Do
you want a congressman who can wage a one-man war against the mob? If so, Chris Mitchum is definitely your candidate in California’s 24th district.
While not as famous as his father, Mitchum still had quite a career overseas
that included the Italian cops-and-mobsters genre known as “poliziotteschi.”
Originally inspired by American films like The
Godfather, they were popular domestically, throughout Europe, and even in
Asia, but never found a fraction of the spaghetti westerns’ success in the
American market. Yet, the genre has developed a cult following among hip
cineastes in recent years, which gratifies and/or amuses the poliziotteschi
veterans in Mike Malloy’s documentary Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films that Ruled the ‘70s (trailer here), now available on
DVD from Cinema Epoch.
The
poliziotteschi were actually meant to be dubbed. It was faster and cheaper to
drop the sound in later than to record it live. As a result, the average poliziotteschi
shoot was considerably louder and more chaotic than American actors were
accustomed to. The dubbing was obviously not a hindrance for Italian audiences,
who ate up poliziotteschi on a weekly basis, but it never worked over here. Of
course, the spaghettis had been dubbed as well, but they used dialogue rather
sparingly. Not so the poliziotteschi.
Nonetheless,
they sure cranked out a lot of them. It all started with Franco Nero in Enzo
Castellari’s High Crime, but when he
passed on the follow-up, the similar looking Maurizio Merli was hired—and a
star was born. Quite a few Americans found
regularly work in poliziotteschi, including Mitchum, John Saxon, Henry
Silva, Fred Williamson, and Joe Dallesandro, all of whom remember the chaos
quite fondly for Malloy. Except for Mitchum, whose heart belongs to the 24th
District, they all say they would love to go back and start doing them again.
Their
stories are about as crazy as you would expect, involving real life mafia
encounters, dodgy safety precautions, and general run-and-gun filmmaking
madness, sans permits. However, Malloy also explores the ironic cultural and
political context of these films, largely focused on cops and vigilantes, but often
produced by avowed Communists, during a period of violent leftwing terrorism
conducted by the Red Brigades.
Throughout
the film, Malloy hits the right notes, celebrating the good things about poliziotteschi
(cars driving on stairs), while admitting their faults (frequent scenes of
violence against women). Although Eurocrime!
is considerably longer than you would expect, clocking in just over two
hours, it moves along at breakneck speed. Malloy channels the poliziotteschi
spirit quite cleverly, reusing an exploding car to introduce each segment, much
like the waste-not-want-not films with their well-earned reputation for
recycling action scenes.
