Poliziotteschi Films and Other Italian Exploitation - Page 2

Facepalm at myself for linking a trailer that already got discussed a few posts before.

GIANT SPOILERS FOR "REVOLVER" FOLLOW:



Ok, so I just saw Revolver and enjoyed it a great deal, but I don't understand the last scene. I mean, I understand it thematically - Reed misidentifies a corpse, just like the pop star did at the begining of the movie, and thus makes the ultimate sell-out (Anna moving into the background in terrified outrage is a really nice touch, too). But why did Granier need to be bumped off? And why did Reed need to lie about not knowing who he was - couldn't he have just gone "yeah, this dude was Milo's accomplice" and have it done with? Granier gets called "a big figure in the underworld" by the lawman as they show the corpse, so it doesn't seem like they're trying to whitewash the guy's reputation or anything. Sorry in advanc e if I got this all wrong, I can be a bit dim about these things sometimes.

One thing I've found really helpful when watching these films is to take a little time to brush up on Italy's historical context; the 70's were an absolutley chaotic time there, you'd have bombs going off all over the place and no idea whether they were being planted by the mob, leftist terrorists, neo-fascist terrorists or the italian secret service itself. Crime rates going through the roof, political corruption and instability, the CIA getting mixed in...it partly explains the desperate, paranoid mood that these movies convey.

Got this on R2 (the package actually came from Italy, which I got considerably geeked out over), and yeah, the english dubbed version that I accidentally started playing before switching to italian with subtitles seemed like a very bad job. I enjoyed this movie a lot! OUt of the three poliziotteschi films I've seen so far (this, Street Law and Revolver) it comes closest to feeling like a straight-up american noir movie - the sympathetic fall guy, the femme fatale, the various twists and backstabbings. Phil is right that Di Leo isn't as visually interesting as Castellari or Solima, but I sorta dug that, too - very no nonsense, meat and potatoes filmmaking, worrying about the plot above all. Gotta give set design props to Bouchet's amazing black and white pad, which is on some post-Point Blank Godardian ish. And that opening, whoa.

I got a lot of laughs out of this, but objectively speaking you can't really justify how the movie grinds to a screeching halt whenever the two cops start talking, though. Like Sollima, Di Leo wanted to show his leftist sensibility, but while in Revolver it becomes an integral part of the movie, here there's no connection or consequence to it whatsoever, it's sort of hilarious.

Still, that's only a few scenes, and the rest of the movie is pretty fucking solid; highly reccomended.

I am now trawling through the extras, which unfortunately are only in italian. Thankfully my portuguese enables me to have a vague idea of what they're talking about, but someone should fansub this stuff!

Neither Facets or Netflix has Milano Calibro 9. Drat!

I'll throw out a quick recommendation for The 'Human' Factor. It's an Italian production, but directed by Edward Dmytryk. (his last film) A pre-Death wish revenge thriller (released post), that has a neo-noir edge (enhanced, of course, by Ennio Morricone's score). The George Kennedy factor adds somewhat of a campy factor, but also an endearing quality. Big ol' goofy George slipping past the edge of darkness in the last fifteen minutes makes the whole thing worth it. Check it out.

I must see this. I remember reading about that GK vehicle a while back (sadly though got distracted by an increasingly obsessive Borgnine completism that threatened to destroy everything I held dear). The trailer on youtube looks completely hilarious though.

"They want me to turn these animals over so they can go to jail?

NOTONYERLIFE!!!"

The Heroin Busters tonight. Solidly entertaining movie, but pretty minor league when compared to the other poliziotteschi stuff I've seen. A lot of plot holes, soundtrack almost non-existant which is a crime when you've got Goblin working for you. Opening scene features various exotic locations (Hong Kong! Amsterdam!), luring you into thinking this is gonna be a big international intrigue movie. Turns out it's actually just Fabio Testi and David "Blow Up" Hemmings chasing crooks through the streets of an (admitidely gorgeous as ever) Rome. Closing scene also a big misstep: Castellari thought to up the ante on your usual car chase and had himself a plane chase instead, which sounds great on paper but actually if said planes don't carry guns it becomes a pretty boring thing to watch.

