9/14/05 Quentin Tarantino Festival - Day 6 - Italian Crime Films of the 70s
Hello from Austin. I'm Micah and I am six days into one of the most eclectic film festivals around, QT6. The promise of no-holds-barred Italian Crime Films really seemed to bring out the crowd tonight... easily being the most packed evening since Day 1.
My pre-festival movie tonight was a Yuen Yat Chor kung fu called Abbot White. Of course, it had nothing to do with tonight's theme, but what can I say? I was in the mood to watch a demonic kung-fu master who can launch his arms like missile and stop swords with his hands. I'm funny like that. And now, for those of you who have been with us since the beginning, you know what's coming next...
Nicky Katt Update #5: Since Day Two, I've been commenting on the incredibly intense vibe thrown off by Nicky Katt. Katt is one of my favorite actors currently working, but everytime I see him at QT6 he looked like he was just... about... to... snap. Apparently I'm not the only one who felt that way, because while guys like Taranino, Rodriguez, Linklater & Duritz are constantly mobbed in between films by folks wanting to chat them up, Katt is usually in one of the dark recesses of the Alamo Drafthouse hanging out by himself.
Well tonight I to risk life and limb and talk to the man, and damned if he isn't a really nice guy after all. We only talked briefly, and it was mostly about his work on Boston Public (which is my favorite Katt role despite his impressive body of films, and if that makes me uncool, so be it) but Katt seemed just as willing to talk to fans as the other guys I mentioned. So, to those of you at QT6, don't be afraid of Katt's gruff exterior. Next time you see him standing by himself, take a chance and talk to the guy. Maybe he's just shy.
With that out of the way, let's get on to the Dumb Distraction coverage of Italian Crime Films of the 70's Night!
Death Rage (1976)
Directed by: Antonio Margheriti
Starring: Yul Brynner, Barbara Bouchet
Tarantino Introduction:
Crime Film Night has been one of the staples of the last few QT fests, and has always been one of the more popular nights. Tarantino begins by talking about how, at one of his earlier fests, he had been able to turn Austin on to the work of director Fernando Di Leo. In fact, when Richard 'Grand Poobah' Linklater showed up tonight, the first thing he asked Taranino was if he had brought a Di Leo movie. He hadn't, but Taranino promises that the two he brough are equally deserving of praise.
The first movie Taranino intros is Death Rage, a movie starring Yul Brynner as a hitman. As Tarantino puts it, "Yul's the man. There's no 2, 3, 4 ways about it. If you've never seen Brynner star in a movie you're in for a treat man. He's the fucking man. It's fucking Yul's world, and we're just living in it!"
Tarantino mentions how, way back at QT1, he showed a Brynner movie called Adiós, Sabata, directed by Gianfranco Parolini, who directed last night's first film Five Into Hell. "It's all one big mad incestuous circle here at the QT Fest!"
Tarantino says that this may go down as being his all-time favorite Antonio Margheriti movie, a man he describes with all respect as "a great Italian hack." This movie is a great example of the Italian rage for having the Hitman as Hero. The US ad campain for this movie was trying to tie it into Death Wish, making Brynner appear as more as a vigilante than a hitman. "No," Tarantino explains, "he was a hit-mother-fucking-man. He's going to make the fucking mob pay, and pay, and pay some more."
As a final note, Tarantino mentions that this is amazingly the first QT movie to feature Barbara Bouchet, who he describes as one of the sexiest women in the history of cinema. Sorry Quentin, as much as I think Bouchet is incredibly sexy, she doesn't hold a candle to my personal all-time screen goddess Laura Gemser.
Trailers:
Fuzz - Burt Reynolds (he's believed to be the only nun in the city equipped with a walkie talkie... and a moustache), Tom Skerritt, Raquel Welch, and Yul Brynner (as The Deaf Man)
Amuck! - This one of those great old trailers that claims to be severely edited due to the fact that 'there may be children in the audiences.' Nevertheless they managed to throw in seven different naked women, including one full-frontal. Good reaction from the crowd when it hyped itself as being 'A movie that had to wait until the permissive 70's to be made.'
Street People - Stacey Keech & Roger Moore
Kill - Discover the Truth About the Heroin Game
The Movie:
Tarantino wasn't joking, Brynner is the fucking man. He's pretty much an unstoppable force in this movie, as Peter Marciani, a hitman who comes out of retirement to get revenge on a rival mob boss who killed his brother. Along the way, he is assisted by Angelo, a kid trying to break into the organized crime racket. He also finds plenty of time to fall in love with Anny (Barbara Bouchet), an exotic dancer at the club run by Angelo.
Brynner is so full of machismo in this film you can hear it splash off the screen and soak the people in the front few rows. At one point a couple of thugs think they have him cornered. Brynner smiles and tells the one with the gun "If I were you, I'd shoot." The thug says he's going to keep Brynner alive because he's worth more to the mob that way, and Brynner just shakes his head and replies "If I were you I'd still shoot." Along with Aldo Ray in Four Desperate Men, this was the Big Balls Performance of the festival.
