The Leopard (1963 film)

The Leopard
Original film poster
ItalianIl Gattopardo
Directed byLuchino Visconti
Screenplay bySuso Cecchi d'Amico
Enrico Medioli
Pasquale Festa Campanile
Massimo Franciosa
Luchino Visconti
Based onThe Leopard
(1958 novel)
by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Produced byGoffredo Lombardo
StarringBurt Lancaster
Claudia Cardinale
Alain Delon
Paolo Stoppa
Rina Morelli
Romolo Valli
Serge Reggiani
Terence Hill
CinematographyGiuseppe Rotunno
Edited byMario Serandrei
Music byNino Rota
Distributed by
Release dates
  • 27 March 1963 (1963-03-27) (Italy)
  • 20 May 1963 (1963-05-20) (France)
Running time
    • 205 minutes (workprint)
    • 195 minutes (Cannes cut)
    • 185 minutes (Italian cut)
    • 171 minutes (European cut)
    • 161 minutes (U.S. cut)
CountriesItaly
France
LanguageItalian
Box office$1,800,000 (US/Canada rentals)[1]
3,649,498 admissions (France)[2]

The Leopard (Italian: Il Gattopardo, lit. 'The Serval')[3] is a 1963 epic historical drama film directed by Luchino Visconti. Written by Visconti, Suso Cecchi d'Amico, Enrico Medioli, Pasquale Festa Campanile, and Massimo Franciosa, the film is an adaptation of the 1958 novel of the same title by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa.[4]

Burt Lancaster stars as Don Fabrizio Corbera, an aging Sicilian nobleman caught up in the sociopolitical turmoil of the Risorgimento (Italian unification) during the mid-19th century, with Alain Delon as his opportunistic nephew Tancredi, and Claudia Cardinale as his goddaughter. Paolo Stoppa, Rina Morelli, Romolo Valli, Serge Reggiani, and Terence Hill play supporting roles. The film was an international co-production between Italian studio Titanus and French studio Pathé.[5]

The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival,[6] and was released theatrically in Italy on March 28, 1963, and in France on June 14. It was a critical and commercial success in Europe, but reception was more lukewarm in the United States, where a truncated, English-dubbed cut was released. Retrospective reviews—of the film's longer original cut—have been more positive, and the film is now widely regarded as a classic and one of the greatest movies ever made.[7][8]

In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage's 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978."[9]

  1. ^ "Top Rental Features of 1963". Variety. 8 January 1964. p. 71.
  2. ^ Box office information for The Leopard at Box Office Story
  3. ^ Alù, Giorgia (22 June 2020). "Guide to the Classics: The Leopard". The Conversation. Retrieved 29 August 2023.
  4. ^ The Leopard at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
  5. ^ "The Leopard (1963)". BFI. Archived from the original on 2 March 2016. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ress 1963 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ "Ecco i cento film italiani da salvare Corriere della Sera". Corriere della Sera. Retrieved 11 March 2021.