The perfect poliziotteschi?
In truth I doubt that such a thing exists, in that there will be as many perfect examples as they are variations in the form, in that Lenzi vs Damiano or Merli vs Milian way.
But for a film with a fine balance between action, character-driven drama and socio-political commentary on Italy during the years of lead - a combination also featured in director Stelvio Massi's highly recommended Marc the Narc trilogy - Cross Shot may be difficult to beat.
John Saxon plays Commissioner Javocella, a no-nonsense cop frustrated by the shackles procedure places on his men, the thanklessness of their task, and the way in which the bad guys act with impunity and then go free on the rare occasions when they are brought to trial.
Lee J Cobb plays Dante Ragusa, a blind old-school mafia boss who has used a combination of threats and pay-offs to secure the right to redevelop the city, Bari, his way.
Lino Capolicchio plays Antonio Blasi, a young punk who joins a group of career criminals in a raid on an armoured car and soon finds himself way out of his depth after killing a cop and inadvertently hijacking a car belonging to one of Ragusa's men, containing as it does a briefcase full of incriminating documents detailing pay-offs to the city's government.
Then there is Renzo Palmer's Maselli, a left-liberal journalist concerned by Javocella's emphasis on order at the expense of law, takes every opportunity he can to sell extra copies by critiquing the police and their methods and who positions himself in-between Blasi and his pursuers in search of a scoop.
Finally, there are a whole host of well-drawn supporting characters - Blasi's well-meaning girlfriend, who only realises too late what he and now she have gotten themselves into; Javocella and Maselli's underlings, providing a chorus and commentary on their actions; and the Ragusa's lieutenants and son, the latter a disappointment who owes his position to family ties rather than his own abilities.
While the villains of the piece, in the form of the representatives of organised crime and those within the establishment who co-operate with them - here note the unseen governor's refusal to support Javocella - are are clear everything else is suitably indistinct. Maselli and Javocella are presented closer to one another than they might like to think, being likened at one point they are likened to two dogs fighting for a scrap of a bone
Likewise, although Massi pulls no punches, as illustrated by Javocella's penchant for beating on suspects a la Merli; his instruction not to cover the body of his murdered colleague, apparently a 23-year-old whose wife had just given birth to their first child, for added impact; or the way in which the other robbers throw a woman out of her hijacked car into the path of the incoming police car, he also makes Blasi almost sympathetic, a 1970s update of your classic noir era victim of circumstance. (Perhaps because of the two young lovers on the run set-up, I was reminded here of Farley Granger's character in They Live By Night.)
The expression on Capolicchio's face as he pulls the trigger on the machine gun he's only just been given - and here credit must go to the actor, one of those to straddled the divide between filone and auteur cinemas - tells us everything we need to know: I wasn't prepared for this! What have I just done?
Likewise, it seems plausible that his plight is worsened not only by Javocella's approach but also Maselli's not entirely neutral representation of the same.
Besides drawing out the best from his cast and handling the action scenes well, Massi also makes good use of the Bari locations - themselves welcome as an alternative to the more usual Naples, Rome or Turin - and provides some fascinating actuality footage of the newspaper typesetters and presses which, in conjunction with the other technology on display, further helps make the film into a real document of its time.
Definitely well worth a look, even in this panned and scanned Greek subtitled, English dubbed version.
Showing posts with label John Saxon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Saxon. Show all posts
Sunday, 8 February 2009
Friday, 4 July 2008
Apocalypse domani / Cannibal Apocalypse / too many AKAs to fit into this space
The film opens in Vietnam with an extended action sequence that sees Norman Hopper (John Saxon) and his men undertake a search and destroy mission against a Vietcong base. Having dealt with the enemy Hopper is shocked to discover two GI's in a pit, feasting on the still-warm flesh of an unfortunate VC. What makes it all the worse is that he knows one, Charlie (John Morghen), from his home town. Moving to help them out of the pit, Hopper is bitten on the arm by the other man, Tommy (Tony King)...
Stock footage...
And some woodland outside of Rome?
The image momentarily turns pixellated and black on white, as Hopper wakes up in his bed, next to his wife Jane (Elizabeth Turner), back in Atlanta.
