Carlo Ponti

Production

Carlo Ponti

Born — Died

1912-12-11 — 2007-01-10

Place of birth

Magenta, Lombardy, Italy

Known for

Production

Credits

42 titles

Carlo Fortunato Pietro Ponti Sr. Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (11 December 1912 – 10 January 2007) was an Italian film producer with more than 140 productions to his credit. Along with Dino De Laurentiis, he is credited with reinvigorating and popularizing Italian cinema post-World War II, producing some of the country's most acclaimed and financially-successful films of the 1950s and 1960s. 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. He helped launch the career of his wife, international film star Sophia Loren. He won the Academy Award …

Known for

Film credits

Series credits

Behind the camera

Doctor Zhivago poster
7.6

The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.

Doctor Zhivago

1965

Ulysses poster
6.6

A retelling of Homer's The Odyssey, focusing on Ulysses's ten-year journey home to Ithaca following the Trojan War, where he faces various mythical challenges while his wife Penelope fends off suitors.

Ulysses

1954

Cléo from 5 to 7 poster
7.7

Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, Cléo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.

Cléo from 5 to 7

1962

The Cassandra Crossing poster
6.2

Passengers on a European train have been exposed to a deadly disease, and nobody will let them off the train.

The Cassandra Crossing

1976

Contempt poster
7.0

Art film producer Jeremy Prokosch, unhappy with the work of his director, hires Fritz Lang (as himself) to direct an adaptation of The Odyssey, but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb, he brings in a screenwriter to energise the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife.

Contempt

1963

An American in Rome poster
7.1

Nando Moriconi is a young Italian living in Rome obsessed with all-things American.

An American in Rome

1954

Blow-Up poster
7.3

A successful mod photographer in London whose world is bounded by fashion, pop music, marijuana, and easy sex, feels his life is boring and despairing. But in the course of a single day he unknowingly captures a death on film.

Blow-Up

1966

A Special Day poster
8.1

Two neighbours — a persecuted journalist and a resigned housewife — forge a strong bond on the day of Adolf Hitler's historic 1938 visit to Rome.

A Special Day

1977

What? poster
5.4

A young American woman traveling through Italy finds herself in a strange Mediterranean villa where nothing seems quite right.

What?

1972

Where Is Freedom? poster
6.5

A barber, murderer because of jealousy, spends twenty years in jail. He cannot, however adjust himself to a changed world and to the hypocrisy of his own relatives and decides to return behind bars.

Where Is Freedom?

1954

Two Women poster
7.8

A young widow flees from Rome during WWII and takes her lonely twelve-year-old-daughter to her rural hometown but the horrors of war soon catch up with them.

Two Women

1960

La Strada poster
7.9

When Gelsomina, a naïve young woman, is purchased from her impoverished mother by brutish circus strongman Zampanò to be his wife and partner, she loyally endures her husband's coldness and abuse as they travel the Italian countryside performing together. Soon Zampanò must deal with his jealousy and conflicted feelings about Gelsomina when she finds a kindred spirit in Il Matto, the carefree circus fool, and contemplates leaving Zampanò.

La Strada

1954

Sunflower poster
7.5

After World War II, a woman refuses to believe her husband, missing on the Russian front, is dead. Flashbacks reveal their brief courtship and marriage. Years later, she travels to Russia with his photo, determined to find him. What will she discover?

Sunflower

1970

Guendalina poster
6.5

Wealthy teenager Guendalina is a child of divorce. Oberdan, likewise a teenager, is a boy from a blue-collar family. Escaping from the tribulations of her home life, Guendalina creates a dream world of her own, casting Oberdan as her personal Prince Charming. Despite parental objections, girl and boy fall in love. Interestingly enough, the relationship between Guendalina and Oberdan remains pure and chaste throughout their film, which is more than can be said for their parents. their respective parents behave with marked laciviousness.

