Movies by John Steiner
Caligula
After the death of the paranoid emperor Tiberius, Caligula, his heir, seizes power and plunges the empire into a bloody spiral of madness and depravity.
Salon Kitty
Kitty runs a brothel in Nazi Germany where the soldiers come to "relax". Recording devices have been installed in each room by a power hungry army official who plans to use the information to blackmail Hitler and gain power himself. A girl named Margherita discovers the little ploy and with Kitty's help plans to take on the dangerous task of exposing the conspiracy.
Antonio Gramsci: The Days of Prison
Antonio Gramsci, sentenced to twenty years in prison by the fascist tribunals, relives the stages of his political career and private life.
The Police Serve the Citizens?
In Genoa, the Commissioner Sironi has identified the leader of the ferocious racket that controls the port activities. But the law restrains his action.
The Case Is Closed, Forget It
Arrested on suspicion of a hit and run, a succesful architect is put in prison awaiting trial or release. Whilst there he witnesses the grim reality of life behind bars: corrupt staff, corrupt inmates, an inhuman judicial system and the power of the Mafia.
Dagger Eyes
Assassins are after a prostitute who has come into possession of a cigarette lighter that, unbeknownst to her, contains the negatives that show a politician's assassination. A delightfully playful giallo starring the beautiful Carole Bouquet as Mystère, a high class call girl who becomes the target for a couple of assassins.
Gangbusters
Mario Gastaldi, a lawyer with no clients and no money, agrees to be a negotiator in a deal on stolen paintings, between the boss Peseti and the engineer Farnese, who plots kidnappings unsuspectedly. After he cashed from Farnese three hundred millions of lire to deliver to Peseti, Mario lets money be robbed by four pickpockets, which he is naturally in cahoots with and which he will share out it with. Money cannot be used since it comes from a kidnapping and it was marked. The lawyer will be able to make the boss get arrested.
The Golden Ass
In ancient Mauretania, the young Roman Lucius Apuleius and his friend Aristomene run into a series of misadventures.
May Morning
A dramatic and penetrating examination of the intellectual and moral standards existing at Oxford University, England, in the early 1970s.
The Ark of the Sun God
A safecracker takes a job where he must go to Istanbul and steal a scepter that once belonged to the god Gilgamesh but is now in the temple of a secret cult.
Shock
A couple is terrorized in their new house haunted by the vengeful ghost of the woman's former husband who possesses her young son.
Appuntamento a Liverpool
Caterina's father died before her eyes in the Heysel Stadium disaster. Years later, she's summoned by British police to look at some possible suspects. She recognizes her father's murderer, a Scouser cab driver, but doesn't say anything, choosing to track him down and exact revenge on her own.
La Gabbia
Based on the infamous Stanford prison experiment. In 1977, Italian director Carlo Tuzii adapted the experiment to an Italian environment. Italian students made a film based on it, La Gabbia (The Cage).
A Girl Called Jules
After his Western triumphs, Valerii stepped out of the shadow of Sergio Leone with this distinctly Bergmanesque sexual melodrama.Dionisio is perfect in the title role and this remains her best film, Valerii turns up along the way too. Just when the film hits a period of auto pilot John Steiner turns up in the final reel for a climax that is quite unforgettable. A bit difficult to trace but well worth the effort.