Titanus

Titanus is an Italian film production company, founded in 1904 by Gustavo Lombardo (1885–1951). The company's headquarters are located at 28 Via Sommacampagna, Rome and its studios on the Via Tiburtina, 13 km from the centre of Rome.

Titanus logo

Seat at Via Sommacampagna 28 in Roma

Lombardo ran the studios until his death in 1951. His son, Goffredo Lombardo (1920–2005) and later his grandson, Guido Lombardo have continued to run the company.

The company has been responsible for hundreds of Italian productions, including some of the most popular or important films in Italian cinema. Titanus made many peplum films and comedies featuring Totò and Franco & Ciccio. The film The Shortest Day was not only a parody of The Longest Day but featured a galaxy of stars who made the film to help the studio. The studio made numerous international co-productions with American (The Story of Ruth, The Angel Wore Red) and French (Plein Soleil) film studios.

After the arrival of the French new wave films, Titanus launched a "youth operation", which gave young film artists a chance to create low-budget films with relative freedom.[1] This had approximately 100 first and second productions for Titanus made between 1960 and 1965.[1] This included films by new directors such as Ermanno Olmi, Elio Petri, Damiano Damiani and Lina Wertmuller.[1] Titanus closed down its production branch in 1964.[2]

After a hiatus of approximately ten years, Titanus reorganized and resumed film production on a smaller scale. Despite a few false starts, the company seemed to be back on its feet by the late 1980s, though, now, most of its work is being done for television.