and insisted on her appearing in the film. Lanza also performs a sequence of imitations of famous singers of the era — Perry Como; Frankie Laine; Dean Martin; and Louis Armstrong- "When The Saints Go Marching In" — committing to film what was one of his favorite party performances. Opera selections include "Questa o quella" from Rigoletto. Production The film was directed by Roy Rowland and was the first of only four films produced by Lester Welch. The screenplay was the last written by Art Cohn, who died two months after the film's release in the same airplane crash that killed famed producer Mike Todd, whose biography Cohn was writing at the time. Cohn partnered with Giorgio Prosperi on the script for the Lanza film, which was based on a story by Giuseppe Amato. The Italian title, Arrivederci Roma, was meant to be the American title of a film Lanza was scheduled to make in 1960, until he died in Rome in October 1959. Reception The film performed well at the box office. According to MGM records it earned $680,000 in the US and Canada and $1,275,000 in other countries, resulting in a profit of $162,000 for MGM. Awards Seven Hills of Rome was nominated for a Laurel Award (1959) from Motion Picture Exhibitor magazine. Sources Cesari, Armando. Mario Lanza: An American Tragedy (Fort Worth: Baskerville, 2004) Notes accompanying the 1990 video release of the film See also List of American films of 1957 References External links New York Times review 1957 films 1950s musical films Films set in Italy Films set in Rome Italian musical films English-language Italian films Films directed by Roy Rowland Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Titanus films 1950s English-language films American musical films 1950s American films 1950s Italian films