| Riccardo Freda | |
| Birth Date: | 24 February 1909 |
| Birth Place: | Alexandria, Egypt |
| Death Place: | Rome, Italy |
| Spouse: | Gianna Maria Canale |
Riccardo Freda (24 February 1909 – 20 December 1999) was an Italian film director. He worked in a variety of genres, including sword-and-sandal, horror, giallo and spy films.
Freda began directing I Vampiri in 1956.[1] The film became the first Italian sound horror film production.
Riccardo Freda was born in 1909 in Alexandria, Egypt to Italian parents.[2] Freda attended school in Milan where he took art classes at the Centro Sperimantale. After school he took on work as a sculptor and art critic.
Freda first began working in the film industry in 1937 and directed his first film Don Cesare di Bazan in 1942. Freda began directing I Vampiri. I Vampiri was the first Italian horror film of the sound era, following the lone silent horror film Il mostro di Frankenstein (1920) Despite being the first, a wave of Italian horror productions did not follow until Mario Bava's film Black Sunday was released internationally.[3]
Freda died on 20 December 1999 in Rome.
| Title | Year | Credited as | Notes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| width=6% | Director! | width=6% | Writer! | width=6% | Editor! | width=6% | Other |
| Lasciate ogni speranza | 1937 | ||||||
| L'allegro cantante | 1938 | ||||||
| Fuochi d'artificio | |||||||
| 1939 | |||||||
| Piccoli naufraghi | Assistant director | ||||||
| Il cavaliere di San Marco | |||||||
| In the Country Fell a Star | Collaborator to direction | ||||||
| Fascino | 1940 | ||||||
| Il barone di Corbò | |||||||
| La granduchessa si diverte | |||||||
| Cento lettere d'amore | |||||||
| Lucky Night | 1941 | ||||||
| Caravaggio, il pittore maledetto | Collaboration to the making | ||||||
| L'avventuriera del piano di sopra | |||||||
| Don Cesare di Bazan | 1942 | Producer | |||||
| L'abito nero da sposa | 1945 | ||||||
| Non canto più | |||||||
| Tutta la città canta | Story | ||||||
| 07... Tassì | |||||||
| 1946 | Story | ||||||
| 1948 | |||||||
| Story | |||||||
| O caçula do barulho | 1949 | Story | |||||
| Guarany | 1950 | Story | |||||
| Story | |||||||
| L'astuto barone | Short film | ||||||
| Magia a prezzi modici | 1951 | Short film | |||||
| Double Cross | |||||||
| Tenori per forza | Short film | ||||||
| Revenge of Black Eagle | Story | ||||||
| See Naples and Die | 1952 | ||||||
| La Leggenda del Piave | |||||||
| Sins of Rome | 1953 | ||||||
| Theodora, Slave Empress | 1954 | Story, general manager | |||||
| I mosaici di Ravenna | |||||||
| Da qui all'eredità | 1955 | ||||||
| Beatrice Cenci | 1956 | Story | |||||
| I Vampiri | 1957 | Actor (Autopsy doctor) | |||||
| Trapped in Tangiers | Story | ||||||
| Sheba and the Gladiator | 1959 | 2nd unit director–battle scenes | |||||
| Caltiki – The Immortal Monster | |||||||
| 1960 | |||||||
| 1961 | Director–battle scenes | ||||||
| Maciste alla corte del Gran Khan | |||||||
| Caccia all'uomo | |||||||
| Marco Polo | 1962 | Director–battle scenes | |||||
| Alone Against Rome | Director–Arena sequences | ||||||
| Seven Seas to Calais | Editor–naval battle scene | ||||||
| Story | |||||||
| Gold for the Caesars | 1963 | 2nd unit director | |||||
| Story | |||||||
| Romeo e Giulietta | 1964 | ||||||
| Genoveffa di Brabante | Story | ||||||
| The Two Orphans | 1965 | ||||||
| Coplan FX 18 casse tout | |||||||
| Trap for the Assassin | 1966 | ||||||
| Mexican Slayride | 1967 | ||||||
| La morte non conta i dollari | |||||||
| Double Face | 1969 | ||||||
| Tamar Wife of Er | 1970 | ||||||
| L'iguana dalla lingua di fuoco | 1971 | Story | |||||
| Tragic Ceremony | 1972 | ||||||
| Murder Obsession | 1981 | ||||||
| Un tour de manège | 1989 | Actor (Riccardo the film director) | |||||
| Revenge of the Musketeers | 1994 | Based on "an idea by Freda and Éric Poindron | |||||