Hot Picks

- There's No Such Thing as Zombies 2020

- Ready for My Close Up 2019

- Maxxie LaWow: Drag Super-shero 2024

- Watch the Skies 2022

- Dream Hacker 2025

- Love and Comminication 2022

- If I Could Ride Again 2025

- Freak Off 2025

- Lavender Men 2025

- Lost Cos 2023

- Sound of the Surf 2022

- The Stillness 2025

- Frankie Freako 2024

- The Texas Witch 2025

- Cannibal Mukbang 2023

- Bleeding 2024

- No Choice 2025

- Nahual 2025

- Bitter Souls 2025

- A Very Long Carriage Ride 2025

- The Matriarch 2024

- Oxy Morons 2025

- Ed Kemper 2025

- Piglet 2025

- Walter, Grace & the Submarine 2024

- Midnight in Phoenix 2025

- Dorothea 2025

- Mauler 2025

- Consecration 2023

- The Death of Snow White 2025

- Franklin 2025

- ApoKalypse 2025

- Live and Die in East LA 2023

- A Season for Love 2025

- The Arkansas Pigman Massacre 2025

- Visceral: Between the Ropes of Madness 2012

- The Darkside of Society 2023

- Jackknife 2024

- Family Property 2: More Blood 2025

- Feral Female 2025

- Amongst the Wolves 2024

- Autumn 2023

- Bob Trevino Likes It 2024

- A Hard Place 2025

- Finding Nicole 2025

- Juliet & Romeo 2025

- Off the Line 2024

- First Moon 2025

- Healing Towers 2025

- Final Recovery 2025

- Greater Than 2014

- Self Driver 2024

- Primal Games 2025

- Grumpy 2023

- Swing Bout 2024

- Dalia and the Red Book 2024

- Project MKGEXE 2025

- Two to One 2024

- Talk of the Dead 2016

- A Killer Conversation 2014

- First Impressions Can Kill 2017

- Star Crash 1979

- Strangler of the Swamp 1946

Gian Maria Volonté - A Profile

by Dale Pierce

October 2005

For films starring Gian Maria Volonté
on (re)Search my Trash
click here !

Quick Links

Abbott & Costello

The Addams Family

Alice in Wonderland

Arsčne Lupin

Batman

Bigfoot

Black Emanuelle

Bomba the Jungle Boy

Bowery Boys

Bulldog Drummond

Captain America

Charlie Chan

Cinderella

Deerslayer

Dick Tracy

Dick Turpin

Dr. Mabuse

Dr. Orloff

Doctor Who

Dracula

Edgar Wallace made in Germany

Elizabeth Bathory

Emmanuelle

Fantomas

Flash Gordon

Frankenstein

Frankie & Annette Beach Party movies

Freddy Krueger

Fu Manchu

Fuzzy

Gamera

Godzilla

Hercules

El Hombre Lobo

Incredible Hulk

Jack the Ripper

James Bond

Jekyll and Hyde

Jerry Cotton

Jungle Jim

Justine

Kamen Rider

Kekko Kamen

King Kong

Laurel and Hardy

Lemmy Caution

Lobo

Lone Wolf and Cub

Lupin III

Maciste

Marx Brothers

Miss Marple

Mr. Moto

Mister Wong

Mothra

The Munsters

Nick Carter

OSS 117

Phantom of the Opera

Philip Marlowe

Philo Vance

Quatermass

Robin Hood

The Saint

Santa Claus

El Santo

Schoolgirl Report

The Shadow

Sherlock Holmes

Spider-Man

Star Trek

Sukeban Deka

Superman

Tarzan

Three Mesquiteers

Three Musketeers

Three Stooges

Three Supermen

Winnetou

Wizard of Oz

Wolf Man

Wonder Woman

Yojimbo

Zatoichi

Zorro

Feeling lucky?
Want to
search
any of my partnershops yourself
for more, better results?
(commissions earned)

The links below
will take you
just there!!!

Find Gian Maria Volonté
at the amazons ...

USA  amazon.com

Great Britain (a.k.a. the United Kingdom)  amazon.co.uk

Germany (East AND West)  amazon.de

Looking for imports?
Find Gian Maria Volonté here ...

