Vito Cipriani's Place: The Home of Vengeance

2007-06-16T21:44:00.000Z

Which B-Movie Badass Are You?

Fun at the Titty Twister.
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2006-04-24T10:25:00.000Z

Trailer for the excellent poliziesco LA POLIZIA HA LE MANI LEGATE (KILLER COP; Luciano Ercoli, 1974)

2006-03-28T14:26:00.000Z

Peter Cushing!

2006-03-18T12:06:00.000Z

DVDs to buy me.

If you're feeling in a generous mood, you can buy me any of the following DVDs:

US:
Blue Underground releases
THE FIFTH CORD
THE PYJAMA GIRL CASE
THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE
FORBIDDEN PHOTOS OF A LADY ABOVE SUSPICION.
THE DEEP THROAT SPECIAL EDITION
PORN STARS OF THE 70s
SEVEN DEATHS IN THE CAT'S EYE

No Shame releases
THE GREAT ALLIGATOR RIVER
THE VALERIO ZURLINI BOX SET
ST. FRANCIS
DARK WATERS
OPEN LETTER TO THE EVENING NEWS
MASSACRE IN ROME

Image Entertainment releases

Mondo Macabro releases
THE DEVIL'S SWORD
VIRGINS FROM HELL
LIVING DOLL
CRAZY LOVE

2006-02-13T04:57:00.000Z

Johnny Cash: DELIA'S GONE video.

2005-10-17T22:10:00.000Z

Your Personality Profile

You are dependable, popular, and observant.
Deep and thoughtful, you are prone to moodiness.
In fact, your emotions tend to influence everything you do.

You are unique, creative, and expressive.
You don't mind waving your freak flag every once and a while.
And lucky for you, most people find your weird ways charming!

The World's Shortest Personality Test

2005-10-17T22:02:00.000Z

You Are 12 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe.

13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.

20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences.

30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!

40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

2005-10-01T23:15:00.000Z

What? Did someone ask for Rutger Hauer desktop wallpaper?

You've got it.

Don't all thank me at once.

2005-09-03T18:52:00.000Z

'Maybe You Got a Kid/Maybe You Got a Pretty Wife/The Only Thing I Got/Has Been Bothering Me My Whole Life': Narrative and Bruce Springsteen's NEBRASKA

2005-08-29T23:02:00.000Z

Bank Holiday Monday Viewing

Alien 2: Sulla Terra (Alien 2: On Earth, aka Alien Terror; Ciro Ippolito, 1980)

Cheeky! In Italy, where George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) was released as Zombi, Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 (aka Zombie and Zombie Flesh Eaters, 1979) was promoted as an unofficial sequel-of-sorts to Romero's movie. (Incidentally, Zombi 2 had its own unofficial 'sequel' when Andrea Bianchi's 1980 trash meisterwork La notti del terrore--or The Nights of Terror--was released as Zombi 3: La notti del terrore, which caused no end of confusion for me whilst, in my callow youth, I attempted to track down Fulci's own Zombi 3, made in 1987.) And when Michael Cimino's The Deerhunter was released as Il Cacciatore, Antonio Margheriti's peculiar Spaghetti War epic The Last Hunter was released as Cacciatore 2: L'Ultimo Cacciatore. (However, at least The Last Hunter doesn't disappear up its own bum! Just kidding, folks--I still prefer Cimino's Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, though.)

So it's unsurprising that the success of Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) led to the production in Italy of Alien 2: Sulla Terra, more than two whole years before the release of James Cameron's official sequel to Alien, the imaginatively titled Aliens (known during its production by the even more imaginative moniker of Alien 2. Who'd'a thunk it?)

I'm not a big fan of Cameron's overblown soap operas, but I have a fondness for Aliens. There's something far more ineffably cool about Alien 2: Sulla Terra, though. Maybe it's the use of all that stock footage. Whatever it is, although it's no classic, Alien 2 does share strange similarities with the 2005 US movie The Cave, which just goes to show that it isn't only the Italians who steal the ideas for their movies: Hollywood just makes sure that the movies whose plots it steals are obscure enough that not many people will notice. (This method has, however, backfired on the producers of the recent Michael Bay movie The Island, whose narrative appears to be lifted wholesale from the 1979 film Clonus.)

