Mario Bava

Mario Bava
Born	31 July 1914(1914-07-31) San Remo, Liguria, Italy
Died	25 April 1980(1980-04-25) (aged 65) Rome, Italy
Occupation	Film director

Mario Bava (31 July 1914 – 25 April 1980) was an Italian director, screenwriter, and cinematographer remembered as one of the greatest names from the "golden age" of Italian horror films.

Biography

Mario Bava was born in San Remo, Liguria, Italy. The son of Eugenio Bava, a sculptor who became a pioneer of special effects photography and subsequently one of the great cameramen of Italian silent pictures, Mario Bava's first ambition was to become a painter. Unable to turn out paintings at a profitable rate, he went into his father's business, working as an assistant to other Italian cinematographers like Massimo Terzano, while also offering assistance to his father who headed the special effects department at Benito Mussolini's film factory, the Istituto LUCE.

Bava became a cinematographer in his own right in 1939, shooting two short films with Roberto Rossellini. He made his feature debut in the early 1940s. Bava's camerawork was an instrumental factor in developing the screen personas of such stars of the period as Gina Lollobrigida, Steve Reeves and Aldo Fabrizi.

Bava completed filming I Vampiri (aka The Devil's Commandment) for director Riccardo Freda in 1956, now referred to as the first Italian horror film. Bava was originally hired as the cinematographer, but when Freda walked out on the project midway through production, Bava completed the film in several days, even creating the innovative special effects that were needed. He also handled the cinematography and special effects on the 1957 Steve Reeves classic Hercules, a film credited with sparking the Italian peplum genre.

Bava co-directed Le morte viene dallo spazio (The Day the Sky Exploded) in 1958, the first Italian science fiction film. Because he had no earlier credited experience as a director, it was credited solely to Paolo Heusch. In 1959, Bava completed Caltiki, The Immortal Monster, again for Riccardo Freda. In 1960, he directed Black Sunday, which made a horror genre star out of Barbara Steele. His use of light and dark in black and white films is widely acclaimed along with his use of color in films such as I tre volti della paura (Black Sabbath) (1963) and La Frusta e il corpo (The Whip and the Body) (1963).

His work has proved very influential: Bava directed what is called the first Italian giallo film, La ragazza che sapeva troppo (The Girl Who Knew Too Much) (1963), and his 1965 sci-fi horror Terrore nello spazio (Planet of the Vampires) was a probable influence on Alien (1979). Although comic books had served as the basis for countless serials and children's films in Hollywood, Bava's Diabolik (1968) brought an adult perspective to the genre. 1971's Reazione a catena/ Bay of Blood (also known as Twitch of the Death Nerve) is considered to be one of the earliest slasher films, and was imitated in the first two American-made Friday the 13th movies. Many elements of his 1966 film Operazione paura (Kill, Baby... Kill!), regarded by Martin Scorsese as Bava's masterpiece, also appear in the Asian strain of terror film known as J-Horror.

Mario Bava was very disappointed with the distribution of some of his later films (which caused him to retire in 1978 at age 63). Lisa and the Devil (1972) was never picked up by a distrbutor, and had to be later re-edited (with new 1975 footage) into an Exorcist-clone retitled House of Exorcism in order to get released. Bava's Semaforro Rosso (1974) was never released theatrically during his lifetime; the film only appeared on DVD in the late 1990s, re-edited a bit with some new footage, as Rabid Dogs and then released again in 2007 in a slightly altered version under the title Kidnapped. Bava retired in 1978 after co-directing his last horror film Shock with his son Lamberto (although he did some special effects matte work on Dario Argento's movie Inferno). Bava died of natural causes in 1980 at age 65.

Mario Bava's son, Lamberto Bava, worked for 14 years as Bava's assistant director, and went on to become a horror film director on his own. On several of his movies, Bava was credited as John M. Old. Later, Lamberto Bava was sometimes credited as John M. Old, Jr.

Several books have been published about Mario Bava: Mario Bava by Pascal Martinet (Edilig, 1984) and Mario Bava edited by Jean-Louis Leutrat (Éditions du Céfal, 1994) in French; Mario Bava by Alberto Pezzotta (Il Castoro Cinema, 1995) in Italian; The Haunted Worlds of Mario Bava by Troy Howarth (Fab Press, 2002), and most recently, the massive critical biography Mario Bava All the Colors of the Dark by Tim Lucas (Video Watchdog, 2007; ISBN 0-9633756-1-X).