One great scene in this movie comes when Brynner is trying to teach Angelo how to take down a mark. Angelo has never killed before, and Brynner suspects that he doesn't have it in him. Speaking about shooting a man, Brynner tells the rookie "You don't do it out of hate. You do it because it's your job. You aren't even killing it, because it's been dead since you took the contract."
One final note about this movie... watch for the character of the police inspector, played by Martin Balsam. He doesn't have a lot of screen time in this film, but all of his scenes, especially the ones with Brynner, are fantastic. My favorite line of the film comes from Balsam when he's talking on the phone to a policeman who just let an informant in his custody get killed by a mobster posing as a lawyer: "Get the body down to the morgue quick and call the captain. What's going to happen to you? I don't know what's going to happen to you. You're sure as hell not going to get a medal!"
No Way Out (1973)
Directed by: Duccio Tessari
Starring: Alain Delon, Richard Conte
Tarantino Introduction:
Tarantino saw this movie for the first time when his was a kid with his mother, back when he only knew Alain Delon as 'that guy from Red Sun'. Last night Tarantino had told us that after the Spaghetti Western genre dried up, most of those directors went on to make Giallos and WWII Movies. Surprisingly, none of them, with the exception of Duccio Tessari, went on to make Crime Films.
Tessari is one of Tarantino's top 5 favorite Spaghetti Western directors, placing him with Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci as having the best track record for making one fantastic movie after another. Tarantino also credits Tessari with making Giuliano Gemma a star with movies like The Return of Ringo and $100,000 for Ringo.
Editor's Note - I'm fairly certain that the second movie Tarantino was thinking of is the Gemma/Tessari team-up A Pistol for Ringo. Neither Gemma nor Tessari had anything to do with $100,000 for Ringo.
Tarantino describes how this movie falls into several genres. Obviously the Italian Crime Film, but also the French Policiers, of which Delon was the king. Interestingly, this movie also has a bit of Giallo, because instead of random actions going on, all of the great sequences in this movie are built around the death scenes, with all the style and flair of a Giallo death scene. Simply put, Tarantino descibes this as a great revenge film. "And obviously I'm down with revenge movies.
Before leaving the stage, Tarantino notes that Alain Delon is not alone in this movie. "You always need to have some old-fuck American who used to be a movie star to play the head mafia guy." This role in No Way Out is played by Richard Conte, who played a similar role in a Fernando Di Leo from an earlier QT Festival, Wipeout!.
Trailers:
Who Saw Her Die - Very cool trailer with an incredibly memorable score.
The Valachi Papers/Shamus Double Feature - This Double Feature trailer initially looks like a Charles Bronson/Burt Reynolds teamup, before you realize its hyping two different movies.
Superfuzz - Probably the only movie Terence Hill made that played big in the US, this crime comedy (directed by Sergio Corbucci) is a lot of fun. You can read the Dumb Distraction Review of this movie for more information.
The Movie:
I seem to be saying this after every night, but I think I have a new favorite film from this festival. No Way Out is a fantastic movie about vetran mafia hitman Tony Arzenta (Alain Delon) who, in order to ensure a better life for his wife and young son, decides to retire from the hitman business. Of course, this doesn't sit well with the top bosses in the family, and the decision is made to take Arzenta out of commission.
Sadly, the car bomb intended for Arzenta ends up killing both his wife and his son, leaving Arzenta pissed and the bosses screwed. Just like Tarantino described, the rest of the movie follows Arzenta as he takes out the bosses one by one. At first the bosses feel relatively safe from Arzenta's wrath. One of the tells his underlings "Arzenta is just a piece of dogshit that I want wiped off my shoe."
However, as more and more of the bosses begin to drop, they begin to get more and more desperate. The film builds towards a climax with the 'old-fuck American' Nick Gusto (Richard Conte), who was Arzenta's direct boss and one-time friend. At one point Gusto's right hand man suggests that Gusto 'go somewhere safe.' "I'm not going to run from anybody!" Gusto yells. "If he gets to me here, he deserves his kill."
No Way Out is one brutal, raw movie. We're talking bone-jarring car crashes, bodies held half-way out a train window slamming into a tunnel entrance, flying lunges with pocket-knives, headbutting innocent women... Tessari doesn't pull any punches or do anything halfway with this movie.
And Delon... as much as I liked Brynner's In-Your-Face intensity in Death Rage, Delon's quiet simmering fury may be even scarier. He is truly a man with only one thing on his mind... killing every single bastard responsible for his family's death. This was a very cool performance, and I'll definately be seeking out Delon's other movies.
My favorite line from this movie comes from one of the unnamed mob bosses (actually the same one with the 'dogshit' line quoted above... he's got a lot of great dialogue in this movie). He's being a huge dick to his mistress... ordering her around, berating her appearance, roughing her up a bit. The mistress says something innocent, which the boss turns into a sexual joke. The mistress rolls her eyes and tells him to get his mind out of the gutter. He looks her dead on, laughs, and says "Why should I? I like the gutter. That's where I found you." Dick.