Still, as always with Castellari you get a good amount of reasonably insane stunts and action sequences. Sort of a spaghetti western feel, in the action choreography and in Testi's trickster character. And you gotta love the guy's denim jacket with "MATT" stiched on it. There's also a fair bit of OH NO DRUG HELL footage, which I suppose is haunting or hilarious depending on how you're feeling about it - I mean heroin addiction is no joke, but Castellari does go a bit Reefer Madness over it at times. Oh and there's a lesbian scene.

Might watch the commentary track tomorrow to see if there's deeper/more interesting stuff going on in the movie that I didn't catch on to.

THE HEROIN BUSTERS has, for me, the distinction of being the only film that I've ever seen intoxicated (probably the best way to view it). I do have to throw a shout out for the Goblin score which, as you've noted, is woefully underused.

Maybe Castellari was just bummed out that he couldn't get the De Angelis brothers onboard this time?

Saw Violent City - really classy, slow moving (in a good way!) flick. An all anglo cast and New Orleans location means it doesn't really feel like a poliziotteschi; Sollima could've totally gone to Hollywood and kept making this type of film. Love the two big silent scenes at the start and at the ending.

Hahahaha, YES! That's totally part of the appeal. Street Law is such a great, silly film. I also love how it's circular: it begins with that DeAngelis song and a montage of hideous CRIMES being commited, and ends with that freeze frame shot of Nero as the fuzz guitar revs up again. AN ENDLESS CYCLE OF VIOLENCE DO YOU SEE!

Castellari and his son apparently would like to do a sequel to this movie, because "the subject of urban violence is so timely again" (apparently the 80's and 90's were times of crimeless harmony, who knew!) Castellari seems to take the movie's message very seriously indeed, which is

Two more poliziotteschis I've seen recently:

A Man Called Magnum - For hardcore fans only. French hunk Luc Merenda is reasonably charismatic as the main character, though hampered by being written as a very smug twerp. The real hero of the piece is Enzo Cannavale's bumbling, sardonic police comissioner, who brings some of that Tuco type humor to the proceedings. Terrible, terrible main premise (a mob boss's adopted daughter sends crayon drawings to the police with clues about the mob's activities), and a painfully repetitive soundtrack. It does have a good ending shot of Merenda angstfully staring into the distance as the daughter repeatedly pleads "is this how things should be?" at him. Overall, I don't think NoShame are as trustworthy as curators as Blue Underground or RaroVideo.

La Mala Ordina - Di Leo does it again! Dude is easily becoming my favourite director in the genre (possibly one of my fav spaghetti western scriptwriters, too!) This is a few steps below Milano Calibre 9 due to some trouble fitting in enough screen time for all the charismatic protagonists (Adorf, Silva AND Woody Strode in one movie!), a few (mercifully miniscule - you could tell Di Leo wasn't feeling it) broad, music hall esque minor roles (rich drunk foreign woman, ultra-gay waiter), and a sub-plot involving a hippie girl which, despite being pretty awesome in its own right, doesn't feel like it belongs in the film. But it's still a rock solid movie - Adorf is great as the lowlife, almost childish pimp who's been fingered as a scapegoat by the mafia; Silva and Strode cool as ice as the american killers hired to track him down. Many lols are to be had with the decoration in the hippie commune pad that Adorf hides out in for a while: I particuarly liked the picture of Marx with a $ sign drawn on his forehead and the joint picture of JFK and Che Guevara with the caption "is there a heaven? And if so, are you there together?" ~~~ makes u think ~~~~

EDIT: can't believe I didn't mention Mala Ordina's amazing car chase scene. Here's a YouTube. Make sure to start it 1:10 in to avoid spoilers, though.

