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50-541: Agostino " Dino " De Laurentiis ( Italian: [ˈdiːno de lauˈrɛnti.is] ; 8 August 1919 – 10 November 2010) was an Italian film producer and businessman who held both Italian and American citizenship. Following a brief acting career in the late 1930s and early 1940s, he moved into film production; alongside Carlo Ponti , he brought Italian cinema to the international scene in the post-World War II period . He produced or co-produced over 500 films, with 38 of his Hollywood films receiving Academy Award nominations. He

100-549: A Mexican divorce from his first wife and married Sophia Loren by proxy . Divorce was still forbidden in Italy, and he was informed that were he to return there, he would be charged with bigamy, and Loren would be charged with " concubinage ". Ponti co-produced several films in Hollywood starring Loren, establishing her fame. In 1960, he and Loren returned to Italy and when summoned to court, denied being married. In 1962, they had

150-654: A brand new remaster. Studio canal released Orca on Blu-ray with a Brand New Restoration & 4 Artcards on September 15, 2024 in the UK. The film grossed $ 3.5 million from 775 theatres in its opening weekend and went on to gross $ 14,717,854 in the United States and Canada. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , the film holds an approval rating of 9% based on 35 reviews and an average rating of 3.6/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Content to regurgitate bits of better horror movies, Orca: The Killer Whale

200-408: A daughter, Guendalina, in 1951, and a son, Alex, in 1953. While serving as a judge in a beauty contest in 1951, Ponti met a minor actress named Sofia Lazzaro (real name Sofia Villani Scicolone). He subsequently cast her in films such as Anna (1951). In 1952, his friend Goffredo Lombardo, head of production at Titanus , changed Lazzaro's name to Sophia Loren . Five years later, Ponti obtained

250-708: A fellow film producer; Federico , also a film producer who died in a plane crash in 1981; and Francesca. His granddaughter through Veronica is chef Giada De Laurentiis , while his nephew through his brother Luigi is fellow film producer Aurelio De Laurentiis . He and Mangano divorced in 1988, and she died of lung cancer the following year. Having lived in the U.S. since 1976, De Laurentiis became an American citizen in 1986. In 1990, De Laurentiis married American producer Martha Schumacher , who had produced many of his films since 1985. They had two daughters named Carolyna and Dina and remained married until his death in 2010. Schumacher died of cancer in 2021. On 10 November 2010, at

300-526: A gallo with Suzy Kendall, Dirty Weekend (1973) with Oliver Reed, Mr. Hercules Against Karate (1973), Flesh for Frankenstein (1974), The Voyage (1974) with Loren, Sex Pot (1975) with Loren and Mastroinanni, L'Infermiera (1975) with Ursula Andress, and Down and Dirty (1977), His final credits included The Cassandra Crossing (1977), an international co production starring Loren, and A Special Day (1977) with Mastroianni and Loren. In 1946, he married Giuliana Fiastri with whom he had

350-605: A museum in Caserta . When Ponti reached a deal with the Italian government and was cleared of the charges brought against him in 1990, he regained possession of 230 confiscated paintings. At some point, the collection is said to have been split between Ponti and Loren. Over the years, several works have been sold privately. In 2006 two Bacon paintings that had previously been in the Ponti collection were exhibited in an exhibition at

400-526: A number of successful films, including The Scientific Cardplayer (1972), Serpico (1973), Death Wish (1974), Mandingo (1975), Three Days of the Condor (1975), The Shootist (1976), Drum (1976), Ingmar Bergman 's The Serpent's Egg (1977), Ragtime (1981), Conan the Barbarian (1982), Blue Velvet (1986) and Breakdown (1997). De Laurentiis' name became well known through

450-540: A re-adaptation of the novel. He also produced the prequel Hannibal Rising (2007), which tells the story of how Hannibal becomes a serial killer . DDL Foodshow was an Italian specialty foods store with three locations: two in New York City and one in Beverly Hills . They were opened in the mid-1980s, and were owned and operated by De Laurentiis. The first store was opened in the restored palm court in

500-493: A tabloid magazine and seeing a photograph of his wife Ann Turkel on a beach with a younger man. He reportedly intended to stop performing and fly to Malibu in order to kill them, relenting only after getting into a brawl which resulted in Vincenzoni getting a black eye. The 46-year-old Harris insisted on performing his own stunts in the polar sequences and was nearly killed on several occasions. The underwater photography

