It should come as no surprise that Andrea Bianchi's only crime film contains exploitative and lurid elements. He is the director of Burial Ground and Strip Nude For Your Killer after all. There are scenes in this like someone's head being shoved through a bone saw and Henry Silva sodomizing Barbara Bouchet while putting her face in a pig carcass. Apart from those elements there is plenty of fun to be had. One of the best shootouts and some of the best gunshot blood squibs in any Eurocrime movie. An awesome theme by composer Sante Maria Romitelli that Henry Silva whistles whenever he kills people. Henry Silva getting in bar fights after people spill wine on his shoes. It also brings in some topical themes about Mafia ethics like should kids be killed in gang wars and should people's dead bodies be used to transport heroin.
The film starts with a couple getting past customs with drugs. They then get into a car crash where you a get a staple of Italian genre movies which is slow motion broken glass. The guy's head falls off as a dummy effect which is another staple of these movies. The police find heroin inside the woman's chest. The Mafia dons have a meeting where one, Don Cascemi (Vittorio Sanipoli) says he doesn't want children getting killed and they talk about two gangs in a war. Cascemi is followed and lured to a random area in the woods where somehow Tony Aniante (Henry Silva) is also waiting. This starts the theme of him whistling the main theme as he kills men. He shoots them all in the head with a Luger. Cascemi and him have a really cool conversation in code about "getting rid of the rotten apples," meaning the two gangs against each other.
Aniante travels to some village, with some fantastic location shooting by the way. He meets the two warring Dons, Don Ricuzzo (Fausto Tozzi) and Don Turi (Mario Landi). He does many different things to play both sides. When he shows up men from one of the families are transporting cherries along with suitcases of heroin. He lets those men be killed by the other family and then kills those men and takes the cherries to Don Turi. Later when Don Turi's grandson is going to be kidnapped he takes to men of Don Ricuzzo's kills them both but then takes the cherries and heroin back to Don Ricuzzo to prove his loyalty. This whole setup, including once when you get to the end where he is beaten after trying to save two of the more innocent people caught in the crossfire is just like Yojimbo or a Fistful of Dollars.
Along the way though Silva manages to have some fun. Not just whistling and killing people but getting into an awesome bar fight against four other people. The later shootout between the two families is great complete with a high body count, bloody shotgun slow motion blood squibs, and more broken glass. While Don Turi is more of a family man, Don Ricuzzo is not above capturing children for his own ends and is married to a former prostitute named Margie (Barbara Bouchet) who takes an interest in Tony. They start trysting behind the scenes, though this is after she locks him in a room and threatens to scream rape if he doesn't do what she wants. This is a troubling sequence but for the time it fit in with so many movies like Straw Dogs where it seemed like women wanted that kind of rough authority. The rape her till she likes it mentality which would never be in movies now. Barbara Bouchet looks great here by the way. I would also add there is another scene later where she threatens to tell tell Don Ricuzzo about Tony playing both sides and he beats her with a belt and slaps her around. While this does Tony no favors as a heroic character he also is trying to help two other more innocent people caught in the middle and seems to be taking out her frustration on her because he can.
Spoilers for the End
There is one shootout late in the film that resembles the day for night or late night shooting of the graveyard scene in a Fistful of Dollars where Don Ricuzzo mortally wounds Don Turi. Tony is trying to help one of Don Turi's sons and another innocent girl Carmela (Patrizia Gori) as they are in love. It's not to be as the son is killed by a throwing knife. Tony chases them but gets cornered and beaten. Again a beat from the movies I've mentioned all ready. He eventually goes to face off with Don Ricuzzo only they don't know he isn't alone and Don Casemi's men help him end the gang war. In a final twist, the flashbacks Tony is shown to be having are to Don Cascemi killing his mother who was playing the whistling tune on a record as it happened. Tony kills him and takes over the gang. I enjoy Henry Silva's different vocal performance with a busted lip toward the end. I also like the Leone style editing with the music of the flashbacks.
This is one of my favorite of the more gangster centric Eurocrime movies and has the sleaze and lurid elements to please fans of that crowd as well. It feels like Leone tribute and a spaghetti western made in 1970s Sicily. Barbara Bouchet is also gorgeous as ever. The first time we see her she presents herself as a sort of temptress by seductively rubbing her thigh and her breast. She also does the same later while eating a banana. I think this movie could have benefitted a little more from making her a femme fatale, though it seems Tony was actually smart enough to not fall for her completely which maybe was the point.
Rating: 9/10
English Dubbing Cast:
- Edward Mannix dubs Mario Landi as Don Turi
- Michael Forest dubs Fausto Tozzi as Don Ricuzzo
You can watch this movie here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj6K4VFEyiw&t=1850s
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