In Italian a “magnaccio” is a pimp, and Il magnaccio deals with a pimp nicknamed the Little Prince who is loved by his live-in prostie, but whose affection he either ignores or violently rebuffs. When she disappears the Prince replaces her, but she’s never far from his mind, and this being giallo we know disappearances don’t last. And indeed she turns up again, seemingly by chance, and the dysfunctional lovers get a chance to resolve unfinished business—assuming they don’t kill each other first. The movie stars Franco Citti, Riccardo Salvino, Elina de Witt, and Silvana Venturelli, who we last saw in the Radley Metzger mind trip Esotika Erotika Psicotika.
There’s confusion online about whether Il magnaccio premiered in 1967 or 1969. IMDB says ’69, but a lot of Italian sites say ’67. We say it was 1969. We went outside the film universe, located the soundtrack album, and found that it was released today in 1969. The promo poster above, which is what we really wanted to talk about, was painted by Giovanni di Stefano. He obviously is not the Italian con artist Giovanni di Stefano (though he would fit nicely on Pulp Intl.) nor, even more obviously, the fifteenth century sculptor Giovanni di Stefano. This particular Giovanni di Stefano—who according to all evidence has one of the most common names to be found in Italy—is yet another very good illustrator whose original work goes for exorbitant amounts of money today. We plan to show you more of his output later.
