Maurizio Merli

ACTOR, PRODUCER

Maurizio Merli Movies or Tv Shows (upto Nov 2024) - Watch Online

29th May 2022 | FlixCatalog Staff

Though it can be said that he only gained fame as an actor because he bore such a heavy resemblance to Italian actor Franco Nero, Maurizio Merli was a very versatile and charismatic leading man in Italian cinema throughout the 1970's. His first appearance was in the Luchino Visconti film Leoparden (1963) as an uncredited extra. Throughout the 60's and early 70's, the young Merli kept a low profile and remained a fairly minor player in the Italian films. His major breakthrough came with director Tonino Ricci, who was to direct an unofficial sequel to Lucio Fulci's Varghunden (1973) without the benefit of its star, Franco Nero. Ricci realized that casting Merli in the lead would fool the viewing audience into thinking they were seeing Nero and hence an authentic White Fang adventure. The subsequent film Varghunden (1975) worked well enough for Marino Girolami and Fabrizio De Angelis to cast Merli as the lead in the crime drama Roma violenta (1975) a year later. Much like before, Merli was cast because the film vaguely resembled the Franco Nero Film La polizia incrimina la legge assolve (1973) ("High Crime"). Roma violenta (1975) turned out to be a huge success both in Italy and abroad and Merli found himself inexplicably catapulted to international stardom. Very similar to how Terence Hill found his niche in comedies after being discovered out of the crowd of Nero stand-ins, Maurizio Merli established himself as the leading man in the Italian crime film genre of the period. Over the brief span from 1975-1979, Merli starred in no less than a dozen crime films from the likes of noted Italian directors Umberto Lenzi, Stelvio Massi, and Fernando Di Leo including such classics as Napoli violenta (1976), Italia a mano armata (1976), and _Da Corleone a Brooklyn (1978)_. Merli also followed Nero's footsteps once again in the Keoma-inspired Mannaja (1977). Merli's brief busy period saw him hopelessly typecast in the same role as the hard-nosed detective in practically every film he starred in. Merli was said to get so into these roles that he would frequently go overboard during the fight scenes and hurt the stuntmen. In both _Roma a mano armata (1976)_ and Il cinico, l'infame, il violento (1977), Merli was cast opposite Cuban actor Tomas Milian, with whom he did not get along in real life. The tension between the two made for some very good on-screen chemistry for the few scenes they had together. Merli's "tough cop" performances ranged from so-so to nearly brilliant at times with him angrily shaking his fists and grinding his teeth when the script would rarely call for such things. However, it was this type-casting which led to the demise of his career when Italian filmmakers began to focus less on crime films and more on fantastic films in the early 80's such as horror, action, and post apocalyptic films in which Merli simply had no place. He had a brief role in Giorgio Bontempi's spy thriller Notturno (1983) but by then his level of work was but a fraction of what it once was. A devout health-nut in his later years, Merli collapsed after overexerting himself in a tennis match and died of Myocardial Infarction at the age of 49. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Mike A. Martinez <aylmer666@juno.com>

Fan Zone

Streaming Availability

Amazon Video has the most number of Maurizio Merli’s flixes, followed by Apple iTunes compared to other streaming platforms. See the full graph below.

Releases by Year

Maurizio Merli on average has worked on 2 movies per year from 1972 to 1989. See the full graphs of the number of Maurizio Merli movies released per year from 1972 till 1989.

Top Genres

Maurizio Merli works mostly in Crime Genre followed by Action Genre flixes. 28% of Maurizio Merli movies are Crime Genre movies. See Top Genres that Maurizio Merli worked on in the graph below.

Average IMDB Score

On average the IMDB score of the movies that Maurizio Merli has worked on is 6.2.

6.2 / 10

Maurizio Merli's Movies and Tv Series available to Stream now ..

Action,Crime,Drama
The Tough Ones (1976)

A tough, rule-bending cop pursues a maniacal, trigger-happy hunchback, a one-handed bank robber and their cronies in an effort to bring Rome's most powerful crime lord to justice.

6.9/1095 min

Available in 1 platform(s).

Action,Drama,Thriller
A Man Called Blade (1977)

A bounty hunter arrives in a mining town and is hired to track down the missing daughter of the town's crippled mayor and learns she has been kidnapped by the mayor's corrupt right-hand-man and a band of outlaws he is secretly working for.

6.6/10101 min

Available in 4 platform(s).

Action,Crime,Thriller
Magnum Cop (1978)

An Italian private investigator tries to get to the bottom of a suspicious kidnapping case with the help of an exotic dancer.

5.5/1093 min

Available in 1 platform(s).