Nevertheless, putting aside any question of the film's relationship with Ridley Scott's SF classic, Alien 2 does something interesting: whereas Scott's film turned to 50s US sci-fi for its inspiration, Alien 2: Sulla Terra seems to draw upon the more mystical, primeval horrors at the heart of British sci-fi, principally the work of Nigel Kneale (The Quatermass Experiment). As in Kneale's work, in Alien 2 there's the suggestion of a relationship between the alien race and humans. As in Kneale's Quatermass serials, Alien 2's attempts at building suspense are based on the deployment of the uncanny, as opposed to the fear of the other that permeates the US SF films from which Ridley Scott's film drew inspiration.

So what's the film about? It focuses on a female caver named Thelma (played by Belinda Mayne; Thelma also happens to be psychic) has a funny turn during a television interview that is interspliced with obvious stock footage. The stock footage is used to illustrate the fact that as Thelma is being interviewed, the world is awaiting the return of two astronauts who have been on a mission into deep space. Their empty space capsule crash lands in the ocean, and later a young girl on a beach has her face melted by an overzealous unidentifiable mollusc that may have been brought to earth on or in the astronauts' space capsule. Yes, it's true: strange things happen on the coastline, folks. And if you're walking on the beach and you see a strange breathing 'lump' that may have arrived on a stray space capsule, don't let your kids approach it.

Thelma and some of her pals go spelunking, and one night they take time out to frolic, which gives the filmmakers an excuse to allow Belinda Mayne to have a completely gratuitous topless scene.

In the caves, the troupe encounter aliens who seem to thrill at sucking people's faces off. As in many of the late 1970s and early 1980s Italian fantasy movies, this film has a high gore quotient, which is most spectacularly realised in a scene in which one of the group appears to become possessed by the alien life form and approaches the remaining members of the troupe, only for his head to explode and a giant red tendril jump out of his neck. There are definite shades of John Carpenter's The Thing

2005-08-27T00:20:00.000Z

'You Don't Own a Man Until You Control His Heart'/'Go After Him With the Laser': My F-ed-Up Film Friday.

In an attempt to relieve the tedium of my day-to-day existence, I decided today to watch Mr No Legs (Ricou Browning, 1981) (or as it's more commonly known in the UK, The Amazing Mr No Legs). It's a strange little movie, a cross between an episode of a 70s TV cop show (minus the seemingly omnipresent moralising) and an uncomfortable freak show, featuring as it does a hitman with no legs (*gasp*: I guess the title says it all, really).

There's an extended car chase that, let's face it, seems to go on forever whilst going nowhere in particular, and a crazy barroom brawl/catfight. There's also an overuse of slow-motion, seemingly inserted at random. Unlike, say, Peckinpah's use of slo-mo, the slow-motion in Mr No Legs serves no function: it doesn't add to our understanding of the action or of the mentality that drives the characters involved in the violence--most of it is simply there to add to the carnival side-show aspect of the movie.

The highlight of the movie by far is the sequence in which Mr No Legs takes on his former employer's goons by a swimming pool. He does a sort of flying kick (yes, it's in slow-motion) and wrestles/pulls one of the goons to the floor before squeezing the life out of him.

What's the movie about? I hear you ask. Well, I'm not really sure, to be honest. It had something to do with drugs: a girl got murdered, and her brother--a down-at-heels honest cop (played by Richard Jaeckel, who has a brilliant freeze-frame at the end of the film) tracks down the guys who killed her. Mr No Legs works for a drugs kingpin named D'Angelo (Lloyd Bochner), and at some point D'Angelo decides to get his goons to kill No Legs--I think it's because No Legs is seen as inefficient, which kind of suggests that he isn't as 'amazing' as the UK release title suggests. But the narrative isn't important: as in most of these movies, it's simply an excuse for a series of middling action setpieces.

What's most disappointing about the movie is the fact that Mr No Legs is only in it for a short period of time; and let me tell you, he isn't that 'amazing', either. Yeah, he's got guns attached to the sides of his wheelchair, and he can kick the butts of guys who look like they should be extras in a 1970s porn movie (and I bet most of them were at one point extras in porn movies), but he's not really that special. My great-grandfather had no legs--admittedly, his knowledge of martial arts was more limited than that of Mr No Legs himself, but I bet in a fair scrap, my great-grandad could hold his own against this supposedly 'amazing' limb-challenged hitman. But then again, my great-grandad didn't have blonde beauties surrounding him, who would do his bidding without argument; Mr No Legs does! He's one cool motherfunster.

It's a bad, bad film. But I couldn't tear my eyes away from it. Now, having suffered through this movie, I'm going to press it into the hands of all of my friends.

Do you want to watch a guy with no legs do push-ups on the arms of his wheelchair? Do you want to see 70s style facial hair and pudding-bowl haircuts? Do you want to see a disabled man kick all kinds of ass? No? Then what the heck is wrong with you?