550-477: Is a 1977 American thriller film directed by Michael Anderson , from a screenplay by Luciano Vincenzoni and Sergio Donati , and starring Richard Harris , Charlotte Rampling , Will Sampson , Bo Derek , Keenan Wynn and Robert Carradine . The film follows a male orca tracking down and getting revenge on a fishing boat and its captain for intentionally killing the whale's pregnant mate and their unborn calf. Executive producer Dino De Laurentiis commissioned

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600-428: Is a soggy shark thriller with frustratingly little bite." A contemporary review published by Variety called the film "man-vs-beast nonsense", and lamented that "fine special effects and underwater camera work are plowed under in dumb story-telling." Richard Schickel of Time wrote that the filmmakers behind Orca "thumbed heavily through the literature of the sea in their search for dramatic cliches", and called

650-464: Is an Irish Canadian fisherman living in Newfoundland , who catches marine animals in order to pay the mortgage on his boat, Bumpo , and eventually return to Ireland . Nolan's crew is looking for a great white shark on behalf of a local aquarium , but the shark targets the aquarium's representative, Ken. An orca intervenes and kills the shark, saving Ken's life. Nolan switches targets to

700-638: The Gagosian Gallery in London. One, a vertical composition of four self-portraits, had already been sold to the American collector Steven A. Cohen . In 2007 another pope painting by Bacon, sold by Ponti in 1991, was sold in a private deal brokered by Acquavella Galleries in New York for more than £15 million. That same year, Study for Portrait II (1956) was consigned by Loren at Christie's ; it

750-641: The 1960s, De Laurentiis built his own studio facilities. He produced such films as Barabbas (1961), a Christian religious epic; The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966); Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die , an imitation James Bond film; Navajo Joe (1966), a spaghetti Western ; Anzio (1968), a World War II film; Barbarella (1968) and Danger: Diabolik (1968), both successful comic book adaptations; and The Valachi Papers (1972), released before its originally scheduled date in order to capitalize on

800-565: The 1976 King Kong remake, which was a commercial hit; Lipstick (1976), a rape and revenge drama; Orca (1977), a killer whale film; The White Buffalo (1977), a western; the disaster movie Hurricane (1979); the remake of Flash Gordon (1980); David Lynch 's Dune (1984); The Bounty (1984); and King Kong Lives (1986). De Laurentiis produced several adaptations of Stephen King works, including The Dead Zone (1983), Cat's Eye (1985), Silver Bullet (1985), and Maximum Overdrive (1986). De Laurentiis' company

850-607: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2012, he was posthumously honored with the America Award by the Italy–USA Foundation . Carlo Ponti Ponti worked with many of the most important directors of Italian cinema of the era, including Federico Fellini , Michelangelo Antonioni , and Vittorio De Sica , as well as many international directors such as Agnès Varda and David Lean . He helped launch

900-1109: The Austrians for the inclusion of northeastern Italy into the Kingdom of Italy during the Risorgimento . The film was successful, because it was easy to see "the Austrians as Germans" during World War II. As a result, Ponti was briefly jailed for undermining relations with Nazi Germany . Ponti accepted an offer from Riccardo Gualino 's Lux Film in Rome in 1941. He made Giacomo the Idealist (1943), A Yank in Rome (1946), To Live in Peace (1947), The White Primrose (1948), Prelude to Madness (1948) and Hey Boy (1948). Ponti produced some films starring Gina Lollobrigida : Alarm Bells (1949), The White Line (1950), A Dog's Life (1950). Her Favourite Husband (1950)

950-554: The International Prize at Cannes. In 1954 Ponti had his greatest artistic success with the production of Federico Fellini 's La strada . However, Fellini denied Ponti's role in its success and said that " La Strada was made in spite of Ponti and De Laurentiis ". Along with a Toto comedy The Doctor of the Mad (1954) he and de Laurentiis produced an international film, Mambo (1954) directed by Robert Rossen. There

1000-511: The Italian market such as The Railroad Man (1956), and Guendalina (1957), but his focus was increasingly on bigger budgeted films aimed at the international Market starring Loren: The Black Orchid (1959) with Anthony Quinn, That Kind of Woman (1959) with Tab Hunter, Heller in Pink Tights (1960) with Quinn again, A Breath of Scandal (1960) with John Gavin. Two Women (1960) starring Loren and directed by Vittorio de Sica

