Quatermass 2 (1957)

Dir: VAL GUEST
Country: UNITED KINGDOM

AKA:
Enemy from Space

Nigel Kneale’s second adventure to feature the gifted British scientist Professor Quatermass, imaginatively titled Quatermass II, was broadcast on the BBC over six weeks in the Autumn of 1955. A change of lead actor saw John Robinson take on the role after the untimely death of Reginald Tate. No such fate befell Hammer Film Productions when they came to produce their own film treatment in 1957. Despite the protestations of Nigel Kneale who co-wrote the films screenplay, imported American actor Brian Donlevy was once again invited too assume the lead role. However the most important creative talent to return was writer/director Val Guest. Guest’s stylistic strategy and dynamic direction was arguably the decisive factor in the success of The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and his inclusion for the sequel was essential. Guest in fact manages to create a breathless pace which makes the first film seem sedentary and laboured. When this is coupled with a far more heroic turn for the Quatermass character, an intelligent and highly developed political and social dimension, and capable support from Bryan Forbes, John Longden, Sid James, and William Franklyn you have a film which marginally improves on the original.

The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

Dir: VAL GUEST
Country: UNITED KINGDOM

AKA:
The Creeping Unknown
Shock

Nigel Kneale’s BBC television drama The Quatermass Experiment was little short of a phenomenon when it was originally broadcast over six weeks in the summer of 1953. Audiences flocked to the cliffhanging science-fiction serial led by Reginald Tate as the eponymous British professor. Although Hammer Film Productions had a certain inbuilt audience for their big screen treatment, success was far from assured. This was a particularly fragile moment in the companies fortunes. Some histories strongly suggest that The Quatermass Xperiment was a make or break film for Hammer. Whether this is actually true or not, there is no doubt that the decision to explore the tropes of science-fiction and horror represented a last resort for a company that was increasingly running out of ideas. The film now has such a position of legendary prominence that its humble production shows what little ambition Hammer had for it. With a slight budget of just £45,000 and a faded imported American actor at the helm it’s clear Hammer felt other strategies were required to aid success. One of these was to brazenly flaunt the X certificate the film received from the BBFC, and to lure an audience that might otherwise have overlooked the film.

Massacre Time (1966)

Dir: LUCIO FULCI
Country: ITALY

AKA:
Tempo di massacro
Colt Concert
The Brute and the Beast

The superbly titled Massacre Time was Italian writer/director Lucio Fulci’s first of five adventures in the brutal and cynical landscape of the spaghetti western. Up to this point Fulci was chiefly known (if he was known at all) for writing and directing comedies. A career in stomach churning horror fantasies couldn’t have been further from his mind in the early 1960’s. Unfortunately many of Fulci’s early efforts were commercially unsuccessful and became instant obscurities. For those fans of Fulci wishing to go a little further than his horror and giallo productions Massacre Time often represents his first film of major interest. It is really the first of his films to explore the Sadean themes for which he would become notorious in his later career, but the credit for this must go to Fernando Di Leo for his brutal and unforgiving screenplay. Di Leo was on more familiar ground than Fulci. He had provided uncredited writing for A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965) as well as contributing screenplays to the Guiliano Gemma vehicle The Return of Ringo (1965) and collaborating on Seven Guns for the MacGregors (1966). The atmosphere of pessimistic desperation that permeates Massacre Time is a foreshadowing of Di Leo’s numerous contributions to the poliziotteschi cycle in the 1970’s, and is confirmation (should it be required) that Di Leo’s thematic obsessions are those that most inform Massacre Time.

