«Thank you! I am indebted to anyone who, over the years, had helping this forum become what it is today. What started as a passion project has slowly but surely bloomed into a solid platform with several members spanning across the world. As this forum continues to grow, we invite you all to join us in the pursuit of this project. Thanks for supporting.»
— Emiliano Lucca
Introduction
I am happy to welcome you to Thrillingforum.com.
This is a no-profit research and film exploration forum, act to collect and preserve less-known actors cinematic memory.
It's a independent and non-profit cultural free association created by cinema essayists and fans of Italian and European movies.
Its name derives from the fact that it started identifying some unknown actors in Italian Giallo films, the so called "Thrillings".
The forum is organized to provide detailed filmographies with images from the films, photographs and more and a developing movie database with some cult movies promoted by our forum users. Since 2008, we have brought to light many of mostly unknown performers which until a few years ago did not have a known name.
The large volume of material is divided into various subgroups that will be described later, with the possibility of browsing by exploring the contents or searching more quickly using an handy search bar. At the top of the home page you will find the latest elements added for each filmography, and it is possible to see the updating work in real time. On the right there is a Quick menu to select the list of actors sorted by surname or select the most popular topics.
These pages are especially dedicated to the actors who played in the 60s and 70s in the Italian cinema, but not only. Here they are classified as follow.
Leading Ladies & Character actors
The most prestigious actresses in the Italian genre cinema and the most popular character actors.
Little-known Actors / Actress
These are actors who have not achieved great fame in the mainstream and who usually played supporting roles (also uncredited) in many movies of their careers. Here we celebrate these actors, often forgotten, but that a lot have given to the Italian cinema.
C.S.C. Actors
This section is dedicated to the actors graduated at the "Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia" in Rome (C.S.C.) in 60s & 70s, the oldest Italian school foundation of teaching, research and experimentation in the field of cinematography.
Many of those actors, due to a Italian law that allowed them to obtain state monetary benefits for productions, were included in the casts for the sole purpose of obtaining this money for production, so often they were reduced to the ground role of an extra, while sometimes appear credited in the films but in reality they did not participate at all. Here we give a little justice to their interpretations and their dream of becoming great actors.
Stuntmen & Master of arms
A section dedicated to the great Italian tradition of acrobats and stunt performers.
Movie Extras
What is a Movie Extra? He's a "background actor" (a "Generico cinematografico" in Italian), almost always not a professional actor, who appears on the scene without interpreting a certain character or a precise role, inserted in the scenic context in order to allow close shots and close-ups, even if he does not normally pronounce lines. Often the Movie Extra is "elected" to "figurazione speciale" (special figuration), when he have to pronounce even just one line, as example even a greeting. They are almost never credited in the movies in which they participate. We have divided the Movie Extras into three big forums, for genre (male/female) and of the B&W ones thah includes players mostly active in decades 40 and 50.
International little-known actors
The lesser known actors from the international cinema (mostly European).
Movie Database
A full cast list of famous italian cult movies with the known and unknown preformers that appears in it.
Artist Database
A database of film performers and directors with some unpublished material taked from the "Annuario degli attori" and "Cineguida" Yearbooks, volumes with which the directors of the "Golden Era" composed the cast for their films.
How to read the filmographies
Various terms are used in filmographies to specifically indicate in which role the actor appears in the film and whether or not his name is mentioned in the titles.
- credited: the actor is mentioned in the film's titles.
- uncredited: the actor isn't mentioned in the film's titles.
- poster credit: his name appears on the posters of the film but we haven't images of the opening (or closing) credits to confirm his accreditation (sometimes the posters were made before the production of the film so the cast may have been later upset).
- credit only: his name appears in the titles, but there is no trace of the actor in the film. This often happened in Italian films of the past with the actors C.S.C.: it was a ploy by the production companies to receive state funds.
- credit as "other name": it happens that many actors use pseudonyms or that the opening titles are simply misspelled. We also report these details.
- credited as Master of arms: when an actor also plays another role in the making of the film and is mentioned in the titles, we include that role as well.
- credited?: we have no information regarding his credit in the movie.
- role?: we don't know what is his role in the film.
- uncertain identification: from the images in our possession it is not possible to establish with certainty whether the actor is the one we are looking for.
- credited but unidentifiable: we did not find the role that the actor plays in the film but we cannot exclude that they do not appear there (it happens for example with scenes in which there are hundreds of extras seen from afar).