Killer Cop

Killer Cop
Original Title: La polizia ha le mani legate
Directed by: Luciano Ercoli
Italy, 1975
Poliziotteschi, 95min

I read somewhere that the greatest director of all time is Charles Laughton… Yes, Charles Laughton. And this is based on the one single movie that he ever officially directed – the 1955 masterpiece The Night of the Hunter starring Robert Mitchum. Well if that’s the sort of logic that we are going to be using, then I’d say that Luciano Ercoli is one of the most underestimated directors of the Italian genre scene. Where many of his contemporary colleagues had been hard at work before Ercoli sat himself down in the director chair in 1970, only to get up and disappear off the scene forever more in 1977, Ercoli certainly directed a handful of great movies. And as he quit whilst he was ahead, he never ended up making the kind of lesser movies that many of the other great directors ended up making. So in whatever way you look at it, there’s no way you can deny that Luciano Ercoli is one of the greats.

Amongst the eight movies that Luciano Ercoli directed the final two where crime oriented movies. Where La bidonata (The Rip Off) 1977 was more of a spoofy take on the Poliziotteschi genre, La polizia ha le manig legate (Killer Cop) was a en excellent little dark piece that perhaps deserves to be brought back into the spotlight – because it is one of the finest entries into the Poliziotteschi genre.

Commissioner Matteo Rolandi [Claudio Cassinelli – looking as if he just walked off the set of Massimo Dallamano’s La polizia chiede aiuto (What Have They Done to Your Daughters?) 1974] working hard at busting a drug ring narrowly escapes death when a bomb goes off in the hotel he’s investigating. Several people are killed and among them several prestigious Ambassadors of the International Committee, which obviously sends ripples and outcry through the halls of justice. With an international crisis possible Judge Armando “Minty” Di Federico [Arthur Kennedy] – renown for not taking bribes and being untouchable - is put on the case of the bombings with the hopes of clearing up the mess quickly and efficiently. Still on the prowl, Rolandi starts mooching around for clues in the evidence that is brought back from the bombing case as he suspects that there might be a connection. Rolandi’s best friend Luigi [Franco Fabrizi] degraded to walking the streets due to his clumsiness, sees a young man reading the newspaper reports on the bombings and crying, his instincts tell him that there’s something about the kid and follows him. The kid, Franco [Bruno Zanin] leaves the newspaper in a phone booth, where he’s written an apology and claiming that it (the bombing) was an accident. Luigi takes up pursuit, but as he’s left his piece in Rolandi’s car, he is forced to let him get away when Franco draws a gun on him.

Being the only witness to have seen the only suspect Luigi first gets scolded by his superiors and then forced into safe custody by Judge "Minty". Franco in his own turn receives a bollocking from Rocco [Paolo Poiret] who is the leader of the terrorists fraction that blew up the conference. But all is not lost as the people funding their actions – the corrupted officials that is - tell them that there’s a getaway arranged for them.

It becomes apparent that there’s a leak in the organisation when valuable pieces of information are finding there way to the wrong hands but Commissioner Rolandi finds a lead through the glasses that Franco lost in his struggle with the portiere at the hotel before the blast – yes, Franco tried to warn everyone of the bomb, but more on that later – and starts getting a lead on Franco. After an awkward crossing of paths in the evidence room Di Federico orders Rolandi to stay away from the case and stop interfering with it. Rolandi suspects that Di Federico is covering something up and that he contrary to popular beliefs is involved in a political corruption, Di Federico in his turn suspects that Rolandi has a part in the crimes and is hiding valuable evidence. It’s a tense table that’s being set for sure. Going head to head with the notorious Di Federico, Rolandi starts a race against time to solve the case before someone takes out the most wanted man in Italy – Franco…

Killer Cop is a pretty damned good reflection on how the Italian public looked at their country at the time. There was a lot of politically themed activity and a lot of corruption in the country and obviously filmmakers where going to tap into that. Within the Giallo sphere it’s quite common that policemen and detectives are portrayed as pretty incompetent characters, hence forcing the plot device of amateur sleuth into taking personal action. The directors and screenwriters of many movies at this point in time where not only coming up with some great movies, but also flirting with their audiences and merely projecting onto the screens what the audiences already thought. This is also one reason why many of the Poliziotteschi deal with themes of corruption and dishonest officials, which also generates the strong protagonist characters that take law in their own hands, either as a vigilante outside of the law, or that one hard headed cop who won’t do as his superiors tell him. But remember for every badass cop, there’s an even worse villain.