Another Vietnam flashback, but the war – or more specifically the consequences of Tommy's bite – is about to come back in a major way.
Going to the kitchen, Hopper finds himself drawn to the raw, bloody meat in the fridge. In the morning he feels compelled to bite the next door neighbour's jailbait daughter (Cinzia de Carolis) after she gives him the come on, though since she takes it in her stride it was presumably more a gentle nibble than anything else.
Hopper gets bitten
When Charlie, just released from mental hospital with a clean bill of health phones up to see if Hopper wants to go for a drink, he understandably hesitates.
This merely delays the inevitable encounter, however, as Charlie bites a chunk out of a woman's throat in a movie theatre and kills one of a cycle gang before holing up in a flea-market where he picks up a convenient shotgun.
Hearing about the incident from his wife, who phones to check that he is not the one involved, Hopper races to the scene and persuades the captain into letting him bring Charlie out without further shooting.
Charlie is taken back to the hospital, but not before a few others have been bitten or otherwise infected with virus.
Even worse, by the time the authorities realise that this particular strain of cannibalism is contagious, Charlie, Tommy and Hopper have all been re-united and, along with a recently infected nurse, escape from the hospital in search of more flesh on the city’s streets...
A classic Morghen image
Charlie enjoys the breakfast of champions, in yet another piece of unauthorised J&B product placement
If there was one thing Antonio Margheriti knew how to do it was turn out efficient, unpretentious filone films. A good example of this are the trio of Vietnam films he made in the early 1980s: this one, The Last Hunter and Tiger Joe.
Whereas The Last Hunter takes its title from The Deer Hunter and its plot wholesale from Apocalypse Now, here we start off in Apocalypse Now territory – the Italian title literally translating as Apocalypse Tomorrow – before quickly shifting into something more reminiscent of Dawn of the Dead.
The Dawn of the Dead influence is particularly evident in the composition of the cannibal group, comprising three men, two white and one black, and one white woman, exactly the same as that in Romero’s film. Similarly, that the group has another run in with the gang of bikers seems to be little reason other than that Dawn film also has this.
Hitting the bullseye, as an infected cop fails to obey orders to “put it down son”
Elsewhere Rabid and The Crazies emerge as closer models in other respects, including their emphasis on spurious scientific explanations and living human monsters rather than the living dead – particularly the typhoid Mary figure of Rose in Cronenberg's film with her horrified awareness of what she has become and must do to survive and repeated cries of “I'm still me.” It must, however, also has to be borne in mind that these earlier films had not had the same wider influence outside as Dawn.
While one could no doubt attempt to draw a line of descent here from Night of the Living Dead itself as a film 'about' the Vietnam war, made when it was still ongoing and a more direct critique of US policy was difficult if not impossible for the film-maker there – we can here also note in passing that Apocalypse Now's late 1960s genesis lay in the idea of shooting a film guerilla style in Vietnam itself – the truth is that Margheriti and screenwriter Jimmy Gould / Dardano Sacchetti were less concerned with social comment than commerce. Combining the Vietnam war and zombie horror genres was first and foremost a move motivated by box-office potential: if doing something sullo stesso filone A attracts X viewers and something sullo stesso filone B Y viewers, then why not combine the two filone and their potential audiences?
That the film's inspiration lies in the zombie film means that it's more comfortable viewing than other Italian cannibal titles, being less harrowing than Deodato's work and less unpleasant than Lenzi's.
Though there's a moment of animal killing, as some unfortunate sewer rats get flambé-d with a flamethrower, it’s hardly representative of a desire to go further and further in this direction when we recall that 1964's Castle of Blood and its 1971 remake Web of the Spider had both included the casual decapitation of snakes.
This is not to say that Margheriti skimps on the blood and guts, however. Rather, there are plenty of scenes of those afflicted with the cannibal virus biting chunks out of hapless victims; a Fulci-esque eyeball gouging; the use of a circular saw to cut chunks of flesh out of one victim’s leg and a spectacular demise by shotgun as one character has a large hole blown through his belly. If Margheriti here draws his inspiration from The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, it’s still an impressive set-piece shot.
