Fausto Tozzi — Actor (12)
Power Kill (1973) [Movie] IMDb Douban
Dio, sei proprio un padreterno!
other title: 贼王杀手 / Il suo nome faceva tremare
Frankie Dio (Lee VanCleef) is a high-ranking mobster who turns himself in to the police or illegal gambling (for reasons that seem unclear to me). Tony (Tony Lo Bianco) is a low-level thug who frequents a pool hall and spends his free time envying Frankie. By being in the right place at the right time, Tony gets arrested with Frankie and is sent to jail... where they form a bond that may not quite be friendship, but it will do for now.
This film came to me under the title of "Frank and Tony", which is disappointing because I see an alternate name is "Mean Frank and Crazy Tony", which would have helped sell the film more effectively. I presume that's an homage to "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry" but what do I know? I watched it shortly after another Italian crime film, "Violent Professionals", and I must say the two complement each other very well.
Italians have always lagged behind Americans in their budgets and production values, which is a real shame with this film. It is considered a "grindhouse" film, which unfairly demotes it to a b-movie (or worse). With a cleaner sound and picture, this could have been a Hollywood hit, I suspect. I found the story very interesting, the characters (and actors) better than average and unlike "Violent Professionals" the plot is fairly clear -- not too many secondary characters.
The Demise of Father Mouret (1970) [Movie] WikiData IMDb TMDB
La Faute de l'abbé Mouret
other title: Die Sünde des Abbé Mouret / La Faute de l'abbé Mouret
Serge Mouret is a frail and devout young priest in a tough country parish. When he falls down and loses his memory, he is nursed back to health by Albine, the beautiful carefree niece of the outspoken atheist Jeanbernat. After Serge and Albine fall in love, Serge recovers his memory and realizes the grave sin he has committed.
Mercenaries of the Rio Grande (1965) [Movie] WikiData IMDb TMDB
Der Schatz der Azteken
other title: Der Schatz der Azteken / Le trésor des Aztèques
Dr. Karl Sternau, the personal physician of the count Bismarck, who spent much of his youth in Mexico, is sent back to that country during the occupation by French troops in the service of the Austrian 'Emperor' Maximilian, to carry an encouraging letter from U.S. President Lincoln to the nationalist Mexican president Benito Juarez.
Los cornudos (1971) [Movie] IMDb Douban
Mazzabubù... quante corna stanno quaggiù?
director: Mariano Laurenti actor: Ugo Adinolfi / Maurizio Arena
other title: Mazzabubù... quante corna stanno quaggiù?
Diversos episodios que giran en torno a casos tanto celebres como anónimos de aventuras extraconyugales.
The Valachi Papers (1972) [Movie] WikiData IMDb TMDB
The Valachi Papers
other title: 살인 영장 / バラキ
When Joe Valachi has a price put on his head by Don Vito Genovese, he must take desperate steps to protect himself while in prison. An unsuccessful attempt to slit his throat puts him over the edge to break the sacred code of silence.
Between Miracles (1971) [Movie] WikiData IMDb TMDB
Per grazia ricevuta
other title: Der schielende Heilige / Miracle à l'italienne
Benedetto is a child who came out of an accident uninjured on his first communion's day. The people of his village attribute that to a miracle and made him undergo a strict religious upbringing. That fact will determine his life, which will be affected by inner torment caused by the confrontation between sexual desires and sacrifices of faith, sin and grace.
Cry of a Prostitute (1974) [Movie] Douban
Quelli che contano
director: Adelchi Bianchi / Andrea Bianchi actor: Henry Silva / Barbara Bouchet
other title: 杀手龙虎斗 / Quelli che contano
Leave it to Italian sleazemeister Andreas Bianchi (here co-directing with his brother)to take a brutally violent and borderline misogynist genre like the Italian "polizieschi" and actually up the ante considerably. This movie begins with drug dealers trying to smuggle drugs into Italy sewed up in the body of a dead child(!), and it only gets more gratuitously violent from there. A brutal gang war is going between a traditional Italian mafia family and an Americanized godfather who has been deported back to Italy. Injected into this conflict is another Italian-American gangster, the protagonist (Henry Silva), and he begins to play the two rivals off against each other in the style of "A Fistful of Dollars" or "Yojimbo".
Silva's character might seem like the good guy, or at least the kind of anti-hero Clint Eastwood played in "Fistful" and other Westerns (and later in "Dirty Harry" which was a big influence on the Italian polizieschi). But the Silva character himself is quite psychotic when it comes to women, specifically the masochistic prostitute/mistress of the American gangster (played by Barbara Bouchet). The first time they meet he violently sodomizes her. And when she comes back for more he beats her with a belt. Now I have to admit the description I read somewhere of a naked Bouchet being whipped by a belt did not exactly dissuade me from seeing this, but it's not an accurate one. She is not naked (at least in that scene) and he literally beats her to a bloody pulp. Even her boyfriend, who otherwise is content to throw the promiscuous girl at his erstwhile partner, is horrified by the brutal beating and vows revenge.
This scene squanders any goodwill toward Silva's character (which may have been the intention, I don't know), but also toward the film itself--it's pretty hard to take even for someone like me accustomed to the casual misogyny of the genre. It certainly doesn't help that the actress is Barbara Bouchet, who along with Edwige Fenech and Rosalba Neri, was (and still is) one of the most popular European exploitation actresses of the era (although this probably would have been only marginally more palatable if it had been some anonymous Euro-bimbo). To its credit this movie at least can't be accused of glorifying any of its gangster characters like some other "polizieschi" tended to do. Still it might be a little bit too much for many viewers.