Rewatched Milano Calibro 9 yesterday, still great. There's a lot more hints to the final revelations peppered in there than you'd think.

What did I just bump to the top of the queue? Hitch Hike:

"After becoming a minor cult figure with his role as Krug Stullo in the notorious Last House on the Left, actor David Hess found himself typecast in minor variations of the role for the rest of his career. In this bloody thriller from director Pasquale Festa Campanile, Hess stars as Adam Kunitz, ringleader of a group of vicious bankrobbers who terrorize bickering vacationers Franco Nero and Corinne Clery. There's action, violence, and hard-edged sexual tension aplenty, although Hess' famous fireside rape of Clery is optically censored in some versions. The film, based on Peter Kane's novel The Violence and the Fury, and well scored by Ennio Morricone, still comes across as an attempt to capitalize on Hess' cult status, prefiguring his even more violent Italian films such as La Casa Sperduta nel Parco and Camping del Terrore. Ignazio Spalla and Monica Zanchi also appear.--AMG"

The poster looks awesome. What's the word on this one?

I'd be suprised if either of you were disappointed with it. It's a fun, nasty film with Nero and Hess on top form, Corinne Clery is a real beaut too. The anchor bay disc is so cheap, it's a bargain and a half.

I second that opinion! S'not really a Poliziotteschi but it is a great, sleazy slice of prime exploitation...

check out the awesome power of Hess' handgun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFBMJWas9II

Thumbs up. Way up!

<You'd dig it the most, Phil>

I couldn't watch this on blu-ray, everybody looks rough as arseholes. Milian had to be coked up to his eyeballs in some scenes, that or he suffers badly from hay-fever and poor Joseph Cotten looks like Dick Tracy's Pruneface. The films pretty much a re-telling of Yojimbo/Fistful of Dollars. I really haven't thought much to the Milian/ Lenzi collabarations that i've seen so far. They tend to meander, a 90 minute film shouldn't feel longer than its running time. The car chases are always the highlights with this being no exception.

Interesting fact. Brock Samson makes an appearance as a goon;

Holy shit...that is uncanny!

Goddamit! I'm late to the party! I recently watched a poorly cropped and edited version of the Helmut Berger starrer BEAST WITH A GUN. Holy shit, what a find. I had no idea it would be so...nasty. This is the flick that is briefly seen on TV in Jackie Brown ("Is that Rutger Hauer?" "No, it's Helmut Berger."). I got it in one of those wonderfully crap Mill Creek Drive-in Movie Collections and it made the entire 50 film collection worth buying (though seeing Richard Moll as the founder of the Mormon Church in SAVAGE JOURNEY was also pretty boss).

Let me third (or fourth or fifth) the love of Revolver. I got that DVD waaaaaay back and it basically introduced me to this genre. And being a Louisiana boy I got lots of love in my heart for Violent City as well.

I was hoping for another Not Quite Hollywood from that Twitch film documentary thingy. I'll continue to live in hope, but I'll temper that with a touch of realism.

P.S. Thanks for hipping me to this thread, Phil. You rock!

ETA: Here's a link to the Amazon page for the Mill Creek set. Keep in mind that these sets are edited and non anamorphic. But they often have movies you won't see anywhere else for really cheap. You get what you pay for. And Beast with a Gun is on DVD from Blue Underground, uncut and anamorphic. When I get the scratch together I'll be picking that bad boy up.

Hitch Hike is up there with House on the Edge of the Park in the cannon of nasty David Hess performances. Do yourself a HUGE favor and watch that muther! And let us know what you think!

yeah, like backwoods horror classic Rituals (or as it's called on the set, The Creeper). This long of a wait, that Code Red DVD looks like a goner.