The location for the Vietnam scenes looks suspiciously like the outside of the cave complex used as a base by the US troops commanded by John Steiner in The Last Hunter. While not entirely convincing as the Vietnamese jungle and not quite matching the stock footage that its integrated with (although later films would see Margheriti and other Italian directors making use of Philippines location shooting in the manner of Apocalypse Now itself) Margheriti keeps the action flowing such that it doesn’t really matter too much, except for to the sticklers for authenticity who one can’t imagine would be watching the film in the first place.
In this regard, John Saxon has frequently indicated in interviews that he accepted the project because he believed it to be a serious commentary on the plight of returning Vietnam veterans. It’s a tough one to swallow unless he didn’t read the script and accepted the role sight unseen, all the more given that his long experience in Italian crime films during the previous decade must have provided him with a working knowledge of how the country’s rough-and-ready exploitation movie industry operated.
As evidence that the filmmakers weren’t taking it all that seriously themselves and just intent on providing their target audience with a fun 90 minutes consider the surname of Morghen’s character – Bukowksi – in a possible nod to the American drunk / poet; that it’s Alberto Di Martino’s war movie From Hell to Victory he watches in the movie theatre scene; or the frequently over-the-top tough guy dialogue and one-liners with their own distinctive, almost self-parodic poetry:
“Do you know who he is?”
“His name's Bukowski, Charles Bukowski”
“I don't mean his name, dumbass, I'm talking about his background. Is he a subversive, a queer, a black, a commie or a Muslim fanatic?”
Whatever Saxon's feelings about the finished product, his performance as Hopper is credible, feeling less about collecting the paycheck as wanting to say something about Vietnam. Morghen and King take a different approach more in tune with their one-dimensional crazy comic-book characters, mugging for the camera and generally hamming things up. Not surprisingly it works.
Elsewhere the likes of Venantino Venantini, Elizabeth Turner and Cinzia de Carolis, almost unrecognisable from her Cat o' Nine Tails days, provide reliable support in the smaller roles; Venantini’s son Luca plays de Carolis’s brother with he and his father obviously conveniently in Atlanta for this and Fulci’s City of the Living Dead at around the same time.
Alexander / Allesandro Blonksteiner's score is a bit hit and miss. It works when he does synth sweeps and atmospheres – some sounding suspiciously like cues from Giuliano Sorgini's Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue to my ears – less so when providing funky action themes that come across as a bit lightweight and out of place.
Stock footage...
And some woodland outside of Rome?
The image momentarily turns pixellated and black on white, as Hopper wakes up in his bed, next to his wife Jane (Elizabeth Turner), back in Atlanta.
Another Vietnam flashback, but the war – or more specifically the consequences of Tommy's bite – is about to come back in a major way.
Going to the kitchen, Hopper finds himself drawn to the raw, bloody meat in the fridge. In the morning he feels compelled to bite the next door neighbour's jailbait daughter (Cinzia de Carolis) after she gives him the come on, though since she takes it in her stride it was presumably more a gentle nibble than anything else.
Hopper gets bitten
When Charlie, just released from mental hospital with a clean bill of health phones up to see if Hopper wants to go for a drink, he understandably hesitates.
This merely delays the inevitable encounter, however, as Charlie bites a chunk out of a woman's throat in a movie theatre and kills one of a cycle gang before holing up in a flea-market where he picks up a convenient shotgun.
Hearing about the incident from his wife, who phones to check that he is not the one involved, Hopper races to the scene and persuades the captain into letting him bring Charlie out without further shooting.
Charlie is taken back to the hospital, but not before a few others have been bitten or otherwise infected with virus.
Even worse, by the time the authorities realise that this particular strain of cannibalism is contagious, Charlie, Tommy and Hopper have all been re-united and, along with a recently infected nurse, escape from the hospital in search of more flesh on the city’s streets...
A classic Morghen image
Charlie enjoys the breakfast of champions, in yet another piece of unauthorised J&B product placement
If there was one thing Antonio Margheriti knew how to do it was turn out efficient, unpretentious filone films. A good example of this are the trio of Vietnam films he made in the early 1980s: this one, The Last Hunter and Tiger Joe.
Whereas The Last Hunter takes its title from The Deer Hunter and its plot wholesale from Apocalypse Now, here we start off in Apocalypse Now territory – the Italian title literally translating as Apocalypse Tomorrow – before quickly shifting into something more reminiscent of Dawn of the Dead.