How to Kill a Judge (1976)

Dir: DAMIANO DAMIANI
Country: ITALY

AKA:
Perche si uccide un magistrato

Damiano Damiani’s How to Kill a Judge is a low key thriller that sits uneasily within the poliziotteschi cycle to which it has been consigned. It is almost totally devoid of action set pieces, and is remarkably bloodless for a 1970’s Italian crime flick. Compared to the high octane thrills and spills of Enzo G. Castellari or Fernando Di Leo this is a sedentary affair that at times comes perilously close to total inertia. Damiani who co-wrote the screenplay with Enrico Ribulsi was clearly intent on making a very serious film in which social and political imperatives are far more important than the conventions of the cycle. In fact at times Damiani goes out of his way to frustrate generic expectations. This is in order to maintain the clarity of the films political purpose, a purpose which might otherwise have been undermined by a proliferation of stunts and gunfire. Damiani was no stranger to appropriating the conventions of a genre in order to pedal an ideological point of view. His western A Bullet for the General (1966) flaunts its leftist credentials, but importantly retains a high entertainment factor. His earlier poliziotteschi Confessions of a Police Commissioner to the District Attorney (1971) likewise retains its entertainment factor without compromising its ideological vision. How to Kill a Judge however is so entangled within its socio/political message that at times it forgets to be entertaining.

Contraband (1980)

Dir: LUCIO FULCI
Country: ITALY

AKA:
Luca il contrabbandiere
The Smuggler
The Naples Connection

Contraband was Italian writer/director Lucio Fulci’s only entry into the bitter and cynical terrain of the poliziotteschi. The films status as a departure for Fulci is indicated by the fact that it was made in between Zombi 2 (1979) and City of the Living Dead (1980), and at a time when the poliziotteschi cycle itself was on the decline. With Fulci’s incredibly competent approach to a myriad of genres it seems almost inconceivable now that he didn’t direct a crime picture at the height of the genre’s popularity in 1970’s Italy. One can only assume that either the cycle didn’t interest Fulci from a written point of view, or that no suitable project came to his attention. Either way the result of this is that Contraband has steadily built itself a reputation as a cult curiosity in Fulci’s filmography. Its position has not been helped by substandard and patchwork distribution. Zombi 2 was the most successful film in Fulci’s long and illustrious career, but the film that followed it sank without a trace into a murky distribution limbo. Fortunately this was redressed with the release of Contraband in an uncut form on DVD by American distributor Blue Underground in 2004.

The Heroin Busters (1977)

Dir: ENZO G. CASTELLARI
Country: ITALY

AKA:
La vie della droga
Drug Street

The Heroin Busters was director Enzo G. Castellari’s fourth poliziotteschi flick after High Crime (1973), Street Law (1974), and The Big Racket (1976). By now Castellari was as firmly associated with adrenaline pumping contemporary set thrillers as he was with the dust and bloodshed of the Euro-western. The difference between his westerns and poliziotteschi efforts was purely cosmetic. All of these films follow the narrative structures of the western and The Heroin Busters is no exception. This particular title has a reputation for being the weak link in Castellari’s 1970’s poliziotteschi quartet, but I find it to be the most entertaining and enjoyable. It has a certain hyper-stylised excessiveness that is lacking in the other three, and whilst this might be used as a criticism by some, I find the absurdity of The Heroin Busters to be one of its charms. It has a certain operatic ebullience that distances it from the gritty aesthetics of High Crime and lacks the hard edged cynicism and despair of Street Law and The Big Racket. In short this film is a lot of fun, and it is clear the filmmakers had a lot of fun putting it together.

Enzo G. Castellari Poster Gallery

SETTE WINCHESTER PER UN MASSACRO aka PAYMENT IN BLOOD aka RENEGADE RIDERS (1967) - UK Quad poster

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VADO...L'AMMAZZO E TORNO aka BLOOD RIVER aka ANY GUN CAN PLAY aka FOR A FEW BULLETS MORE (1967) - Italian poster

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QUELLA SPORCA STORIA NEL WEST aka JOHNNY HAMLET (1968) - Italian quad poster

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I TRE CHE SCONVOLSERIO IL WEST (VADO, VEDO E SPARO) aka I CAME, I SAW, I SHOT aka ONE DOLLAR TOO MANY (1968) - Italian poster

