Sandro Continenza

Italian screenwriter Sandro Continenza began his career in the years following World War II, writing movies in a variety of genres, including comedy, crime, romance, science fiction, and drama. Immediately following the international success of the mighty epic "Hercules" in 1957, which launched the career of American muscleman Steve Reeves and an entire genre of so-called sword and sandal pictures, he cranked out a number of similar action-packed movies. Much like the Japanese monster movies of the 1960s a la "Godzilla," the Italian sword and sandal pictures were known for their sometimes cheesy effects and hilariously bad dubbing. Regardless of negative critical reviews, people loved the films and Continenza worked on plenty including "Hannibal," "Gladiators 7," and two "Hercules" sequels. One of the most imaginative of them (if not the best) was cult director Mario Bava's wildly hallucinatory "Hercules in the Haunted World" from 1961. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he wrote in other genres as well--Spaghetti Westerns "Your Turn to Die," "Seven Shawls of Yellow Silk," and the U.K.-set cult film "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie," a favorite of adventurous zombie fans. Continenza also co-wrote (dialogue portions) of Enzo G. Castellari's tough-guy World War II movie "The Inglorious Bastards" from 1978.