Tony Arzenta, also known as No Way Out and Big Guns - Alain Delon's foray into the genre, directed by Duccio Tessari. Delon plays a mob hitman who wants to retire; his bosses aren't interested in this plan, and violent hijinks ensue. This gets points for some very creative violent kills (one dude's body ends up hanging halfway out a train window, flapping helplessly against the tunnel walls; another dude gets killed by a forklift. None of this is shown very explicitly though) and (as often happens with these european co-productions) some wonderful 70's european scenery, this time focused mostly on Italy, Copenhagen and a train rolling towards Hamburg. The story is ho-hum, and the movie sets itself a gargantuan task trying to sell quintessential frenchman Delon as a sicilian. Not the greatest ALAIN DELON movie (which, much like CHARLES BRONSON movies, are a genre unto themselves) I've seen, but it's a solid enough entry. One moment of absolute typical Delon badassery, though: towards the begining of the movie, Delon enters a fitness center and walks into the gangster boss's offices in same (he spends a lot of time in this movie casually strolling into hideouts, actually), shoots the dude in the head. A lackey comes in, looks at Delon, who shoots him a "oh, whaddyagonnado?" glance, almost like a Bugs Bunny looking to the camera kinda thing, offs him as well, strolls out. Ah, l'ennui!

I had about 12 bucks in credit at Borders, and was about to give up today until I walked by the register and saw they had these Pop Flix/Allegro collections. For my credit I got two collections including Big Guns, Violent Professionals, Long arm of the Godfather, Magnum Cop, Emergency Squad, Crime Boss, Street Law, Revolver, Confessions of a Police Captain and Death Rage. I've never seen any of them, and most of them are widescreen!

I'm an old hand at Spaghetti Westerns, Gialli, Peplum, Italian Gore, etc. at this point, but except for Mister Scarface, Cop in Blue Jeans, Contraband and Rabid Dogs I'm pretty blind when it comes to this subgenre, so I'm pretty excited.

Checked any of those out yet, Gabe?

Tonight it was Confessions Of A Police Captain for me. More of a stagey procedural; one should look elswhere for the action scenes, nudity (well there is some but it involves a corpse) and straight-up crazyness that is usually associated with the poliziotteschi genre. What you do get though is an inteligent, gripping movie with a masterful slow burn structure and typical Damiani political conciousness. The movie is basically one long cat & mouse game between a cop who, unable to defeat a big shot mob type via legal means, tries to have him killed, and the idealistic young public prosecutor (played by Franco Nero) who tries to stop him. Your sympathies lie with the first party almost at all times - it doesn't hurt that they made Nero's character sort of a fop, with some ridicolously posh furniture and even what Bruce Wayne would call a "youthful ward". There is also a pretty amazing flashback sequence, focusing on the cop's mentor, a union activist. Highly reccomended, just don't expect Street Law.

Mario Adorf is very, very good in this. His character is disarming, even though he's introduced headbutting a couple of yobs, he's got a whole puppy dog expression thing going on, he's a bit tubby and is generally a rather nice pimp but as the story unfolds his performance gets more and more intense(like the film) as he finds himself pushed further into a corner. It's impressive to see such a change carried so naturally and he's completely sympathetic and more importantly, unpredictable.

Dug the ending. His desperation with the crane was laughably pathetic but felt spot on considering what he'd been through.

This genre is notorious for it's violence. I can take gruesome deaths and women getting slapped about but a little kitten gets shot in this during some crossfire. Poor blighter. That really got to me.

He's sort of the Tuco of the poliziotteschi world, isn't he? Apparently Adorf later became a successful arthouse movie fixture - he was in The Tin Drum and some others. Agreed that he's great in this, Milano Calibro 9 as well.

Yeah, I think that kitten was there to highlight the character's sensitivity, like when Clint plays with a kitten in The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. Having it get caught in the crossfire was a real bummer, I was sort of dreading that happening as soon as it appeared onscreen.

I'm not a big gore guy in general, which has kept me from tackling those Lenzi contribuitions to the genre I got lying around.

The DiLeo I own and have still to see - Avere Vent'Anni, a sex comedy which apparently turns unbearably dark in the end. He's so good at giving inteligent plotting and emotional weight to his crime movies that I have no doubt DiLeo could squeeze some pathos out of sexploitation, too. Also there's some lezzing up.