Filmography

Year	Film	Worked as			Notes
		Director	Writer	Cinematographer
1943	L'Avventura di Annabella			Yes
1943	Sant'Elena, piccola isola			Yes
1946	L'Elisir d'amore			Yes
1947	Uomini e cieli			Yes
1948	Natale al campo 119			Yes
1948	Pagliacci			Yes
1949	Antonio di Padova			Yes
1949	Follie per l'opera			Yes
1950	Miss Italia			Yes
1950	È arrivato il cavaliere!			Yes
1950	Canzone di primavera			Yes
1950	Vita da cani			Yes
1950	Quel bandito sono io			Yes
1951	La Famiglia Passaguai			Yes
1951	Amor non ho... però... però			Yes
1951	Guardie e ladri			Yes
1951	La Famiglia Passaguai fa fortuna			Yes
1952	Papà diventa mamma			Yes
1952	Gli Eroi della domenica			Yes
1953	Balocchi e Profumi			Yes
1953	Il Bacio dell'Aurora			Yes
1953	Perdonami!			Yes
1953	Il Viale della speranza			Yes
1953	Villa Borghese			Yes
1954	Terza liceo			Yes
1954	Hanno rubato un tram			Yes
1954	Graziella			Yes
1954	Cose da pazzi			Yes
1955	Buonanotte... avvocato!			Yes
1955	Le avventure di Giacomo Casanova			Yes
1955	Ulysses	Yes		Yes
1956	I Vampiri	Yes		Yes	Alternative titles * The Devil's Commandment Lust of the Vampire
1956	Roland the Mighty			Yes	Alternative titles Orlando e i Paladini di Francia
1956	Città di notte			Yes
1956	Beautiful But Dangerous			Yes
1956	Mio figlio Nerone			Yes	Alternative titles * Nero's Mistress Nero's Weekend
1957	Hercules	Yes		Yes	Alternative titles * Le Fatiche di Ercole Labors of Hercules
1958	The Day the Sky Exploded			Yes	Alternative titles * Death Comes From Space
1959	Hercules Unchained	Yes		Yes
1959	Caltiki - The Immortal Monster	Yes		Yes
1959	The Giant of Marathon	Yes		Yes	Alternative titles * The Battle of Marathon
1959	The White Warrior	Yes		Yes	Alternative titles * Agi Murad, the White Devil
1960	Black Sunday	Yes	Yes	Yes	Alternative titles * Mask of the Demon Revenge of the Vampire The Mask of Satan
1960	Esther and the King	Yes		Yes
1961	Hercules in the Haunted World	Yes	Yes	Yes	Alternative titles * Hercules at the Center of the Earth
1961	Erik the Conqueror	Yes	Yes	Yes	Alternative titles * Fury of the Vikings The Invaders
1961	The Wonders of Aladdin	Yes
1961	The Last of the Vikings	Yes
1963	The Girl Who Knew Too Much	Yes	Yes	Yes	Alternative titles Evil Eye
1963	Black Sabbath	Yes	Yes	Yes	Alternative titles * Three Faces of Fear
1963	Blood and Black Lace	Yes	Yes	Yes	Alternative titles Six Women for the Murderer
1963	The Whip and the Body	Yes	Yes	Yes	Alternative titles What? Il Frusto e il Corpo
1964	The Road to Fort Alamo	Yes		Yes
1964	Planet of the Vampires	Yes	Yes	Yes	Alternative titles * Demon Planet Terror in Space The Haunted Planet The Haunted World
1964	Knives of the Avenger	Yes	Yes	Yes	Alternative titles * Bladestorm Viking Massacre
1966	Kill, Baby, Kill	Yes	Yes	Yes	Alternative titles * Curse of the Living Dead Operation Fear
1966	Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs	Yes		Yes	Alternative titles * Dr. Goldfoot and the Love Bomb Dr. Goldfoot and the Sex Bombs The Spy Who Came in from the Semi-Cold Two Mafia Guys from the FBI
1966	Gunman called Nebraska	Yes		Yes	Alternative titles * Ringo from Nebraska Nebraska Jim
1968	Danger: Diabolik	Yes	Yes	Yes	Alternative titles * Diabolik
1968	Naked you die		Yes		Alternative titles * Nude... si muore"
1970	Five Dolls for an August Moon	Yes		Yes	Alternative titles Island of Terror
1970	Hatchet for the Honeymoon	Yes	Yes	Yes	Alternative titles * Blood Brides The Red Stain of Madness
1970	Roy Colt and Winchester Jack	Yes	Yes	Yes
1971	Twitch of the Death Nerve	Yes	Yes	Yes	Alternative titles * A Bay of Blood Ecology of Crime Chain Reaction Reazione a Catena Last House on the Left II
1972	Baron Blood	Yes		Yes	Alternative titles * The Torture Chamber of Baron Blood Horrors of Nuremberg Castle The Blood Baron
1972	Four Times That Night	Yes		Yes
1973	Lisa and the Devil	Yes	Yes		Alternative titles * The Devil Carries the Dead The House of Exorcism (1975 re-edited version)
1974	Rabid Dogs	Yes	Yes	Yes	Alternative titles * Kidnapped Red Light Semaforro Rosso
1977	Shock	Yes	Yes	Yes	Alternative titles * Beyond the Door II Shock: Transfert Suspense Hypnos
1979	The Venus of Ille	Yes	Yes	Yes	Alternative titles * La Venere d'Ille
1980	Inferno	No		Yes

Sources

• Mario Bava Maestro of Macabre (2001), directed by Garry S.Grant
• Mario Bava Operazione paura (2004), directed by Gabriele Acerbo & Roberto Pisoni
• Mario Bava All the Colors of the Dark (2007) by Tim Lucas
• Kill, Baby, Kill! Il cinema di Mario Bava (2007) by Gabriele Acerbo & Roberto Pisoni
• Le ombre della paura - Il cinema italiano del terrore 1960/1980 (2002) by Paolo Fazzini & Marco Cruciani

External links

• Mario Bava at the Internet Movie Database
• Biography of Bava
• Images - Mario Bava, short biography
• Senses of Cinema - about his films
• Yellow, a short film dedicated to Mario Bava