left the project during shooting.
Baba Yaga was an adaptation of
Guido Crepax's comic series
Valentina. Crepax had previously done film work with
Tinto Brass who commissioned him to create the storyboards for his thriller film
Deadly Sweet. Brass had at one point considered adapting the story
La forza di gravità from the
Valentina comics to a film, but abandoned the idea when he felt that it would be impossible to portray Crepax's visual sensibilities to a film. Director
Corrado Farina had admired Crepax's work, going as far to make a short documentary film
Freud a fumetti (1970) which explored his comics. Farina noted that he had been disappointed by other works based on comics as "none of the filmmakers who embarked on that task had been able to deepen the relationship between the language of comics and that of film." Farina decided to explore the fantastical elements of Crepax's comics as opposed to the more erotic overtones. During pre-production Farina signed a deal with producer
Turi Vasile, which led him to
Franco Committeri who later took over for Vasile as the film's financial backer. Farina made changes to the script by removing the character Philip Rembrandt and turning a small character in the comic, that of film director Arno Treves into a role as large as Valentina. After finishing the script, Committeri left the project after the release of
Marco Bellocchio's
Slap the Monster on Page One (1972). Farina had to find a new producer, and eventually signed with a company called 14 luglio Cinematografica. A French film production company is also credited, but this was predominantly done for tax reasons. The French connections eventually led to the casting of
Isabelle De Funès as Valentina. Farina was not happy with her in the role, as his first choice had been
Elsa Martinelli. He eventually had to choose between De Funès and
Stefania Casini. The director initially had wanted the popular Italian singer
Ornella Vanoni for the role of Baba Yaga in the film. He eventually cast
Anne Heywood who left the project as shooting began. This led to Farina casting
Carroll Baker in haste.
George Eastman was cast as Arno. Farina was unfamiliar with the actor at the time but found that "he proved to be fit for the role. He had the right looks.". After completing shooting and post-production on the film, Farina left for a vacation. On returning, he found that producers, finding the film too slow, had edited nearly half an hour out of it. The cuts made to this film were done on the negative of the film, making Farina lose his original edit of
Baba Yaga. Farina was furious and threatened to take his name off the film. With the help of assistant director Giuilio Berruti, they tried to re-edit
Baba Yaga but since the original version was lost, they could not complete it per their original idea. ==Release==