There’s also a frequent pessimism found in the genre, and many of them end with he protagonist either being forced to leave the force (by own or superior hand) to meet his goals (taking out the antagonists) or not being able to close the case due to that rotted core of corruption that imperfects the authorities.

Killer Cop is a real gem of a movie that has a pretty interesting script by Gianfranco Galligarich, who based it all on a story by Mario Bregni. The same Bregni who later produced Lamberto Bava’s Body Puzzle 1992. Galligarich who opened so strong with Sergio Sollima’s Città Violenta [The Family] 1970 starring Charles Bronson and Telly Savalas, and then La Polizia ha le mani legate, spent the rest of his career writing for TV serials, among them Duccio Tessari’s Nata d’amore (Born to Love) 1984, and never really wrote a piece as strong and powerful as La Polizia ha le mani legate again. This is a shame, because the movie is a fascinating showcase of politically laden themes, empathetic characters and strong narrative, and I’d have loved to see more of his work in other genres from this time period.

This is the kind of role that Claudio Cassinelli nails, and he gives a great performance as the honest cop Matteo Ronaldi here. Arthur Kennedy – perhaps suffering from yet another typecasting as the grumpy old man who will make sure at any means that justice is served – also gives a damned good performance, except for when he tries to show some kind of remorse for Luigi’s fate which he had a direct hand in. Supporting cast get the job done, Franco Fabrizi who starred against Cassinelli as a sleazy photographer in Massimo Dallamano’s brilliant What Have They Done to Your Daughters 1974, and would go on to even grimmer parts in Aldo Lado’s L’ultimo treno della notte (Night Train Murders) 1975 is highly enjoyable as the somewhat clumsy Luigi who does bring a lot of sympathy to his character. But the one that perhaps stands out the most is Bruno Zanin’s Franco – the remorseful terrorist.

This is where the script get’s interesting, as there’s a complexity and honesty to the characters that most often is lacking in the Poliziotteschi genre. Most commonly the cops are hard as nails, and simply kick ass for the law, and the villains are sadistic bastards who bust everyone’s chops as they make life a living hell for everyone but themselves. Killer Cop finds a whole bunch of characters evoking empathy. Cassinelli obviously as he’s the good guy and makes sure to make the "villains" pay when it becomes personal – but in his quest for vengeance, he goes past the law and takes matters into his own hands, forcing a change in character even if it does take place outside of the movies time space. Kennedy – who even though he really doesn’t have a change in character stays true to his reputation and doesn’t budge. He’s still a honourable untouchable good guy who won’t take a bribe, even if his ways are harsh. You can not help but feeling empathy for Luigi, the cop who’s afraid of guns, the reason why he’s been degraded, and also the reason that he end’s up in trouble when he cramps as Franco pulls his gun on him during their chase. But as mentioned, Franco is the one who is most fascinating as he frequently shows remorse for his actions. He tries to warn everyone off when the bomb in the hotel is about to go off, he leaves the note of apology scribbled on the newspaper reporting on the many deaths in the bomb blast, he stops and helps the old man he bumps into when running from Luigi pick up his things and on and on. There’s an interesting depth to the character that you obviously feel empathy for. This is also strengthened by Ronaldi’s, and Di Federico desire to bring him in alive, as his life, and the information he holds – the solution to the crime- is more valuable than the old “a good villain is a dead villain”. His life holds value, and he automatically becomes more than just a random bad guy.

There’s a great Moby Dick reference that runs through the movie – an obvious metaphor for going up against the unseen antagonist - in this case the corrupted superiors. There’s also a small recurrent gag where Ronaldi is constantly hassled for driving a huge Mercedes, and not the usual little Alfa Romeo’s or fiats that they usually race up and down those tight Italian backstreets.

Stelvio Cipriani’s score! What a damned great score, a wonderful flow, strong keys and heavy bass lines. Sometimes soft, sometimes menacing, it’s easily the best of all Cipriani’s work, a definitive piece that should be in every fan of EuroCult soundtracks collection.

So to wrap things up – Killer Cop is possibly one of the most underestimated Poliziotteschi films in the rotted corruption niche. Great acting, fascinating characters, a sometimes cryptic narrative, but at the same time intriguing as we seldom know more of the corruption than those fighting it, which adds to getting into the same mind set as them. Wonderfull cinematography by Marcello Gatti who shot Paolo Cavara's La tarantola del ventre nero (Black Belly of the Tarantula) 1971 and Gillo Pontecorvo's La battaglia di Algeri (The Battle of Algiers) 1966, the fantastic Cipriani soundtrack and excellent pacing quite possibly make this one of Luciano Ercoli’s absolute best films.

