Kino Lorber presents three Italian crime films from the 1970s. Unlike a lot of these types of releases, I wouldn’t call these films strict poliziotteschi, as they are more action-oriented and not so gritty. Strangely, two of the films are also set in and shot in North America, not Italy. They also star a lot of American actors, and since these films were all dubbed in post-production, I found myself watching them with the English language track on instead of the Italian. Two of them are really good, and the other, well, two out of three ain’t bad.
Buy Italo-Crime CollectionItalian cinema has always been good at taking popular American genres of the time and making them its own. Spaghetti westerns and sword-and-sandal flicks immediately come to mind. But what makes Italian cinema great is how they were always able to make them its own. Our first film in this set is The Counselor (also known as Conselor at Crime), like an Italian take on The Godfather. It isn’t so much a remake, but more like the Italians seeing how popular The Godfather was and trying to cash in on the mafia craze.
Thomas Accardo (Tomas Milian) is released from prison after a two-year stay for bribing a juror. He did his year cleanly, never once giving up any information about the mafiosos he works for. He was the counselor to mob boss Don Antonio Macaluso (Martin Balsam), who welcomes him home with open arms. But Thomas wants out. He’s had enough of mob life. Don Macaluso agrees, ruffling the feathers of fellow soldier Vincent Garafalo (Francisco Rabal), who once asked the Don to leave him alone but was denied. But Garafalo wanted to leave to start his own gang, which would then compete with the Don, not leave the mafia altogether, which does seem to be a pretty big difference.
Garafalo then joins up with another gang, tries to kill Thomas and the Don, and basically take over the entire family. There are some decent action scenes, but I mostly found this film a slog. Oh, and it is set in California for some reason.
Blazing Magnum (also known as Strange Shadows of an Empty Room) is an incredible mix of a Dirty Harry film and a giallo, and it is set in Canada. Captain Tony Saitta (Stuart Whitman) from Ottawa learns that his sister has died during a college party in Montreal. Apparently, Canada doesn’t care about things like jurisdiction because Tony heads straight over and is basically given carte blanche to investigate the case as he sees fit.
He believes his sister was murdered – poisoned, in fact – and he’s got his eye on Dr. Tracer (Martin Landau), the girl’s teacher, who was having an affair with her. He was also at the scene and was the guy who tried to resuscitate her by giving her an injection of some unknown medicine in a bottle he pulled out of his medical bag. A bottle that now seems to be missing.
But then another murder occurs. And because this is a 1970s giallo, the murder is gruesome, salacious, and involves a trans woman. Tony visits a group of trans women who almost immediately attack him, creating a pretty amazing fight sequence (the film could certainly be considered transphobic, and definitely deals in stereotypes, but I kind of loved that these trans women more than hold their own in a fist fight with this tough cop).
More bodies pile up, and the plot takes more than a few twists and turns. Like any good giallo, I’m not sure it all makes sense, but it’s quite stylish and loads of fun.
The final film in this set, Weapons of Death, probably does fall into the poliziotteschi genre. It is mean, lean, and very violent. It begins with a gang of criminals robbing a bank, during which they shoot a guard and kick a pregnant lady in the stomach. It gets nastier from there. There is a brutal train robbery, a big car chase, a decapitation, a graphic castration of a pedophile, and they even kill a cute kid.
Police Commissioner Belli (Leonard Mann) spends most of the movie trying to catch Santoro (Henry Silva), the crime boss in charge of the entire Naples drug trade. He’s basically let his minions loose on the city, causing all sorts of damage, mayhem, and death. This is the sort of film where the plot is more or less meaningless, and it only exists to unleash as much craziness as possible.
There are subplots involving a cop who spends his time driving a taxi and a little kid who pretends to reserve primo parking spots for rich drivers, only to steal their tires when they aren’t looking. But really, the whole film is just nuts. And so much fun.
When I was a teenager, I loved action movies. But at some point I grew bored with the genre. There are only so many shootouts and explosions you can watch. I’ve since come back around to them, but I need my action to have some style. I need more than just people shooting at each other and things blowing up. Blazing Magnum and Weapons of Death have loads of style and plots that keep you guessing. They are more than enough to make this set come highly recommended. I wish Counselor of Crime did more for me, but like I said in the beginning, two out of three ain’t bad.
Kino Lorber presents these three films with new 4K scans from the original 35 mm negatives. They are presented on two UHD discs (Blazing Magnum and Weapons of Death share one disc, while The Counselor gets a disc by itself. A third disc gives us the British cut of Blazing Magnum plus loads of extras.
Those extras include the following:
- Audio Commentary for The Counselor and Blazing Magnum by Film Historians Steve Mitchell and Troy Howarth
- Audio Commentary for Weapons of Death by Film Historians Mitchell, Howarth, and Nathaniel Thompson
- Italian and English language tracks for all three films
- The Counsellor: Video Essay by William Webb
- Blazing Magnum: Alberto De Martino’s Magnum Memories
- Blazing Magnum: Kim Newman on Blazing Magnum
- Weapons of Death: Napoli Spara!Revisited: Archival Interview with Actor Leonard Mann
- Weapons of Death: Naples Under Fire: Archival Interview with Director Mario Caiano
- Weapons of Death: Video Essay by William Webb
- Weapons of Death: English Opening and Closing Credits
- Theatrical Trailers for The Counsellor, Blazing Magnum (Newly Restored in 4K), Shadows in an Empty Room and Weapons of Death
For fans of Italian crime/action films, this is a great set. Getting these films in great-looking UHD transfers is fantastic for anyone who cares about physical media. I might not have loved The Counselor, but I’m thrilled to see these three films getting this release.
