Fear In The City

When it comes to giving crime a right proper kicking, no one kicks harder than Maurizio Merli. And he’s back in another hard-hitting poliziotteschi. This time he plays Inspector Murri whose methods are…hang on, you should know the spiel by now. Merli and his mustache are a regular fixture here. For the one or two of you who need a refresher, click on the following titles to jump to previous Merli adventures: Violent Rome: Violent Naples: Convoy Busters: Rome – Armed To The Teeth.

The rest of you know what to expect. Fear In The City delivers more of the same. The film starts with a prison break out. Master criminal Letteri (Raymond Pellegrin) and ten other prisoners barely raise a sweat as they traverse the prisons corridors until they get to the library. Inside the library, Masoni (Cyril Cusack), a model prisoner is doing a spot of reading. The escapees grab Masoni and drag him along as they make their way to the gates, and out into a waiting van.

After the breakout, the retribution begins. The gang start erasing all the snitches who got them put away in the first place. The first is a prostitute who gets picked from a roadside kerb. For $30 she promises to take the driver around the world. He agrees. She gets in. After a few minutes, she enquires where she is being taken. She is then grabbed by a guy hiding in the back of the car. Once restrained, she is shot. Next, three men burst into a bar, and shoot the bartender. The carnage continues as a couple are enjoying a bit of horizontal relaxation in a dingy room when the door is kicked in by a scary lookin’ guy brandishing a shotgun. He blasts both man and woman. The last guy to get whacked is a guy wearing an ugly green suit. I don’t know if the villains killed him because he was a snitch, or because anyone wearing such an ugly suit should die. Either way, he is kicked and pummelled and then hurled off a bridge.

James Mason is the Police Commissioner and he is in a quandary about what to do about the increase in crime. He wants action and results, but the men under his command are incapable of giving it to him. But despite the cities problems, there is one option that the Commissioner refuses to take – and that is get Inspector Murri (Maurizio Merli) back on the force. He doesn’t agree with Murri’s violent methods of law enforcement. Unfortunately for the Commissioner, the Minster for the Interior does not share his view, and insists that Murri be re-instated, and assigned to ‘sort out’ the city’s problems.

Unlike other Merli films, this one is a little different in that he actually does some police work. Usually he just drives along, and crime will happen outside his car window -no investigation required. But in Fear In The City he actually follows a few leads. He tracks down the niece of Masoni, Laura (Silvia Dionisio). She’s a good girl gone bad, who now works as a hooker. Naturally, Murri pumps her for information.

But Fear In The City is not so different that it doesn’t feature a high speed chase through the streets of Rome. This one happens to be on motorbike. Another staple of the Eurocrime thriller is the bank hold-up scene, complete with hostages. And to the film’s credit it gives it a twist. Rather than have Murri sneak into the bank and then shoot the ‘perps’, they have Murri sneak into boot of the getaway car. Once the crims have made their getaway, Murri pops out and shoots them.

The music by Giampaolo Chiti is avant-guarde jazz. Many Eurocrime thrillers go for loud pumping rock scores – but Chiti is more subtle. He creates a tense atmosphere using syncopated bass and bongo beats, and the film is all the better for it.

Fear In The City is exactly like it should be. Loud and violent. It may not be everybody’s idea of a great night’s entertainment, but if you like hyper-realised Italian cop thrillers, then add this one to your list.

The Bloody Hands Of The Law

The film opens at an airport. A professional hitman, Joe Gambino (Lincoln Tate) has flown in. He meets with another hood, Salvatore Perrone (Rosario Berelli), and together they go an assassinate and old guy lying in a heavily guarded room in a hospital. The hit goes like clockwork, and Gambino returns from whence he came.

Unfortunately for our two killers, a girl at a counter at the airport noticed Gambino as he came in. Equally unfortunate, the two killers noticed her, noticing them. Once an identikit photo of Gambino is splashed all over the newspapers, the criminal organisation behind the hit, decree that the girl should be silenced.

The task of killing the girl falls on Vito Quattroni, played by Klaus Kinski. Kinski looks very dapper in this role. He wears nice suits and a slick pair of sunglasses. As with most of Kinski’s performances, there is something creepy about it. This is amplified by the fact that he doesn’t speak throughout the film.