Image:

Widescreen 16:9

Audio:

Stereo 2.0, English dubbed dialogue.

And if you still haven’t seen it, it’s available at The Giallo Goblin.

Now enjoy that awesome theme by the great Stelvio Cipriani.

The Big Alligator River

The Big Alligator River
Original Title: Il fiume del grande camano
Directed by: Sergio Martino
Italy, 1979
Horror/Drama, 86min
Distributed by: NoShame

There’s something about mammoth sized “real” animals that take revenge on mankind movies that just doesn’t work for me, with a few exceptions of course. I can never really seem to get into them in the same way as a monster of the fantastic (i.e. Godzilla or Alien or Zombies) or something like a plague of smaller critters and all that stuff. But the big bastard lone predator never ever got under my skin. I saw Spielberg’s original Jaws 1975 when I was something like seven or so and I dared not go for a pee that night as I was sure that the head of that bloke who’s head floats up and scares the crap out of Richard Dreyfuss would float up out of the crapper and scare me to death. See, it was the human element and not the big shark that got to men that time, and that’s quite the way it’s been since then.

Saying that, Sergio Martino’s The Big Alligator River hasn’t got the best starting position when I finally settle down to watch it. But it’s not all bad. Sure it’s pretty slow, has an obvious Jaws complex, and a strange subplot with alligator worshiping natives that decide to kill humans that never really get’s explained in a proper way. It goes something like this…

Photographer Daniel Nessel [Claudio Cassinelli] arrives at the Tropical Tourist Paradise soon to be opened to the first batch of visitors, and is happily greeted by owner and cynical businessman Joshua [Mel Ferrer]. Even though Daniel has a spiffy photo model Sheena [Geneve Hutton] with him for the promotional shots he’s been hired to shoot for Joshua, he is more prone to setting his focus on Joshua’s assistant Alice [Barbara Bach]. After a few obvious set ups and some needed exposition such as Joshua being a greedy moneybags who cuts corners on safety so that everything can be set when his first bunch of paying guests arrive. There’s also a subplot that involves Joshua exploiting the Maccuma tribe as cheap labour on his resort, and not giving a damn about laying their surrounding nature to waste as he expands on his paradise island, there’s going to be a major payback later on… a strange on, but still a payback.

Alice takes Daniel and Sheena out for a tour of the area, and Daniel continuously shoots photographs of the working tribesmen, Sheena and on every possibly chance shoots of a candid shots of Alice. Later that night Sheena takes off on the lake with one of the natives that she previously danced seductively with during yet another photo shoot. Strange drums are heard over the waters (well really a primal and crap disco track by Cipriani) and Alice tells Daniel of the tribe who worship the giant crocodile god on the other side of the waters… Obviously it’s the set up for the initial attack as something attacks Sheena and her lover whilst they frantically paddle back to shore dragging them under the waters.

The tourists arrive and a new batch of secondary characters are introduced, sleazy youngsters only there for romance, elderly couples who mostly complain about the disco music and scantily clad youths and a little kid called Minou [Silvia Collatina – who later starred as Mae Freudenstein in Fulci’s Quella villa accnato al cimitero (The House by the Cemetery) 1981. Obviously none of these characters really mean anything to the plot except perhaps Minou who Daniel later rescues, but all in all it’s just another annoying red-haired freckled kid in an Italian genre piece. Daniel goes out to search for Sheena and obviously Alice goes with him, and at the same time the disco dancing youngsters hit the waters all reassured by Joshua that there’s absolutely no threat at all in the water… sound familiar? Alice and Daniel arrive at the island inhabited by the crocodile cults who are mourning a warrior – obviously Sheena’s suitor. The tribe tell them that they have woken the crocodile god Kroona, and he’s here for his booty, which leads them to the only “white man” to have seen the monster and survived – Father Jonathan [Richard Johnson], a hermit that lives in a cave deep in the jungles. As they make their way back to the resort they are attacked by Kroona, who chomps down on their native guide. Joshua is furious that they took off outside the restrained areas and refuses to have anything to do with the fact that there’s an enormous monster in the waters – after all he’s invested three million dollars into his paradise and will not cause a panic amongst his guests.

With all that set up the movie moves into its final act and it’s an act that finally sees some action taking place. Joshua takes all his guests out on the lake for the Tarzan’s Raft boat party, the tribe of croc worshippers decide to make a sacrifice to the god of the rivers snatch Alice, and Daniel is caught in-between with the dilemma of who to save. The boat now under attack by Kroona or Alice submerged in waters as an appetizer for Kroona. Panicked the tourists jump from the boat and swim to shore, as the monster easily guzzles them down and as if that wasn’t enough, the lucky bastards who make it to the shore are attacked by the crocodile cult – it’s a complete massacre. No action adventure is complete without its climax, and The Big Alligator River definitely has one, one that sees Daniel and Alice venture back down into the deep waters to take on the gigantic Kroona in a final battle.

