Film production companies in Italy scarcely specialized in particular genres and individual producers were infinitely more adventurous than their British and American counterparts. Carlo Ponti and Dino De Laurentiis created the Ponti - De Laurentiis Productions Company in the year 1950 and for the next seven years of their merger they worked on projects as diverse as Toto films, Rossellini's Europa '51 (The Greatest Love, 1951), Jolanda, lafiglia del corsaro nero, Le notti di Cabiria (Nights of Cabiria,1956) Germi's Il ferroviere (Man of Iron,1956) an epic Hollywood co-production such as King Vidor's War and Peace (1956).
Carlo Ponti's earlier involvements had included neo-realist films by Germi, Alberto Lattuada and Luigi Zampa; and after the break-up of Ponti -De Laurentiis he continued with great gusto to produce a variety of films that often starred Ponti's wife Sophia Loren. De Laurentiis was the more ambitious of the duo. After a number of unremarkable low-budget features he had achieved great success with Bitter Rice, and worked steadily to increase his international affiliations.
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| Blaming it all...on the nights of Cabiria (pictured : Fellini's missus Giulietta Masina |
Producers old and new responded to the excitement of the booming Fifties. Producer and publisher Angelo Rizzoli had started in film in 1934, but had been inactive for many years when in 1950 he would produce Rossellini's Francesco, guillare di Dio (The Flowers of St. Francis). For the rest of the decade he was very active indeed, often setting up French co-productions including Rene Clair's Les belles de nuit (Beauties of the Night, 1952) and 1955's Summer Maneuvers as well as the first two Don Camillo entries and Fellini's La Dolce Vita.