Quattroni does what he is paid to do. He arranges to have the key stolen to the girls apartment, so he can wait for her return. Quattroni isn’t even perturbed when she turns up with her boyfriend. He kills her and then stabs the boyfriend in the back. All without a flicker of emotion.

All this criminal activity is assigned to Detective DeCarmine (Philippe Leroy). Leroy has all the best clichéd dialogue. He is a cop from the Maurizio Merli, Franco Nero school. That is to say, he is doggedly determined to fight crime, no matter what methods are required to obtain results. Of course this brings him into conflict with his superiors. You know the score. Here the difference is that Leroy doesn’t have the ‘golden boy’ looks of some of the other stalwarts of the Eurocrime genre. He is not a gorgeous avenging angel. He is a bit older, his hair is thinning and his face is gaunt. He looks like he really has spent his time on the bricks.

After a few more witnesses and suspects die, DeCarmine’s superior’s allow him to use some more aggressive methods for tracking down the ringleaders of this current crime wave. This leads to some good old fashioned interrogation scenes, with bright lights and suspects chained to their seats, while DeCarmine beats the living shit out of them. Eventually, along with some furniture and a few skulls, DeCarmine starts to break the case. One lead, leads into another and so forth.

The Bloody Hands Of The Law is a half decent Eurocrime feature. It doesn’t have the flair of some of the ones that were made in the mid seventies, but all of the pre-requisite Dirty Harry inspired clichés are here. What stops this from being a great Eurocrime film is the repetition in the second half. Once DeCarmine’s shackles are removed and he can go about the case his way, it is almost a foregone conclusion that he’ll break the crime ring. But we see one beating after another, and it all becomes mind-numblingly the same.

Violent Rome

Writing a few recent reviews of Eurocrime films has made me want to revisit Violent Rome. I know Keith over at Teleport City has covered it pretty comprehensively in his long form review – to read it, click here – but a part of me just couldn’t leave it alone. And can you blame me? Consider this an appetizer, compared to Keith’s three course meal.

The man with the moustache, Maurizio Merli is back, as another hard-hitting, no holds barred police officer, in this the first of a trio of poliziotteschi films (the other two being Violent Naples (1976), and A Special Cop in Action (1976)). This time, Merli is Commissioner Betti, and guess what? He is committed to stopping crime at any cost, and he doesn’t get along with his superiors. Sound familiar? It is very similar Rome Armed To The Teeth. It’s also similar to hundreds of other tough police dramas, not the least being Dirty Harry.

Have already made the comparison between Violent Rome and Rome Armed To The Teeth, I’ll continue the association. While both films are episodic and hardly feature any police work (leads are obtained by informers or beating suspects within an inch of their lives), I must say that Violent Rome is the weaker of the two films. And this is based solely of the strength of the villain. Tomas Milian provided a focal point for the police’s frustration (and hostility) in Rome Armed To The Teeth. But Violent Rome doesn’t provide us with such a character. Sure there are dozens of scumbags for Betti to chase, punch, kick, or shoot at, but none last more than two scenes. Then again, that may be the point. It doesn’t matter how quickly Betti cleans the scum off the street, there are always more ready to take their place.

Another big difference between Violent Rome and Rome Armed To The Teeth is at the half waypoint in the movie, Betti hands in his badge. Betti is disgraced after he shoots a criminal dead (John Steiner), rather than attempting to bring him in. It doesn’t matter to the powers that be, that this crim had shot a police officer in the back, and then whilst attempting to escape, indiscriminately fired a machine gun at a playground full of children, killing three. It was far easier to remove Betti, whose methods were an embarrassment to the police department.

For the second half of the movie, Betti works as a professional vigilante. A group of businessmen, led by lawyer Sartori (Richard Conte), have had a gutful of the impotence of the police force and the increase in crime in their city. They have banded together to fight crime, their own way. It’s all legal of course (citizen’s arrests – no killings), but it isn’t long before the group become a nuisance to the criminal underworld, and the underworld strike back.