They certainly don't make 'em like this anymore!

And then, after the movie madness that is Mr No Legs, I decided to sample Sergio Martino's Mani di pietra/Hands of Steel (1986).

Now this is another movie whose plot didn't seem to hold together--but that's no surprise, really. It's about a cyborg with the unlikely name of Paco (Danuel Greene), who is sent to kill a scientist but suffers conscience pangs before going on the run, falling in with Janet Agren (who I've never cared for much--but then, she's a blonde and, as anyone will tell you, I don't go for blondes), scrapping with George Eastman (or Luigi Montefiore), and finally engaging in a showdown with John Saxon himself! Yes, and John Saxon gets to deliver one of the film's finest lines: 'I can't bear to see him escape. Go after him with the laser'. Positively Shakespearean, isn't it. By the way, one of the cowriters is Elisa Briganti, the woman behind the script for Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 (1979).

This movie is often lumped in with the post-apocalypse movies that were popular in Italy during the 1980s; but unlike Martino's 2019: After the Fall of New York or Enzo Girolami's Bronx Warriors films (which I highly recommend, by the way), this film isn't set in a post-nuclear wasteland. It's set in 1997, as many of these movies are (e.g. Escape From New York). Ironically enough, 1997 was the year I had my heart broken: maybe there's some significance there... Probably not, however: but these are the types of thoughts that run through your mind whilst you're watching movies like this.

This movie is one action setpiece after another, from the prerequisite barroom brawls to chases with lorries and helicopters, to a final shootout in an abandoned warehouse. There's some good action too, from Daniel Greene punching through the visor of a bad guy's motorcycle helmet and breaking the guy's face, to Greene's final standoff with Montefiore/Eastman. And it's all capped off with one of the greatest closing lines in film history (note the irony in this statement): 'You Don't Own a Man Until You Control His Heart'.

If I had the energy and zest for life that I used to possess, I think I would sit and mull over the film's 'deep' ending, but at a certain point in life you realise that these attempts at 'deep' endings really don't require an awful lot of thought--thinking about them too carefully may well cause some sort of mental malfunction. And then where would you end up? Probably running around the Arizona desert, thinking yourself to be a malfunctioning cyborg. You might just hook up with Janet Agren, and I guess all the stress would be worthwhile if you could engage in a showdown with John Saxon.

A macabre and somewhat disquieting piece of trivia: one of the movie's costars, Claudio Cassinelli, sadly died in a helicopter crash during the shooting of this movie.

Original text: ©Paul A J Lewis, 2005

2005-08-25T00:54:00.000Z

The Machinist (Brad Anderson, 2004)

Read my thoughts on Brad Anderson's movie The Machinist, published on my Film Studies blog.

2005-08-23T23:59:00.000Z

The Wire (HBO) (2002- )

I'm just watching HBO's series The Wire. This is exceptional television, extremely powerful stuff. Unfortunately, in the UK it's remained virtually unseen: the first season has been released on DVD, and the second season is due for release before the end of 2005. At this point in time, however, the US has seen four seasons of this show.

The Wire is from the pen of David Simon, author of the book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Simon's journalistic account of the trials and tribulations of the 'murder police' in Baltimore, Maryland, formed the basis for one of the greatest crime TV shows ever made: Homicide: Life on the Street (1993-1999). All too frequently compared to NYPD Blue, Homicide was a far grittier show, less concerned with soap opera-style dissections of the lives of its lead characters, and more frequently comfortable in delivering storylines with either downbeat resolutions or simply no resolutions at all. Homicide was a show that was unafraid to ask questions, sometimes finding the answers impossible to come by.

Like The Wire, Homicide was criminally neglected in the UK: shown on Channel 4, Homicide was moved through various timeslots, ultimately ending up in an irregular early morning slot; and even worse, Channel 4 neglected to screen the seventh and final season of the show.

After Homicide, Simon's equally powerful book The Corner was made into a miniseries by HBO.

With The Wire (co-created with Ed Burns, and with some writing by established crime author George P. Pelecanos), Simon has delivered the most compelling police drama serial for many years. Like Homicide, The Wire is a gritty look at the streets of Baltimore, shot in a cinema-verite style, with location shooting and the use of handheld cameras. The theme of surveillance (signalled in the show's title and in the opening credits sequence) is foregrounded throughout, in shots taken through windows as characters watch other characters, and in an impressive sequence in the opening episode in which one of the lead characters (Dominc West) 'mugs' at a surveillance camera.

