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The Italian Connection
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - United Kingdom - Raro Video Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (5th August 2024). |
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The Film
 Unlikely American mob boss Corso (Tam Lin's Cyril Cusack) sends hitmen Dave Catania (Cry of a Prostitute's Henry Silva) and Frank Webster (Boot Hill's Woody Strode) to Italy to assassinate pimp Luca Canali (What Have They Done to Your Daughters?'s Mario Adorf) in a most public and gruesome manner to send a message to the Italian mafia as to how New York deals with troublemakers. They are instructed to not be conspicuous in their behavior as New York gangsters. Their lovely guide Eva (99 Women's Luciana Paluzzi) not so willingly takes them through the fleshpots of the city in search of Canali. Before they can make a move on Canali, however, the hit men must get the consent of Don Vito Tressoldi (They Have Changed Their Face's Adolfo Celi). He sends his men to collect Canali, but Canali does not take kindly to being roughed up and escapes after administering a beating to his captors. Canali, still unaware of why he is being targeted, dodges Tressoldi's men as well as Catania and Webster. When Don Vito targets his ex Lucia (Lisa and the Devil's Sylva Koscina) and his daughter Rita (Tenebrae's Lara Wendel), Canali stops running and takes up the guns and blunt instruments. In The Italian Connection, Fernando di Leo has upped the violence considerably from Milano Calibre 9. The gangsters here do not mess around. Canali’s mistress gets roughed up in a particularly disturbing scene, but that is only a teaser for a particularly abrupt and shocking hit-and-run that precedes an exciting set-piece of a car chase/foot chase. Adorf's Luca is brutal yet charismatic and viewers may find themselves rooting rooting for him even though he is a pimp and no more gentle than Catania, Webster, or Don Vito’s men. Smirking Silva and stoic Strode do not hold back any punches (or gouges) but both disappear from the middle of the film when Adorf takes center-stage. Paluzzi as Eva withstands Catania’s flirtations – as well as the underlying threat of violence – but has little else to do until the finale. Her Thunderball co-star Celi is his usual smiling, menacing self while Femi Benussi (The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance) gets a bit more dialogue than usual as Canali's mistress before she is stripped and roughed up. Jessica Dublin (Island of Death) plays a lovable drunk hotel guest who thinks she is in Sweden. Polish actor Peter Berling (Aguirre, the Wrath of God) – whose Germanic-sounding name usually led to him being listed as a co-writer on Italian/West German co-productions like Di Leo's Rulers of the City – plays one of Don Vito’s advisors and Gianni Macchia (Emanuelle Around the World) plays one of Canali’s allies. Di Leo-regular Luis Bacalov sits this effort out and the less adventurous but nicely loungey score here and 1960s cheesy vocals are provided by Armando Travajoli (Blazing Magnum). 
Video
Released theatrically in the U.K. by Miracle Films as "Manhunt in Milan", The Italian Connection first hit English-friendly DVD in 2004 via Italy's Raro Video, and the SD PAL master was converted to progressive NTSC when they branched out to the U.S.A. as part of the Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection before an HD remaster became part of their Blu-ray upgrade the following year (along with an Italian edition). The German edition made use of the same master but the French edition – also included in the Fernando Di Leo - La Trilogie du milieu set – made use of a new 4K restoration struck in 2020 which has also been utilized by Raro's Radiance Films-distributed 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray under review here. Colors are more subdued than the earlier SD and HD masters – which look pumped up in comparison at the expense of detail – but primaries remain bold without being noisy, and the framing reveals more on all four sides of the frame, looking less claustrophobic than the punched-in earlier framing (the earlier HD master was also windowboxed as is the case with a lot of earlier Raro HD masters). 
Audio
Audio options include relatively clean-sounding English and Italian LCPM 2.0 mono tracks, along with optional English SDH subtitles for the English track and English subtitles for the Italian track. Both tracks are post-dubbed – although a number of the performances were acted in English or phonetic English – so the dialogue is always clear and always sounds "separate" from the ambiance and scoring even during some of the busier sequences like the nightclub scenes. 
Extras
Ported from the earlier editions is "Roots of the Mafia" (20:35) featuring Di Leo, writer Maurizio Colombo, essayist Luca Crovi, editor Amedeo Giomini (Door into Darkness), cinematographer Franco Villa (Giallo in Venice), assistant director Franco Lo Cascio (Naked Violence), producer Armando Novelli (Black Angel), actress Francesca Romana Coluzzi (Giovannona Long-Thigh) who plays a blue-haired prostitute in the film. Di Leo's comments will ease the minds of some viewers regarding the use of a kitten in the junkyard scene. New to this edition is "… and a Tiny Bullet for a Tiny Kitten" (47:02), a visual essay by film historian Howard S. Berger who discusses the ways that di Leo satisfied the market requirement with his "Milieu Trilogy" to produce the spaghetti counterparts to The Godfather and The French Connection while exploring his own thematic concerns and holding a mirror up to the viewers of those spectacles as symbolic of societal decay. Most interesting is Berger's exploration of the notion of performance (spoilers withheld for the other two films in the trilogy) with the hit men "cast" to satisfy the expectations of the Italian mafia of the brash American counterpart, and Luca Canali a nobody cast as a victim along with other hit men and victims pawns of corrupt interests with no concern for them as individuals. Of course, the "Destructible Man" discussion also includes the thematic implications of reducing victims to literal dummies for effects and stunt sequences. 
Packaging
This limited edition of three thousand copies includes a booklet with new writing by Italian crime expert Austin Fisher (not provided for review).
Overall
With The Italian Connection, Fernando di Leo ups the violence considerably over the first installment of the "Milieu Trilogy" with an even more reprehensible protagonist for which nevertheless cannot help but root. 
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