Ponti of No Return

Or
Sophia's Choice
(Kudos to Monty)

Or
Loren’s Lament
(Additional Accolades for Monty)

Or
Paging Dr. Zhivago... never mind
(Further honorifics for Mark)
Carlo Ponti, the man who inflicted Lara’s Theme on viewers 47 times during the interminable Dr. Zhivago, had died at the age of 94. The Italian producer of more than 100 films won two Oscars for best foreign language film, for La Strada and Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow and was nominated for a real Oscar for Doctor Zhivago. His partnership with Dino DeLaurentiis yielded Europa ’51, Mambo, the Kirk Douglas vehicle Ulysses and War and Peace starring Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda. He also had the busiest casting couch in Rome, “discovering” every Italian starlet from Gina Lollobrigida to Sophia Loren, who he began courting despite her being 16 and he having a wife and two kids. As Italy didn’t recognize divorce, he got one in Mexico and married Loren by proxy, with two male lawyers standing in, earning condemnation from the Vatican and a bigamy conviction for him, while she was accused of being a concubine. They split for France for its scenery and laws prohibiting extradition for prosecution. He got his revenge with Massacre in Rome, which criticized Pope Pius XII for not doing anything about German executions of Italian prisoners. He also collaborated with such directors as Federico Fellini (La Strada), Jean-Luc Godard (Contempt), Claude Chabrol (Bluebeard), Jacques Demy (Lola) and Michelangelo Antonioni (Blowup). In addition to these excursions into Italian neo-realism, French New Wave there was also plenty of Italian soft core splatter (Whisky and Ghosts, Secrets of Sensuous Nurses, The Schoomistress and the Devil Carnal Violence.

The solo hit means 20 Pontis for Monty, who takes first place, which he held onto despite…