There are a few other things worth mentioning. The first is a subplot involving corporal Biondi (Ray Lovelock). During the course of the movie, he sustains a gunshot wound to the spine. He becomes paralysed from the waist down. His scenes are the most poignant in the film. Biondi had joined the force wanting to be like Betti. Even after he is shot, he still has the burning desire to put the scumbags behind bars. But as he slowly watches Betti change into a ‘monster’ (it’s an exaggeration, but you get the point), Biondi slowly changes his point of view. It’s a subplot that could have been expanded more, but quite simply on the whole this film doesn’t slow down for characterization.

Another great scene involves a car chase through the streets of Rome. What impressed me, in a scene that shows just how cool headed and determined Betti is, is when his windscreen is shattered during the chase, obscuring his view. Does he stop? No. While driving, with one foot planted fully on the accelerator, he uses his other foot to kick out the windscreen.

Violent Rome, is vigorous, heart pounding stuff. If violent seventies style cop thrillers are your cup of tea, this is well worth checking out. It isn’t high art, by any stretch of the imagination but it does provide all the elements that you’d expect from this genre; car chases, gun fights, fist fights, fierce interrogations. And as a slight warning, it also features a particularly ugly rape scene.

Solo

I am sure most readers are familiar with the Project Greenlight competition started by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. For the one or two people who are unfamiliar with the competition and the television show, it is a contest (or an opportunity, if you prefer) for amateur screen writers to get their script turned into a movie. The scripts are judged by fellow ‘greenlighters’ until they get down to the final one hundred and then the big guns move in to whittle down the numbers until one man and his script are standing. The winner gets to make a movie based on their script. In 2005 the Project Greenlight was exported to Australia.

Arrogantly, I thought I’d give it a shot, and was quite confident that I’d make the final one hundred. The script I beat up was for a little feature I called ‘A Lonely Way to Die’. It won’t surprise many of you to know that it was a spy film – or rather a black comedy spy film, littered with in-jokes from a myriad of obscure Eurospy films that only a hardened Eurospy fanatic would get. But I was still confident that my genius would shine through.

The story was set in the sixties, and it looked at the consequences of living a full-throttle hedonistic lifestyle for your average swingin’ superspy. What happens to the human body when you smoke three packets of cigarettes a day like James Bond? Or if you drink like ‘Dino’ in Matt Helm? The answer: generally poor health. So I gave my hero cancer, and had him battling enemy agents from his hospital bed as he underwent surgery and chemotherapy.

Needless to say the screenplay was a piece of crap and I didn’t make it into the top one hundred. But obviously the script submitted by Morgan o’Neill was of a considerably higher standard. He emerged at the end of the selection process as the winner of Project Greenlight Australia, and as a result, he got to direct his first feature film based on his script. It’s an Australian crime drama called Solo and it is set in Sydney.

The movie starts in a pretty subtle, but none-the-less grisly fashion. Jack Barrett (Colin Friels) is a hitman working for a underworld organisation known as ‘The Gentlemen’. When we meet jack he is chopping up the body of his latest piece of handiwork. He collects the pieces, and in a row boat sails out into the harbour, where, one by one, he tosses the pieces overboard.

Afterward Barrett is off to see his direct boss, Reno (Linal Haft). You know underworld organisations have many tiers and as such, Barrett has many bosses, but Reno is the guy that Barrett deals with directly. Now Barrett has been around the block quite a few times and he has seen a few things. He has been working for ‘The Gentlemen’ for over thirty years, but now he thinks it is time to step away from the business. Unfortunately, Reno doesn’t share the same opinion. ‘The Gentlemen’ aren’t exactly a ‘Gentlemen’s Club’ and you can’t just walk away. But Barrett is weary and doesn’t care. As far as he is concerned, he is ‘out’.

The first thing he does, is gather up all he his weapons and takes them to a shady pawn broker. Inside the shop, just loitering is Billie Finn (Bojana Novakovic). Billie is a university student who is writing a major thesis on Sydney’s underworld. When she sees Barrett walk in, she is immediately interested. The owner of the pawn shop, Kennedy (Bruce Spence) moves the girl along, but this only makes her more inquisitive and she starts to follow Barrett around.

