Riccardo Freda
(1909 –1999)
Ricardo Freda, born to Neapolitan parents in Egypt 1909, died in Paris 1999, was a famous Italian film director, best known for horror and thriller movies I Vampiri (1957). He attended school in Milan and also took classes at the Centro Sperimantale. Freda supported himself as a sculptor and art critic before entering films in a supervisory capacity in 1973.
Freda directed his first film, Don Cesare di Bazan, in 1942. Exhibiting a preference for historical spectacles, he turned out such sprawling, big-budget efforts as Les Miserables (1947) and Theodora, Slave Empress (1954). He later trafficked in sword-and-sandal films like Giants of Thessaly, and in such graphic melodramas as Caltiki the Immortal Monster (1959) and The Horrible Dr.Hitchcock (1962). Ricardo Freda continued writing and directing into the late 1970’s, often working pseudonymously as Robert Hampton, George Lincoln or Willy Pareto.
Daughter of Dartagnan (1994) was Freda’s last film after an absence of 14 years.
Filmography
1942: Don Cesare di Bazan
1947: Les Miserables
1953: Spataco
1954: Theodora, Slave Empress
1957: I Vampiri
1959: Caltiki the Immortal Monster
1962: The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock
1963: Lo Spettro
1969: A Doppia Faccia
1971: L’ Iguana dalla Lingua di Fuoco
1981: L’ Ossessione che Uccide
1994: Daughter of Dartagnan