The Dawn of the Dead influence is particularly evident in the composition of the cannibal group, comprising three men, two white and one black, and one white woman, exactly the same as that in Romero’s film. Similarly, that the group has another run in with the gang of bikers seems to be little reason other than that Dawn film also has this.
Hitting the bullseye, as an infected cop fails to obey orders to “put it down son”
Elsewhere Rabid and The Crazies emerge as closer models in other respects, including their emphasis on spurious scientific explanations and living human monsters rather than the living dead – particularly the typhoid Mary figure of Rose in Cronenberg's film with her horrified awareness of what she has become and must do to survive and repeated cries of “I'm still me.” It must, however, also has to be borne in mind that these earlier films had not had the same wider influence outside as Dawn.
While one could no doubt attempt to draw a line of descent here from Night of the Living Dead itself as a film 'about' the Vietnam war, made when it was still ongoing and a more direct critique of US policy was difficult if not impossible for the film-maker there – we can here also note in passing that Apocalypse Now's late 1960s genesis lay in the idea of shooting a film guerilla style in Vietnam itself – the truth is that Margheriti and screenwriter Jimmy Gould / Dardano Sacchetti were less concerned with social comment than commerce. Combining the Vietnam war and zombie horror genres was first and foremost a move motivated by box-office potential: if doing something sullo stesso filone A attracts X viewers and something sullo stesso filone B Y viewers, then why not combine the two filone and their potential audiences?
That the film's inspiration lies in the zombie film means that it's more comfortable viewing than other Italian cannibal titles, being less harrowing than Deodato's work and less unpleasant than Lenzi's.
Though there's a moment of animal killing, as some unfortunate sewer rats get flambé-d with a flamethrower, it’s hardly representative of a desire to go further and further in this direction when we recall that 1964's Castle of Blood and its 1971 remake Web of the Spider had both included the casual decapitation of snakes.
This is not to say that Margheriti skimps on the blood and guts, however. Rather, there are plenty of scenes of those afflicted with the cannibal virus biting chunks out of hapless victims; a Fulci-esque eyeball gouging; the use of a circular saw to cut chunks of flesh out of one victim’s leg and a spectacular demise by shotgun as one character has a large hole blown through his belly. If Margheriti here draws his inspiration from The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, it’s still an impressive set-piece shot.
The location for the Vietnam scenes looks suspiciously like the outside of the cave complex used as a base by the US troops commanded by John Steiner in The Last Hunter. While not entirely convincing as the Vietnamese jungle and not quite matching the stock footage that its integrated with (although later films would see Margheriti and other Italian directors making use of Philippines location shooting in the manner of Apocalypse Now itself) Margheriti keeps the action flowing such that it doesn’t really matter too much, except for to the sticklers for authenticity who one can’t imagine would be watching the film in the first place.
In this regard, John Saxon has frequently indicated in interviews that he accepted the project because he believed it to be a serious commentary on the plight of returning Vietnam veterans. It’s a tough one to swallow unless he didn’t read the script and accepted the role sight unseen, all the more given that his long experience in Italian crime films during the previous decade must have provided him with a working knowledge of how the country’s rough-and-ready exploitation movie industry operated.
As evidence that the filmmakers weren’t taking it all that seriously themselves and just intent on providing their target audience with a fun 90 minutes consider the surname of Morghen’s character – Bukowksi – in a possible nod to the American drunk / poet; that it’s Alberto Di Martino’s war movie From Hell to Victory he watches in the movie theatre scene; or the frequently over-the-top tough guy dialogue and one-liners with their own distinctive, almost self-parodic poetry:
“Do you know who he is?”
“His name's Bukowski, Charles Bukowski”
“I don't mean his name, dumbass, I'm talking about his background. Is he a subversive, a queer, a black, a commie or a Muslim fanatic?”
Whatever Saxon's feelings about the finished product, his performance as Hopper is credible, feeling less about collecting the paycheck as wanting to say something about Vietnam. Morghen and King take a different approach more in tune with their one-dimensional crazy comic-book characters, mugging for the camera and generally hamming things up. Not surprisingly it works.