Later that evening when Barrett gets home, he receives some good news and some bad news. The good news is that Reno has had a word with the upper echelon of “The Gentlemen’ and they are quite happy for him to retire. After all he has been working for them for so long, he’s practically family. The bad news is that they want him to make one final hit, as a show of good faith. The target is Billie Finn. In her quest for answers, she has been rubbing quite a few people in the Sydney underworld the wrong way. ‘The Gentlemen’ want her out of the way.

Barrett just can’t do it. Making matters worse, he ends up befriending the girl. Soon ‘The Gentlemen’ loose their patience and their faith in Barrett too, and they arrange to have him removed.

There’s an interesting bunch of supporting characters in Solo. Firstly there is Kate (Angie Milliken), who is the whore with aheart of gold. We all like ‘tarts with heart’ and Kate is one of the two people that Barrett almost has a ‘normal’ relationship with. The other friend that Barrett has is Havana (Brian Harrison). Havana is a piano player at the local RSL (Returned Servicemen’s League). He is 81 years old, but as times change, he represents a bit of class from the old days – the days when RSL’s served real meals – not Tofu, Eggplant and Pinenuts.

The film also features Vince Colosimo as a bent cop. It seems these days you can’t make an Australian gangster movie without Colosimo in it. His character here is not too dissimilar to the one he played in The Hard Word. Of course, Colosimo recently appeared in Underbelly as The Black Prince, Alphonse Gangitano. And before that, he played Neville Bartos in Chopper ‘….remember Neville I had that gun aimed at your head, and then reconsidered and lowered it to your kneecap…’

Solo is a bloody good film. It isn’t perfect, but it had a limited budget and was always intended to be a small film. But I think it punches above it’s weight. It’s a good little story – the ending a tad contrived – but it is really held together by the performances by Colin Friels and Linal Haft. In the end, director Morgan O’Neill can hold his head up pretty high. There were 1200 entrants in Project Greenlight. Each of them was eagre to thrust their script into the spotlight and tell their tale. If O’Neill had made a stinker, everybody, including my self, would be saying… ‘I could have done better than that!’ But O’Neill has proved himself a worthy winner, and to show for all his hard work, he has a top little Aussie Crime Drama that he should be proud to show to anyone.

Gettin’ Square

Gettin’ Square is a comedy crime caper, set on Australia’s Gold Coast in Queensland. So rather than the dim, gloomy look that the Melbourne or Sydney based crime films have, this one is bathed in glorious sunshine. The characters even wear very bright coloured clothes, rather than the tailored black suits that seem to to the uniform de rigueur in these types of films. With the brighter colours comes a lighter film, that at times verges on outright comedy.

The film opens with a robbery. Four men, armed with shotguns, and their heads covered by balaclavas are in the back of a cabbed pick-up truck. The four men are Barry Wirth (Sam Worthington), Johnny Spitieri (David Wenham), Dennis Obst (Garry Waddell) and Lenny Morrison (John Brumpton). As the truck makes it’s way to the place where the robbery is to take place, a cassette, created by the criminal mastermind behind the operation plays, outlining each of the men’s objectives during the robbery.

The truck pulls up, and our four perpetrators hit an office block. Next we hear a gunshot, and then see Barry carrying out Johnny ‘Spit’, who has been shot in the chest. Apparently the manager had a gun hidden in the safe.

The film then cuts back to six months earlier. All four men were in prison, but each of them is up for parole. The parole hearings don’t go to well for them. Only Johnny Spitieri is released. As he packs his gear and says goodbye to Barry, he vows to ‘get square’ which in this instance doesn’t mean ‘seek vengeance’ but ‘go straight’.

Another bloke trying to go straight is Darren Barrington (Timothy Spall), known as ‘Dabba’ to his mates. Dabba runs a none-too-successful restaurant called the Texas Rose. As the restaurant is a money pit, Dabba’s legal advisor comes up with a scene, where they sell the property to developers for condominiums, but can buy in on the ground floor to set up a new revamped restaurant. The scheme will cost a few hundred thousand dollars, but that’s okay, because Dabba has some money squirreled away with his accountant Halliwell.

