Watching the Italian-made but America-set Hitch-Hike (Autostop rosso sangue, or "Red-Blood Hitchhiking," 1977), I was struck by the degree to which this film resembles another Italian production, Mario Bava's brilliant Rabid Dogs (aka Kidnapped), shot in 1974 but unreleased until 1997 or 1998 (sources differ). The main investor of that production died in a car crash, the producer went bankrupt and the Italian court seized the film.

The similarities are probably coincidental yet striking. Bava's film was shot in the fall of 1973 on an extremely low budget - so low in fact that Bava had to fire its original cinematographer and shoot everything himself to save money. Rabid Dogs is nothing like Bava's more famous Euro-horror films of the 1960s yet remains one of his best films.

Hitch-Hike is also excellent. It's glossier (though still inexpensive compared to A...Read the entire review

Killer Cop (1975), an Italian poliziottesco (police thriller, often with a political subtext), is fairly good for its type, despite a meandering script and some sloppily directed action here and there.

The plot is based on the 1969 Piazza Fontana terrorist bombing in Milan, which killed 17 and wounded 88. As in Killer Cop, the attack was initially blamed on anarchists, including one suspect, Giuseppe Pinelli, who died in police custody after jumping, falling or, most likely, being pushed out of a fourth-floor window. Neo-fascists affiliated with the far right Ordine Nuovo, rather than left-wing anarchists, were eventually charged but, incredibly, the case dragged on through three trials lasting until 2005. Key defendants were acquitted for lack of evidence. One now resides in Japan under a Japanese name.

For non-Italians, the movie is still fairly gripping and has many ...Read the entire review

The Movie:
Antonio Margheriti had a long career in Italian cinema, and even quite a bit of international success. Most genre fans will recognize his name, or at least his films, like Cannibal Apocalypse, Yor, the Hunter from the Future, and Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye. Castle of Blood is considered by some to be his masterpiece, and though I enjoyed that movie, now that I've seen Long Hair of Death, the film I'll be reviewing today, I definitely prefer it.

Long Hair of Death stars the enigmatic beauty Barbara Steele, much beloved by Italian Gothic directors, in a dual role as Helen, a woman ill-treated when she tries to save her friend from false accusations of witchcraft, and Mary, who returns to the same castle many years later and seduces the vicious Kurt (Georg...Read the entire review

Italian genre director Fernando Di Leo has, justly, recently been the recipient of much overdue attention for his ‘70s poliziotteschi crime films (Caliber 9, Shoot First, Die Later, etc.) but those expecting a similarly thrilling giallo-cum-horror movie in Slaughter Hotel (La bestia uccide a sangue freddo, or "The Beast Kills in Cold Blood," 1971), as I was, are in for a disappointment. The movie is a strange, notably illogical fusing of the emerging slasher horror film and the erotic thriller. It is, alas, light years away, quality-wise, from something like Mario Bava's seminal Twitch of the Death Nerve (aka Bay of Blood), released that same year. Co-written by Di Leo as well, it's both preposterous and boring, and very nearly pornographic in its obsession with naked flesh, particularly lingering, clinical close-ups of women's vaginas and butto...Read the entire review

The Movie:

The Conformist came out in 1970, immediately cementing Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci as one of cinema's most visionary figures. Complex, violent, and utterly gorgeous, it stands as one of the best European films from the fertile '70s - and that's saying a lot. A new, restored Blu Ray release from Raro Video is a cause for celebration, even if the picture quality on this film known for its fantastic cinematography (by the great Vittorio Storaro) seems a bit lacking.

I first saw bits of The Conformist on the big screen in 1992, when it was included in the documentary on great film photography Visions of Light. The clips they included were seductive, glossy images fit for display in a upscale art gallery: a woman dancing in a striped dress that matches the venetian blind-slatted sunlight in the room, a dolly shot of people exiting a car dominated by blowi...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Previously released on DVD by Media Blasters/Shriek Show, Rino Di Silvestro's notorious Werewolf Woman (alternately known in domestically as The Legend Of The Wolf Woman) lives again, now on Blu-ray courtesy of Raro Video. Those expecting something akin to a Lon Chaney or even a Paul Naschy style werewolf movie will no doubt walk away from this one scratching their heads, but fans of prime Euro-trash should step right up without hesitation!