Guendalina

1957

Lola poster
7.1

A bored young man meets with his former girlfriend, now a cabaret dancer and single mother, and soon finds himself falling back in love with her.

Lola

1961

Zabriskie Point poster
7.0

Anthropology student Daria, who's helping a property developer build a village in the Los Angeles desert, and dropout Mark, who's wanted by the authorities for allegedly killing a policeman during a student riot, accidentally encounter each other in Death Valley and soon begin an unrestrained romance.

Zabriskie Point

1970

Marriage Italian Style poster
7.7

During the bombing of Naples in World War II, a cynical businessman helps a naive prostitute, who spends the next two decades desperate to have him reciprocate her feelings.

Marriage Italian Style

1964

The Miller's Beautiful Wife poster
5.4

A lecherous governor of Naples in 1680 lusts after the wives of several peasants, particularly after the miller's wife Carmela. The miller himself plans to avenge his honor by seducing the wife of the governor.

The Miller's Beautiful Wife

1955

Operation Crossbow poster
6.7

Allied agents infiltrate the Nazi rocket complex at Peenemunde in order to obtain their secrets and sabotage the plant. The film alternates between German developments of the V-1 missile and V-2 rocket (with a German cast speaking their own language) and discovery by British Intelligence of the weapon.

Operation Crossbow

1965

The Firemen's Ball poster
7.1

The firemen of a provincial Czechoslovakian town throw a ball in honor of the old chief's retirement. There will be music and dancing, a beauty pageant and a raffle. The whole town will be in attendance. However, the proceedings are dogged by difficulty at every step. Workplace injuries, stolen prizes, a shortage of pretty girls... and fire.

The Firemen's Ball

1967

Dirty Weekend poster
5.2

A man and his mistress have just taken off for a weekend romp when they're kidnapped by a trio of bank robbers. They wind up becoming media "stars" as police and reporters follow them. They all wind up at the beat-up shack of a cranky old codger, with the police surrounding them and the robbers threatening to kill everybody.

Dirty Weekend

1973

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow poster
7.4

Three tales of very different women using their sexuality as a means to getting what they want.

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

1963

Ugly, Dirty and Bad poster
7.5

Giacinto lives with his wife, their ten children and various other family members in a shack on the hills of Rome. Some time ago he has lost his left eye while at work, and got a consistent sum of money from the insurance company, which he keeps hidden from the rest of the family. His whole life is now based on defending the money he sees as his own, while the rest of the family tries to kill him.

Ugly, Dirty and Bad

1976

The Passenger poster
7.2

David Locke is a world-weary American journalist who has been sent to cover a conflict in northern Africa, but he makes little progress with the story. When he discovers the body of a stranger who looks similar to him, Locke assumes the dead man's identity. However, he soon finds out that the man was an arms dealer, leading Locke into dangerous situations. Aided by a beautiful woman, Locke attempts to avoid both the police and criminals out to get him.

The Passenger

1975

A Woman Is a Woman poster
7.3

Longing for a baby, a stripper pursues another man in order to make her boyfriend jealous.

A Woman Is a Woman

1961

Outlaw Girl poster
7.2

Beppe Musolino is falsely accused of murder. He is tried and once found guilty is imprisoned. Unexpectedly he escape from prison and to survive he start living like an outlaw brigand. He falls in love for Mara, a village girl, and with her help he hunts down all of the witnesses who lied about him at the trial.

Outlaw Girl

1950

More Than a Miracle poster
5.9

A fairy tale of the misadventures of a beautiful but temperamental Neapolitan peasant, Isabella, when she meets the ill- tempered Spanish Prince Rodrigo Ferrante y Davalos. The King of Spain has ordered Rodrigo to choose a wife among seven Italian Princesses, but he is smitten by the lowly peasant.

More Than a Miracle

1967

Mambo poster
5.4

A young and poor Venetian woman is invited to a masquerade ball by a charming count.