The show's first season deals with an investigation into a drugs ring, and in this season the conflicts are established fairly early on. But the show gives even hand to both the police and the drugs dealers they are after: this is not a show in which moral conflicts are presented in simple 'black and white' terms. Our sympathies flit between the detectives and their prey.

The Wire is excellent, complex television: thought-provoking and challenging, it deserves a wider audience in the UK. It is one of the finest dramatic serials to be exported from the US in a long time.

Original text: ©Paul A J Lewis, 2005

Excellent article about The Wire on MSNBC
Surveillance and the Panopticon in Modern Society
What is the Panopticon?
Michele Foucault and the Panopticon

2005-08-22T22:19:00.000Z

'You Have to Accept It': Fate and Power in Fernando di Leo's Milano calibro 9 (1972)

In a world of tough guys and even tougher breaks, there is one overriding principle: fate. You can't escape it. You must play the hand you've been dealt. How effectively you play that hand... well, that depends on your skill.

If there's a central theme that informs the work of Fernando di Leo, it's the struggle with fate. In exploring this theme, di Leo's movies tread the fine line between European cinema and American popular cinema. In terms of their aesthetic (and, more obviously, their setting), they are recognisably Italian, but at the same time they concern themselves with themes that obsessed Hollywood Renaissance filmmakers of the late 1960s and 1970s, like Sam Peckinpah and Arthur Penn: the battle of the sexes in an age of women's lib (and the interplay between traditional macho male heroes and their increasingly liberated 'molls'); do we really have control over our own lives; and what battles, if any, are worth fighting? Indeed, it would have been interesting to see how di Leo would have approached a script like The Cincinatti Kid, with its card-game-as-metaphor-for-life message.

However, some of di Leo's movies are rebuttals of the messages to be found in the movies of his Hollywood contemporaries: for example, Milano calibro 9 is in many ways a rejection of the ideas to be found in a movie such as Dirty Harry, and this rebuttal can be found in the dialogues between Frank Wolff and Luigi Pistilli in Milano calibro 9 This is an aspect of di Leo's work that I will return to later.

Born in 1932, during his youth di Leo achieved a degree of success with his contributions to Italian theatre, poetry and literature, publishing his first collection of poems (Le intenzione) in 1960, and following this up with a collection of twenty inter-related short stories entitled I Racconti della Provincia. Before becoming involved in filmmaking, he also published a semi-autobiographical novel entitled I Nostri Atti, and worked on adaptations of classic dramatic texts.

In the 1960s, however, di Leo became involved in the world of cinema. After attending the C.S.C. in Rome (the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, Europe’s oldest film school, founded in 1935, and now known as the Scuola Nazionale del Cinema), he co-directed the social comedy Gli eroi di ieri, oggi, domani (1963, with Enzo dell'Aquila) and began to make his mark as a screenwriter. In this capacity, di Leo contributed to Sergio Leone's classic westerns all'italiana (or, 'Spaghetti Westerns') Per un pugnio di dollari (A Fistful of Dollars, 1964) and Per qualche dollaro in più (For a Few Dollars More, 1965), as well as Duccio Tessari's Una pistola per Ringo (A Gun For Ringo, 1965) and Il ritorno di Ringo (The Return of Ringo, 1965). Following this, in 1967 di Leo directed his first solo feature length movie, Rose rosso per il Führer (Red Roses for the Führer), a war drama about the Belgian resistance.

However, it was in the 1970s that di Leo delivered the films for which he is most remembered: in 1969, inspired by the work of Kiev-born author Giorgio Scerbanenco, di Leo wrote and directed I ragazzi del massacro (The Boys Who Kill/Naked Violence), the first feature in which di Leo's singular form of Italian 'noir' became fully apparent.

After I ragazzi del massacro, di Leo delivered an unusual film in the form of the giallo La bestia uccide a sangue freddo (The Beast Kills in Cold Blood, most commonly known in English as Slaughter Hotel, but also released as Asylum Erotica, 1971).

Then, in 1972, once again inspired by Scerbanenco's work, di Leo directed Milano calibro 9 (Calibre 9). The first of di Leo's 'milieu trilogy', Milano calibro 9 was followed by La mala ordina (Black Kingpin/Manhunt)—released the same year—and Il boss (The Boss/Murder Inferno), the final part of the trilogy, released in 1973.

Di Leo continued to work throughout the 1970s, delivering films that mostly fell within the crime genre, until his final feature Killer contro Killers (Death Commando), which was released in 1985.

