Fra Diavolo - Legacy

Legacy

In addition to the works by Alexandre Dumas and Washington Irving, noted above, Pezza figures in a number of other artistic endeavors.

Daniel Auber's opera Fra Diavolo is founded on traditions associated with the legend, but has very little historical accuracy. Laurel and Hardy starred as "Stanlio" and "Ollio" in the 1933 feature film The Devil's Brother (sometimes titled as Fra Diavolo) based on Auber's opera.

There are several other films about Fra Diavolo, a complete listing of which may be found in the Italian Wikipedia site. The most important of these is Fra Diavolo, made in 1942 by Luigi Zampa based a play by of the same name by Luigi Bonelli, later a prolific screenwriter. In the film, Pezza is a Robin Hood-like figure fighting the French.

The only Italian film about Pezza to be available in English is the 1964 Giovanni Addessi produzioni cinematografiche of Rome, production, The Legend of Fra Diavolo, with an Italian cast but starring Tony Russell, which was released in the U.S. by Globe Films International. The film is rather more realistic than the Bonelli effort.

Paul Féval, père used the character of Fra Diavolo in his Les Habits Noirs book series. In it, Michele Bozzo (sic) is the nearly immortal Colonel Bozzo-Corana, feared leader of an international criminal brotherhood.