1050-554: The age of 91, De Laurentiis died at his home in Beverly Hills, California . In 1957, De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for producing La Strada (1954). This was a unique occasion when the producers' names were included in the nominations, and they, not the director Federico Fellini, received the award. In 2001, De Laurentiis received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from

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1100-578: The career of his wife, international film star Sophia Loren . He won the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film for La Strada (1954) and was nominated for Best Picture for producing Doctor Zhivago (1965). In 1996, he was appointed as a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic . Ponti was born in Magenta, Lombardy , where his grandfather had been mayor of

1150-616: The city. Ponti studied law at the University of Milan . He joined his father's law firm in Milan and became involved in the film business through negotiating contracts. Ponti attempted to establish a film industry in Milan in 1940 and produced Mario Soldati 's Piccolo mondo antico there, starring Alida Valli , in her first notable role. The film dealt with the Italian struggle against

1200-431: The dead female loose to distract their attacker, but the orca jumps the boat and takes him with it under the ocean. The following day, the orca pushes his dead mate onto the shore. Nolan agrees to kill the male, as the presence of an angry orca is causing the fish that are vital to the village's economy to migrate. The orca continues his vengeance by sinking several fishing boats and rupturing underwater oil pipes that deprive

1250-614: The film "inept" and "suspenselessly shot". Gary Arnold of The Washington Post criticized the film's special effects and referred to it as "essentially a rehash of an earlier De Laurentiis hit, Death Wish , with the killer whale in Charles Bronson role." Orca has been unfavorably compared to Jaws . Both Schickel and Arnold drew comparisons between the films, and Bob Thomas of the Associated Press called it "just another attempt to copy Jaws ". Dave Kehr of

1300-476: The film was captured by noted shark hunter Ron Taylor . In 2004, Paramount Home Entertainment released Orca on Region A DVD. In 2017, Umbrella Entertainment released Orca on Region B Blu-ray with a new 4-minute interview with Martha De Laurentiis. On June 30, 2020, Scream Factory released Orca on Region A Blu-ray with an improved video transfer. Studio Canal released Orca on 4K UHD in Sept 2024 featuring

1350-465: The hospital, Nolan recruits his only other remaining crewman, Paul, along with Ken, Bedford, and Jacob Umilak, a Mi'kmaq hunter, to pursue the orca. The crew chases the orca after he signals Nolan to follow him. Ken is leaning over the side when the orca surfaces and grabs him, killing him. They follow the orca until they reach the Strait of Belle Isle , but when Paul loses his nerve and tries to flee in

1400-415: The ice, causing it to tilt and sending Nolan into the water before catching him with its tail and hurling him to his death against the ice. His revenge complete, the orca swims southward under the ice, leaving his fate unknown, while a helicopter is seen coming to rescue Bedford. Writer-producer Luciano Vincenzoni was first assigned to give the film a head start after being called by Dino de Laurentiis in

1450-423: The lifeboat, the orca smashes it, and he drowns. The next day, the orca maneuvers Nolan to collide with an iceberg. The captain harpoons the whale just as he and Bedford escape from the sinking Bumpo , but Umilak is crushed beneath an avalanche of ice after sending an SOS . Nolan and Bedford hide on an iceberg, although Nolan slips onto another one to separate them and potentially save her life. The orca jumps onto

1500-834: The marriage annulled, after which Ponti arranged with his first wife, Giuliana, that the three of them move to France (which at that time allowed divorce) and become French citizens. In 1965, Giuliana Ponti divorced her husband, allowing Ponti to marry Loren in 1966 in a civil wedding in Sèvres . They later became French citizens after their application was approved by then-French Prime Minister Georges Pompidou . Ponti and Loren had two sons: Their daughters-in-law are Sasha Alexander and Andrea Meszaros. They have four grandchildren. Loren remained married to Ponti until his death on 10 January 2007 of pulmonary complications. Two unsuccessful attempts were made to kidnap Ponti in 1975, including one involving an attack on his car with gunfire. He

1550-404: The middle of the night in 1975. Upon admitting that he had watched the film Jaws , Vincenzoni was instructed by de Laurentiis to "find a fish tougher and more terrible than the great white". Having had little interest in sea life beforehand, Vincenzoni was directed to killer whales by his brother Adriano, who had a personal interest in zoology. This was Vincenzoni's only film as a producer, as he