The Big Alligator River isn’t one of Sergio Martino’s better films. It has severe problems, one of them that it takes too long to set stuff up. There’s to many minor subplots that never really come into play, it moves way to slow to make it a fierce piece of genre cinema. Which is a shame, because the last quarter of the film is pretty intense and riveting, and if only the rest of the movie had been as fast and ferocious then the movie may have had a chance at making an impression.

Cassellini get’s his job done as the heroic character, Bach is pretty boring as usual, Ferrer overacts a few times and Richard Johnson delivers what may be his most freaked out part ever in an Italian movie. Italian bit part actors like Bobby Rhodes and Romano Puppo have decently large parts and a few action scenes, but still nothing that really makes any difference to the narrative. Which is odd as Puppo’s Peter character is the only real antagonist posed towards Cassinelli.

Needless to say the movie is heavily influenced by Spielberg’s’ Jaws where the cynical and greedy resort owner is more interested in milking his paradise guests for their cash that caring for their safety, and pays the price. Unfortunately where Jaws does have some great scenes and a brilliant narrative, The Big Alligator River doesn’t. Considering the stuff that screenwriters Ernesto Gastaldi, Cesare Frugoni, Mara Maryl, Martino and George Eastman (as Luigi Montefiore) had written previously and would write in the future, I’m surprised that they didn’t really go for the true core of the inspirational source, as it’s just as much about the character development of the lead characters as it’s about the big friggin’ shark, or like here an alligator. This is a key point that The Big Alligator River completely misses. I feel nothing for any of the characters or their troubles. There's never really any direct values or such at stake either, which doesn’t exactly help the movie along.

As said the movie moves terribly slow with way to many tedious slow-motion effects, which definitely don’t create suspense. Not even with the constant referents to there being crocodiles in the waters, as it’s not enough to make it exciting, not even that initial attack that clocks in somewhere just after twenty-five minutes of sapping movie plot. Then there’s the problem with the alligator or crocodile... it’s never really explained in a decent way, more as one single line of dialogue in Father Jonathan’s cave. Just like the reason for the tribesmen suddenly killing off the tourists and then finally just walking away as day breaks leaving several survivors to question why. In all honesty it feels like a major fuckup and sloppy writing, and it’s bad in every possible way.

Not even the great editing of Eugenio Alabiso - who I have to hold responsible for the tedious slowmo scenes. Possibly in an attempt to bring some juice to the movie - or Stelvio Cipriani’s score, which is a really weak on to say the least, manage to salvage this one, which appart that final act is a really poor movie. Perhaps it’s best suited for a Saturday matinee or a late night slumber flick as it never really grabs hold of you in any way and pretty much just chugs along… slowly without a bite.

Finally… that the prosthetic alligator is kind of impressive in some screwed up way, and there’s no doubt that Martino could have gone all in with stock footage if he wanted, but instead there’s a big toy croc in the waters. Even if it does look fake in some shots, so does Bruce in Jaws, and this movie is made on a fraction of that budget.. So give credit where credit is due and acknowledge Carlo De Marchis’ monster alligator for the splendid piece of junk that it is. De Marchis was also part of Carlo Rambaldi’s special effect team on Ridley Scott’s Alien 1979, and special effects supervisor on Claudio Fragasso’s awful Leviatán (Monster Dog) 1984 starring he one and only Alice Cooper.

I don’t know what magic Sergio Martino had during that impressive run of stunning Gialli and Poliziotteschi a few years earlier, but The Big Alligator River sure lacks it. Sadly it’s quite a disappointment on many levels, which disturbs me, as I really wanted it to be a good classic Sergio Martino movie.

Image:

Widescreen 2.35:1 /16x9

Audio:

Dolby Digital Mono, Italian or English Dialogue with optional English subtitles.

Extras:

Well being a NoShame disc there’s a great bunch of extras, In the Croc’s nest features interviews with Sergio Martino (who also gives an impression of not quite liking the movie) and production designer Antenello Geleng. The Italian trailer, Poster Gallery, and a booklet on animal revenge movies and talent biographies.

Don't be fooled by the trailer, but check out Bobby Rhodes early on. And yeah this is about as good as it get's and it's all in the trailer...

