Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the '70s

A little gem. I love documentaries about cinema - and if it's about Italian cinema, even better.

Lots of archive footage, great stories, and interviews with the people who lived it all firsthand - shooting with real guns, no filming permits, pulling off stunts that would shut down a whole production company today. A treat for anyone who enjoys movies full of shootouts and cars flying through the air.

And to top it off, that sentimental ending tone - a kind of cinema that's gone, that no longer exists, but that we all miss.

You don't have to be an expert to enjoy it - just love movies that go full throttle and never ask for permission.

This is a genuinely interesting, well-researched and therefore informative documentary on the emergence, duration, and eventual decline of a very specific genre. Namely, the "poliziotteschi" that dominated the 1970s: those rough and raw Italian made cop and gangster films that only in more recent years have received something of a revival.

The Italians were always quick to capitalize on a fad, taking their cue from American cop films like "Dirty Harry" and "The French Connection" and gangster cinema such as "The Godfather" (which inspired American-made knock-offs as well). However, they really put their own distinctive flair on these stories, upping the ante in terms of the violence and sleaziness taking place on screen.

Writer / director Mike Malloy gives us a number of extremely enjoyable interviews with the actors - both Italian and American - and filmmakers who were prolific in this genre. Among them are Franco Nero, Enzo G. Castellari, Mario Caiano, John Saxon, John Steiner, Henry Silva, Fred "The Hammer" Williamson, Chris Mitchum, Leonard Mann, and Luc Merenda.

Divided into several sections, the film has enough animation and visual gimmicks to transcend being mostly a "talking head" sort of affair, and it's delivered with an obvious passion for the subject matter. Topics covered include the origin of Eurocrime, the men who made the movies, the way that women tended to be treated in them (they usually didn't fare too well, unfortunately), the way that real life Italian crime organizations always made their presence known, the political climate in which they were released, and the way that they hastened their demise by adding too much comedy.

It seems like an oversight that Fernando Di Leo would barely get a mention; even as a relative novice to poliziotteschi, this viewer knows that Di Leo was a big name in this genre. Actor Tomas Milian gets a prominent mention, but is not seen during the documentary; a separate interview with him is an extra on the DVD release.

All in all, if you're like me and know that you've done little more than scratch the surface when it comes to Eurocrime, Malloy's movie will make you aware of how much there is to discover.

Among the funniest tidbits of information: Umberto Lenzi being outed as one of the "screamiest" directors that some of the actors had ever worked with.

Eight out of 10.

I managed to see this yesterday at the Day Of Crime festival in Manchester, and was blown away. Eurocrime is my favourite genre, but there's not much information available relating to it. Thank God then, that this documentary has been made and we can now see the genres stars and directors discussing all the crazy, funny, amazing stories about making these great films. It's a long doc, but it packs in so much information that the time just whizzes by! It's one of the best documentaries about film i've ever seen and REALLY needs to be more widely available for fans of the genre like myself!! Please make this available on DVD soon!!

Any fan of the 1970's Eurocrime genre will obviously enjoy this documentary, which features plenty of clips from this wonderful genre of (mostly) Italian films as well as interview clips from a lot of the major players like Franco Nero, Luc Merenda, Antonio Sabato, and director Enzo Castellari. I liked this doc a little better than some of the more recent ones though because instead of mixing in "fan-boy" interviews to handle the more in-depth analysis of the genre, the filmmakers actually did the heavy lifting themselves while wisely keeping the fan-boy gushing behind the scenes. Nor were there the typical pandering interviews of more well-known modern-day celebrities who may have been "influenced by" but really had nothing to do with the genre. (To be specific, the filmmakers didn't seek out Quentin Tarantino, who would served as BOTH a gushing fan-boy and a bit of celebrity pandering).

There is no denying the knowledge of some fan-boys like Tarantino, but this documentary still manages to impart a book-like knowledge of the genre by editing the player interviews into a kind of "power point" presentation. The documentary does a good job of explaining, for instance, the period and conditions where these movies were made, in a country which was at the time ridden with crime, corruption, violent mafiosi, and left-wing revolutionaries, but also one where people literally went to the movies 4-5 weeks on average and had an endless appetite for this kind of fare. You wouldn't think most of these movies would be any good given the rushed and impoverished conditions under which they were made, but they're actually MORE interesting on average than most of the over-produced Hollywood crapola you see these days, and it was no mistake that these cheap films also made up a lot of the America grindhouse filler that Tarantino et. al. spend so much time worshiping today.

I appreciated especially the interviews with the English dubbers like Michael Forrest and. I have personally said many bad things about these kind of guys over the years (especially when they managed to turn a serious Italian film into half-ass comedy), but they clearly had a difficult job and they took it a lot more seriously than perhaps I've really ever appreciated.

The only downside of this documentary is they missed a few of the major players like Tomas Milan (who I guess IS on the DVD extras), Barbara Bouchet, who really shouldn't have been that hard to find, and Fabio Testi. But I suppose that can't be helped. And obviously a lot people like director Fernand Di Leo are no longer with us. They do pay homage to Maurizio Merli (who is also dead) and Umberto Lenzi (who just refuses to do interviews with anybody), but I would have like to see more with Sergio Martino, who--whether he was available for an interview or not--was a lot more essential to the genre than Antonio Sabato or Joe Dallesandro. Still, these are minor quibbles. I would definitely recommend this overall.

In the 1970s, Italian genre cinema was pretty much fad oriented. Always looking to cheerfully (and decidedly shamelessly) rip off whatever genre was popular in America at the time, be they spaghetti westerns, sword & sandal epics, or hard-boiled and rather racy takes on gritty American cop films, such as The French Connection or Serpico, only of course being Italian, they put their own exploitative spin on things. These cop films were known as Polizioteschi films, or more popularly, Eurocrime.

Eurocrime! The Cop & Gangster Films That Ruled the '70s, explores the mentality behind this genre, the factors that played part, and the players themselves, with contributions from the likes of Fred The Hammer Williamson, John Saxon, Henry Silva, Franco Nero, Joe Dallesandro & Luc Merenda, as well as from the technical end, from Enzo G Castellari and Claudio Fragasso.

While not without its flaws- it could have been leaner (it clocks in at over two hours, with some of it coming across rather needless padding), and fails to get any contributions (although this is probably not the maker's fault ultimately, in fairness) from the likes of Fabio Testi, Tomas Milian and Umberto Lenzi, and unforgivably hardly even mentions Di Leo, who even I, a relative novice to the Eurocrime genre am aware of- it's still a well researched and often pretty funny documentary on a prolific for its time, but often overlooked genre of Italian exploitation, with some cool clips and an awesome '70s score throughout.

Any fan of Eurocrime flicks should definitely check this one out, as it's very probably the only documentary you'll ever see on the genre, and again while not without its flaws, is overall a decent, well made and researched effort, with lots of entertaining anecdotes.

8/10, very enjoyable doc, and recommended.