Film Finances Around The World
The African Queen
FFI’s role guaranteeing The African Queen (1951) was symbolically important: it marked United Artists’ comeback as a backer of independent producers. John Huston and Sam Spiegel formed Horizon Pictures in 1947; in a co-production with British company Romulus, Horizon covered above-the-line costs while Romulus funded production in Africa and at Shepperton — with FFI’s completion guarantee securing a loan from Chicago’s Walter Heller & Co.
Shadow of the Eagle
The idea for FFI reportedly grew out of funding troubles founder Robert “Bobby” Garrett faced on this Venice-shot costume drama, filmed shortly before FFI’s February 1950 founding. Garrett’s co-producer was Anthony Havelock-Allan; American director Sidney Salkow and cinematographer Erwin Hillier also worked on the picture.
First Years in Italy
Garrett and Havelock-Allan’s Constellation Films followed with the Anglo-Italian Never Take No for an Answer (1951, based on Paul Gallico’s “The Small Miracle”). Sicilian aristocrat Prince Alessandro Tasca di Cutò — a cousin of The Leopard author Giovanni di Lampedusa — advised on production.
Tasca Joins Film Finances
In February 1952, Garrett wrote to invite Tasca to become FFI’s Italy consultant, citing rising interest in Italian location shoots and past English productions that had run over schedule and budget. Tasca accepted, and later appeared on the set of Beat the Devil (1953) with Humphrey Bogart, John Huston, and Peter Lorre.
Società Finanziaria Garanzie e Controlli (SFGC)
In 1959, FFI and Italian financial partners set up this Rome-based completion guarantor; Tasca became technical director. Its first guaranteed film was The Revenge of Hercules, released in the US as Goliath and the Dragon.
From Epic to Art House
SFGC guaranteed both genre fare — Sword and Sandal epics, Spaghetti Westerns — and art-house classics like Antonioni’s Deserto Rosso and Pasolini’s Gospel According to Saint Matthew, in which Tasca played Pontius Pilate.
Europe and Beyond
The 1960s brought expansion into France, Germany, and Spain; the 1970s, Canada; the early 1980s, Australia; and eventually, Hollywood. The industry’s post-Heaven’s Gate wariness of budget overruns only reinforced the value of a completion guarantee — underscored again by that 1982 Variety ad congratulating Coppola on The Outsiders.