Italian director Alberto Lattuada, whose career spanned more than 40 years, from the early 1940s to the late 1980s, died this past Sunday (July 3) in Rome. According to Roman officials, Lattuada had been in poor health for quite some time. He was 90.
Among Lattuada's most important films are Anna (1951) with earthy Silvana Mangano as a nun, and co-starring Raf Vallone, Gaby Morlay, and Vittorio Gassman; the eyebrow-raising I Dolci inganni / Sweet Deceptions (1960), the coming-of-age story of a Roman teenager (Catherine Spaak) who discovers love and sex; the costume comedy La Mandragola (1965) with Rosanna Schiaffino; and the controversial early April-mid-October romance Così come sei / Stay As You Are, in which the very middle-aged Marcello Mastroianni falls in love with teenager Nastassja Kinski.