MAFIA KILLER

Aka Sedia Elettrica
1969
Italy
Maria Rosa Valenza for Tarquinia Film
Director : Miles Deem [Demofilo Fidani]
Story : D. [Demofilo] Fidani
Script : Miles Deem [Demofilo Fidani], Mila Vitelli [Maria Rosa Valenza], Fabrizio Diotallevi, Alfredo Medori (dialogue)
Music : Marcello Gigante, conducted by Carlo Esposito (Tank). The songs 'You Are my Love' and 'New York Story' written by Gigante.
Cinematography : Sergio D'Offizi [Eastmancolor]
Editor : Piera Bruni
Art director : Mila Vitelli Valenza
Original running time : 97 mins
Italian takings : 32.000.000 lire
Shot at Tirrenia studios
Cast : Big I. Verdi (Fred), Sheila Rosin (Fanny), Dean Stratford [Dino Strano] (Johnny Bello) , Franco Ricci (Gardenia), Silvio Noto (Doc), Simone Blondell [Simonetta Vitelli] (Margie), Frank Fragas, Miriella Palmich, Lino Coletta, Luciano Conti, Amir Jeffrey, Franca Licastro, Piero Del Papa (Tiger), Dennis Colt [Benito Pacifico]

It's the heyday of the mobs and Fred ('Big I. Verdi') and his gang are ambushed and left for dead by rival gangster Johnny Bello (Dean 'Phil Mitchell' Stratford). Fred, however, isn't dead - and manages to overcome his gunshot wounds with the aid of a trusty zoot suit and the ministrations of a dippy bird called Margie (Simone Blondell). Indeed, he seems to become rather enamoured of her, frolicking in the park and staring avidly at her bebobby-soxed legs. Of course, as soon as she puts on some roller skates he understandably buggers straight off, but that doesn't prevent the director treating us to a five minute display of Ms Blondell (Fidani's daughter)'s skating talents.

Dino Strano	Phil Mitchell (EastEnders)

Meanwhile, Johnny is fully preoccupied with the day to day trials of hoodlum life. Pimping, rigging boxing matches, sitting around in his nightclub with a coterie of goons - oh, it's a hard life. Of course, as soon as he hears that Fred has escaped and is smarting for revenge he sets out to smoke him from his hiding place by any means possible, setting the scene for an allegedly gripping climax.

Within five minutes of this film starting you are treated to the sight of numerous extras leaping around in the most ridiculously overacted death scenes this side of a primary school, a fact that betrays it as being a true creation of it's uniquely talented director. In fact, there's no way that this could be anything but a Demofilo - Jungle Master - Fidani film. Pantomime performances, ridiculous dialogue ('You can have $10,000 or two cement shoes') and costumes that seem to have been exaggerated from authenticity to parody (check the outsized trilbies) could be found in the work of several second-rate directors. However, a completely crap coda that goes on for ten minutes after the natural end of the film and is mostly composed of a truly silly voice over ('them and me, yeah, there's all of them - and then there's…me') is the true directorial signature. Ironically enough, this erroneous stretch of the film also includes an extremely effective and rather weird flashback that could almost have come from a proper filmmaker.

My favourite scene, however (and that's including the pathetic boxing match which is less Raging Bull than Slightly Peeved Sloth) is the one where Fred is driven potty by the sound of a dripping tap. In a bravura acting display his face crumples with the tension, he screams out in terror, smashes lots of glasses together and…gets up and turns it off! Christ alone knows who 'Big Verdi' is, but he looks like a very ugly Charles Bronson and probably has a proper name somewhere or other.

The fact that the copy of Mafia Killer under review seemed to have been edited with the prodigious use of a cleaver and soldering iron only added to the general fun to be had.

Reviewed by Matt Blake