Leonard Mann Interview
Written by Joe D on December 17th, 2007
Me & Leonard
Well I finally did it. Traveled up to the Central Coast of California with a camera, got my pal Joe Montgomery to shoot and interviewed Leonard Mann. I had met Leonard this summer by accident. We were at a party for a mutual friend, in talking to him I quickly found out who he was and what films he had starred in, a veritable Whitman’s Sampler of Italian genre film! Spaghetti Western, Poliziotto, Giallo, SciFi, Historical Drama, Sex Farce, all the cool genres the illuminati of film are into. Leonard acted with some luminaries in these films, James Mason, Marcello Mastroianni, Woody Strode, Laura Antonelli, Henry Silva, Ivan Rassimov, Stephen Boyd, Allida Valli, Richard Kiel, Harvey Keitel,to name just a few. But the real reason for the interview was not a particular film or a particular actor or even a particular genre. I wanted to try and capture a little bit of the spirit of those times, recreate a feeling of that incredible milieu when all of these films we love so much were born. I’m linking this to a Podcast (audio only) but I may create a video version complete with illustrative film clips and release that into the ether in the near future. For now I hope you enjoy this visit to Roma 1968.
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I know this was a long time ago, but great interview. The Forgotten Pistolero is one of my favourite movies.
Great to learn more about the rest of Mann’s career and I had no idea he did a film with Johnny Rotten (The Sex Pistols) and Harvey Kietel. Great to hear Mastrioanni was a good guy too and nice anecdote about James Mason and Leonard was friends with Woody Strode and Monte Hellman. Leonard seems to share my same views of Italian cinema from that era too, but he lived it!