Mario Landi

Born on 12 October 1920, in Messina, Landi attended the National Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome, graduating in direction in 1944.^[2] He began his career in theater, working with the best actors of his time, in particular being one of the most active protagonists of the "Diogene" cultural circle in Milan, a reference point for the Italian theater in the 1950s.^[2] He made his debut as a film director in 1950, with the musical film Canzoni per le strade, but soon his interests shifted to the new medium of his era, the television;^[2] he is regarded as a pioneer of Italian television, for which he worked since 1952, when RAI started experimental broadcasting before starting the regular TV service.^[2][3] From 1955 to 1979, he directed a very large number of television movies and series, occasionally directing a few variety shows, including an edition of Canzonissima.^[2][3] He was less active in cinema, in which he sporadically directed a number of low-profile genre films.^[2]

The films of Mario Landi were not well received. Paolo Mereghetti, author of Il Mereghetti, wrote of Maigret a Pigalle: "the direction is slovenly",^[4] while of Giallo a Venezia he wrote that it:^[5]

"deserves (or perhaps does not deserve) to be remembered as one of the most idiotic Italian thrillers ever made, a collage of soft-porn sequences and dismemberments of rare brutality that fall into the void, in a childish attempt to astonish."