Elsewhere the likes of Venantino Venantini, Elizabeth Turner and Cinzia de Carolis, almost unrecognisable from her Cat o' Nine Tails days, provide reliable support in the smaller roles; Venantini’s son Luca plays de Carolis’s brother with he and his father obviously conveniently in Atlanta for this and Fulci’s City of the Living Dead at around the same time.
Alexander / Allesandro Blonksteiner's score is a bit hit and miss. It works when he does synth sweeps and atmospheres – some sounding suspiciously like cues from Giuliano Sorgini's Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue to my ears – less so when providing funky action themes that come across as a bit lightweight and out of place.
Saturday, 29 March 2008
Baciamo le mani / Kiss My Hand / Mafia War / Family Killer
Though obviously inspired by and in the style of The Godfather, this is one of those films which showcases the strengths of the filone cinema by putting a distinctive twist on its material in expressing a preference for more downbeat, fatalistic and realistic resolutions whereby the black hats tend to triumph over the light and dark grey hats.
The bad guys are represented by Gaspare Ardizzone, effectively played by John Saxon in scenery-chewing mode. He’s decided that the old ways are outmoded and that honour and respect matter little compared to money and power. His first act, the one which propels the rest of the narrative, is to summarily gun down one of the Ferrante family.
They’re the less bad guys. Godfather figure Angelino Ferrante, played by Arthur Kennedy with appropriate dignity and restraint, is the traditionalist who finds himself fighting an ever more difficult battle to keep his family together. Whereas some quiet words were once sufficient to settle disputes, now it is easier to resort to murder as a first rather than last resort; the rules of the business have changed.
The point where the difference between Baciamo le mani and The Godfather is perhaps most evident, however, is in the Michael Corleone type quiet one among Angelino’s sons, Massimo. Rather than getting drawn into the family business, Massimo wants nothing to do with it. Though he goes to New York to be with his older brother Luciano, this is very much against the wishes of his father, for whom “America is like a sickness”.
While the experience encourages Massimo to change his mind and plan a return to Palermo to set things right, he’s then randomly stabbed to death by a junkie before he can put this into effect; a doubly ironic demise given that this same junkie is likely a consumer of the product the Ferrante family have reluctantly become involved in trafficking, and which would surely have formed an important plank in his own acceptance of the new realities.
Featuring good use of locations and some striking compositions, the main area where the film falls short of its rival is that of duration. Often we don’t get a sufficient sense of how much time passes between scenes, as when the widowing of Mariuccia Ferrante is quickly followed by her becoming pregnant by her deceased husband’s right hand. Towards the end things perhaps also become that bit too “action movie” and perfunctory with a corresponding loss of epic and tragic dimensions and details. Then again, this could conceivably be turned into a strength of sorts, as yet another indication that the old ways and world have now passed. (One here thinks especially of Leone’s Once Upon a Time… films, or of Visconti’s The Leopard.)
The origins of Baciamo le mani are worth noting, with director Vittorio Schiraldi – only in his early 30s at the time – adapting his own novel of the same name. Though he has a few other noteworthy writing credits to his name, including two unusually critical and thought-provoking gialli, L’Assoluto Naturale and Il Gatto dagli occhi di giada, Schiraldi only ever directed one other film, the war documentary Lettere dal fronte. We don’t seem, that is, to be dealing with your typical genre filmmaker and, for better more than worse, it shows.
The bad guys are represented by Gaspare Ardizzone, effectively played by John Saxon in scenery-chewing mode. He’s decided that the old ways are outmoded and that honour and respect matter little compared to money and power. His first act, the one which propels the rest of the narrative, is to summarily gun down one of the Ferrante family.
They’re the less bad guys. Godfather figure Angelino Ferrante, played by Arthur Kennedy with appropriate dignity and restraint, is the traditionalist who finds himself fighting an ever more difficult battle to keep his family together. Whereas some quiet words were once sufficient to settle disputes, now it is easier to resort to murder as a first rather than last resort; the rules of the business have changed.
The point where the difference between Baciamo le mani and The Godfather is perhaps most evident, however, is in the Michael Corleone type quiet one among Angelino’s sons, Massimo. Rather than getting drawn into the family business, Massimo wants nothing to do with it. Though he goes to New York to be with his older brother Luciano, this is very much against the wishes of his father, for whom “America is like a sickness”.
