Known for Writing
Duccio Tessari was an Italian director, screenwriter and occasionally actor, considered one of the fathers of spaghetti westerns. Born in Genoa, Tessari started in the fifties as documentarist and as screenwriter of Peplum films. In 1964 he co-wrote Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, one year later he gained an impressive commercial success and launched the Giuliano Gemma's career with A Pistol for Ringo and his immediate sequel, The Return of Ringo. He later touched different genres and worked in RAI TV, directing some successful TV-series. He died of cancer in Rome, at 68. He was married to actress Lorella De Luca.
Born
October 11, 1926
Died
September 6, 1994 (age 67)
Birthplace
Genoa, Italy
Filmography
90 films, 1 show


Beyond Justice
1992 · 1h 53m
country: Italy
A woman's ex-husband, who is the son of an Arab chieftain, kidnaps their teenage son and brings him back to Morocco, where the boy is to be made the leader of the tribe. The child's mother hires a mercenary to get her son and bring him back to her.


There Was a Castle with Forty Dogs
1990
country: Italy
A Milanese manager inherits a castle in Tuscany and moves there with his girlfriend and her little son, transforming it into a dog nursery.


Please, Let the Flowers Live
1986 · 1h 30m
country: Germany
A lawyer who survives a plane crash takes the opportunity to take a new identity and begin a new life.
Baciami Strega
Baciami Strega
1985 · 1h 30m
country: Unknown
A beautiful witch is sent to Earth by the devil to capture the souls of a group of ambitious men.


Tex and the Lord of the Deep
1985 · 1h 44m
country: Italy
Based on the adventures of the hero Tex from the comic strip by Bonelli. An interesting spaghetti-western/fantasy movie that blends magic and mythology with six-guns and stagecoaches.


Un centesimo di secondo
1981
country: Unknown


The Fifth Commandment
1978 · 1h 55m
country: Unknown
A notorious gang of robbers threaten the Ruhr region of Germany in the 1920s.


La madama
1976 · 1h 33m
country: Italy
In the slang of the underworld or "mala" there is a special term for cop: "Madama". But if word were to get around that the "Madama" is Vito (Christian De Sica) they might even start to like the guy. Vito is a funny sort of a cop. For a start he doesn't like the uniform (he never wears it). Things might even go smoothly for him, if it weren't for an incredible number of beautiful girls who always manage to get in his way. Especially one girl Angelo (shouldn't that have been Angela? No, the girl's name really is Angelo). Problems arise too, with his direct supervisor, who also happens to be a relative. But Vito puts up with it all and manages to stay his usual calm and polite self, even when he risks getting killed.


Safari Express
1976 · 1h 33m
country: Italy
John and Howard work in a company named Safari Express booking tourists on safaris. Their lives are turned upside down when they encounter a beautiful blonde wandering in the jungle who doesn't know who she is. They also discover uranium and what appear to be some well-mannered simians.


Zorro
1975 · 1h 58m
country: France
A newly arrived governor finds his province under the control of the corrupt Colonel Huerta. To avoid assassination by Huerta, he pretends to be weak and indecisive so Huerta will believe he poses no threat. But secretly he masquerades as Zorro, and joins the monk Francisco and the beautiful aristocrat Hortensia in their fight for justice against Huerta and his soldiers.


Puzzle
1974 · 1h 32m
country: Italy
In London, A man who has amnesia attempts to uncover the truth about his identity. A menacing individual accuses him of betrayal, and soon more pieces of his puzzling past begin to fall in place.


Three Tough Guys
1974 · 1h 32m
country: United States
Isaac Hayes plays as Lee in his feature film debut, as Father Charlie and himself solve a bank robbery mystery that stretches across the city. After Lee is removed from the force due to $1,000,000 being stolen from the bank Father Charlie helps him to gain revenge for the loss of one of his friends.


Tony Arzenta
1973 · 1h 53m
country: Italy
A mob hitman wants to retire, but his bosses don't think that's a good idea. Complications - and many bloody shootouts - ensue.


The Heroes
1973
country: Spain
Four soldiers and a beautiful Greek nurse, thrown together in North Africa during World War II, team up to pull off a heist of two-million pounds in boxes marked "plasma."


Winged Devils
1972 · 1h 40m
country: Italy
The real-life courage and audacity of aeronautic acrobats whose ground life is often as exciting as flight maneuvers.


Don't Turn the Other Cheek
1971 · 1h 55m
country: Spain
A spaghetti western in which three adventurers team up during the Mexican Revolution. Mary O'Donnell, a radical Irish journalist, wants to foment a peasant revolt in Mexico. She enlists the help of a seedy bandit, Lozoya, by saving him from a death sentence in Utah. They meet a man calling himself Prince Dmitri Vassilovich Orlowsky, who claims to be a Russian prince, not to mention a man of the cloth. Wallach pretends to be a Mexican folk hero. The trio crosses the border, the two men seeking a cache of gold while O'Donnell pursues her revolution.