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1600-698: The movie was directed by David Lean and made by MGM. Also for MGM Ponti produced Operation Crossbow (1965), a war film with Loren, The Girl and the General (1967) with Rod Steiger, Ghosts – Italian Style (1967), and three notable films with Michelangelo Antonioni , Blowup in 1966, Zabriskie Point in 1970 and The Passenger in 1974. He made The 10th Victim (1965), and some films for Paramount, Smashing Time (1967) Diamonds for Breakfast (1968). Ponti's later movies included The Priest's Wife (1970) with Loren, What? (1972) from Roman Polanski, Giordano Bruno (1973), Torso (1973)

1650-409: The much more valuable orca. He attempts to harpoon the creature but accidentally strikes a female orca instead, leaving her with a fatal wound. Nolan and his crew get the orca on board, where she subsequently miscarries . The captain hoses the dead fetus overboard as the male orca, the female’s mate, looks on and screams in anguish. The enraged male tries to ram Bumpo . Nolan's first mate, Novak, cuts

1700-519: The ornate lobby of the historic Endicott Hotel , now a co-op on Manhattan's Upper West Side , near the existing Zabar's food emporium on Broadway. The first NYC store opened in November 1982, and it was reported that the store "opened to crowds of 30,000 over the Thanksgiving weekend, when de Laurentiis himself greeted customers at the door". The store's assistant manager said that "it was like

1750-493: The outbreak of World War II . De Laurentiis produced his first film, L'ultimo Combattimento , in 1941. His company, the Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografica, moved into film production in 1946. In the early years, De Laurentiis produced Italian neorealist films such as Bitter Rice (1949) and the early Fellini works La Strada (1954) and Nights of Cabiria (1956), often in collaboration with producer Carlo Ponti . In

1800-646: The popularity of The Godfather . In 1973, De Laurentiis relocated his headquarters to New York and he was reportedly considering to produce an American television series. His studio financially collapsed during the 1970s. In the 1980s, he had his own studio: De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG) based in Wilmington, North Carolina . The studio made Wilmington an unexpected center of film and television production. In 1990, he obtained backing from an Italian friend and formed another company: Dino De Laurentiis Communications in Beverly Hills . De Laurentiis produced

1850-557: The premiere of a movie". The food critic Gael Greene wrote a scathing review on the opening in New York . In an interview with the Chicago Tribune a month later, she admitted that the store was "probably the most stunningly handsome grocery in the world, certainly in New York", but "the pricing was insane. They hadn't paid enough attention to the competition." She reported that she'd talked to De Laurentiis: "Dino's reaction

1900-606: The project to cash in on the blockbuster success of Jaws . Filming took place in Newfoundland and Labrador and Malta , with many of the orca scenes shot at the Marineland of the Pacific and the Marine World theme parks. Upon release, the film was a minor box office success, but received mostly unfavorable reception from critics and audiences alike due to its similarities to Jaws , released two years prior. Nolan

1950-440: The villagers of fuel. Rachel Bedford, a colleague of Ken and an experienced cetologist , shows Nolan how similar orcas are to humans. He confesses that he empathizes with the orca, as his own wife and unborn child were killed in a car crash caused by a drunk driver. Nolan promises Bedford that he will not fight the orca, but that night the whale attacks his home, resulting in crewmember Annie losing her left leg. After seeing her in

2000-650: Was An American in Rome (1955) with Alberto Sordi and The Gold of Naples (1954) with a young Sophia Loren. Loren was the female lead in Ponti's Attila (1954), a biopic of Attila the Hun with Anthony Quinn that became a big box office success. Loren was in The Miller's Beautiful Wife (1955), a comedy. Ponti and de Laurentiis made the epic war film War and Peace (1956). In June 1956 his partnership with De Laurentiis ended after more than eighty films over six years. Ponti continued to produce smaller movies for

2050-744: Was a British-Italian co production with Jean Kent. He made a number of comedies including Figaro Here, Figaro There (1950), Toto the Third Man (1951) and Toto in Color (1952), with Totò , plus The Knight Has Arrived! (1951), The Piano Tuner Has Arrived (1952) and The Steamship Owner (1951) with Walter Chiari . Ponti alternated this with more serious material such as Europe '51 (1952) from Roberto Rossellini , Brothers of Italy (1952), Lieutenant Giorgio (1953), and Easy Years (1953). The Unfaithfuls (1953) reunited Ponti with Lollobrigida, while Neapolitan Carousel (1954) won

