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aka Milano… difenderssi o morire (I), Heroin (WG)
1977
Italy
Giuseppe Zappulla for Ariete Cin.ca
Director: Gianni [Gian Antonio] Martucci
Story: Luca Sportelli
Screenplay: Luca Sportelli, Ludovico Marineo, G. Martucci
Music: Gianni Ferrio (Nido)
Cinematography: Riccardo Grassetti {Technospes}
Editor: Vincenzo Vanni
Set design: Sergio Palmieri
Cameraman: Vittorio Dragonetti
Filmed: Icet - De Paolis (Milan), with exteriors in Milan
Release information: Registered 10.12.77. Italy (05.02.78, 98 mins), West Germany (10.07.81, 83 mins)
Cast: Marc Porel (Pino Scalise), Anna Maria Rizzoli (Marina / Fiorella), George Hilton (Commissioner Morani), Al Cliver [Pier Luigi Conti], Guido Leontini, Parvin Tabriz (Alicante), Anthony Freeman [Mario Novelli], Nino Vingelli (Nicola, Teresa's father), Amparo Pilar (Assunta), Silvia Mauri, Osvaldo Natale, Bruno Di Luia, Barbara Magnolfi (Teresa), Franco Diogene
Middling crime film that sees Hilton sport his frightening moustache as the cop with a vendetta against a local crime boss. Somewhere along the lines he joins up with a fresh faced ex-con who happens to have been a racing driver, and is being forced to drive a truck full of plastic flowers stuffed with cocaine across the border.
There's a handy quota of sleaze and violence in this, but it doesn't really stand up to the giddy splendour of some of the competition. Gianni Martucci's journeyman skills (he later directed The Red Monks, commonly passed of as a Fulci movie) ensure that pacing is less than fantastic, and the relentless griminess becomes a bit oppressive.
Woodentop Marc Porel is in this somewhere, but I couldn't quite work out where. Either he's playing the young jailbird (in which case he looks like he's become addicted to heroin) or an elder petty criminal (in which case he looks like he's become addicted to drink). Al Cliver slicks his hair back and acts all vicious - ooh, the nasty fellow!
For crime completists only.
