Rosanna Schiaffino

Rosanna Schiaffino, Vince Edwards in Carl Foreman’s The Victors (1963)

Rosanna Schiaffino, the sensual leading lady of dozens of Italian (and a few international) productions of the ’60s and early ’70s, died on Oct. 17 at her home in Milan following a long battle with cancer. She was 69.
The Genoa-born (Nov. 25, 1938) actress, referred to by some as the "Italian Hedy Lamarr," began her film career in the late 1950s. Among her best-known roles are those in Francesco Rosi’s first feature, La Sfida / The Challenge (1958); Mauro Bolognini’s La Notte brava / The Big Night / Bad Girls Don’t Cry (1959), winner of the Italian Film Critics’ Silver Ribbon for Pier Paolo Pasolini’s screenplay; and André Hunebelle’s historical [...]

Jack Cardiff

Cinematographer and director Jack Cardiff, one of the early masters of color cinematography, has died. He was 94.
Cardiff’s work as a cinematographer was quite eclectic, ranging from his partnership with Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in the British-made Black Narcissus (1945) and The Red Shoes (1948) to prestigious international productions such as John Huston’s The African Queen (1951) and King Vidor’s War and Peace (1956), and to low-brow commercial fare such as Conan the Destroyer (1984) and Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985).
I’ve never watched Conan or Rambo, but I have watched more than 20 of Cardiff’s 60 or so features, and I can testify that whether working in art-house or commercial fare, Cardiff’s cinematography was invariably one [...]