The film opens with a remarkable scene in which a very naked woman (Annik Borel) does some sort of ritualistic dance out in the woods before transforming into something that kinda-sorta looks like a werewolf. From there, she's caught by the requisite angry mob of villagers who then proceed to put her to death. It turns out that this is all just a nightmare experienced by a woman named Daniela (Borel again) who lives with h...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

The 1953 anthology movie Love in the City (L'amore in citta') was intended as the first issue in an ongoing cinematic magazine, like a twice-yearly edition of "60 Minutes" shown in movie theaters, each time exploring a different topic from several different angles.

In this case, the subject is as the title suggests: love in its many forms and how it manifests in Rome. Though, it's love in the broadest sense, with a more precise focus being what it's like to be an Italian woman trying to get by in the modern world. Romance is not in great evidence.

Put together by pioneering director and film theorist Cesare Zavattini, who also directs Love in the City's longest sequence, Love in the City is Neorealism in practice, blurring the lines between documentary and fiction. Amongst its many young filmmakers are future luminaries Michelangelo Antonioni ...Read the entire review

The Movie:

With 1953's I Vinti (a.k.a. The Vanquished), master Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni examined the post-World War II epidemic of crime then affecting Europe. In three different episodes, the scourge of "the burnt out generation" is shown with well-off youths facing the consequences of idolizing gangsters, comic book violence, and superficiality. This unusual early entry in Antonioni's filmography has gotten a nice treatment from Raro Video with a comprehensive, Criterion-like package.

Not as stylized as Antonioni's later films, yet sharing a similar sense of nihilism and exasperation, I Vinti is set up as a cautionary "true crime" effort which oftens plays like the juvenile delinquent movies being done in the U.S. The urgency of the problem is conveyed with an opening newsreel-like montage in which a narrator explains how the children who were exposed t...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Directed by Alberto Cavallone, Blue Movie begins with a harrowing scene in which a beautiful young woman named Silvia (Dirce Funari) is brutally raped out in the rural Italian countryside. She survives the assault and tries to head back to civilization when she's picked up by Claudio (Claude Maran), a photographer. He takes her back to his place and we assume he'll get her the help that she obviously needs, but it soon becomes obvious that this is not going to be the case. Claudio is holding Silvia hostage.

From here we meet Daniela (Danielle Dugas), a model that Claudio shoots. It doesn't take long before his tendency to spew hatred and nastiness to her shows up and his obvious ‘need' to control women takes shape. She's coerced into going down on him, after which he beats her. Soon enough, he's got Daniela held in his studio, using her and abusing her as he sees ...Read the entire review

The Movie:

While Italian director Umberto Lenzi will always be best known for directing the notorious Cannibal Ferox (a.k.a. Make Them Die Slowly) and other horror pictures, he actually had a pretty serious knack for crime pictures. Almost Human, starring Tomas Milian and Henry Silva, is probably the most popular of the films he made in that genre but 1973's Gang War In Milan (made a year before Almost Human) is a really strong entry in his filmography that should not be overlooked.

Co-written by Lenzi and Franco Enna, the story takes place (not surprisingly) in Milan where a mob boss named Salvatore Cangemi (Antonio Sabato) rules the prostitution racket with an iron fist. He keeps tabs on things, he protects his girls and he makes a pretty good penny doing it. Understandably, when one of the best earners in his group winds up dead in a swimming poo...Read the entire review

The Movie:

When director Duccio Tessari's grim thriller Death Occurred Last Night begins we meet a man named Berzaghi (Raf Vallone) as he visits a policeman cop named Lamberti (Frank Wolff). Berzaghi is understandably upset that his only daughter, Donatella (Gillian Bray), has disappeared and not been seen for a good month now, though the fact that Donatella is twenty-five years old gives Lamberti pause to think until the concerned single parent tells him that she's mentally handicapped. As her mental growth seems to have stopped at pre-school age, Berzaghi has done what he can to shelter the girl from the world, her tendency to flirt with men obviously causing some problems. Berzaghi convinces Lamberti to take the case and together, with some help from a younger cop named Mascaranti (Gabriele Tinti), they start investigating.

