Italian film producers were notorious for ripping off American films. I mean these guys would blatantly rip-off a successful movie, change its name and characters a bit and release their film all over the world, most of the time with a different title every time. Some times they would get sued by the big American studios. This was the case with the most obvious of all the Italian rip-offs: Great White. Universal sued and won, which is why we still havent had a chance to see this one on DVD.
But being sued never stopped the Italians from ripping off as many American films as they could! They produced their own versions of fiilms like Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Jaws, Mad Max, The Warriors, Escape from New York, Rambo, Conan the Barbarian, Terminator, The Exorcist, Clash of the Titans...jeez, the list goes on and on. So I thought it would be fun to unite all the posters for these movies in one blog post, just so you guys get an idea of how much this was done! Enjoy!
The following films ripped off Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
The following films ripped off Conan the Barbarian
The following films ripped off Mad Max, The Warriors and Escape from New York, sometimes all in the same film!
The following films ripped off JAWS
The following films ripped off Alien, Predator and Terminator respectively. In fact the Italian rip off called Terminator 2 was released even before James Cameron had released his own Terminator 2: Judgement Day in 1990!
In Italy, the first two Evil Dead films were released under the titles La Casa and La Casa 2 (The House and The House 2) but further sequels were released as if they were sequels to the Evil Dead franchise! These sequels went up to number 7!
The Exorcist and The Omen got their fair share of rip offs as well:
And so did Star Wars and Barbarella!
And finally, this film ripped off Dawn of the Dead:
you just can't beat a "good" italian rip-off! still don't know why it never occured to me to put great white in my list of sea monster movies i did the other day? Mind you I always thought of tentacles as the best italian jaws rip off
ReplyDeleteSome great bad movies here, Fran! Some various others are MASSACRE IN DINOSAUR VALLEY, ALIEN 2: ON EARTH, TOP LINE, ALIEN FROM THE DEEP, KILLER CROCODILE 1 and 2, and the ATOR series.
ReplyDeleteActually, speaking of ATOR, I got a review of the first ATOR in the pipeline.
Great stuff here, Fran!
Ha ha ha. "Star Crash". Christopher Plummer needed the money there.
ReplyDelete@Cal(YB):Yeah, Tentacles, I need to add that one to the gallery, I actually had the image ready to post it, but I overlooked it.
ReplyDeleteAgree, a good Italian rip off can be a fun thing. For example Star Crash is pure b-movie fun!! Im also enjoyed CONTAMINATION, which also came from the same director.
@venom5: I'll see if I can add those you mentioned, it's just that for some of these movies, finding the original poster (or simply a good looking one) is a difficult task. They have so many versions in so many languages!
Looking forward to your ATOR review!
@Tom: Yeah, he got paid for three days of work, and only did one I think. I believe it was 30,000 for the one day he did! His character by the way has some of the funniest lines! Like when he orders the flow of time to be stopped! Hilarious!
Dude you have to love that grade-A scamming, even with the plagiarism there are some sweet ass posters in there!
ReplyDeleteOh yeah Carl, no doubts about that man. Its with the posters that they grabbed your attention. Problem is that the movie seldom lived up to the images we see on the posters. The artwork made the films look better then they were. But for sure, some of these would make excellent collectors items.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite one is the one for ENDGAME. Pretty awesome looking.
One thing I've always loved about the Italian rip-off-- beyond how silly they often were!-- is how these directors come from a lot of the same Italian film making traditions that masters like Rossellini and Fellini did. It's fun to see the similarities in films that are so different in quality. Great post.
ReplyDeleteThanks Direct to Video Connoisseur, I thought you might enjoy this one since most of these were direct to video released in the U.S. I saw your review for RoboWar, enjoyed it. Dont know how you get a hold of some of these, they are pretty damn hard to come by! But I guess thats why your the Direct to Video Connoisseur!
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
ReplyDeleteA observation, Tintorera is not an italian film..
You're absolutely right, I've taken it off the list, but it does star Hugo Stiglitz and Susan George, both of which starred in many Italian Rip Offs, so there is a connection! But you're right, Tintorera while still a rip off, is actually a Mexican film. Thanks for pointing it out.
ReplyDelete