Island of the Fishmen

Island of the Fishmen
Original Title : L’isola degli uomini pesce
Directed by: Sergio Martino
Action/Adventure, 1979
Italy, 93min
Distributed by: Mya Entertainment

Sergio Martino. Say his name and many a genre fan, especially myself, will start salivating and ranting on about those magnificent Gialli he directed during the seventies. But Martino also directed a bunch of films beyond those initial Gialli, as he also made movies in the Comedy, Spaghetti Western, Science Fiction and Action/Adventure genres. One of these is the entertaining Island of the Fishmen.

Loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth, the story was written by Sergio and his brother Luciano Martino (who worked as a producer and director, but also wrote several movie scripts, among them some of the great Gialli and Spaghetti Westerns) and reworked by Cesare Frugoni [Mario Bava’s Rabid Dogs 1974, Ruggero Deodato’s Cut and Run 1985] and Sergio Donati [Sergio Leone’s For a Few Dollars More 1965 and Once Upon A Time in the West 1968]. This many writers could possibly cause a mumbled jumble of varied influences and a mixed bag of complications as storylines and subplots come and go. But I feel that they brought themselves together to write a highly entertaining little film, and anything relying on Lovecraftian mythos grabs my attention and is going to fall in good ground with me.

Island of the Fishmen is not a horror flick, but more an Action - Adventure flick that rubs up against the Science-fiction/Fantastic genre. It starts with a boat drifting in the mist with a few men sat exhausted in the tight space. Quickly the tension between the few men onboard is set and we understand that the power structure is ruptured and they really don’t like each other. Then, strange creatures move in the water and the men are spooked, and to make things worse the boat starts picking up speed and smashes into the cliffs hurling the men into the water once again. Obviously the strange creatures in the water attack and we have an initial attack assuring us that the “fishmen” are not gentle dolphin like playthings. They are vicious killers.

Awaking on the shore of an island, Lt Claude de Ross [Claudio Cassinelli – a fine leading man indeed who died all to soon by a freak accident during the shoot of Martino’s Fists of Steel 1985. But his movies remain and among them you’ll find highlights like Massimo Dallamano’s What Have They Done to Your Daughters? 1974 and Martino’s previous film Mountain of the Cannibal God 1978 to name a selected few.] De Ross roams the island finding various crewmembers dead in the nearby swamp… And Martino starts playing visual gags with us to keep us confused about what sort of movie this is going to evolve into.

The short but great scene of de Ross looking over his shoulder screaming “No! No!” at the lurking – staggering shadow making the groaning noises definitely sets off the Zombie alarm, but in the next second de Ross screams “No José, don’t drink that, if you do you will end up like him!” pointing to the dead guy in the distance. It’s a grand little scene that is humorous, pokes fun at our expectations and at the same time sets up the friendly relationship between José and de Ross. And with every good note in this film there’s a negative contrast waiting. Finding death in the swamp leads to finding his friend José [Franco Iavarone]. Finding a second friend, Francois, leads to meeting up the other survivors, the ones in the beginning that don’t like de Ross. They make a clear comment that they are no longer his prisoners and they won’t take orders from him anymore (which brings a neat little bit of back story into the flick. – and it’s going to be dropped like this each time we need to understand de Ross further during the movie). From this point it’s easy to think that the film is gong to be a survival horror as the men start wandering through the marshlands and surrounding jungle. Alliances are tested in a rather tense sequence where José proves his alliance with de Ross against the others, and before you know it they walk into a cemetery that brings Lucio Fulci’s Zombie 1979 to mind, as José screams out “Don’t touch it! It’s Zombies, ZOMBIES!” de Ross calmly tells him to relax, zombies never existed. Again Martino taunts us concerning genre as there definitely has been enough Italian zombie set-ups established that all we need now is a groaning guy with clay n his face to jump start this baby.

Instead we get Amanda Marvin [Barbara Bach - from Paola Cavara’s 1971 Giallo, The Black Belly of the Tarantula featuring not one, not two, but three Bond Girls; Bach, Barbara Bouchet and Claudine Auger. Bach also featured in Aldo Lado’s creepy black magic Giallo Short Night of the Glass Dolls 1971. Obviously she’s probably most know for being the wife of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr who she met on set of Caveman in 1981] Anyway, Amanda saves the four grown men from a tiny snake with a perfectly aimed bullet from her rifle and delivers some valuable exposition. The Island is uncharted, it belongs to Edmond Rackham and that they would be safer returning to the beach.

