L'Onorata famiglia / L'Onorata famiglia - uccidere è cosa nostra

This is one of those films that both makes you glad for the existence of all manner of Italian rarities on Greek VHS and sad that the dubbed, panned and scanned presentation of them makes it unlikely that they will ever reach an audience beyond the cognoscenti.


This is the kind of thing we're dealing with here

For The Honoured Family – a better title than the on-screen The Big Family – is a powerful example of the sullo stesso filone Godfather mafia film with strong performances and direction and nicely mixture of action, suspense, intrigue and expose of the land of the lupara blast.

Some measure of the film’s capacity for surprise can be gleaned from its initial narrative. We begin with the introduction of Richard Conte and the establishment of his conflict with second-billed Raymond Pellegrin. Conte’s character, Antonio Marchesi, has recently come to Sicily from the US, whilst Pellegrin’s, Don Peppino Scalise, is longer-established. Believing that he has the support of his associates in New York, Marchesi refuses Scalise’s ‘offer’ to sell some land – at a cut-down rate, of course – and receives his reply in the form of an attack on his offices, in which his bodyguard are killed to convey to him that he had better accept.

So far, so predictable, if at the same time suggestive of the a different balance of power between old and new worlds than its US model. The same can be said of Marchesi’s over-confident reaction, as he plans a hit on Scalise. We might also read the resolution of this duel in similar fashion, as a tragic case of mistaken identity sees Marchesi kill his own brother to apparently provide extra impetus for what we assume to be a mafia war story between lighter and darker grey coded factions.

What happens next, however, is somewhat unexpected, if also helps to make sense of the role to be played by Commissario La Manna, a Sicilian born but hitherto Milan based cop.

For Scalise decides that Marchesi has had his chance and sends his executioners, played by Sal Borgese and Stelio Candelli, to eliminate his rival.

It’s an indication of the rules of the game here, that reality trumps star power, and neatly sets things up for what then emerges as the real confrontation between Scalise and La Manna to reveal the reach of the octopus’s tentacles across all levels of Sicilian society.


There could be a point about the shadowy nature of the legal system here, but it's difficult to tell

Thus we see La Manna being offered a fast-track promotion to a post back on the mainland by the local judiciary; the intimidation and murder of witnesses and innocents, including a particularly well-executed chase through an orange grove vaguely reminiscent of the caccia sequence in The Big Gundown; assorted admissions of impotence from police and civilians alike; and, perhaps most daring of all, an attack on the church for its willingness to accept dirty money. (Another nice touch here sees the Don sufficiently preoccupied with business that he closes the window on the orphans – how many orphaned through mafia activities, we wonder – whom the priest has sing a song in his honour.)

Another element that stands out is the way the filmmakers deal with the time-honoured car bomb: La Manna gets into his car and puts his key in the ignition. There’s a close-up and a pause, then a cut to a long shot, but no explosion. This is not to say it’s an impossibility, more that such a dramatic demonstration of power seems uncalled for at this stage in the narrative.

Director and co-writer Tonino Ricci also makes good use of the rural and urban landscapes of Sicily, with the atmosphere of place further enhanced by Bruno Nicolai’s score in which the marranzanu or ‘Jews harp’ is used prominently.

Recommended, though one also hopes that a restored DVD release will emerge soon to allow for a better recognition of the direction, cinematography and production design.

Bakterion / Panic / I Vivi invidieranno i morti

The most memorable thing about Bakterion / Panic is surely the name of David Warbeck's special agent: Captain Kirk.

Otherwise it's pretty much your standard MIC experiment goes wrong leading to a monster running amok 50s sci-fi stuff, brought up to its 1970s date by the distinctly cynical treatment given the selfsame authorities, who are concerned more for covering their own backs over the location of a bacteriological warfare lab in the middle of a city than the welfare of its citizens.

The putative location is Newtown, England, resulting in some awkward non-integration of stock footage of iconic London buses and location shooting with clearly Spanish locations and extras elsewhere and the concomitant displacement / generalisation of any political point compared to the more specifically grounded likes of The Quatermass Xperiment, Quatermass II and The Crazies.

Admittedly, however, any such point is also decidedly secondary insofar as we're still very much in the realm of individualising conflict, with Kirk the representative of a more benevolent face of authority who takes up the cause of the people of Newport and saves them from themselves, the monster and the excesses of his masters, all whilst finding time to establish the classic heterosexual romantic outcome with Janet Agren's research scientist in that don't-worry-she's-also-a-woman-as-well manner.


The monster

Those scenes which don't feature the good and bad guys emphasise the scientist turned monster stalking and slaying, each being announced by the introduction of two or three stock types who we know are there solely for the purpose of being slaughtered.

There is one exception. This is the priest who saves his choirboys at the cost of his own life, who get an establishing scene before they are attacked – a scene which one suspects must have played differently to Catholic Spanish and Italian audiences than an Anglican one.

Having said all this, it's also worth noting that if the IMDB can be believed the film wasn't released in Italy and Spain until late December 1982 and March 1983 respectively. The possibility of political factors playing a part here are, however, countered by the likelihood that the film sat on the shelf because of its overall poor quality. If so, its belated release might then be speculatively attributed to some combination of the relative prominence of Nightmare City – whose end "the nightmare becomes reality" coda is recalled by the "this could already have happened" one here – Zombie Creeping Flesh and other monster-cum-disaster movies in the early 1980s along with the higher profiles enjoyed by its stars at this time.

With the direction throughout characterised by a perfunctory quality – the one sign of imagination seems more accidental than anything else, as the monster's attack on a crowded cinema sees everything go black in a reductio ad absurdum of the old don't show the monster trope – Panic is a film which strongly suggests the success of the only other Ricci film I can remember seeing, the 1971 giallo Cross Current, was down more to Flavio Mogherini's production design and its impressive ensemble cast.


Don't have nightmares, do sleep well...

With no Mogherini on board, more weight is placed on the performers here. Warbeck and Agren are game, but don't quite seem as comfortable in their roles – or the co-production way of working – as they would given a few more years experience. Franco Ressel, something of a regular in Ricci's films, again proves to the manner born as the sleazy scientist in charge of the biological warfare programme, while Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue's Jose Lifante is very welcome as the Newtown police sergeant out of his depth – even if his presence also reminds one of another, far superior, English set, Italian-Spanish made science gone bad horror movie of the period.