When it turns out that Donatella may have been kid...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Franco Prosperi's 1976 Italo-cop picture Meet Him And Die stars genre stalwart Ray Lovelock as a tough guy named Massimo. When the movie begins, he puts on a ski mask, grabs his pistol and heads into a jewelry store but an alarm goes off and he winds up locked inside. The cops are outside and he knows he's outnumbered and outgunned but he makes a break for it anyway. He gets caught and is promptly tossed into a jail where the inmates all wear street clothes and the guards deem it accessible for the prisoners to drink wine out of glass bottles.

Once he's on the inside, he meets Giulianelli (Martin Balsam), a high ranking mobster who is running things Al Capone style from his posh cell. They become friends fairly quickly and soon enough, Mossimo and Giulianelli bust out of prison. When Giulianelli is shot and Mossimo saves him, the mobster gives the young man a job in...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Directed by Liliana Cavani in 1970, I Cannibali (or Year Of The Cannibals if you prefer) is set in the city of Milan where the government has cracked down on radicals and left their bodies littering the streets as a warning sign of sorts. The bodies come from all spectrums of life, male and female, young and old alike but it seems that the young outnumber the old by quite a margin. The government refuses to allow anyone to bury them but a young woman named Antigone (Britt Ekland) goes against society's rules when she finds that her brother has been killed.

She heads into the city intent on finding his body and giving it a proper burial and enlists the aid of a man named Tiresia (Pierre Clemente). They find and deal with the body of Antigone's brother and then set about trying to bury any of the others that they're able to. Adding to all of this is the presenc...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

Francesco Rosi's 1970 anti-war film Many Wars Ago (Uomini Contro) is a bleak portrayal of the politics of combat and the very real cost of battle. Though set on the front lines of World War I, where Italian artillery square off against their Austrian enemy, it feels very much a product of its time, in touch with the Vietnam conflict and all of the ways that war was going wrong.

Many Wars Ago is basically a three-way conflict between two lieutenants and their general. Out in the muddy trenches, a combat unit is tasked with taking back a useless hill that serves as little more than a point on a map. General Leone (Alain Cuny, The Milky Way, Emmanuelle) is a strident peacock who goes by the book...Read the entire review

Dateline! 1980. Rumors have started making the rounds about some sort of accident at the nuclear power plant down the way. TV news reporter Dean Miller (Hugo Stiglitz) figures if anyone could give him the inside scoop, it's Dr. Hagenbeck, one of the world's foremost experts on nuclear energy. As he waits impatiently on the tarmac for the professor's plane to touch down, the security staff at the airport all of a sudden starts

Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/62804 Tue, 03 Dec 2013 07:21:40 UTC Recommended Sometimes a classic foreign film doesn't age well, and that seems to be the case of what's called General della Rovere on RaroVideo's spine but Il generale Della Rovere on the cover. This big, prestigious production directed by Roberto Rossellini and starring Vittorio De Sica won the Golden Lion at the 1959 Venice Film Festival (tied with Mario Monicelli's The Great War) and numerous other international prizes, and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 1962 Academy Awards. But I found it talky, a bit slow, highly predictable, and artificial, the latter an unusual complaint against the Father of Italian Neorealism. This artifice apparently springs from a specific desire to rush the film through production in order to have it ready for competition at the Venice Film Festival, a strategy that obviously paid off. But it's a handsome looking movie and De Sica gives an int...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/61814 Sun, 13 Oct 2013 20:27:02 UTC Skip It Mr. Fargo (Riccardo Garrone) has amassed a fortune for himself by smuggling some of the most impoverished [click on the thumbnail to enlarge] peasants in Mexico across the border. If Fargo and his men make it into the U.S. u...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/60627 Thu, 01 Aug 2013 13:22:48 UTC Highly Recommended Raro Video's four-film DVDs of Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection impressed me quite a bit back in 2011 when I first had the chance to review it. Now, on Blu-ray, comes Fernando Di Leo: The Italian Crime Collection Vol. 2, new HD transfers of less familiar and dramatically inconsistent Di Leo titles: Naked Violence (I ragazzi del massacro, 1969), Shoot First ... Die Later (Il poliziotto e marcio, 1974), and Kidnap Syndicate (La citta sconvolta: Caccia spietata ai rapitori, 1975). While there are some thematic links, to be sure, I found Naked Violence of little interest and Kidnap Syndicate a bit disappointing given its promising set-up. But Shoot First ... Die Later more than justi...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/57851 Wed, 29 Aug 2012 14:50:40 UTC Skip It THE MOVIE: Oh, so they had Cinemax in Italy, too? Because that would go a long way to explaining the existence of Madness (a.k.a. Vacanze per un Massacro), the 1980 yawner by noted director Fernando Di Leo. Madness is a bit of a misnomer, as there is nothing really mad about this film. There isn't anything that could be remotely described as a fever pitch, no story element that tilts the sanity meter. Madness is flat-line tits-and-ass hostage moviemaking, full stop. Andy Warhol-favorite Joe Dallesandro stars as the cleverly named Joe (tattooed on his arm so he won't forget). Joe is a thief and a killer who escapes from prison and makes a beeline ...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/55711 Fri, 10 Aug 2012 01:32:21 UTC Recommended The Movie: Directed by Fernando Di Leo , a man better known for his work in the Italian crime movie cycle of the seventies than for his horror movie output, Madness stars Warhol alumni Joe Dallesandro as Joe Brezzi, an escaped convict on the lam in rural Italy after killing two people. All he wants to do is make it back to the cabin where he stashed his loot so that he can escape off to a wealthy life somewhere remote, but when he arrives he finds that three people have rented the place for a vacation. The inhabitants a man named Sergio (Gianni Macchia), his girlfriend Liliana (Patrizia Behn) and her sister, Paola (Lorraine De Selle) and although Joe knows they're there, he decides to wait it out a bit, watching Sergio and Liliana make love and then later seeing Paola make herself available to Sergio as well. When Sergio and Liliana head out, Paola is left alone and it's then tha...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/55299 Wed, 23 May 2012 19:48:32 UTC Recommended The Movie: Directed by Paolo Cavara in 1976, Plot Of Fear starts off like a Giallo but soon turns into a strange police thriller with some liberal doses of kinky sex and nasty murders thrown in to keep things interesting. The story follows a cop name Lomenzo (Michele Placido), who would soon make quite a name for himself as a director) who gets involved with a series of homicides in which the killer leaves at the scene of the crime an illustrated page from a children's book. Lomenzo reports to a few higher ups within the department (played by Tom Skerritt and Eli Wallach) but in his spare time, he boffs his foxy black supermodel girlfriend but is intrigued by a woman named Jeanne (Corinne Clery) who he meets seemingly completely by chance one day in the elevator of the building he lives in. When things head south with his girlfriend he and Jeanne strike up an interesting relation...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/54748 Sun, 08 Apr 2012 16:28:09 UTC Highly Recommended THE FILM: At the end of Luchino Visconti's biggest (and perhaps best) film, 1963's The Leopard, a kitten famously appears onscreen in the foreground as a final, rueful pun - a benevolent but diminished visual signifier of what the film's "leopard," the 19th-century aristocrat played by Burt Lancaster, has turned out to be after all. Lancaster returns to once more play the dignified-elder role in Visconti's penultimate effort, 1974's Conversation Piece (Gruppo di famiglia in un interno), and although it is not at all a sequel to The Leopard, it provides a kind of thematic coda; this time, Lancaster's high-minded, affluent protagonist, a refugee...