Since his death in 2003, there has been a resurgence of interest in Di Leo's output, and a corresponding growth of critical interest in his films, which appear to be assuming the status of classics within their respective genres. A significant number of his films have been released on home video formats, and in addition, in May 2005 a number of his films were screened at the ICA in London. There have also been rumours of a Quentin Tarantino-helmed rethinking of La mala ordina; but only time will tell whether this project will come to fruition.

However, for admirers of di Leo's work, the core of his career as a filmmaker is the 'milieu trilogy', consisting of Milano calibro 9, La mala ordina and Il boss.

Like I ragazzi del massacro, Milano calibro 9 once again originated with a short story by Scerbanenco. The film focuses on Ugo Piazza (Gastone Moschin), an ex-con who, upon being released from prison, finds himself under pressure from both the police (who are convinced that he'll reoffend) and his former criminal confederates: led by The Americano (Lionel Stander), Piazza's former associates believe that Piazza stole a significant amount of money from The Americano. Throughout the film, Piazza is placed in a position in which—although he appears to wish to 'go straight'—he has little choice but to become involved once again with the criminal fraternity with which he operated before going to jail.

In the course of trying to convince The Americano and his gang (including The Americano's 'muscles', Rocco Musco, played by Mario Adorf) that he did not steal the money, Piazza also becomes involved with his former moll, Nelly Bordon (Barbara Bouchet). Bordon appears to try to persuade Piazza to leave his criminal past behind.

Piazza enlists the help of his friend Chino (Philippe Leroy) in his struggle against The Americano's thugs. But once again, things go wrong in The Americano's camp: during a trade-off at which Piazza is present, one of the bagmen is killed and The Americano's money is stolen. The Americano suspects Piazza, but Piazza suggests that it would be more correct for The Americano to suspect Musco.

After a dispute, The Americano suggests that he knows who stole the money, and enlists Piazza's help in a hit on the anonymous thief. During the hit, Piazza realises that he is being asked to kill Chino and his former Don Vincenzo (Ivo Garrani), who in an earlier sequence criticised the 'new generation' of criminals: 'They call it the Mafia, but really they're just gangs fighting each other. The real Mafia doesn't exist anymore'. Don Vincenzo is killed, but Chino survives.

Later, at a party held in The Americano's honour, Chino resurfaces and causes mayhem in revenge for Don Vincenzo’s death, killing The Americano's henchmen. After a period of passivity, Piazza joins in. During the battle, Chino is mortally wounded, but manages to kill The Americano. The Old Order has symbolically eliminated the new generation of criminals, but at the cost of its own extinction.

Piazza leaves the site of the massacre and flees to an abandoned church where di Leo's cruel sense of irony becomes most apparent: although throughout the film, we've been led to see Piazza as a victim who cannot escape his life of crime, it is revealed that Piazza did in fact steal The Americano's money.

Returning with the money to Milan, Piazza encounters Rocco. Rocco discovers that Piazza has stolen the money and the two men develop a new-found respect for each other.

At Nelly's flat, Piazza discovers that he has been betrayed: with her young lover Luca, Nelly conspired to steal The Americano's money, and now they have conspired to kill Piazza and steal his money too. Luca mortally wounds Piazza, who in a fit of rage kills Nelly. At this point, Rocco storms into the room and kills Luca, in respect of the man who was once his enemy, Piazza.

One of the central themes of the movie is the issue of 'biding your time': in prison, Piazza has had to bide his time, waiting for his release. And on the outside, he finds that he has to wait in order to find the right time to claim the money he stole from The Americano. Life on the outside is little different from life in prison: when Frank Wolff asks Piazza what he plans to do now he has been released from jail, Piazza replies '[T]ake it easy'; Wolff responds with, 'Just like in jail'. Like life in prison, for Piazza life on the outside is characterised by 'taking it easy': doing your time quietly, with the minimum of trouble.

The movie is to a large extent about ‘taking it easy’ and the experience of the passivity of waiting. This theme is reinforced in a number of key scenes in which Piazza's stone-faced passivity is put to the test. In one of these scenes, Piazza is by turns interrogated, provoked and threatened by Frank Wolff's police commissioner, who believes that Piazza will naturally return to his criminal roots; in the second scene which revolves around Piazza's passivity, the hotel room in which Piazza is staying is trashed by Rocco and his goons. Piazza remains on the bed, his passive demeanour only dropping when Rocco taunts him about his 'plan to fuck over The Americano'. (Ironically, at this point Rocco is unaware that Piazza has such a plan.)