Mambo

1954

The 10th Victim poster
6.7

In the near future, big wars are avoided by giving individuals with violent tendencies a chance to kill in the Big Hunt. The Hunt is the most popular form of entertainment in the world and also attracts participants who are looking for fame and fortune. It includes ten rounds for each competitor, five as the hunter and five as the victim.

The 10th Victim

1965

Léon Morin, Priest poster
7.1

Barny, although a Marxist, is intrigued by the mysteries of religion. In confession, she teases a priest, Léon Morin, but he is a young and intelligent man and ready to discuss anything.

Léon Morin, Priest

1961

I tre corsari poster
7.0

The castle of the counts of Ventimiglia is conquered by the spanish Van Gould, who kills the count and sends his three sons in the Antilles. The ship is attacked by pirates and the three brothers are liberated. They decide to join the pirates to have revenge on Van Gould, who has also moved to the Antilles on the command of the viceroy.

I tre corsari

1952

Heller in Pink Tights poster
5.8

Nineteenth century Wyoming: the wild West. Mild-mannered Tom Healy has a two-wagon theater troupe hounded by creditors because Angela, his leading lady and the object of his affection, constantly buys clothes. In Cheyenne, they meet with applause, so they hope to stay awhile: the theater owner likes Angela, and she keeps him on a string. She's also the object of the attentions of Mabry, a gunslinger who's owed money by the richest man in Bonanza.

Heller in Pink Tights

1960

Flesh for Frankenstein poster
5.8

Baron Frankenstein creates two "zombies" - one male, one female - planning to mate them in order to create a master race.

Flesh for Frankenstein

1973

Torso poster
6.6

A masked serial killer with psychosexual issues strangles female coeds with scarves before dismembering them. When a wealthy student identifies one of the scarves and thinks she has a lead on a suspect, she becomes the killer's next target, retreating to her family's remote cliffside villa with three of her girlfriends.

Torso

1973

Massacre in Rome poster
6.3

In the Nazi occupied city of Rome, an assault on an SS brigade draws retaliation from the military governship. "Massacre in Rome" is the true story of how this partisan attack led to the mass execution of Italian nationals under the orders of SS-Lieutenant Colonel Kappler.

Massacre in Rome

1973

Blood for Dracula poster
5.6

Deathly ill Count Dracula and his slimy underling, Anton, travel to Italy in search of a virgin's blood. They're welcomed at the crumbling estate of indebted Marchese Di Fiore, who's desperate to marry off his daughters to rich suitors. But there, instead of pure women, the count encounters incestuous lesbians with vile blood and Marxist manservant Mario, who's suspicious of the aristocratic Dracula.

Blood for Dracula

1974

Le Doulos poster
7.4

Enigmatic gangster Silien may or may not be responsible for informing on Faugel, who was just released from prison and is already involved in what should be a simple heist. By the end of this brutal, twisting, and multilayered policier, who will be left to trust?

Le Doulos

1962

The Babysitter poster
4.3

Michelle, a French sculptor living in Rome, is informed of a job babysitting a rich man's son by her new friend Ann, an actress. However, upon arrival, Michelle makes a horrifying discovery.

The Babysitter

1975

Marisa poster
5.8

For the 17-year-old Mariza, there is no other house than the train station in Civitavecchia. Here, an orphaned girl lives early after the death of her father, a railwayman; here she earns additionally at the station buffet, selling ice cream to passengers of passing trains. Beautiful and brisk, she was accustomed to the admiration of others and perfectly mastered the art of coquetry, but Marise’s heart remains calm until the young sailor Angelo, who is in a hurry on her first voyage, leaves the train on the platform on a sunny Sunday morning.

Marisa

1957

The 25th Hour poster
7.6

A Romanian peasant fights to get back to his family after he's imprisoned by the Nazis.The picture is based on real events. It includes Hungary's government in collaboration with the Nazis, the encroachment of Romania by Stalin's troopers, and other happenings.

The 25th Hour

1967