Back in prison, Barry receives a visit from bent copper, Arnie DeViers (David Field). DeViers is the cop who sent Barry away based on his false testimony. Obviously both men hate each others guts, and Barry isn’t too overjoyed to see him. But DeViers has news. Barry’s mother has died. DeViers hopes that the bad news will make Barry do something stupid, like throw a punch at him, and can be stitched up for a bit more time. But Barry plays it cool. In fact, his mother’s death helps to get him released.

You see, Barry has a younger brother Joey (Luke Pelger), and upon hearing about Barry’s mother’s death, the parole board, grant him early release to provide support and guidance for his younger sibling. The timing is good, because young Joey has fallen under the spell of two-bit gangster, Chicka Martin (Gary Sweet). Making things even messier, is that Martin has formed a business relationship with bent copper DeViers.

Meanwhile Dabba ends up with some legal problems, when Halliwell the accountant’s wife, finds her husband rooting around on her. As an act of vengeance, she tells the Criminal Investigations Commision (CIC) about her hubbie’s shady dealings and soon they come in and confiscate all his records. This trail of paperwork comes back to Dabba, and it looks like his new restaurant and condominium development has come crashing down.

Now on the outside, Barry is trying to find honest work. In prison he worked in the kitchen, so he tries to find work as a chef. But everywhere he goes, no-one wants to hire an ex-con. Eventually his path crosses Dabba’s and Barry ends up working as the chef at the Texas Rose. Of course, all these characters and connections lead to the robbery that opens the film.

As the Australian film industry is rather small, often you will see familiar faces in each film. Gettin’ Square is no different, and features many ‘old friends’ for viewers of Australian crime drama. Vince Colosimo isn’t in this one, but David Field fills the gap as the corrupt cop. Field had previously appeared in Ghosts Of The Civil Dead, Two Hands and Chopper. Another familiar face is Gary Sweet. Sweet who plays Chicka Martin in Gettin’ Square, played Chicka White in The Great Bookie Robbery. ‘Chicka’ appears to be a name that has stuck with him. He also appeared in Blue Murder; amongst many others.

Gettin’ Square is a great film, but I must admit, when I first watched it upon release, I was kinda disappointed. I wanted, and was expecting something a little harder. But if you accept that this film, and it’s characters are played as broad comedic stereotypes, then you’re going to have a very enjoyable time viewing this feature. David Wenham, who won a swag of awards for his performance, is particularly funny. His court appearance after the CIC subpoena him to appear, giving evidence against ‘Dabba’ is a great piece of physical acting. But overall, the acting by the ensemble cast is pretty good. As I mentioned earlier, the characters are broad comedic stereotypes, so it requires some solid acting to bring them to life, otherwise they simply be two dimensional cartoons. All in all, Gettin’ Square is an enjoyable feature.

A Lovely Way To Die

A Lovely Way To Die is perfect lightweight sixties popcorn fair. Every sixties cliché is present from the seriously swinging title song (with silly lyrics), to the mod fashions and sets, and even the plot, but it doesn’t really matter that you’ve seen these setups before. They only add to the rich swingin’ timecapsule. As the story is a murder / mystery, I’ll keep the synopsis rather shallow so as not to spoil the film for those who chose to seek it out in the future.

The film opens as a racetrack. For us viewers, there are two separate story lines to begin with. Don’t worry they converge pretty quickly. The first story line belongs to Detective Jim Schuyler (Kirk Douglas) or ‘Sky’ as everybody calls him. Sky happens to be on leave and is doing a spot of gambling and womanising – not necessarily in that order. The other storyline involves Loren and Rena Westabrook (William Roerick & Sylva Koscina). They are a filthy rich couple who own one of the horses running that day. Their horse wins, and they accept a nice trophy cup and get their photos taken for the society pages of the local paper.

After the race, Sky goes home with a dolly bird he met at the track. After testing the resilience of the mattress springs, the couple then head to a Chinese restaurant for a meal. Also at the restaurant are several mobsters. Even though Sky is off duty, he doesn’t like mobsters and decides to confront them. The conversation doesn’t go well, and Sky ends up in a fist fight. Even though he is outnumbered, Sky handles himself admirably, even if he does destroy the restaurant in the process.

