An agreeable Italian/Spanish co-production blending some elements of the Euro-Spy genre with the early stages of the Italian poliziottescho story, taking parts here and there of these two sub-genres. This entertaining and twisted thriller, containing a crime plotline with plenty of plot twists, a lot of fights, though packs some absurd situations and cheesy frames. Dealing with Walter (Brett Hasley), a journalist who recently lost his job, is feeling a bit down, and gets even more depressed when his girlfriend, Lisa (Irán Eory), is missing. Walter to be aware of Lisa is linking with the criminal underworld, and particularly with a ringleader, a nasty big boss called Gardiello (José Calvo) who runs a criminal gang smuggling dope around the world. Walter undertaking an arduous investigation and he'll stop at nothing to discover the underworld big boss and find his sweetheart. Along the way, Walter having to skillfully disembowel all of the names of the thugs who know Lisa. She had recently taken up with a friend of theirs, a wealthy older doctor (Julio Peña). As Walter (Brett Halsey) peels away each layer of the disappearance, he digs deeper into a world of drugs, killings and corruption.
This enjoyable movie is full of thrills, crossfire, noisy action , double-crosses, breathtaking pursuits and anything else. This is a humdrum adaptation in middle budget, based on a novel by Sergio Donati (who wrote a lot of Spaghetti Westerns) about a hero who gets into more and more trouble while investigating his fiancée's vanishing. Stars the american Brett Hasley as a reporter who finds himself entangled with a gang of drug smugglers in Rome, when he sets out to investigate the kidnapping of his former girlfriend by using espionage skills to locate her. Brett Halsey was a beefcake who emigrated Italy and played a lot of B films , often billed as "Montgomery Ford" . Brett starred as several sword-and-sandal type heroes in including the spectacles ¨The Seventh Sword¨ and ¨The Magnificent Adventurer¨. He also settled comfortably into the fashionable international spy , "spaghetti" western and Giallo genres with a slew of work including ¨Berlín , Spy in Your Eye¨ , ¨Espionage in Lisbon¨ , ¨The Hour of Truth¨, and ¨Kill Johnny Ringo¨ . And it's great to see José Calvo as a pure manipulative villain with no redeeming values or tragic backstory. Being an Italian-Spanish co-production (although mostly Italian), there is a mix of Italian: Daniele Vargas as a police inspector, Renzo Palmer, Emilio Messina, Enzo Cerusico, Mirko Ellis and Spanish actors: Julio Peña, Irán Eory and José Calvo of 'Leone's For a fistful of dollars'.
It contains a colorful cinematography in Eastmancolor and Chronoscope by Emilio Foriscot. This good Spanish cameraman photographed a large number of coproductions , such as : ¨Fast Hand Is Still My Name¨, ¨One by one¨, ¨Dakota Joe¨, ¨Mutiny at Fort Sharpe¨, ¨La grande notte di Ringo¨, ¨Singapur Hour Zero¨, ¨Segretissimo¨, ¨La coda dello scorpione¨, among others. Shot on location in Fontana di Trevi, and Incir De Paolis Studios, Rome, Lazio, Italy. Nick Nostro's direction is professionally crafted, but average , here he is more inclined toward action. He directed this so-so action film, a genre in which he would not only excel but one where he would spent much of the rest of his career , as he directed all kinds of genres , most of them co-produced with Spain, such as: Peplum as "Triumph of the Ten Gladiators" , ¨Spartacus and 10 gladiators¨ and Spaghetti as "One Dollar of Fire" and Day After Tomorrow¨ also titled ¨One After Another or ¨Von Django¨ and Italian crime/mystery/Giallo as ¨Lo strano vizio della signora Wardh¨, "Web of Violence" , "Operation Counterspy" , "Vendetta at Sorrento" , and the pretty fun superhero movie based on comic books , the Italian Fumetti: "Superargo Against Diabolicus" . Rating ¨3 notti violente¨ (1966) : 4.5/10. Very mediocre but passable at times.