As retraining to their point of start, the beach, would make for a shit movie, the men obviously push on forward and eventually find the mansion that Amanda and Edmond Rackham inhabit. Rackham [the great Richard Johnson – Robert Wise’s The Haunting 1963, Fulci’s Zombie 1979] makes his grand entry. He offers the men a place to stay and sees a use for the good-looking de Ross who apparently was the ships doctor! See, there’s more back-story laid out elegantly here. The movie takes a new turn into a more superstitious ground as the Rackham’s house maid Shakira [Beryl Cunningham] performs a voodoo ritual and Amanda pays a visit to the strange Fishmen creatures that don’t tear her apart but act friendly towards her as she offers them a strange milk like fluid. But they do chomp down on the wreck survivor who follows Amanda into the jungle attempting to rape her.

The entrance of Rackham sees the horror element fade out of the movie and shift more into a sci-fi / adventure area. Shakira performs Voodoo sacrifices for Mr. Rackham and José panics and flees the mansion after the last of the group is killed leaving him and de Ross the only survivors from the boat, and in his panicked flight he falls down into an underground cavern… De Ross goes after his friend only to have Amanda once again save him from deadly traps (which trigger the mental image of Charlie the pilot being nailed in Ruggero Deodato’s Last Cannibal World 1977.) and an attack by a Fishmen! Rackham and Shakira recapture the two men and force de Ross to drink a strange fluid that brings Zombie/Voodoo origin rituals to mind. Enter the Professor Ernest Marvin [Joseph Cotten – Yeah Orson Welles' 1941 Citizen Kane Cotton and Mario Bava’s Baron Blood 1972] who is in such bad shape that he has to be saved by de Ross. Remember he’s a doctor, and earlier Rackham made a note of how he could benefit from this. Underneath the island there is an advanced series of tunnels and labyrinths that leads down to ATLANTIS! Wow and we’re just gone halfway!

Now the sinister Rackham turns out to be a treasure hunter and the Fishmen are the original inhabitants of Atlantis… But there’s always a but, to get his hands on the treasures hidden in Atlantis Rackham has had Professor Marvin concoct a strange potion that he’s got the Fishmen addicted to. In return for the gold and treasures they get the drink… so now you know why Rackham so desperately needs de Ross to keep the Professor alive so that the Fishmen slaves keep busy at work. The twist comes suddenly; Amanda is the Professor's daughter, who Rackham holds captive. And as she can communicate with the Fishmen Rackham needs to keep Professor Marvin alive until all the treasure is salvaged, for Amanda is against the exploitation of the Fishmen and Rackham fears she would make them revolt against him if her father died. It’s greed that motivates Rackham, greed for the treasure, greed for Amanda’s love. In the professors secret laboratory de Ross finds out what happened to his mate José, and it’s apparent that the Fishmen are not the original inhabitants, but fiendish experiments!

In a rage de Ross tears apart the laboratory and puts the terrifying experiment José out of his misery. Ironically the José hybrid was the most successful specimen of Professor Marvin’s attempts to save the future of mankind. An amphibian creature that can take salvage in the depths of the ocean when modern man ruins earth. And the experiments are so controversial, that they only could be conducted on an uncharted island, out of sight, out of mind.

Needless to say Rackham busts into the room at this time, bringing death and mayhem with him as the film grinds up to it’s climax and to make things even more nail biting, the bloody volcano that the island sits on is coming to an eruption. The last twenty minutes is really just all action adventure, several leads are in pursuit and there are a lot of subplots rushing forth to their conclusion. But the road there is all great entertainment with a fantastic swashbuckler fight off and poetic justice served out to end it all. Splendid stuff indeed, and something I’ll be showing my kids in a few years time as I cradle them into the fantastic world of Italian genre cinema.

I guess that the easiest way to describe this film would be to call it a hysterical mix of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Island of Dr Moreau, Jules Verne - H.G. Welles, - H.P. Lovecraft science fiction, Atlanian myths and an episode of the hit TV show Lost. It uses the same sort of “cut the crap” narrative as Lost, and exposes only he necessary info needed to shift the value of each scene from negative to positive and vice versa. Neat work indeed. It starts right where we need to start, on the boat AFTER the shipwreck. We don’t have to see the prisoners board the ship, we don’t need to establish power positions on that boat, we have no interest seeing men scream and splash into the sea as he ship goes down. We start AFTER the situation that brought the men towards the island. Fragments of de Ross’ background are portioned out at the exact time it is needed as to keep his origin and back-story a mystery. Much of the events on the island are mysterious, and each time we think that we have a grasp on the main ingredient, Martino throws us a curve ball and introduces new elements of mystery – Cannibals, The mysterious Edmund Rackham, the Voodoo priestess Shakira, the Fishmen, the traps in the jungle, the underground caves, the secret experiments. You see it’s like a concentrated double episode of Lost but without that annoying ever-fresh cast.