Meanwhile the Westabrook’s are on the way home by car. At this stage, it is worth pointing out that the Westabrooks cannot stand each other. He is much older than her – she probably married him for his money – but now the novelty has worn off for both of them. Simply to antagonise her husband, Rena lets her scarf fly off in the wind as they drive (the car is a convertible). Loren has to stop and march back to pick up the scarf. As they continue their journey, as Loren attempts to overtake a slow moving truck on a narrow road, he ends up bogged in a ditch. Rena waits in the car, while Loren walks to the nearest house to get help.

Later that evening at the Westabrook’s palatial estate, Loren is taking a late night swim. As he dives from the high board, a shot rings out, and he hits the water dead. Where is Mrs. Westabrook? Well, she is off with young swinger Jonathan Fleming (Kenneth Haig).

The next day, Sky is called into police headquarters. He is to be dragged over the coals for beating up on the mobsters. I seems one of them is in a coma, and the another has a broken jaw. It seems that this isn’t the only physical transgression has made in his career. In fact, in the last year he has made 112 arrests, but half have needed medical attention. It just screams ‘police brutality’ doesn’t it? The assistant DA is waiting is waiting for him to strip him down. But Sky doesn’t give him the opportunity. He walks into the office and hands in his badge.

Now, Sky is looking for a job, and fast talking attorney, Tennessee Fredericks (Eli Wallach) has one for him. Rena Westabrook and Jonathan Fleming have been arrested for the murder of Loren Westabrook. And the evidence seems quite compelling. Tennessee needs someone to act as bodyguard for Rena Westabrook, while she stands trial. Sky thinks she is guilty but takes the job anyway. And it won’t surprise anyone when I say that these two slowly are drawn together.

The story is pretty clichéd – old husband / young wife / young lover – and it does get a little over wrought at the end, but hey, you come to expect these things. Douglas is at his best as the cynical, tough ex-cop, and Sylva Koscina looks absolutely gorgeous in every scene, outfitted in some of the best translucent sixties fashion. As I said at the top, this film is lightweight and certainly not a long lost classic, but it is damn fine entertainment if you love sixties cinema (and I really do).

From Corleone To Brooklyn

From Corleone To Brooklyn is slightly different to most of Merli’s Eurocrime films – but not too much. Firstly he is still one tough cop, who’ll go to extreme lengths to stop crime dead in it’s tracks. He is still determined to see justice done. But in this film he get’s along with his superiors. He even jokes around with them, and in turn they back him up. And there is not one single tirade about the system protecting the criminals, and punishing the victims of crime. It’s only a subtle change to Merli’s usual screen persona, but one that presents a new slant to his character. He isn’t a loner. At times he may have to do the job on his own, but generally he has the support of his colleagues and friends.

From Corleone To Brooklyn opens in New York. Vito Fernando (Mario Merola ) has just moved out from Sicily. He is meeting a few old friends in a restaurant when two uniformed police officers enter and demand to see the newcomers passport. Fernando supplies his passport only to have the officer declare it a fake. A commotion in the restaurant allows Fernado to get away, much to the embarrassment of the officers involved.

Then we cut to Palermo. Lieutenant Berni (Maurizio Merli) is investigating the Mafia related killing of one of the local mob bosses, Salvatore Santoro. Santoro’s brother, Francesco is walking through the markets when two men with machine guns burst out of a delivery van and gun him down. The police were watching Francesco but were unable to stop the killing, but they pursue the delivery van as it tries to make a quick getaway.

During the pursuit, the police radio for back up, and soon, Berni and a whole battalion of police cars are on the narrow Palermo streets chasing the van. The chase ends up on foot, and as one of the perpetrators tries to get away, Merli proves he can still throw a decent punch.

Meanwhile the US police fax through the details of Vito Fernando hoping for some background information. Upon seeing the fax, Berni realises that Fernando is actually Barresi hiding out in the USA.

