Giacomo Casanova was 73 when he died--a ripe old age as 18th Century life expectancies went. But even by the standards of that bawdy era, this mercurial priest, soldier, alchemist, gambler, violinist, escape artist, confidence man, royal-lottery director and holder of papal dispensations was a legendary cocksman. Perfect stuff for the movies--and Casanova has, in fact, been played on screen by, among others, Tony Curtis, Donald Sutherland and (!) Bob Hope. Now he's being resurrected again--for TV, with Richard Chamberlain, king of the miniseries, starring.
Chamberlain has buckled his swash before: on screen, in The Three Musketeers and, on TV, in Shõgun. But Casanova was different. "They just don't grow his kind of characters anymore," he told Time. And getting there was twice the fun: His love scenes were shot clothed for American audiences and, again, bare for European ones; it's the export version that you see here.
Although many events of Casanova's life are documented, the best source remains his memoirs, which themselves have an odd history. Casanova died in 1798, but his memoirs weren't published until 1828, and then in an execrably expurgated edition. Having survived the Napoleonic Wars and a World War Two bombing, the original manuscript surfaced in 1960.
ABC-TV's lavish three-hour version, scheduled to air March first, was filmed on location in Spain and Italy. It focuses on a mere 18 of Casanova's chronicled romances and features, besides the beauties displayed on these pages, Hanna Schygulla as Casanova's mother and Sylvia Kristel and Janis as two of his more memorable conquests.
