The Leopard (Il gattopardo)Adapted from the best-selling novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Visconti's sumptuous period epic was shot in glorious CinemaScope by award-winning cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno.
Burt Lancaster is utterly commanding as the aristocratic Sicilian patriarch steering his family through the turbulent currents of the mid-19th century Risorgimento, a period in which splintered feudal territories were for the first time unified into an Italian nation.
Having tested the young Cardinale's mettle with a small role in Rocco and his Brothers (1960), Visconti handed her a star-making role as the socially aspiring Angelica. Both she and the film were a sensation at the Cannes Film Festival where it received the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) for Best Film.
Alongside Lancaster and la Cardinale, French actor Alain Delon made up the film's glamorous triumvirate of international stars.