Misguided by his lawyer, Barresi voluntarily turns him to the police. He figures they do not know he is Baressi, and he has committed no crime in the U.S. Except for illegal entry. But Berni notifies them otherwise and convinces one of Barresi’s footsoldiers, Salvatore Scalia (Biagio Pelligra) to act as a witness against Barresi. That way he can be extradited back to Italy to stand trial.

But it isn’t as simple as that. Naturally Barresi doesn’t want to be extradited or stand trial so he arranges for every hood between Palermo and New York to kill Berni and Scalia. With every mob enforcer on their trail, Berni and Scalia’s trip is vigorous and fraught with danger.

This film is more atmospheric and less visceral than some of Merli’s earlier poliziotteschi films, and it is aided by a story that makes sense. It features investigative police work, rather than Merli simply being in the right place at the right time or beating up snitches for a scrap of information.

I enjoyed From Corleone To Brooklyn. It is more mature than some of Merli and director Umberto Lenzi’s other collaborations, but sadly this would be the last time they would work together.

You’ll Never Take Me Alive

The Life And Death Of Bushranger Ben Hall (2005)

Author: Nick Bleszynski

‘I might as well have the game as the blame’.

As a bright eyed youngster, all of nine years old, I remember at school, every Thursday afternoon we’d listen to the ABC radio’s musical school program. Every week they’d teach kids from all over the country a new song. Most of the song’s were sugary confections. One that sticks in my head to this day is The Streets Of Forbes. Maybe it was the violence in the song, or purely the mystique of a Bushranger, but since then I have had a fascination with Ben Hall (and all Bushrangers really).

So I was pretty happy when I came across ‘You’ll Never Take Me Alive’ by Nick Bleszynski. And I have to say it is one of the best books I have read recently. It is fact based fictionalised account (I think they call that ‘faction’ these days) of the life of legendary Bushranger Ben Hall. Who was Ben Hall? He was a notorious bushranger, who operated in North West – New South Wales from 1862 to 1865. He was responsible for one of the biggest robberies of the time, the Eurowra gold escort, collected him (and his gang) a tidy $14,000 in gold. As with all Bushrangers, his reign of terror was brought to an end with a shootout with police. He was found riddled with 36 bullets in his body. These days, Hall is overshadowed by the legend of Ned Kelly, but his story is well worth telling and equally compelling. The book is a rollicking read from it’s poetic opening till the historical notes at the back.

One of my favourite passages from the book takes place after Hall has become an outlaw, and the troopers are trying to track him down and bring him to justice. One after another, the troopers continually arrest innocent men, believing that they are Hall. Then it occurs to Hall, that the troopers don’t really know what he looks like. So he gets on his horse and rides into the township of Forbes. He goes to the local gentlemen’s outfitter, and at gunpoint acquires the best suit that they have. Now dressed to the nines, he makes his way to the local photographer. Once again at gunpoint, he has the photographer take a portrait shot. Hall then arranges for prints to be sent to all the police stations and posts in the area.

Hall was pretty brash and arrogant, but was he an outlaw? Well, yes. But with all stories like this, there are circumstances that drove him to a life of crime. I couldn’t put this book down. Highly recommended.

Revolver

There’s one trait in Italian crime thrillers that I really admire. Nearly all of them, no matter how hyper stylised and cartoon like they may be during their running time, at the end they have a touch of realism. Rarely does the hero ride off into the sunset with his girl by his side. Think about EuroCrime favourite Maurizio Merli – how many times has he been shot in the back during the final reel? Revolver is a not a cop film in the usual sense – American or Italian. It can be argued that the hero, Vito Cipriani (Oliver Reed) does make it to the end, and he has his girl by his side, but the film still ends on a cynical, realist note. Just before the credits roll, Cipriani’s wife, Anna (Agostina Belli) pulls away from him, disgusted at the man he has become. But as usual, I am getting ahead of myself – I am talking about the end credits and I’ve only just started the review.

Milo Ruiz (Fabio Testi) and his best friend are small time hoods. When this film opens it finds them running from the police after a robbery has gone wrong. Ruiz’s friend has been shot in the stomach and is losing a lot of blood. Ruiz manages to hot wire a car and the two of them make their getaway out of town. They pull up beside a stony river bed. Ruiz’s friend pleads not to allow the police to find his body. He doesn’t want to be taken to a morgue and chopped up by the coroner. Ruiz promises that won’t happen. After his friend has died, Ruiz buries him under some rocks by the river.