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/55264 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 04:46:12 UTC Highly Recommended Young, Violent, Dangerous (Liberi armati pericolosi, 1976) is, despite its genre and character clichés, a solid poliziotteschi about three young men on a bloody crime spree. The picture was adapted from Giorgio Scerbanenco's novel by Fernando di Leo, who as a director is the subject of an acclaimed four-film boxed set from last year. This film, directed by Romolo Guerrieri, is about on the level of those. It's extremely violent (though not especially graphic) and despairing, but imaginative and intelligent with socio-political content and an adult approach. Raro Video's DVD is generally good, though the 1.85:1 film is presented in 4 x 3 widescreen rather than given 16:9 enhancement. Zoomed in on widescreen TVs the picture doesn't suff...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/54566 Sun, 18 Mar 2012 14:37:46 UTC Recommended THE MOVIE: The 1963 Italian film La visita (The Visitor) is a mild romantic comedy starring Sandra Milo (the mistress from 8 1/2) as Pina, a mid-30s woman in Northern Italy looking for love. The movie opens at the train station where she waits for Adolfo (Francois Perier, Le cercle rouge) to arrive from Rome. The two have been corresponding since Pina placed a personal ad stating her intention to marry. Adolfo is a clerk in a bookstore with few prospects, and so he has traveled to the country to meet his potential bride. The action in La visita takes place over a weekend as the pair get to kno...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/55051 Sun, 11 Mar 2012 02:22:25 UTC Highly Recommended THE MOVIE: "I'm not interested in people who lose control of their own destiny." Luchino Visconti's second-to-last picture, Conversation Piece (original title: Gruppo di famiglia in un interno) is a contemplative chamber drama. Released in 1974, it is perhaps the great Italian director's most modern effort, reflecting an old man's acceptance of the changes happening in the world around him while also establishing at least some sort of defense of all the things that came before. In his way, this is Visconti meeting the new generation halfway, simultaneously sharing the ways of old with them while taking a glimpse at what they have to offer. In between, he finds some unexpected commonalities. Burt Lancaster, who played a similar role in ...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/54738 Tue, 21 Feb 2012 02:36:52 UTC Rent It THE MOVIE: If you've never thought to yourself, "Hey, you know, a woman in her sixties learning how to drive would make a great subject for a movie," you probably aren't alone. And now that the idea is planted in your head, if you think that such a thing actually sounds pretty boring, you're not half wrong either. Surprise, surprise, such a film actually exists. The 1971 Italian feature The Automobile stars iconic movie star Anna Magani (Rome Open City, Mamma Roma) as Anna, a well-regarded prostitute in her 60s who has never owned her own car. Despite having such high regard in her social circle...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/52386 Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:32:39 UTC Highly Recommended THE FILMS: On the tangled family tree of Italian cinema, the films of Fernando di Leo grow from the same searingly colorful, genrefied, pulpy branch as those of Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, far removed from those well-sculpted, more prominent limbs bearing the fruits of your Antonionis, Bertolluccis, Viscontis, and Pasolinis. The nonchalantly all-...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/54310 Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:33:14 UTC Recommended The Movie: Lamberto Bava was never quite as talented or inspired as his father, Mario, but he put out some decent genre fare from time to time, not the least of which is underrated serial killer film Body Puzzle. It's not a great thriller in a wider perspective, but when viewed through the lens of Italian gialli and their offspring, it does offer some pleasant gonzo fun. The film opens with a young man (Francois Montagut) attempting to play the piano, but obviously wracked with sorrow, thinking back to a tragic motorcycle accident, in which his friend died. Seemingly without motive, the young man goes to a candy shop and stabs the clerk there to death, cutting off his ear, all the while listening to classical music on his headphones. We then cut to Tracy (Joanna Pacula), a recently widowed young book editor, whose husband we learn is the man who died in the accident. The killer wat...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/53937 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:38:35 UTC Recommended THE FILM: "I thank God I was raised Catholic, so sex will always be dirty." - John Waters Alberto Lattuada's 1970 film Come Have Coffee with Us (Venga a Prendere il Caffè... da Noi) has many of the trappings of a silly, vulgar, throwaway sex comedy, but it has something a bit more sinister on its mind than just that. Its slight, harmless appearance hides some provocative moral and aesthetic questions that are ultimately imposed on the audience, who--if they came just for the cheap laughs and trashy titillation that the film actually does offer, at least initially--will find themselves made progressively uncomfortable, until by the end any complacent desire for low-grade, exploitative escapism has been cruelly frustrated and turned bac...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/52515 Sat, 31 Dec 2011 22:53:39 UTC Recommended THE FILM: Italian filmmaker Alberto Lattuada has until recently been thoroughly overshadowed by countrymen like Fellini, Visconti, and Pasolini, all of whom, like Lattuada himself, cut their teeth in the post-WWII Italian Neorealist movement. Unlike Lattuada, however, those directors went on to fully develop idiosyncratic, personal cinematic visions and become internationally discussed and widely admired; Lattuada remained relatively unknown outside his homeland, and not until Criterion released his 1962 dark comedy Mafioso a few years back did he even have a single title available to American DVD renters a...Read the entire review ]]>