I watched The Big Racket a while back, kind of easing my way into the genre. I enjoyed it for the most part. Loved the idea of an ex-cop rounding up a gang of murderers our for revenge and it had a good deal of that funky 70's action film vibe I was hoping for (like that awesome fuzz guitar that was mentioned earlier.)

But to be honest, I was sort of put off by the rapes in the film. I get that the filmmakers didn't really hold back at that point in time but the violence against women felt gratuitous in the worst way. If this is typical in these films, I'm not going to say I dislike the entire genre but I'm certainly not going to be as eager to continue digging in.

Rape isn't really that common (I actually can't think of an example of it from the movies I've seen - but I am hungover), but women getting brutalized kinda is. All in the service of that gritty, world-gone-wrong atmosphere, plus italian genre cinema's track record with gender issues is dodgy at best - I don't think spaghetti westerns fare much better, to be honest.

I would rank my last two poliziotteschi's very highly in the genre.

The first was Emergency squad, it's schizophrenic in it's storytelling, the first half focuses on Tomas Milian's reckless copper, a man whose wife was killed by a gang of criminal's as they escaped from a job. The second half then focuses on the gang led by Gastone Moschin (the Don that DeNiro stalks along the rooftops in Godfather pt.2) as they're relentlessly pursued by Milian, the score even changes as it goes from a more jazz fusion beat to something more melodic, even romantic with Moschin. It's actually comes across like the director sympathised more with the criminal than the cop. It's an interesting film.

The other would be Young, Violent and Dangerous and is a strong contender for my favourite poliziotteschi. It's a day in the life of a trio of thieves/best mates that quickly spirals out of control when they resort to killing some cops after a robbery goes wrong. I thought it was cool to see a film that actually focused on the type of criminals that litter the genre, the ones that steal your briefcase on their motorbikes. The film is basically set-piece after set-piece that get more frantic as they go along upsetting everyone around them from the gangsters to the cops. Tomas Milian plays the cop but is a secondary character at best but what he has to say over the course of the film resonated and Milian makes the most of the small number of scenes he's in. The performances were excellent and the action particularly a car chase are top notch. I thought it was impressive.


Has anyone bothered with Grand Slam, the film that you can get with Revolver. It's a heist film, not a very good one but the ending made me laugh. If there's anything that i've learned form the poliziotteschi genre, it's that Rome would have been a very bad idea for a holiday during the 60's/70's. You wouldn't be able to leave your home without getting mugged, raped or shot.

I just watched Beast with a Gun on Instant (actually the title credit in the beginning was FEROCIOUS Beast With A Gun) and it was in widescreen, in all its unrated tit cutting glory.  Helmut Berger had a certain sleazy charisma about him, that's for sure.   I love the score too, especially in this scene http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub9rVbXnnJQ where Herr Berger makes eyes at a girl he just brutally raped and the music makes it almost seem romantic in a film noir kind of way. almost.

 

 

 

Nero vs. Hess in what sounds like primo sleazy Italian trash....just added to queue.

I've finally decided to get into some poliziotteschi and bought a 2-disc set of films from the genre. Up first is Crime Boss with Telly 'Who loves ya baby' Savalas and Italian Omar Sharif Antonio Sabato.

Word to the wise: Stelvio Massi's Emergency Squad. Nice noir vibes and a cast with lots of overlap with Milano Calibro 9. 

Hello, old thread.

 

New Fernando di Leo poliziotteschi re-issue coming to DVD in December from the good folks at RaroVideo. Luc Merenda stars. Co-written by di Leo and Sergio "Once Upon A Time In The West" Donati. They seem to be re-using music from "Milano Calibro 9" in the trailer? I'm a di Leo completist, so at any rate this is going on my "to buy" list.

 

Trailer:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tPfOh4y-9E&feature=youtu.be