While the experience encourages Massimo to change his mind and plan a return to Palermo to set things right, he’s then randomly stabbed to death by a junkie before he can put this into effect; a doubly ironic demise given that this same junkie is likely a consumer of the product the Ferrante family have reluctantly become involved in trafficking, and which would surely have formed an important plank in his own acceptance of the new realities.
Featuring good use of locations and some striking compositions, the main area where the film falls short of its rival is that of duration. Often we don’t get a sufficient sense of how much time passes between scenes, as when the widowing of Mariuccia Ferrante is quickly followed by her becoming pregnant by her deceased husband’s right hand. Towards the end things perhaps also become that bit too “action movie” and perfunctory with a corresponding loss of epic and tragic dimensions and details. Then again, this could conceivably be turned into a strength of sorts, as yet another indication that the old ways and world have now passed. (One here thinks especially of Leone’s Once Upon a Time… films, or of Visconti’s The Leopard.)
The origins of Baciamo le mani are worth noting, with director Vittorio Schiraldi – only in his early 30s at the time – adapting his own novel of the same name. Though he has a few other noteworthy writing credits to his name, including two unusually critical and thought-provoking gialli, L’Assoluto Naturale and Il Gatto dagli occhi di giada, Schiraldi only ever directed one other film, the war documentary Lettere dal fronte. We don’t seem, that is, to be dealing with your typical genre filmmaker and, for better more than worse, it shows.
Sunday, 14 October 2007
Italia a mano armata / A Special Cop in Action
This, the third and last in the Commissioner Betti series, following on from Marino Girolami's Roma violenta and Umberto Lenzi's Napoli violenta, sees Maurizio Merli's dedicated, no-nonsense lawman presented with gangs of armed robbers and kidnappers.
Let's go to work
Appearances can be deceptive....
While the former are quickly dealt with thanks to a tip-off from an informer, with Betti recognising a purported hostage as another member of the gang and calling their bluff – “Shoot him then! Go ahead and do it! Pull the trigger! Shoot him I said, and we'll get rid of another criminal!” – the latter proves a tougher nut to crack.
But Betti is not fooled forlong
Though Betti soon tracks the kidnappers down and rescues the children – excepting the obligatory sick one, whose death provides yet another reason for him to hate criminals, over and above his own father's death at the hands of a 16-year-old gunman many years before; this being about as all the characterisation we get or require – he doubts that they were operating on their own, suspecting that his slippery old enemy, Albertelli (John Saxon) is the brains behind the syndicate...
One of the kidnappers also tries for a spot of rape, allowing for some gratuitous, if unpleasant nudity that the married to the job nature of the Betti character would otherwise deny the film.
Though on one level the bank robber plot is superfluous, an extra action sequence or two in a film that doesn't really need it, the way in which Betti encourages one gangster to shoot the other / the hostage is a crucial demonstration of his absolute lack of doubt, as also evinced by encounters with Albertelli; his high-speed pursuit of a couple of the kidnappers in a commandeered car, or his confidence that the truth will out when, two-thirds of the way through, he is set up and sent to jail...
The pieta in Italian cinema, ancora
One can well imagine another film, actor, character and scenario in which this hold up incident proves pivotal, as a wrong decision leads to the death of an innocent man dies and a more introspective, questioning narrative in which there is the possibility that Albertelli is in fact innocent or where the politics of law and order in the politiziotto in general are actually presented as a matter for debate rather than largely taken for granted. (One here notes that the figure of the police informer, a necessary evil as far as advancing the narrative goes, never really seems to work in these films, precisely because it represents something of a challenge to their essentially manichean moral dualism, of good cops and bad criminals.)
Would you trust this man?
In this regard, it's worth noting that, if Merli transcended his initial positioning as poor man's Franco Nero, having gained his big break on account of being something of a look-alike, he always remained a more limited performer in terms of his range. Try for instance to place Merli in Castellari's Street Law, as the ordinary citizen who feels compelled to turn vigilante and ultimately realises the problems with this attractive-seeming course of action: it's difficult, perhaps even impossible.
