600 Films From ‘Last Movie Mogul’

With more than 600 movies under his belt, it goes with the territory that producer Dino De Laurentiis has his share of admirers and detractors peppered across the landscape of international cinema.

What’s a bit more unusual in his case is that both perspectives often come from the same colleague.

While essentially a valentine to the 82-year-old movie maker, tonight’s PBS special, “The Last Movie Mogul,” (8-9 p.m. on KCET) offers enough biting balance to keep things lively.

A veteran De Laurentiis collaborator, director John Milius, had this to say about the producer’s vast output: “Some were good. Some were bad. All were overblown.”

But later, Milius offers gruff admiration for the producer’s white-knuckle determination to see projects through from concept to conclusion, a sentiment echoed by such luminaries as Sydney Pollack, David Lynch and longtime friend Anthony Hopkins.

From De Laurentiis’ early days in the Italian cinema, where he won foreign language Oscars with director Federico Fellini for “La Strada” (1954) and “Nights of Cabiria” (1957), to this year’s “Hannibal,” it’s a hugely impressive body of work.

As the program points out, for every “Orca” or “Flash Gordon” fiasco along the way, there were pictures such as “Serpico,” “Three Days of the Condor” and “Blue Velvet” to remind the filmmaking community of his instincts.

In March, Hollywood paid homage to his durable vision by presenting De Laurentiis with the Irving G. Thalberg Award.

It would have been a fitting career capper, but as he says in “The Last Movie Mogul,” there are still movies to be made.