Lobby Card Collection - City Heat (1984)

Calling All Police Cars (1975)

Dir: MARIO CAINO
Country: ITALY

AKA:
...a tutte le auto della polizia
Without Trace

Calling All Police Cars is one of the most notable obscurities to cross my desk in recent months. I say notable because its position within the landscape of popular Italian cinema of the 1970’s is truly undeserved. I have yet to read a negative assessment of this film, but the problem is being able to actually find any critical writing on it at all. The age of DVD has been particularly kind to some films and directors from this era, in some cases richly deserved, in others far from it. Mario Caino appears to be a director that frequently slips through the net, though the few films of his I have seen, easily stand up to many of his contemporaries. Caino is perhaps best known to fans of cult cinema for his 1965 gothic horror picture Nightmare Castle, which featured British actress Barbara Steele in dual roles, beautiful cinematography by Enzo Barboni, and a fitting score by Ennio Morricone. This distinctive contribution to Italian cinema’s gothic horror cycle was not really followed up though, as Caino found a productive niche in the popular and profitable spaghetti western cycle; titles include Ringo; Face of Revenge (1967, featuring Anthony Steffen), Train for Durango (1968) and My Name is Shanghai Joe (1973, featuring Klaus Kinski). Caino further proved his skill at adapting to different genres with Milano Violenta (1976, aka Bloody Payroll) and the Henry Silva starring Weapons of Death (1977), both of which were assured entries in the Euro-Crime cycle. A departure into the vile and sleazy world of Nazisploitation resulted in Caino’s most controversial film Nazi Love Camp 27 (1977), which, despite its subject matter, was still quite effective.

Colt 38 Special Squad (1976)

Dir: MASSIMO DALLAMANO
Country: ITALY

AKA:
Quelli della calibro 38

Thus far on every occasion that a film directed by Massimo Dallamano has crossed my line of sight and made it to the screen, I’ve generally been impressed by the results. I say generally because his 1969 take on Venus in Furs left me cold, unimpressed, and most damagingly of all; bored! But since that fateful afternoon where I lost ninety minutes of my life to that asinine garbage, the films of his I have screened have had me reaching for the superlatives. The giallo double of What Have They Done to Solange? (1971) and What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974) were remarkably consistent examinations of not only corrupted innocence, but also how a mask of innocence and youth can conceal all manner of perversions. The former totally outgrew the Edgar Wallace pot-boiler which it took tacit inspiration from, and the latter injected some of the high octane action strategies of the Polizio/Euro-crime cycle into its formulaic gialli narrative. It is this fusion of elements which points forward to Dallamano’s inevitable full blown entry into the Polizio/Euro-crime cycle with the fast paced thriller Colt 38 Special Squad. He seems far more confident amongst the chase sequences, shootouts, fistfights, and vengeful violence of this cycle than the muted atmospherics of the passable The Night Child (1975), the rather dry and forgettable horror flick that preceded it. One of the great tragedies of popular Italian cinema was that Colt 38 Special Squad would be Dallamano’s last picture; certainly on the evidence displayed here Dallamano could have made a number of vital contributions to the cycle, and would no doubt have further enriched a variety of generic soil.

The Red Circle (1960)

Dir: JURGEN ROLAND
Country: WEST GERMANY/DENMARK

AKA:
Der Rote Kreis
The Crimson Circle

The Red Circle was the second Edgar Wallace krimi produced by Preben Phillipsen under the auspices of Danish studio Rialto. The surprise commercial success of The Fellowship of the Frog in West Germany necessitated a continuation of the series, and by and large The Red Circle faithfully follows the formula set up in the previous film. The novel was published in 1922 under the title The Crimson Circle, and has proved one of the most durable and oft adapted of Wallace’s crime novels. The first version appeared in the same year the book saw print, and was a British film directed by George Ridgwell. In 1929 a second version appeared, an Anglo-German production helmed by Frederic Zelnick. In 1940 another sole British venture appeared directed by Reginald Denham. These three treatments remain obscure and hard to find, and the 1960 version directed by Jürgen Roland is the most successful and visible. In saying that though, the Rialto film can still be a pain in the arse to track down for a reasonable price, but part of the fun of researching an area such as this is the leg work involved in securing a decent print. I may be in a minority in thinking that this is a culturally significant movie, and the poverty of critical thinking, or even cursory reviews in the English language on the internet, would seem to confirm my minority status. It’s a status I share with fellow scribe and krimi enthusiast Holger Haase, and I doff my hat to him for treading the dark and shadowy streets of Wallace’s London before me.