Like many other EuroMovies, even this one was picked up by American distributors, re-cut, re-shot and trashed as it was turned into a stinker. Obviously Roger Corman was responsible for the reshooting, reediting and remarketing the movie as the appalling Screamers with Mel Ferrer and Cameron Mitchel in parts in an attempt to turn it into a more horror oriented flick.

Corman also did this with Pavel Klushantsev’s fantastic Planet of the Storms 1962 – Klushantsev, the director that Stanley Kubrick snatched his entire glorious Award Winning special effect tricks from for the 1968 film 2001 – A Space Odyssey. Corman reshot scenes with corny dialogue, a silly new plot and bikini girls selling it as something other than the masterpiece it was. These new versions where retitled and ”directed” by Curtis Harrington [Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet 1965 with Basil Rathbone in a new lead] and Peter Bogdanovich [Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women 1968 with Mamie Van Doren in the lead] the original cast where billed as ”archive footage”. Nice touch Roger. Luckily the Mya release (most likely the same source as the previous NoShame disc) makes sure that this is the intended Italian version without the Corman manipulation.

This is especially important when it comes to the score. Gone is the Sandy Berman stuff and back in is the original Luciano Michelini score full of its fuzzy guitars, swaying strings and vibrant beats. It’s wonderful stuff and at times the score is reminiscent of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s symphonic poem Isle of the Dead fitting to say the least. Even though Luciano Michelini isn’t a very known composer, you will probably have heard one of his pieces if you ever saw that Larry David show Curb Your Enthusiasm. That theme song is a Luciano Michelini composition.

The cinematography by Giancarlo Ferrando, who worked with Martino on more than a dozen of his films, is wonderfully accompanied by Eugenio Alabiso’s editing. He moves fast and there are a few wonderful scenes beautifully edited, usually with something happening outside of Cassinelli’s view, his turn/reaction/reveal, work like textbook examples of how to create the best results in the editing suite. Alabiso who edited Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 1966, Sergio Corbucci’s Companeros 1970, Umberto Lenzi’s Oasis of Fear 1971 and Martino’s Case of the Scorpion’s Tail 1971 to mention some of the 160 and counting great movies that he’s worked on.

I'll say it again; Island of the Fishmen is a marvellous piece of film that could easily play as a Sunday matinee for the whole family to gather around. It’s action packed, it’s scary in an innocent way, and it’s fun to watch.

Image:

Aspect Ration 2.35:1 (16x9 Anamorphic)

Audio:

English or Italian Dialogue, Dolby Digital Mono. Unfortunately there are no English subtitles on the Italian dub, but luckily

Extras:

There’s the original Trailer, a two-minute photo gallery and that’s it.

What Have They Done to Your Daughters?

What Have They Done to Your Daughters?
Original Title: La polizia chiede aiuto
Directed by Massimo Dallamano
Poliziotteschi / Giallo, 1974
Italy, 90min
Distributed by: Shameless Screen Entertainment.

Story:
Vittoria Stori, a district attorney and Police Inspector Silvestri team up to break a mysterious case concerning a young woman, who at first appeares to have taken her own life. But the autopsy shows foul play and pretty soon their leads bust open up a fiendish ring of teenage prostitution lead by men in high positions of society. And if that wasn’t bad enough, a homicidal maniac appears to be one step in front of them, doing his best to eradicate all the witnesses and sending death threats to Stori trying to force her away from the case…

Me:
What Have They Done to Your Daughters? is a fine piece of genre cinema from Massimo Dallamano, perhaps best known for his classic Giallo What Have You Done To Solange? Dallamano was a fantastic director who unfortunately made only a dozen movies in his short career as a director, just less than twenty years, before dying in a car crash in 1976. Although in his short time as a director of fine movies, he really did give us some amazing ones and was no stranger to crossing and mixing genres be it Sexploitation flicks, Gialli, Gothic horrors, or his fantastic Poliziotteschi movies. But Dallamano was not only a director of great movies; he actually started his career as respected cinematographer who shot many of the great westerns including the two first Dollars installments for Sergio Leone.

What Have They Done to Your Daughters? is no exception to his splendid track record. It is a really great movie that has stood the test of time well. In many ways it is so much more satisfying than much of the contemporary movies that I waste valuable time watching.

