Incrocci, Agenore

(1919-2005)

   Screenwriter. For almost four decades, and always known simply as "Age," Incrocci teamed up with Furio Scarpelli to form the most productive screenwriting duo in Italian postwar cinema. Their prolific partnership began in the immediate postwar period when they both collaborated on the script of Mario Monicelli's Toto cerca casa (Toto Looks for an Apartment, 1949), which became the first of over a dozen films they would help pen for the great comic actor Toto. After having worked together on over 30 films ranging from romantic comedies to action adventures, in 1958 they initiated the so-called commedia all'italiana with the story and screenplay of Monicelli's I soliti ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street, 1958), for which they shared their first Nastro d'argento. They subsequently wrote many of the great classics of the genre including La grande guerra (The Great War, 1960), Tutti a casa (Everybody Go Home, 1960), Il sorpasso (The Easy Life, 1962), I mostri (15 from Rome, 1963), and C'eravamo tanto amati (We All Loved Each Other So Much, 1974). In 1965 they received an Oscar nomination for their work with Monicelli on I compagni (The Organizer, 1963) and in 1980 their script for Ettore Scola's La terrazza (The Terrace) received the award for Best Screenplay at Cannes. They were both also credited with helping to write Sergio Leone's Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, 1966), although it appears that much of what they wrote was ultimately too comic and so not included in the final shooting script.

   After separating amicably from Scarpelli in the mid-1980s, Incrocci collaborated with Suso Cecchi d'Amico on Amanzio Todini's I soliti ignoti vent'anni dopo (Big Deal after 20 Years, 1985) and worked on a number of minor films but gradually reduced his involvement in the industry in favor of teaching screenwriting privately. In 1990 he published his own screenwriting manual, Scriviamo un film (Let's Write a Film).