As ever, however, such issues matter little when all involved deliver the goods, Merli's belief in his character is self-evident, the implications either a touch frightening or heartening, depending on whether you agree with the character and the film's implicit right-wing politics; Saxon suitably sleazy even as he likely just went through the motions to collect the paycheque; and director Franco Martinelli serving up plenty of car and other chases, shoot outs, stunts, fights and beatings, all accompanied by a propulsive Franco Micalizzi score, to give the film's target audience almost exactly what they wanted.
[spoiler follows]
... and Action!!
I say almost because of that ending, in which Betti is unceremoniously gunned down as he approaches his potential new love interest, Luisa (Mirella D'Angelo), the sister of the dead kidnapped child from earlier.
On the one hand, it's the logical apotheosis of a mythic character; one who fundamentally could not be permitted to change into a real-world figure. On the other, it put paid to the prospect of further entries in the franchise and, through this, perhaps tolled the first peals of the death knell for Merli's own career and the filone with which his fame and fortune were so closely intertwined.
Let's go to work
Appearances can be deceptive....
While the former are quickly dealt with thanks to a tip-off from an informer, with Betti recognising a purported hostage as another member of the gang and calling their bluff – “Shoot him then! Go ahead and do it! Pull the trigger! Shoot him I said, and we'll get rid of another criminal!” – the latter proves a tougher nut to crack.
But Betti is not fooled forlong
Though Betti soon tracks the kidnappers down and rescues the children – excepting the obligatory sick one, whose death provides yet another reason for him to hate criminals, over and above his own father's death at the hands of a 16-year-old gunman many years before; this being about as all the characterisation we get or require – he doubts that they were operating on their own, suspecting that his slippery old enemy, Albertelli (John Saxon) is the brains behind the syndicate...
One of the kidnappers also tries for a spot of rape, allowing for some gratuitous, if unpleasant nudity that the married to the job nature of the Betti character would otherwise deny the film.
Though on one level the bank robber plot is superfluous, an extra action sequence or two in a film that doesn't really need it, the way in which Betti encourages one gangster to shoot the other / the hostage is a crucial demonstration of his absolute lack of doubt, as also evinced by encounters with Albertelli; his high-speed pursuit of a couple of the kidnappers in a commandeered car, or his confidence that the truth will out when, two-thirds of the way through, he is set up and sent to jail...
The pieta in Italian cinema, ancora
One can well imagine another film, actor, character and scenario in which this hold up incident proves pivotal, as a wrong decision leads to the death of an innocent man dies and a more introspective, questioning narrative in which there is the possibility that Albertelli is in fact innocent or where the politics of law and order in the politiziotto in general are actually presented as a matter for debate rather than largely taken for granted. (One here notes that the figure of the police informer, a necessary evil as far as advancing the narrative goes, never really seems to work in these films, precisely because it represents something of a challenge to their essentially manichean moral dualism, of good cops and bad criminals.)
Would you trust this man?
In this regard, it's worth noting that, if Merli transcended his initial positioning as poor man's Franco Nero, having gained his big break on account of being something of a look-alike, he always remained a more limited performer in terms of his range. Try for instance to place Merli in Castellari's Street Law, as the ordinary citizen who feels compelled to turn vigilante and ultimately realises the problems with this attractive-seeming course of action: it's difficult, perhaps even impossible.
As ever, however, such issues matter little when all involved deliver the goods, Merli's belief in his character is self-evident, the implications either a touch frightening or heartening, depending on whether you agree with the character and the film's implicit right-wing politics; Saxon suitably sleazy even as he likely just went through the motions to collect the paycheque; and director Franco Martinelli serving up plenty of car and other chases, shoot outs, stunts, fights and beatings, all accompanied by a propulsive Franco Micalizzi score, to give the film's target audience almost exactly what they wanted.
[spoiler follows]
... and Action!!
I say almost because of that ending, in which Betti is unceremoniously gunned down as he approaches his potential new love interest, Luisa (Mirella D'Angelo), the sister of the dead kidnapped child from earlier.
On the one hand, it's the logical apotheosis of a mythic character; one who fundamentally could not be permitted to change into a real-world figure. On the other, it put paid to the prospect of further entries in the franchise and, through this, perhaps tolled the first peals of the death knell for Merli's own career and the filone with which his fame and fortune were so closely intertwined.
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