Early work Corbucci made his directorial debut in 1951 with
Salvate mia figlia. His early works were mainly
melodramas and
crime films. Beginning with 1961's
Goliath and the Vampires, he directed
sword and sandal movies. He also made several popular comedies, featuring the likes of
Totò and
Franco and Ciccio. In 1963, he directed the ensemble war comedy
The Shortest Day, which was produced as a benefit film for the studio
Titanus. A parody of the Hollywood epic
The Longest Day, the film featured an all-star cast of dozens of well-known performers, many of them in brief
cameo appearances.
Spaghetti Westerns Corbucci's first Westerns were the films
Grand Canyon Massacre (1964), which he co-directed (under the pseudonym Stanley Corbett) with
Albert Band, as well as
Minnesota Clay (1964), his first solo-directed spaghetti Western. His biggest commercial success was with the cult spaghetti Western
Django, starring
Franco Nero, the leading man in many of his movies. He would later collaborate with Nero on two other spaghetti Westerns,
The Mercenary (1968) — where Nero played Sergei Kowalski, a Polish mercenary and the film also starring
Tony Musante,
Jack Palance and
Giovanna Ralli — as well as
Compañeros (1970) — which also starred
Tomas Milian and
Jack Palance. The last film of the "Mexican Revolution" trilogy -
The Mercenary and
Compañeros being the first two in the installment - was
What Am I Doing in the Middle of the Revolution? (1972). After
Django, Corbucci made many other spaghetti Westerns, which made him the most successful Italian Western director after
Sergio Leone and one of Italy's most productive and prolific directors. His most famous of these pictures was
The Great Silence (Il Grande Silenzio), a dark and gruesome Western starring a
mute action hero and a
psychopathic bad guy. The film was banned in some countries for its excessive violence. Corbucci also directed
Navajo Joe (1966), starring
Burt Reynolds as the title character, a Navajo Indian opposing a group of bandits that killed his tribe, as well as
The Hellbenders (1967), and
Johnny Oro (1966) starring
Mark Damon. Other spaghetti Westerns he directed include
The Specialists (1969), with
Johnny Hallyday;
Sonny and Jed (1972), with Tomas Milian,
Susan George and
Telly Savalas; and
The White the Yellow and the Black (1975), with Milian and
Eli Wallach. Corbucci's Westerns were dark and brutal, with the characters portrayed as sadistic
antiheroes. His films featured very high body counts and scenes of mutilation.
Django especially is considered to have set a new level for violence in Westerns.
Later career In the 1970s and 1980s, Corbucci mostly directed comedies, often starring
Adriano Celentano. Many of these comedies were huge successes at the Italian box office and found wide distribution in European countries like Germany, France, Austria and Switzerland, but were not widely seen in English-speaking territories. He directed the
Terence Hill & Bud Spencer film
Who Finds a Friend Finds a Treasure (1981), as well as the solo Terence Hill vehicle
Super Fuzz. His last film was the action-drama
Women in Arms (1991), starring
Lina Sastri and
Donald Pleasence. == Personal life ==