DOUBLE GAME

Dutch video cover for DOUBLE GAME

aka Torino Violenta (I)
1976
Italy
Ivano Luigino for Lark Cin.ca, realised by Vogor Film (Turin)
Director: Carlo Ausino
Story & screenplay: Carlo Ausino
Music: Stelvio Cipriani (C.A.M.)
Cinematography: Carlo Ausino {Technicolor - Techniscope}
Editor: Eugenio Alabiso
Set design: Sauro Roma
Cameraman: Giuseppe Lino
Filmed: Elios Film Studios
Release information: Registered 08.10.77. Italy (13.10.77, 93 mins)
Cast: George Hilton (Commissioner Moretti), Emanual Cannarsa (Danieli), Giuseppe Alotta, Annarita Grapputo, Franco Nebbia, Laura Ferraro, Dino Moggio, Pier Giuseppe Corrado, Cinzia Arcuri, Lorenzo Gobello, Ruggero Spagnoli, Mauro Roma, Loretta Mondino, Rino Carilli, Amando Rossi, Mauro Ballesio, Tonino Campa, Nicola Saponaro, Piero Fina, Mario Castagneri, Gianfranco Boglione, Regina Fabiani, Ernesto Sticca

Turin is the city being besieged by a welter of street scum this time. There's the obligatory mafia dons (who all wear hats to their meetings), rogue kids (who all wear afghan jackets and flares) and outsiders (Frenchies this time, stirring up the assorted groups with their cheap import narcotics).

Somewhere amongst all the lowlife there's also that favourite staple of Italian cinema, the schoolgirl friends who become embroiled in a sex, drugs and blackmail ring. Fed alcohol while enjoying a night in the local disco, these pasty faced lassies are seduced by some manic villains and forced into servicing subsequent clients under threat having their conservative families informed of their sinful lives.

This does seem to be something of a recurring theme in such films (What Have They Done With Our Daughters and Guerrieri's City Under Siege are other good examples). I suppose it's an inherently catholic view of corruption (or a critique of such views) - what with original sin's capitulation that man (and woman) kind is inherently immoral. The girls take only the merest persuasion to be tempted into the ways of hedonism - always unwittingly, though of course. There's no hint that they have any free will, being susceptible to the merest sensory indulgence. At the same time, they are always perceived as the innocents, never the instigators. It is the criminal elders who tar the youth with their tainted ways and take advantage of the inherent shortcomings of their contemporaries.

Italian poster for DOUBLE GAME

The main problem I have with this is that if I cast my memory those many years back to when I was seventeen, I sure as shit didn't need any help with finding the ways of licentiousness and abandonment. My hormones and curiosity were more than adequate at pointing me in the right direction. Above all this, however, it must be remembered that such storylines also allow the camera to gaze lingeringly at lots of nude teenagers, which is probably more prurient motivation than any amount of sociological analysis could drag up.

George Hilton wanders through all this playing Inspector Moretti, a brilliant policeman becoming increasingly frustrated with the inadequate legal system. To this end he's adopted an alter ego, "The Avenger", a vigilante who goes around eradicating all the detritus that manages to slip through the laws hands. To some extent this plays like a response to the films of Enzo Castellari and Umberto Lenzi (often starring Franco Nero and Maurizio Merli respectively). Moretti has gone beyond the point of "reasonable disenchantment" and into the realm of fulfilling some personally motivated - and therefore indefensible - vendetta. This is highlighted when he kills a lad who had taken part in a robbery at which a security guard had died. Hilton calmly blasts the youth away despite knowing him personally and the fact that it was probably a one off. His actions are determined by his own moral code, which is no better than that of the villains he is exterminating.

Director Carlo Ausino obviously has a point to make; it's just a pity he couldn't have made it in a less stodgy fashion. Torino Violenta is awfully confusing, with all the plotlines being tossed together in the hope that someone can make some sense of it somewhere. The extraordinarily ugly cast displays a disorientating surfeit of brillo pad coiffures and facial hair. There is one of the least erotic stripteases committed to film, a nice disco scene and some admirable dialogue ("I knew my wife well, and she could be called frigid in the fullest sense of the word!") The dubbing of the English language version is almost painfully bad, what with lots of exaggerated acting being accompanied by flat, emotionless voices.

Reviewed by Matt Blake