A Deadly Good Time

A slightly more obscure giallo released during the heyday of the craze, co-writer/director Silvio Amadio’s Smile Before Death (1972) is a psychological mystery thriller that certainly pushes the boundaries of the already boundary-pushing Italian genre. Amadio starts with a wild opener, as wealthy Dorothy Emerson (Zora Gheorgieva) is found brutally murdered by an unknown assailant... with it promptly being classified as a suicide by the incompetent police, this then turns into a slow burner of sorts.

One of the major films to challenge the Hays Code before it finally failed in 1968 (to be replaced with our modern rating system) was also one of the first to usher in what is called New Hollywood (putting an end to the traditional Hollywood System), namely, the biographical crime drama Bonnie and Clyde (1967), directed by Arthur Penn. Based upon the real life bank robbers, Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) is a bored amateur poet and waitress in her early twenties looking for any adventure to come her way during the crippling Great Depression... Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty – McCabe & Mrs. Miller) just so happens to be a recently released convict that she spots and becomes infatuated with.

A rare Pre-Code film that still echoes through the lineage of movies to this day, influencing the gangster genre is the Howard Hughes produced, Howard Hawks directed, Ben Hecht written Scarface (1932) – with its elements playing an integral part in setting up the archetypal template for generations to come (just think of the works of Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma and Francis Ford Coppola four, five, and six decades later). Ripped from the headlines at the time, this fast paced and snappy gem doesn’t feel like it’s made in 1932, the limitations of the early ‘talkie’ era hardly noticeable. The camera gracefully moves around, be it reenacting the movement of a Tommy gun or introducing us to the players in a room.

One of the trends of the gialli, when possible, was for the film making team to attract a formerly successful Hollywood star who had aged out of his heyday a bit... think The Pyjama Girl Case who nabbed Ray Milland, The Cat O’Nine Tails starring Karl Malden, or The Killer Is On the Phone featuring Joseph Cotten... and, with today’s example, Farley Granger leading So Sweet, So Dead (1972). Directed by Roberto Bianchi Montero, the feature, which is also known as the less subtle The Slasher ... Is the Sex Maniac! follows a small city detective, Inspector Capuana (a mustached Granger – They Live by Night; Side Street), who has recently moved to a larger locale in southern Italy.

A fun little fact to start... the colourful monikers utilized by Quentin Tarantino as criminal code names in his breakout feature Reservoir Dogs (1992) was done in homage to the film reviewed here today, Joseph Sargent’s crime thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) – which used a similar method to keep the criminals unknown to others. Set in the cement underground that is the New York City subway system, all cold, rugged, and dirty, it seems like any other day. . . that is, until these code named gun wielding assailants, led by accented mastermind Mr. Blue

A blackmailing scheme that leads right to the top, plenty of political tomfoolery, a black militant causing many an issue on the darker side of life, a smut king involved with numerous dirty coppers, and more all revolve around a dynamic robbery in the Roger Donaldson directed film The Bank Job (2008). Set in London, England circa 1971 and loosely based upon numerous real and rumoured happenings from the time, the main narrative follows Terry Leather (Jason Statham – The Beekeeper; Snatch.), a small time former crook and now used car dealer/garage who is still down on his luck thanks to owing money to the wrong sort of people.