This sense of passivity also ties in with the sense of fatalism that informs the film: like many of di Leo's movies, there is a sense that the characters are doomed from the outset, and that events are only building towards their logical conclusion. All the characters can do is wait for that conclusion to arrive. A recurring theme in di Leo’s work is the idea that our futures are written for us by the powerful: by crooks like The Americano, and by cynical cops like Frank Wolff's character.

Throughout much of the movie, The Americano is an unseen presence, and in a number of scenes he is likened to a 'God' ('I bet you wish The Americano died while you were in jail', Rocco says to Piazza; 'but he's immortal [....] You know what The Americano always says: “do unto others what they would do to you, before they do it”'): in effect, The Americano is a 'godhead': something like the Wizard of Oz, he is a figure of respect hidden behind the scenes, a puppeteer who doesn't reveal his presence until it is absolutely necessary. He's the man who pulls the strings of most of the characters in the movie; but as the story of Don Vincenzo's fall from power suggests, The Americano's decline is inevitable. Don Vincenzo’s past reminds us that even the powerful are not immune to the forces of fate.

In discussing criminals like Piazza and The Americano, Frank Wolff's character's dialogues with Mercuri (Luigi Pistilli) reveal his distrust of a 'soft touch' to criminals and his belief that justice should concern itself with retribution rather than rehabilitation. As such, Frank Wolff's character is a hyperbole, an exaggeration of the 'supercops' that, during the 1970s, were becoming popular in US cinema, inspired by the success of Don Siegel's Dirty Harry (1971).

Wolff's character's cynicism and narrow-mindedness are revealed in the scenes in which he discusses (in something approaching 'Socratic dialogues') his ideas with Mercuri. Mercuri suggests that the police 'should act on a larger scale [...] Let's get the ones who evict people and who beat up students and workers', and Wolff's response is, 'Stop being a subversive [....] You read too much left-wing material'. As played by Luigi Pistilli, Mercuri is level-headed in the face of Frank Wolff's agitation, and it's hard not to see Mercuri as the 'voice' of di Leo, especially when he states that 'The Americano is an effect, not a cause [....] [T]he mass of Southerners who come to live up North do the most menial jobs, that noone else will do. They are badly paid, live in poor housing and have no social benefits. No wonder they turn to crime'. Additionally, in their discussion of student protests (and the suggestion that a bomb detonated in one of the sequences was planted by a man with a 'clean record' who had only been arrested for his part in some unnamed 'student protests'), these dialogues also allude to the growth of the Red Brigades: radical activist/terrorist groups who, in 1972, were beginning to hit the news, growing out of the student movements and spreading from Milan (where this film is set) to other parts of Italy.

But the grand irony of the movie (and the source of its incoherence/self-contradictory nature) is that Wolff is right in his judgement of Piazza: Piazza was set to return to his criminal roots, and he had stolen The Americano's money. Wolff's denouncement of Piazza mid-way through the film as 'a mooch' and 'a manipulator' is revealed at the end of the film to be accurate: Piazza has been just as guilty of manipulating people as his enemy, The Americano. In his last moments, even Piazza's friend Chino realises that Piazza has manipulated him into killing The Americano (in a moment of revelation, he declares 'You finally got me to kill The American'. Moschin’s features seem to register a subtle moment of shame before he leaves the site of the massacre to collect his money). The irony of the closing scene is that Piazza's apparent passivity has belied his status as a manipulator of people: in reality, he is anything but passive.

And what of the advice given to a man beaten by Piazza for hitting on Nelly? 'You have to accept it': you have to accept it because 'it' is all there is, and there isn’t an awful lot you can do to change ‘it’. This is perhaps the overriding theme of the movie, the ‘message’ that most of the audience are left with: bide your time, but be aware that fate and the powerful will conspire against you until all you can do is ‘accept it’.

Original text: ©Paul A J Lewis, 2005

Random Thought: I Think I'm Turning Into Warren Oates

2005-06-23T22:46:00.000Z

Born in Kentucky in 1928, Warren Oates took up acting in the early 1950s, and for most of the 1950s and 1960s he was confined to supporting roles in Westerns produced both for television and for theatrical exhibition.

During this period, Oates forged a friendship with Sam Peckinpah, and for many people he is recognisable from his roles in Peckinpah's Westerns Ride the High Country, Major Dundee and The Wild Bunch, together with his appearance in In the Heat of the Night. With each film, his part became bigger and by the end of the 1960s he was well-established as a character actor.