Some time later, we meet Vito Cipriani – the warden of an Italian prison. One afternoon he is called into the prison to deal with a prisoner, armed with a knife who is causing a riot in the prison’s hospital. Cipriani handles the situation quickly and effectively and then returns home to his wife, only to find she isn’t in the house. Cipriani then receives a telephone call from two men who have kidnapped his wife, Anna. They demand that Cipriani arranges the release from his prison, a prisoner named Milo Ruiz, or his wife will be killed. Cipriani hasn’t go much choice, but explores every avenue possible before agreeing to release Ruiz.

But rather than take the blame for Ruiz’s release, Cipriani makes it look like an escape. Cipriani takes Ruiz into an interrogation room and beats the crap out of him. This results in Ruiz being transferred to the prison’s hospital. Then Cipriani calls away the hospital guard giving Ruiz the opportunity to escape.

Ruiz grabs the opportunity with both hands, but once over the wall he is picked up at gunpoint by Cipriani. He isn’t the type to ‘hope’ that the kidnappers keep their side of the bargain. He wants Ruiz as a bargaining chip to make sure they keep to their word.

Trading Ruiz for Anna doesn’t go as planned. The kidnappers try to double cross Cipriani, and when that doesn’t work they flee with Anna to Paris. Meanwhile Ruiz and Cipriani form an uneasy alliance and both choose to follow the kidnappers to Paris to find and release Anna.

Revolver is a pretty good tough thriller. It may not have the same heart pounding car chase scenes that other popular Italian thrillers have, but it doesn’t need them. This film has a solid centre in the form of Oliver Reed. Reed gives a characteristically intense performance that drives this film on. Fabio Testi’s performance is lighter, and it times it seems like it is all a game to Ruiz. And in some ways it is a game. Not a particularly nice game, and one that seems to have the odds stacked fairly against the two anti-heroes.

The Big Racket

In 1987, when Robocop was released at the cinemas, I was living in the Central Victorian city of Bendigo. Like most of my peers, I hopped along to the Golden Twin cinemas to see Paul Verhoeven’s cyborg action flick. What really impressed me was not the stylised violence but the moderate language. It proved you could make a good blood and guts movie without every second word being ‘fuck’!

Of course, when it was released on video, with the language re-instated, I released that the version I had seen at the cinemas had been edited and it wasn’t the director’s vision to have ‘clean language’ in his film. That brings as to the Eurocrime thriller The Big Racket, which is a pumped up, tough, stylised cop movie from director Enzo G. Castellari. The English dub of this film is almost laughable in it’s restraint. Instead of calling a character a ‘bastard’, they call him a ‘basket’ (I guess – short for ‘basket case’). And the word ‘shit’ is replaced with ‘diddly’. So in the film, there are great dialogue exchanges like, ‘…we’re up diddly creek without a paddle…we’re in deep diddly…’ It’s a sad reflection on my character, but strangely, this crazy dialogue only added to my enjoyment of the film.

I know that Eurocrime films are formulaic, but one of the reasons I enjoy watching them is ticking off the set pieces I expect to see. In The Big Racket nearly all the boxes are ticked. Fabio Testi, plays Inspector Nico Palmieri. Palmieri is a tough cop, who is continually frustrated by the system and his superiors (tick). Palmieri, is a tough cop, whose partner is killed in the line of duty (tick). Palmieri, is a tough cop, who is kicked off the force for using unconventional methods (tick). Sadly, as each of these scenes is played out on my television screen, I cry out ‘YES’ and pump my fist into the air with approval. The one thing the film is missing, is a car chase through the streets of Rome, and a fruit vendor stall being knocked over – I guess we can’t have everything.

The Big Racket does have a plot about a vicious gang who run a collection racket. As far as Eurocrime plots go, it’s more cohesive than most. But you really don’t need me to outline more than that – it’s loud, dumb, violent – and as far as I am concerned, it’s a great night’s entertainment.