisano","tag-italy","tag-roger-corman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}