{"id":1946,"date":"2010-04-09T14:49:33","date_gmt":"2010-04-09T14:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1946"},"modified":"2010-04-09T14:49:33","modified_gmt":"2010-04-09T14:49:33","slug":"chiamate-22-22-tenente-sheridan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/reviews\/chiamate-22-22-tenente-sheridan\/","title":{"rendered":"Chiamate 22-22 tenente Sheridan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Chiamate
Chiamate 22-22 tenente Sheridan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Italy
\n1960
\nAka Cathrine vuole morire
\nOriginal running time: 95 mins
\nProduced by Giorgio Gravina for Columbus Film
\nDistributed by Lux Film
\nDirector: Giorgio Bianchi
\nStory & screenplay: Giorgio Bianchi, Mario Casacci, Giuseppe Aldo\u00a0 Rossi, Alberto Ciambricco
\nCinematography: Alfio Contini
\nMusic: Armando Trovajoli
\nEditor: Maurizio Lucidi
\nArt director: Piero Filippone
\nCast: Ubaldo Lay (Lt Ezechiele Sheridan<\/em>), Umberto Orsini (Tommy<\/em>), Nadia Sanders [Nadine Duca] (Patricia<\/em>), Tilde damiani (Gertie<\/em>), Carlo Alighiero (Sgt. Steve<\/em>), Livia Contardi (Cathrine Fellows<\/em>), Juan Vallejo (Jeff<\/em>), Brigitte Schenkel (Myrna<\/em>), Carrado Olmi (Pat<\/em>), Sandro Moretti (Mills<\/em>), Erina Locatelli (Dolly<\/em>), John Francis Lane (Jordan, a lawyer<\/em>), Arturo Zanini (George Berman<\/em>), Peter Dane (Ferguson<\/em>), Paola Da Pino (Lizzie<\/em>), Luigi Borghese (Danny Ciento<\/em>), Roger Azel, Margareta Puratich
\nUncredited: Hazel Rogers (herself<\/em>), Gianni Manera (Larry, a reporter<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Chiamate 22-22 tenente Sheridan<\/strong> is an obscure 1960 giallo directed by comedy specialist Giorgio Bianchi. A spin off from a popular television series of the time, Tenente Sheridan<\/strong>, which also starred Ubaldo Lay, it’s of some historical interest for being one of the earliest Italian feature films to have been spawned from the then-novel TV medium.\u00a0 Previously, films had been released that were stitched together versions of serials made for TV, but this was a fully realized production that was inspired by, but essentially separate from, the TV series.<\/p>\n

Like the equally popular character Maigret – who had been played by Jean Gabin in a couple of successful French \/ Italian co-productions of the late 50s and would later be featured in another Italian TV series starring Gino Cervi – the TV Sheridan was a dogged and incisive detective who put away a succession of dubious and greedy villains.\u00a0 The film version, written by the same writers who created the TV series (Mario Casacci, Alberto Ciambricco & Giuseppe Aldo Rossi) continues along much the same lines.\u00a0 This time he’s investigating the case of Cathrine Fellows (Livia Contardi), an apparently respectable middle-class lady who has been found guilty of kidnapping and murdering a child and sentenced to death in the gas chamber.\u00a0 Reprieved the last moment when some new evidence comes to light, Sheridan – who is put in charge of the case – is in no doubt of her innocence, and begins looking elsewhere for murderer.\u00a0 Before long, his suspicions are focused on three men: small time criminal Ferguson (Peter Dane), twitchy fashion photographer Tommy (Umberto Orsini) and dodgy nightclub owner George Berman (Arturo Zanini).<\/p>\n

The killer, though, isn’t going to give himself up easily, and soon the suspects are dropping like flies: Tommy is killed by a hit and run driver, Ferguson shoots himself in the head, supposedly leaving behind an incriminating suicide note that nobody’s stupid enough to fall for, and a number of minor characters are bumped off whenever the plot starts to meander.\u00a0 Will Sheridan be able to crack the case before Cathrine’s time is up?<\/p>\n

\"Ubaldo
Ubaldo Lay in Chiamate 22-22 tenente Sheridan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite featuring some decent black and white photography from Alfio Contini, who would go on to become one of the most respected cinematographers in the business, this isn’t a particularly filmic production, and plays as though it could just as easily have been made for television.\u00a0 Although there are occasional attempts to bring a bit of panache to proceedings, it looks very much like the primary concern was simply to get the script filmed as efficiently as possible rather than create an authentically cinematic experience.\u00a0 As a result, it’s extremely dialogue heavy and this, combined to its reliance of a couple of interior sets, gives it a rather theatrical feel.<\/p>\n

A lot of the elements that would later characterise the genre are already well-and-truly in place: it’s partially set in a ‘glamorous’ environment (a nightclub, populated by assorted showgirls and fashionistas), there are tons of unlikely red herrings and one of the murder sequences is even films from the point of view of the killer.\u00a0 Director Giorgio Bianchi, who was a talented but unexceptional craftsman, does a pretty good job, and it’s a shame that this stands as one of only a couple of non-comedy films he was ever able to make.\u00a0 There’s also a great jazzy soundtrack by Armando Trovajoli, including one of the most poorly lip-synced showtunes in film history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chiamate 22-22 tenente Sheridan is an obscure 1960 giallo directed by comedy specialist Giorgio Bianchi. A spin off from a popular television series of the time, Tenente Sheridan, which also starred Ubaldo Lay, it’s of some historical interest for being one of the earliest Italian feature films to have been spawned from the then-novel TV medium. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[91,692,393,745],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1946"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1951,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946\/revisions\/1951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}