The Bloodstained Butterfly
1971 · 1h 39m
country: Italy
When a young female student is savagely killed in a park during a thunderstorm, the culprit seems obvious: TV sports personality Alessandro Marchi, seen fleeing the scene of the crime by numerous eyewitnesses. The evidence against him is damning... but is it all too convenient? And when the killer strikes again while Marchi is in custody, it quickly becomes apparent that there's more to the case than meets the eye...


Death Occurred Last Night
1970 · 1h 33m
country: Germany
A chief police inspector investigates the disappearance of a 25-year-old woman, the daughter of a lonely widower. After she turns up dead, the cops race to find the killers before the grieving father does


Quella piccola differenza
1969
country: France


Alive or Preferably Dead
1969 · 1h 37m
country: Italy
Two brothers, Monty and Ted, will inherit $300,000 if they manage to live together for six months.


The Bastard
1968 · 1h 42m
country: Germany
A criminal (Giuliano Gemma) seeks vengeance when his double-dealing brother (Klaus Kinski) steals his jewels and mutilates his shooting hand.


Better a Widow
1968 · 1h 45m
country: Unknown
Tom Proby is a representative from a British engineering firm sent to Sicily to convince the landowners (all in the Mafia) to allow his company to build an oil refinery on some waterfront real estate. Proby talks to the mob bosses about the project, but disagreements between different bosses complicate his efforts.


Per amore... per magia...
1967
country: Italy
There was once upon a time the Grand Duchy of Forilalì where Aladdin lived. After taking part in many robberies, he decided to turn honest for the love of the beautiful Princess Esmeralda. But his intention lasted only a few days. Afterward he found himself in jail with his old companions. They were freed by the magician Magrebì and in a night of lunar eclipse, Aladdin found a magic lamp. He succeeded in cleaning his sister Adalgisa's house with the help of the genie and then, with no help at all, to marry Esmeralda. But evil powers were in action.


Kiss Kiss... Bang Bang
1966 · 1h 52m
country: Italy
Kirk Warren, a former spy, is to be executed because he tried to steal a million dollars. But he is saved by Colonel Smithson because Sir Wilcox has prepared a mission for him. Warren has to steal a secret formula in Switzerland and try to expose the real identity of Mr. X. Kirk leaves London and Alina, his girl, together with three clumsy friends to accomplish his not so secret mission. But Kirk's great love is always a million dollars and not a secret formula.


The Return of Ringo
1965 · 1h 35m
country: Italy
Once again billed as Montgomery Wood, Giuliano Gemma plays a civil war soldier who returns to his family land to find his family decimated, his property taken over by a family of Mexican bandits and his fiancee about to marry the Mexican gangster behind all this. Bent on revenge, he goes undercover disguised as a Mexican and discovers he has a daughter!


A Pistol for Ringo
1965 · 1h 38m
country: Italy
Giuliano Gemma stars as a cool, cocky mercenary enlisted by a sheriff to infiltrate a ruthless gang of outlaws. Ennio Morricone provided the score to this early spaghetti western hit.


Dangerous Pleasures
1965 · 1h 34m
country: France
Two married women on vacation decide to see who the better seductress is. When the local authorities investigate the death of a local prostitute, their husbands do what they can to avoid trace of scandal and any implication that their wives are involved. Cracks in their relationships are revealed as is the hedonism and hypocrisy amongst the bourgeoise.


Secret of the Sphinx
1964 · 1h 35m
country: Egypt
Shot on location in Egypt, the story unfurls like an Italian Giallo as a group of people meet under strange circumstances, and one by one they are murdered. Gold is missing so you suspect a thief is trying to cover up his crime but that might be too obvious.


The Scapegoat
1963 · 1h 50m
country: France
Il Fornaretto di Venezia (US TV title: The Scapegoat) is a 1963 Italian film directed by Duccio Tessari who co-wrote screenplay with Marcello Fondato, based on novel by Francesco Dall'Ongaro. It tells the story of 16th century's Venice where a young worker is sentenced to death on the suspicion of attacking a noble.


My Son, the Hero
1962 · 1h 51m
country: France
Krios, the youngest of the Titans, may be the least strong of the seven brothers whose strength comes from their mother, earth-goddess Gaia, but is by far the smartest, and thus their natural leader. He arrives on Crete, the kingdom of the mighty king Minos, impresses him as gladiator, gains his trust, falls in love with a mortal girl and discovers both Minos's human sacrifice-cult and a foreign conspiracy to seize power with a hidden army.