Double Game comes to DVD in a pretty damn impressive two disc set and the extras are spread out across the set as follows:

Disc One:

Aside from the feature, the first disc also includes a brief introduction to the film from director Carlo Ausino. Make sure you've got the English subtitles enabled for this one if you want to check it out as it's in Italian and they don't automatically pop up there on the screen. Ausino is a good spirited type and he just gives us a basic run down of what it is we're about to see. Ausino is also the subject of a twenty-two minute long interview segment entitled Double Game, One Player in which he talks about how he got his start making movies, his work in and around the city of Turin, the differences between American and Italian cities, and he how became a self taught movie maker.

From there, we move on to three short films, all directed by Ausino and available with introductions from the director. The first one is a sixteen minute short entitled Christmas Tale, in which he tried to break away from the genre labels that had been put upon him by directing a film about a sad girl who tries to killer herself only to be saved by a homeless man. The second is an eighteen minute film entitled Il Trailer which is Ausino's tribute to John Carpenter. It tells the story of a spokeswoman (Kristin George) who has to promote a film that she doesn't believe in and who gets trapped in her car. Ausino plays the director of the film in this keen little horror movie. The final short on the first disc is A Modern Fairy Tale, which clocks in at twenty-four minutes. It's related to Ausino's Killer's Playlist in an interesting way and in it Ausino explains how a certain actress came to work with him and how it all panned out.

Rounding out the extras on the first disc are the Italian theatrical trailer for the film as Torino Violenta as well as a very impressive still gallery of promotional artwork and behind the scenes photographs that have apparently come from Ausino's personal collection.

Disc Two:

The biggest and best of the extra features on this release is the inclusion of the rare sequel to Double Game< 1980's Tony, L'Altra Faccia Della Torino Violenta, once again directed and co-written by Carlo Ausino. The original elements for this film have been lost so this presentation is taken from Ausino's own personal 35mm print of the film and while the video quality isn't perfect on the anamorphic 2.35.1 transfer, No Shame have obviously put some effort into cleaning it up as best they can.

In the film, which clocks in at just shy of ninety-minutes, Emanuel Cannarsa plays a loner named Tony who gets stuck in the middle of a bit of nastiness and winds up learning just a little too much about a local kidnapping ring. This puts him on the wrong side of a gang of thugs as well as on the wrong side of the cops – he's stuck in the middle with no one to depend on but himself. This film shows some growth and maturity in Ausino's style and in many ways is better than it's predecessor. The simple act of allowing a phone to ring just a little too long in the opening few minutes set us up for some strangeness to come, and the twists in this film work better and are more effective than in the first one. Granted, it doesn't have Hilton's screen presence to play off of but Cannarsa does a fine job in the lead and he's plenty tough enough to carry the movie. Some of the kidnapping scenes are pretty brutal and a little disturbing, they get under your skin in that although they're not all that gratuitous, they show us enough of the horror to let our minds make up the rest. A scene where a woman wakes up with tape over her mouth laying in the filth of a nearby beach is simply eerie. If you enjoyed the 'feature attraction' on the first disc, definitely do check out the sequel, which is a much darker and grittier feeling film, and a more effective one at that. A couple of bloody shoot outs and car chases remind us we're watching a Polizia movie, but the emphasis here is as much on suspense as on anything else, even if the disco scene in this one makes you kind of snicker under your breath.

Rounding out the extras on the second disc is a newsreel that Ausino shot in 1974 entitled The Burning Of The Marcus Department Stores In Torino which is exactly what it sounds like. This black and white footage (three minutes in total, presented here completely silent, fullframe) of the department store on fire was restored from Ausino's 16mm elements and it relates to the film in that it gives us a real life look at some of Torino, the city where the feature and its sequel take place. Trailers for a film called Sahara Killing (which was never completed) and Ausino's latest film, Killer's List can also be found on this disc, the later with yet another introduction from Ausino.

Last but not least, Richard Harland Smith contributes a nice essay that details the history of the film and its sequel. Biographies are included for Hilton and the Ausino and a brief history of film in Torino is also included.

Double Game might not offer up anything new to Polizia fans but it has all the required staples of the genre and makes for a decent time killer. No Shame has truly gone the extra mile in the presentation however, and including the rarely seen sequel along with all the short films and other extras makes this one historically important for Euro-crime fans and the two disc set comes recommended.

Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop!. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.