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The Big Racket (1976)

Dir: ENZO G. CASTELLARI
Country: ITALY

AKA:
Il grande racket

The Big Racket was director Enzo G. Castellari’s third poliziotteschi thriller after the tremendous commercial success of High Crime (1973) and Street Law (1974). These two films were marked by high octane chase and action sequences, remarkable stunts, and imperiously charismatic lead performances by Franco Nero. In many ways both films were a fascistic celebration of rampant machismo and unchecked masculinity. A perfect case study for the concurrent feminism of the day. Suffice it to say The Big Racket continues Castellari’s macho ethos. The only female characters being a vile masculinised thug who is more at home kicking the shit out of honest businessmen than burning her bra, and a schoolgirl who commits suicide after being raped. Yes, we are once again in the polarised social firmament that marks the writing of Massimo De Rita and Arduino Maluri. Instead of Nero’s bristling moustache and piercing blue eyes we have the dark and swarthy casualness of Fabio Testi. Testi lacks Nero’s charisma, and seems to struggle with the burden of being the films moral centre. He is on much firmer ground playing the laid back undercover cop in Castellari’s fourth poliziotteschi The Heroin Busters (1977). In that film Testi is quite magnificent, but he seems ill at ease with the character of Inspector Nico Palmieri, and at times his performance is stilted and unconvincing.

Street Law (1974)

Dir: ENZO G. CASTELLARI
Country: ITALY

AKA:
Il cittadino si ribella
Vigilante II
The Citizen Rebels
The Anonymous Avenger

Like most filmmakers working in the environment of popular Italian cinema between the mid 1960’s to the mid 1980’s Enzo G. Castellari found switching from one genre to another an easy task. It was made easy to him because the only difference between his westerns, crime thrillers, war movies, and post-apocalyptic science-fiction adventures was iconography and setting. At their heart almost all of Castellari’s films are westerns. It was rare for him to step out of the terrain of the action movie, and the narrative structures associated with westerns. When he did the results were almost always unspectacular, as his only giallo production Cold Eyes of Fear (1971) proves. Street Law was Castellari’s second bite at the poliziotteschi cherry after High Crime (1973) which also featured Franco Nero in the lead and is often overlooked due to its unavailability. It is in fact marginally superior to Street Law. But where Street Law does succeed is in its high degree of polish and the precision of its stunt work and action set pieces. High Crime can be seen as something of a dress rehearsal One that has descended into the murky abyss of a distribution limbo. Street Law’s prominence and longer lasting appeal is almost certainly due to is closeness to Death Wish (1974) and the torn from the tabloid hysteria that informs the opening montage.

Drunken Angel (1948)

Dir: AKIRA KUROSAWA
Country: JAPAN

AKA
Yoidore tenshi

This beautifully constructed and expertly composed noir gangster film was Akira Kurosawa’s eighth production as director. Prior to Drunken Angel is it fair to say that Kurosawa’s career had been one of interesting, but ultimately forgettable films. Kurosawa himself believed that Drunken Angel represented a major creative breakthrough, and although there is evidence of brilliance in his debut picture Sanshiro Sugata (1943), and moments of sublime quality in No Regrets for Our Youth (1946) and Those Who Make Tomorrow (1946) I am inclined to agree that Drunken Angel is light years ahead of those earlier efforts. Here Kurosawa utilises the generic tropes of imported genres such as noir and the American gangster film and fuses it with a political symbolism that makes clear statements about post-war Japan. The inbuilt pessimism and gloom of noir is a suitable form within which too address questions of national identity and social fragmentation, and the archetypes of the gangster film are used as stand ins for the country at large and become walking metaphors. The film sits uneasily in a discussion of genre. The screenplay which Kurosawa wrote in collaboration with Keinosuke Uekusa is patient in its replication of westernised conventions, but its symbolic and allegorical ambitions and mode of address takes it far closer to art cinema.