The Panic in Needle Park (1971)

Dir: JERRY SCHATZBERG
Country: USA

In recent weeks I have found myself, by accident rather than design, walking the putrefying urban rot of New York City in a series of offbeat cinematic outings. The first from 1982 was Lucio Fulci’s abhorrent monstrosity The New York Ripper, the sort of film that has you reaching for the carbolic soap on the way to the shower after a screening. The second from 1980 was James Glickenhaus’ returning veteran/vigilante flick The Exterminator, although far more enjoyable than Fulci’s menagerie of mindless depravity, it was still grimy and grubby enough to leave one feeling soiled by its decaying atmosphere. I’d like nothing more than a holiday from this mucky milieu; even Summerisle seems an attractive option. But Summerisle, and their delicious apples will have to wait, instead we have The Panic in Needle Park, and it's time for me to don my waders once again to traverse the effluent of New York City. Of the three films mentioned in this paragraph Needle Park is certainly the most worthy. It is regarded in some quarters as an art film, though the sensationalism of 20th Century Fox’s promotional campaign, which luridly emphasised the exploitation elements, makes it a curious hybrid of art and exploitation film. In the US it was these protracted and unflinching multiple sequences of junkies shooting up that created both scandal and box office success, in the UK it resulted in the film being refused a certificate from the BBFC for four years.

Celluloid Sounds - The Long Good Friday (1980)

A few years back I was asked by a fellow academic to decide upon my favourite British film of all time, and then write an appreciation of it, for a book that unfortunately never saw the light of day. I chose The Long Good Friday and as I think about it now, several years on, my decision would probably remain the same. My interest in British genre cinema goes far beyond horror; indeed at one time I had a greater interest in home-grown gangster, noir, and science-fiction films than I did with a lot of generically retrograde horror pictures. The challenge of a genre film is in providing something innovative and new within a restrictive narrative and iconographic environment; this is made even more challenging when that genre then has to be adjusted to the meta-narratives and cultural concerns of a national cinema. In some genres, such as the western, this is impossible. But the syntactic concerns of the American gangster film seem to fit the gritty social realism that marked large swathes of British cinema like a glove. The Long Good Friday is an innovative gangster picture that isn’t concerned with the rise of the criminal, but instead completely focuses on his fall, and it is a fall that is made supremely entertaining by Bob Hoskins’ apoplectic and bemused rage.

Guest Review - Outlaw (2007)

Dir: NICK LOVE
Country: UK

What is wrong with British Cinema? Nick Love, Outlaw and er... Danny Dyer.

“‘ee’s a facking nonce now put ‘im dahn!”

For my sins, I’m somehow drawn to write on the rather horrible but somewhat fascinating Outlaw. This is for two reasons. Firstly, it sits well outside the remit of Videotape Swapshop. Secondly, in conversation with the author of this fine film site, I was asked how I managed to live (and work) in London. I began to think about the cinematic representation of life in England’s capital – all the more relevant, I guess, with the current overwhelming and ongoing public image exercise at hand in the city with this summer’s Olympic Games preparations. Once upon a time, we had Mike Leigh to paint the picture of life in England, and often of life in and around London. It usually involved familial disputes over mismatching tea cups and Hygena kitchen sinks, and usually, intentionally, stretched no further than the semi detached landscape of the suburbs. Then, from the steaming afterbirth of the artful (Madonna) dodger Guy Ritchie and his pop grot hooliganism, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), emerged Nick Love.