In the 1970s, Oates moved onto bigger roles, starring alongside Peter Fonda in Fonda's downbeat revisionist Western The Hired Hand. Oates shines in this movie: the toughened persona he had developed in Peckinpah's films is softened somewhat, especially in the closing scenes, and Oates' 'man of the land' pragmatist persona is placed in juxtaposition with Fonda's association with late-1960s counterculture. He also appeared as Sissy Spacek's father in Terence Mallick's movie Badlands, only to be killed by Martin Sheen.

During this period, Oates was also cast as the star of a number of films. In 1973, he played John Dillinger in John Milius' movie Dillinger, and in 1974 Peckinpah cast him as the 'hero' of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. A powerful and disturbing film, Alfredo Garcia hinges on Oates' performance as Bennie, a down-on-his-luck piano player who realises time is running out for him and is determined to prove that '[n]obody loses all the time'.

Oates also developed a strong working relationship with maverick filmmaker Monte Hellman, delivering a memorably enigmatic performance as 'GTO' in Monte Hellman's cult 'road movie' Two-Lane Blacktop and costarring in China 9, Liberty 37. However, the collaboration between Hellman and Oates reached its pinnacle in their 1975 movie Cockfighter. Based on Charles Willeford's novel, Cockfighter is a provocative high-point of 1970s independent cinema, and in the movie Oates is asked to deliver a near-silent performance as a trainer of fighting cocks; his character takes a vow of silence after one of his prize cocks loses a fight.

During the late 1970s and 1980s, Oates was once again relegated to supporting roles in movies such as Ivan Reitman's comedy Stripes and John Badham's Blue Thunder. He died in 1983.

Warren Oates: 'I'm a by God constitutional anarchist'.

Original text: ©Paul A J Lewis, 2005

The Explosives Expert

2005-06-21T19:21:00.000Z

DSCF0031
Originally uploaded by paullewis.

We'd read about him in the newspapers. He was the man they couldn't catch, photographed the scenes of his crimes and then sent to the newspapers snaps of himself grinning in front of these images. Nobody knew where he came from, but we knew who he worked for.

The family who lived next door were in hiding. We didn't know that at the time; we found out later. We found out after he visited their home with his 'expertise'. I was in the garden at the time; I heard the explosion, and then I hid. I hid in the best place I could find, and saw him leave the site of the crime.

The Explosives Expert

2005-06-21T19:16:00.000Z

DSCF0018
Originally uploaded by paullewis.

The damage behind him, the danger abated, he took a bite from the apple he was holding in his hands. He was not ashamed; he was simply hungry: hungry for destruction.

I didn't know where to turn, what to do. Had he seen me? Had he spotted my hideaway? I sat still and waited, my heart pounding, my breath heavy.

The Explosives Expert

2005-06-21T19:14:00.000Z

DSCF0029
Originally uploaded by paullewis.

He walked away from the scene of the crime, a threatening scowl on his face. 'You could be next', he whispered to me.

That was six years ago. I've been watching my back ever since. I was a witness; my life was in danger.

He could still be out there, waiting, watching....

I'm Your (Apple-Eating) Man

2005-06-21T19:08:00.000Z

I'm Your (Apple-Eating) Man
Originally uploaded by paullewis.

This is a photo of me taken by one of my students. It's not a particularly good photo, but I guess that's why they call them students!!! (Just kidding, Claire.)

The image started out as a pastiche of the cover from Leonard Cohen's album 'I'm Your Man': Cohen, looking very serious, eating a banana. But I didn't have a banana and could only find an apple. Ah, well.

Original images for this day's posts ©Heidi Louise Hodgkiss, Claire Stephens, Michael Patrick, 2005

The Attack (Still 1)

2005-06-19T21:14:00.000Z

Attack 1 sepia
Originally uploaded by paullewis.

I thought I'd escaped. I thought I'd got out. I'd been out for fifteen years, working as a salesman. I thought I had disappeared: they couldn't find me now. No-one could. Not even my wife. I'd left everything behind... my home, my former life, my name, my children. I couldn't be 'got'; I couldn't be 'had'; I couldn't be reached. They couldn't find me. They couldn't...

The Attack (Still 2)

2005-06-19T21:13:00.000Z

Attack 2 sepia
Originally uploaded by paullewis.

Then one day I was reached. I was found. I was had. And I was got. They sent one of their heavies. Liked killing people with his bare hands, I'd been told. Never thought those bare hands would squeeze the life out of me. Hubris, I guess. I'd been arrogant. I'd been stupid. I'd been full of pride. Then it all came tumbling down.

The Attack (Still 3)

2005-06-19T21:12:00.000Z

Attack 3 sepia
Originally uploaded by paullewis.