The Sell-Out (1976)
Directed by: Peter Collinson
Starring: Oliver Reed, Richard Widmark
Tarantino Introduction:
The final film of the night isn't an Italian Crime Film, but it is definately an International Crime Film. Tarantino describes how, at the last two Crime Nights he presented triple features and always saved films he really liked for the final (midnight) screening (Hickey & Boggs and Machine Gun McCain, respectively). Unfortunately, at both those screenings, only about half of the audience stayed, making Tarantino feel like he had almost wasted those movies. "For tonight, I was working with that in mind... and you all stayed!!!
Tarantino is a big fan of The Sell-Out, and a big fan of the director Peter Collinson. He describes the film as a mix of a crime film and a spy film. One of the things that he really likes about it is that it is one of the only modern day action movies filmed in Israel, a beautiful and exciting place to film a movie. He hypes up the car chases and sprawling shots with the ancient domes and stunning landscape of Israel.
Peter Collinson is a British director, and while Tarantino feels that British Exploitation films usually aren't exploitative enough, "Collinson did not have this problem. His movies are fucking out there." He hypes up the Collinson films Open Season, Innocent Bystanders and The Penthouse, which has the great tagline: If What Happenened in the Penthouse Happened to You, You Wouldn't Want to Talk About it Either.
Before leaving the stage, Tarantino gives us a warning. "There's one thing about my print. I'm missing a reel" Huge laughter and groans from the audience. "Don't worry, I still enjoy the movie anyway." Tarantino claims that the missing reel actually adds to the movie, and he never wants to know what happened in that reel. He tells us that in the film, Gayle Hunnicutt and Oliver Reed used to be an item but Hunnicutt now lives with Richard Widmark. The movie starts with Oliver Reed coming to hide out at Widmark & Hunnicutt's place, "and the great thing about the reel that we're missing... you don't know whether Oliver Reed fucks Gail Hunnicutt or not. He may have... we don't know. It's implied that he did, but you just don't know. Did he fuck her or did he not fuck her... you decide."
Trailers:
Burnt Offerings - Karen Black, Oliver Reed, Burgess Meredith, and one of my favorite character actor of all time Mr. Dub Taylor
The Three Musketeers - Oliver Reed, Raquel Welch, Christopher Lee, Charlton Heston
The Movie:
After the terrific one-two shot of Death Rage and No Way Out, I felt The Sell-Out was a bit of a disappointment. The plot was somewhat of a mess, and the motivation of the main characters was never adequately explained. The movie opens with a secret meeting in Israel between CIA honcho Harry Sickles (Sam Wanamaker) and Russian Spy Kasyan (Peter Frye). Apparently these two powerhouses take turns choosing a secret agent from each other's country that they want killed. Generally these are double agents that have betrayed one side or the other, and this time the CIA has chosen Gabriel Lee (Oliver Reed).
Lee is a former CIA agent who defected to Russia. During his time in the US, Lee worked for Sam Lucas (Richard Widmark) and Lucas (unbeknownst to him) is used as the bait to draw Lee out hiding. Lee escapes the attempt on his life, and heads to find Lucas, the man he thinks betrayed him. He soon realizes that Lucas knew nothing about it, and convinces Lucas to help him escape Israel.
The rest of the movie is a series of crosses and double-crosses, and you're never quite sure where anyone's loyalty lies at any given time. Much of that is the result of intentional storytelling, but I can't help but feel some of the confusion was unintentional. We're never told why the US wants Lee dead (other than the fact that he defected years ago), nor do we know why the US and Russia take turns allowing the other to kill their own agents.
To further add insult to injury, this movie was rated PG, and instead of avoiding swear words at all, we get allegedly tough secret agents saying stuff like 'I'll take that gun and stick it up your nose' or 'Son of an Idiot!' or, worst of all 'Shut yer gull durn mouth!' If I had seen this movie without having just been blown away by a gritty movie like No Way Out, I'm sure things like this wouldn't have been as noticable.
Add in annoying inconsistencies like the fact that some Israeli cars blow up when hit with a single bullet while others can drive through brick walls or roll down hills and still function perfectly and you've got a movie that mildly annoyed me.
Still, with all that being said, Oliver Reed is great in this movie, and gives a very convincing performance as a guy who only looks out for himself and damn anyone who gets in his way. There's also a great sequence towards the end of the film where Reed & Widmark are trying to drive a jeep across a giant minefield that comes off way more intense than anything else in the movie. And I have to admit, Hunnicutt's delivery of the line "Did I make love to you like a taperecorder?!?" was brilliant.
Well, we're in the home strech, but the next two nights of triple features look to be major contenders for the Best All-Around QT6 Night title. Don't miss the coverage of Sexploitation Night and Grindhouse Night as QT6 barrels towards its inevitable conclusion.
- Micah