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2100-901: Was a huge success, winning Loren the Oscar. Ponti produced a series of movies in France: Lola (1961) starred Anouk Aimee, A Woman Is a Woman (1961) directed by Jean-Luc Goddard , Léon Morin, Priest (1961) from Jean Paul Melville starring Jean Paul Belmondo , Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962) from Agnes Varda, Le Doulos (1962) with Belmondo, Landru (1962), plus The Carabineers (1963) and Contempt (1963) from Goddard. Ponti continued to make movies in Italy, notably Boccaccio '70 (1962), Redhead (1962), The Empty Canvas (1962), Break Up (1965) and two with Loren, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963) and Marriage Italian Style (1964). Ponti produced his most popular and financially successful film, Doctor Zhivago , in 1965;

2150-596: Was also the creator and operator of DDL Foodshow, a chain of Italian specialty foods stores. Agostino De Laurentiis was born in Torre Annunziata , Kingdom of Italy , on 8 August 1919. He grew up selling spaghetti made by his father's pasta factory. His older brother, Luigi De Laurentiis (1917–1992), later followed him into film production. He studied at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in 1937 and 1938, but his studies were interrupted by

2200-570: Was auctioned for the record price of £14.2 million ($ 27.5 million). Ponti died in Geneva , Switzerland, from pulmonary complications on 10 January 2007. He was survived by his daughter Guendalina (b. 1951), and his son Alessandro (b. 1953) from his first marriage; and by his second wife, Sophia Loren, and their sons Carlo (b. 1968) and Edoardo Ponti (b. 1973). His body rests in the family tomb in Magenta, Lombardy . Orca (1977 film) Orca (also known as Orca: The Killer Whale )

2250-535: Was involved with the horror sequels Halloween II (1981), Evil Dead II (1987), and Army of Darkness (1992). De Laurentiis also produced the first Hannibal Lecter film, Manhunter (1986), an adaptation of the Thomas Harris novel Red Dragon . He passed on adapting the novels' sequel, The Silence of the Lambs (1991), but produced the two follow-ups, Hannibal (2001) and Red Dragon (2002),

2300-571: Was mainly a screenwriter. Because neither Vincenzoni nor his co-writer Sergio Donati were native English speakers, Robert Towne was hired as an uncredited script doctor to touch up dialogue. Location filming took place in the town of Petty Harbour , about 20 kilometres south of St. John's . The scenery meant to represent a remote polar region of Labrador was fabricated in Malta by designer Mario Garbuglia . According to Vincenzoni, Richard Harris had begun to drink heavily on set after reading

2350-541: Was renowned for containing ten works by Francis Bacon . These included examples from his early Van Gogh series, triptychs, self-portraits and pope paintings, which were rarely publicised or lent to public exhibitions. In 1977 the Bacon paintings, then valued at an estimated $ 6.7 million, were seized and turned over by the Italian government to the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan; thirty-three sketches by George Grosz went to

2400-440: Was supervised by J. Barry Herron, credited with "special photography contributions." The main orcas used for filming, called Yaka and Nepo , were trained animals from Marineland of the Pacific and Marine World/Africa USA , though artificial rubber whales were also used. These models were so lifelike that several animal rights activists blocked the trucks transporting them, confusing them for real orcas. The shark used early in

2450-603: Was that I'm full of it. And we're meeting over a bowl of pasta to discuss it." A review in The San Francisco Examiner said that it was "worth a peek and a purchase". DDL Foodshow was later considered to be a forebear of the new Italian specialty goods food-store restaurant dining attraction Eataly . De Laurentiis' brief first marriage in Italy was annulled. In 1949, De Laurentiis married Italian-British actress Silvana Mangano , with whom he had four children: Veronica , an author and actress; Raffaella ,

2500-560: Was tried in absentia in 1979 for smuggling money and works of art abroad, fined 22 billion lire , and sentenced to four years in prison. Ponti did not attend the hearing, as his French nationality made him immune from extradition. He was finally cleared of the charges in 1990. Ponti owned works by, among others, Picasso , Georges Braque , Renoir , René Magritte (including his Lumière du pole from 1927), Salvador Dalí , Henry Moore (including his Figure from 1933), Barbara Hepworth , Giorgio de Chirico and Canaletto . His collection

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