Thailand  eThaiCD.com
Your shop for all things Thai

Gian Maria Volonté was born in Milan, Italy and played in numerous films such as Under Ten Flags before finding stardom in a set of western films where he played psychotic villains with a passion previously unseen by anyone. This launched him to stardom

In Fistful Of Dollars (1964), Volonté's Ramon Rojo was the villain to end all villains. The brains behind a trio of three brothers dealing in liquor  on the Texas-Mexico border, Rojo's character was utterly repulsive. He extorted, he tortured, he killed, and had a talent for the use of a rival above that of a pistol. In the end, he died spitting blood, just as one of his victim's predicted would be his fate before being shot down in an   elaborate duel, which would earmark director Sergio Leone's style for many movies to come. Unable to match his Winchester with Clint Eastwood's Colt revolver, all to a drumming Ennio Morricone score, he met one of the most applauded cinema deaths in western film  history.

Volonté was back and incredibly even more psychopathic as Indio in For A Few Dollars More. After a jail break, he killed the man who betrayed him, after forcing him to watch his baby and wife both be killed. With a fixation on a chimed pocket watch, for reasons not explained to end in flashback sequences, he was one of Italian cinema's most detestable bad guys (and there have been many repulsive characters to come out of Italian cinema).

Indio's character was masterfully done. Prone to fits of loud, maniacal laughter over nothing, addicted to marijuana, with a need to calm his nerves taking a hit after killing someone, and even smashing roaches for his amusement,  he was the perfect foe for the fast drawing Clint Eastwood, who repeated his role from Fistful Of Dollars, and for the vengeance-seeking Lee Van Cleef.

The final showdown, to the Ennio Morricone score, featuring chimes, a build up of electric guitars, a mournful trumpet solo, back to the guitar, then finally  the chimes again, with the gunfighters to draw when the music concluded, was one of Leone's greatest sequences as a director.

Of course, Indio died, with applause from studio audiences.

Though Volonté did not return for The Good, the Bad & The Ugly, which saw Van Cleef as the key villain, he did make westerns for other people, usually as a psychotic again. In A Bullet For The General, he played a crazed, but dimwitted bandit, who turned into a hero of sorts at the end of the movie. In Face to Face, however, he was back to revolting. Starting off as a victimized school teacher going west for his health, he found himself turned into a kill-crazy animal, so insane and dangerous his outlaw  mentor is forced to gun him down.

Though known for his westerns, Volonté played in other genres and sometimes found himself playing crazies again. Most notable was his role in Investigation Of A Citizen Above Suspicion, as a police inspector carrying out a murder and trying to frame himself, just to prove political corruption would overshadow the truth, with his higher-ups refusing to prosecute the killing.

Volonté likewise made a career playing real life people. He was Giordiano Bruno in the film of the same name, as a man burned at the stake for witchcraft. He was Vanzetti in Sacco & Vanzetti, a blistering reflection on American politics, surrounding the supposed framing of two robbers, who were sent to the electric chair for murder, but were actually considered innocent by many. ( I believe President Clinton issued an official pardon to the real Sacco & Vanzetti posthumously, decades after they went to the electric chair, but I am not sure.)  He played Lucky Luciano in the gangster film of the same name.

Sadly, at the absolute height of his popularity, Volonté did his own career in. A flagwaving communist as one writer put it, he became a political hot potatoe for the industry. It was not so much his stance, but when he missed crucial days of shooting in The Working Class Goes To Paradise, that a blacklisting of sorts took place. While not cut out of work entirely, his activity took a notable downturn. Fewer and fewer opportunities came, some due to opposition to his politics, some because he was branded as unreliable and others due to budgeting. In any case, he seemed to nosedive.

Through the 1980s, he played in varied films, but was never the major draw he once was. In the early 1990's, however, he started to make a career comeback, with a series of films. Though time and stress had taken a toll on him, to the point where he was unrecognizable on first glance by past fans, he lost none of his acting ability. Just as he was once again gaining praise from critics, bookings and recognition, he died from a heart attack in 1996, bringing things  to a close.

Several webpages devoted to the Spaghetti Western realm, which may be found with a simple websearch, include his photos and biography. There is also an official webpage in Italian at http://www.gianmariavolonte.it.

 

© by Dale Pierce


Legal note: (re)Search my Trash cannot
and shall not be held responsible for
content of sites from a third party.




Thanks for watching !!!



 

 

In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

now streaming at

Amazon

Amazon UK

Vimeo

 

 

 

Robots and rats,
demons and potholes,
cuddly toys and
shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

is all of that.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to
-
a collection of short stories and mini-plays
ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic
to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle, all thought up by
the twisted mind of
screenwriter and film reviewer
Michael Haberfelner.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

the new anthology by
Michael Haberfelner

 

Out now from
Amazon!!!