Violent Streets: the Umberto Lenzi/Tomas Milian Collection is a sensational new box set from Severin featuring five gritty, outrageous crime films from Italian director Umberto Lenzi, particularly the ones he made in the 1970s with the electrifying actor Tomas Milian. These “Poliziotteschi” crime films were wildly popular at the time in Italy and imported to many other countries. But seeing them restored, with many fascinating extras and even including several soundtrack CDs is beyond belief.
The five incredible films include:
Almost Human (1974) Umberto Lenzi’s hardboiled cop drama about a weary, hardened police chief (Henry Silva) tracking down a sadistic psychopath (Tomas Milian) who has kidnapped a rich man’s daughter. One of Lenzi’s best “Poliziotteschi” crime film- it oozes sleaze and violence. Milian is astonishingly loathsome here- it’s a wildly impressive performance. He’s truly frightening. (Lenzi has been quoted as saying Milian “shot almost every scene under the effect of cocaine or vodka”). Ray Lovelock plays a sweaty, nervous partner in crime who becomes more disturbed as Milian’s character spins ferociously out of control. He also is morally opposed to murdering the hostage after they get the money. It doesn’t end well for him. There is an amazing interview with Milian on the disc explaining how he immersed himself into the character, and a shorter one with Henry Sliva, who describes director Umberto Lenzi as the “screamiest” of directors. Silva said Lenzi was a delight as a person and often had dinner with him and when he asked the director why he screamed on the set all the time, Lenzi simply said it was to simply to alleviate tension. This also includes a CD of the wonderful Ennio Morricone motion picture score.
Syndicate Sadists (1975) Cuban-born Tomas Milian came to America to pursue acting and trained at the famed Actor’s Studio before traveling to Italy and appearing in some intellectual movies, which bored him. He found his niche in some “Spaghetti Westerns,” which were popular at the time. But his work with director Umberto Lenzi afforded the talented Milian to really stretch as an actor and go wild on screen with some indelible, bizarre, go-for-broke performances. Here he plays Rambo (Milian had read First Blood and was determined to do a John Rambo project which fell through so he decided to use the name for this one). He plays a gum-chewing biker in a leather jacket and knitted wool hat who shows up in Milan to see his cop friend Pino (Mario Piave). The young son of an industrialist is kidnapped and Pino discovers a lead to where the kid is stashed which gets him killed. So, Rambo arms himself with a gun with exploding bullets and states, “For me there is only one law- mine!” Joseph Cotten plays an aging gangster named Paterno. The beautiful Evelyn Stewart plays the mother of the kidnapped boy- who is actually played by her real son Alessandro. On one of the extras Alessandro Cocco talks about how much fun it was to work with his mother and why he left movies to become a pilot. Watching how ultra-cool Rambo plays the gangs against one another in this film is a real treat. And Milian looks like he’s having a ball- wait until you get to his brain-frying speech to a criminal about how “life is just one hole…” This comes with a bonus disc of the brawny soundtrack by Franco Micalizzi.
Free Hand for a Tough Cop (1976) A rollicking, rudely funny action film where Tomas Milian plays a bearded, scruffy prisoner with a birthmark on his left hand. Depending on which language you listen to the movie- in Italian he is called “Pig Sty” and in English “Garbage Can.” During prison movie night (where they are all watching a rowdy western) he is knocked out cold and taken out of prison by a cop (Claudio Cassinelli) in order to contact his underworld friends in tracking down a 12-year-old girl who has been kidnapped and is suffering from a kidney disease. Milian is hilariously offbeat in this one, even grousing while they are trying to rescue the kidnapped girl, “Damn cop, making me play the hero,” and constantly begging to be taken back to jail. The film makes the city seemed filled with robbers, purse-snatchers, drug dealers, petty crooks, and other miscreants. There is a funny sequence with a couple leaving a movie and commenting on the film, “It was good- but too violent.” Which is then followed by a brutal robbery of the movie theater. Henry Silva plays a crime boss who has just gotten plastic surgery. The extras include interviews with “tough guy” actor Guy Corrado, screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti and an extended bank robbery sequence from the original negative. (Apparently, this originally was to be directed by someone else. But when Milian met the director, who was conservatively dressed in a business suit, he said to the producer, “Get Lenzi.”)
The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist (1977) Blonde, mustached Maurizio Merli returns as Dirty Harry-ish rogue cop Leo Tanzi from The Tough Ones, who has left the force and is editing crime novels. But he returns to battle bad guys when he receives a death notice (for himself) slipped under his door from a vicious, escaped criminal nicknamed the “Chinaman” (Tomas Milian). The notice: “Announces the death of Leonardo Tanzi, a son-of-a-bitch cop. Say a prayer (if you believe).” An attack on his life causes Tanzi to fake his own death and he goes undercover pitting an Italian/American crime boss (John Saxon) against the wily Chinaman. Milian goes through the whole movie with an unexplained bandage on his forehead. Lenzi knew that Milian and Merli disliked each other intensely so he plotted the whole movie out so they didn’t have to share a scene together (even filming their big showdown separately). John Saxon has a memorable scene swinging a golf club and hitting the balls into the face of a tied-up hood who has ripped him off. The original title for this film was meant to be Together for a Big Robbery, but Lenzi thought that title was more like Together for a Big Flop. So, riffing off The Good, the Bad and the Ugly he came up with title The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist and it was a big hit. This comes with a fun interview with John Saxon and the soundtrack CD by Franco Micalizzi.
Brothers till We Die (1978) Sadly, the final collaboration between Lenzi and Milian lets Tomas play twin brothers. They bring back the bearded, curly-haired, Pig Sty of Free Hand for a Tough Cop. His hunchback twin- Vince- is a criminal returning from Corsica with plans for an armored truck bank heist. Vince gets screwed out of the cash by the robbers and goes murderously after each one. The police pick up his brother Pig Sty and throw him in an asylum to find out where his brother is hiding out. Taylor Mead shows up in the loony bin, of all people! Milian played a hunchback before in The Tough Guys, but as a sadistic psychopath. He’s a bad guy here- but more of a sympathetic outcast, and you miss the nasty ferocity of the earlier films Lenzi and Milan made together. There is one great scene where Vince has a night out with his prostitute girlfriend at a fancy disco and the wealthy creeps there ridicule his hunchback so he robs them of their valuables and forces them all to eat laxatives. Lenzi realized their collaboration had come to an end, “I was fed up dealing with his craziness, his mood swings, and probably I was eager to pass on to something different.” Who knew it would lead to his infamous Italian cannibal shockers like The Man from Deep River, Eaten Alive! and Cannibal Ferox. But that’s a whole other story entirely.
You sound just sound so excited over this collection! The guys are hot and you narrate this so well. Thank you!