Production

Carlo Ponti

Born December 11, 1912 · Magenta, Lombardy, Italy

Died January 10, 2007 · aged 94

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. Pont…

Known For

Doctor Zhivago

Doctor Zhivago · 1965

MovieDramaRomance

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.

Blow-Up

Blow-Up · 1966

MovieDramaMystery

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.

Ulysses

Ulysses · 1954

MovieAdventureFantasy

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.

War and Peace

War and Peace · 1956

MovieWarRomance

The love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov is interwoven with the Great Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon's invading army.

Contempt

Contempt · 1963

MovieDramaRomance

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.

The Cassandra Crossing

The Cassandra Crossing · 1976

The Cassandra Crossing

MovieActionThriller

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

The Passenger

The Passenger · 1975

MovieDramaMystery

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.

Cléo from 5 to 7

Cléo from 5 to 7 · 1962

Cléo from 5 to 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.

Filmography

Sort

Doctor Zhivago

Doctor Zhivago · 1965

MovieDramaRomance

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.

Producer

Blow-Up

Blow-Up · 1966

MovieDramaMystery

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.

Producer

Ulysses

Ulysses · 1954

MovieAdventureFantasy

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.

Producer

War and Peace

War and Peace · 1956

MovieWarRomance

The love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov is interwoven with the Great Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon's invading army.

Executive Producer

Contempt

Contempt · 1963

MovieDramaRomance

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.

Producer

The Cassandra Crossing

The Cassandra Crossing · 1976

The Cassandra Crossing

MovieActionThriller

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

Producer

The Passenger

The Passenger · 1975

MovieDramaMystery

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.

Producer

Cléo from 5 to 7

Cléo from 5 to 7 · 1962

Cléo from 5 to 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.

Producer

A Special Day

A Special Day · 1977

MovieDramaRomance

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.

Producer

Two Women

Two Women · 1960

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.

Producer

Zabriskie Point

Zabriskie Point · 1970

Zabriskie Point

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.

Producer

La Strada

La Strada · 1954

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.

Producer

Operation Crossbow

Operation Crossbow · 1965

Operation Crossbow

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.

Producer

Lola

MovieDramaRomance

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.

Producer

Sunflower

Sunflower · 1970

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?

Producer

Marriage Italian Style

Marriage Italian Style · 1964

Marriage Italian Style

MovieDramaRomance

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.

Producer

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow · 1963

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

MovieComedyRomance

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

Producer

The 10th Victim

The 10th Victim · 1965

The 10th Victim

MovieComedyDrama

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.

Producer

The Firemen's Ball

The Firemen's Ball · 1967

The Firemen's Ball

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.

Producer

Flesh for Frankenstein

Flesh for Frankenstein · 1973

Flesh for Frankenstein

Within the decadent walls of the Frankenstein mansion, the Baron and his depraved assistant Otto have discovered the means of creating new life. As the Baron's laboratory begins to fill up with stitched body parts, the Baroness dallies with the randy new manservant and soon the decadent, permissive household is consumed by an outrageous, bizarre and hilarious combination of death and dismemberment.

Producer

Boccaccio '70

Boccaccio '70 · 1962

MovieComedyRomance

An anthology of four comic moral tales about the hypocrisies surrounding sex in 1960s Italy: frothy young love and office politics in the big city; milk advertisements that begin to haunt an aging prude; a trophy wife enduring her husband's very public affairs; a lucky ticket-holder at a small town fair.

Producer

Blood for Dracula

Blood for Dracula · 1974

Blood for Dracula

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.

Producer

A Woman Is a Woman

A Woman Is a Woman · 1961

A Woman Is a Woman

MovieComedyDrama

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

Producer

Ugly, Dirty and Bad

Ugly, Dirty and Bad · 1976

Ugly, Dirty and Bad

MovieComedyDrama

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.

Producer