The movie starts with police officials busting into an apartment only to find a young woman, an apparent suicide, hanged naked from the ceiling. From the start it looks like a routine case, a young woman who took her life after discovering that she was pregnant. (Here’s the reoccurring “illegal abortion” theme previously explored by Dallamano in Solange) But pretty soon the autopsy shows her neck and vertebrae are all bust up wrong for a suicide. She must have been murdered somewhere else and then placed in the attic apartment. Someone has had a hand in her death and the police soon start to piece the bits and pieces of evidence together leading them on a wild goose chase that eventually takes them to the top of the corridors of power. And where many have previously felt that this movie has a sudden lame anti-climactic ending, I feel that it’s quite a fitting ending, especially for being set in the seventies. Year ago there was much respect for the superiors and you never dare to raise a question to those sat with the power. In modern society today we see businessmen and politicians fall from grace each and every day, but back then it wasn’t as common and in some way the nihilistic ending is fitting for the movie. Despite all their hard work they still just can’t get to the real criminals.

What makes What Have They Done to Your Daughters? such an entertaining movie, apart from top notch acting and stunning photography by Franco Delli Colli, is the great combination of Poliziotteschi and Giallo that Dallamano uses throughout the movie. After setting up a conventional Poliziotteschi where clues are searched for, matched and then going after their suspects, gory deaths a fantastic mutilated corpses scene that is really good and definitely one of the best I have seen on screen in ages. No cheap effects here it’s all remarkable stuff. And this combo which started in his previous movie What Have They Done to Solange?, also inspired several other directors to blend the two genres such as Sergio Martino’s excellent The Suspicious Death of a Minor scripted by maestro Ernesto Gastaldi, and Alberto Negrin’s Red Rings of Fear that both play off the underage prostitution Giallo/Polizioteschi angle. Great movies indeed.

After setting up the crime and detective works scenarios, Dallamano throws in a masked, leather wearing killer stalking the district attorney Vittoria Stori [Giovanna Ralli]with a meat cleaver in traditional Giallo style. This gives some of that wonderful stalk and slash sequences that make the Giallo so loveable, and then there is a brilliant car chase sequence that goes on for ages, but feels like a few minutes because it’s so well composed. Inspector Silvestri [Claudio Casinelli] almost has his main suspect within his reach but the killer escapes and takes off on a motorcycle with Silvestri in hot pursuit blasting down small back streets (which is always a joy to see as it probably explains why they always have those damned small cars in Italian Poliziotteschi) before taking to the off road and speeding to safety through a train tunnel. Leaving Silvestri fuming as he once again just by inches misses his man. And this is the way the movie plays out all the way through, Silvestri hot on the heels and just by a fraction missing the suspects as the plot twists and turns towards the finale.

Apart from the great narrative, What have they done to your daughters also has a fantastic score by Stelvio Cipriani, the masterful composer that I feel is easily on par with Morricone's versatillity and tremendous amount of varied genre scores. Featured on several compilation albums the title track to La polizia chiede aiuto is also featured on the great compilation CD The Sound of LOVE + DEATH that can be found as part of the now out of print Luciano Ercoli 3disc box set released by NoSHAME films a few years back. A really fabulous CD that definitely showcases the great music of this equally fantastic composer, Stelvio Cipriani, and has been part of my Cinezilla playlist on my iPod for the last two years. (I have even got my kids singing along to Franco Micalizzi’s title tack to Umberto Lenzi’s Napoli Violenta this summer so the passing on of parental interests is going fine so far.)



What Have They Done to your Daughters? Is a fantastic little gem that engaged me profoundly, as district attorney Stori and Inspector Silvestri try to bust the ring of child molesters. It’s an impressive and solid tale that on several occasions even outshines some of the more known movies of the genre, and I actually feel that this one may even be better than the more know What Have They Done to Solage? Thanks to the guys at Shameless Screen Entertainment it’s finally available on DVD once again and you get the English dub, so no more falling behind trying to keep up with the Italian dialogue with out subtitles of the Mondo Home Entertainment release of 2005 and the early 2000 Redemption release. The only down side to this release is that I would have preferred to have the Italian dialogue with optional English subs, but you can’t get everything you ask for and just a English dub is fine because this is one of hundred of Italian movies that Nick Alexander worked on the dubbing with, which always signifies a decent well worked dialogue.

Image:
16x9 Anamorphic Widescreen

Audio:
English Dialouge, 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo

Extras:
Trailers for Tonino Valerii’s My Dear Killer, Aldo Lado’s Night Train Murders, Sergio Martino’s Torso, Corrado Farina’s Baba Yaga (which Shamless painstakingly restored to HIS vision of the movie, not the butchered version available previously), Ruggero Deodato’sPhantom of Death , Lucio Fulci’s Black Cat and the theatrical trailer for What Have They Done to Your Daughters?