His name was Sam. He knocked at the door to my office. I opened it. I didn't expect them to send a killer after me: after all, I'd been 'under' for more than a decade. But they had, and he found me.

He was a son-of-a-bitch. I couldn't fight him. I was done for. There was no way out; no defence; no hope. This was the end of me, and I knew it. I knew it so well it made my teeth hurt. The blood pumped through my veins, and I felt my eyes throb. Everything went hazy for a moment, and then...

The Attack (Still 4)

2005-06-19T21:09:00.000Z

Attack 4 sepia
Originally uploaded by paullewis.

He came at me. He didn't swing. He didn't rain blows on me. He was poised. It took one strike. He was grinning, I remember that. Grinning at my death. A true sadist, he enjoyed inflicting injury.

He raised his fist. Then I was out. I was out forever. Remember me. Remember me when I am gone away into that dark and silent land.

The Attack (Still 5)

2005-06-19T21:07:00.000Z

Attack 5 sepia
Originally uploaded by paullewis.

'Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more, day by day,
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.'
-Christina Rosetti: 'Remember Me'

Original images ©Paul A J Lewis, 2005
Model: my good friend SupaSam
The company 'Cavalier' does not endorse this project and/or blog, and has no association with the author of these images.

In the Spirit of the Blog: A Statement of Intent

2005-06-18T12:33:00.000Z

In the Spirit of the Blog
Originally uploaded by paullewis.

Here's a photo taken in the spirit of the movies to which this blog is dedicated. Now if only I could figure out a way to insert it below the title....

Once a fortnight, I plan to recreate and post an iconic image from 1970s action cinema, using this blog as a forum for exhibiting these images.

(By the way, it's a toy gun!!!!)

(Past) The First Post

2005-06-18T00:54:00.000Z

Musings on Annie Hall, Masculinity and 70s Action Cinema, Revolver and Vito Cipriani, Oliver Reed

Well, this is my first post. I'm reeling from watching Annie Hall. For a comedy, that movie sure is depressing. For the first time, I'm struck by how well-observed the character of Alvy (played by Woody Allen) is: I hate to say it, but in Alvy I recognise an exaggerated version of the 'tics' that have plagued my own dealings with the 'fairer sex'--hesitancy, insecurity, a fear of the vulnerability that accompanies revealing our emotions.

Yes, Alvy is a shorter version of a 'guy's guy': his whimpering persona is a hyperbolic representation of the flaws that govern mens behaviour.

As stated above, the name for this blog comes from the movie Blood in the Streets (also known as Revolver and In the Name of Love): Vito Cipriani is a character played by Oliver Reed. In the early 70s, Reed played a number of no-nonsense action characters, in movies like Sitting Target (directed by Douglas Hickox)--a classic that needs to be released on DVD right this minute (do ya hear me?)--and Don Medford's The Hunting Party (another of my favourite movies).

In Blood in the Streets Reed plays a prison warden whose wife is kidnapped. I should point out that Reed's wife is played by the astoundingly gorgeous Agostina Belli: if only I could meet a woman like that.

Reed is forced by the kidnappers to release a prisoner, a petty thief played by Fabio Testi. At the end of the film, it is revealed that Reed's wife has been kidnapped by some French politicos who had arranged the assassination of another French politician/businessman, who had turned against his 'class' and threatened to expose some corruptions at the heart of the government. The politicos want Testi dead because he is the only man who knows that the man the politicos had accused of the murder (Testi's friend) was dead before the assassination took place. At the end of the movie, Reed is offered a choice: kill Testi and get his wife back, or let Testi live (and reveal the conspiracy) and suffer the consequences (Reed's wife to be accused of the murder of a musician, and Reed's career to be destroyed). As Reed is told by one of the politicos, 'Society has many means of protecting itself: bureaucracy, red tape... and the revolver'.

Reed makes the choice: he kills Testi, and his wife is returned to him. However, in the closing shot his wife realises what has happened and backs away from Reed: Reed has fought hard, but has ultimately alienated the wife he loves and for whom he has struggled.

Reed is brilliant in this movie: tough, tender and desperate in all the right places. And it's this 'old school' idea of masculinity and its treatment in popular culture that I want to celebrate and examine in this blog.

Okay, now that long-winded introduction is over, let the good times roll.

Agostina Belli

2005-06-18T00:07:00.000Z

Agostina Belli (as promised)

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Ahhh, Agostina Belli. Now, there's a sight for sore eyes.

A Greeting

2005-06-18T00:04:00.000Z

Welcome, strangers. My dog licks you. Consider yourself... one of the family.

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