Three Tough Guys (1974)

THREE TOUGH GUYS is a film with varied influences. Made with French and Italian funding, shot in America by an Italian crew and produced by Dino De Laurentiis, it's a movie that attempts to cash-in on two big genres of the time: the blaxploitation film and the gangster epic. Thus we get a buddy-buddy cop story in which a hard-fighting priest and a tough black ex-cop team up to battle some gangster types searching for missing loot. The guy directing this is Duccio Tessari, a guy who pumped out a few peplum and spaghetti western flicks among others during a long and varied career.Despite – or maybe because of – the diverse influences, this film actually works as a fairly good thriller. It hasn't got much in it that's not been seen elsewhere, but the story moves along quickly and the various shoot-outs and fist-fights are well handled. It also boasts some interesting leads. I don't know who Lino Ventura is, but his hard-bitten priest character is definitely tough. Isaac Hayes, playing opposite him, is a giant of a man with the softest of voices, and contributes some decent music to the proceedings. The third of the tough guys is Fred Williamson, appearing as a little-seen villain in this. It's unusual seeing Williamson cast as a bad guy and I wish he'd been on screen more, but there's no knocking his presence. Character actors familiar from Italian cinema pop up, like William Berger and Jess Hahn.There are a few car chases thrown in for good measure, along with some antagonistic cops and a fantastic interlude in which one of our heroes is very nearly fed into a furnace. The set-piece finale takes place at a run-down bowling alley, but not before plenty of people have been shot or beaten up. It may not win any awards for wit or originality, but THREE TOUGH GUYS is a perfectly serviceable entry in both the blaxploitation and crime genres.

The Black Moses, The Hammer, and The Preacher Man. They've got their own kind of mean game.This film is directed by Duccio Tessari, assisted by a staff of other unknown Italians. What else has he done? A whole lot of things you never saw, including a film called "Sundance Cassidy and Butch the Kid".The opening theme sounds like a take on the "Shaft" theme, which is no surprise as it is sung by Isaac Hayes, who stars alongside Fred Williamson. Mysteriously, the song is about "two tough guys" (not three, as the title claims) and seems to be the inspiration for Hayes' later song about Beavis and Butt-Head.The picture quality, at least on the Fortune 5 DVD, is incredibly blurry or fuzzy at times, especially when light saturation is involved. Aside from that, it is pretty standard for the time, and almost good considering the notoriously awful quality Italian productions have.Seems to be set in America, but the priest has a thick accent. What is this?

A film like this never gets any respect from the industry it bankrolls. Someone tacked the title "Three Tough Guys" onto the film when it obviously should have been "Two Tough Guys" (as the title sequence song by Isaac Hayes accurately reflects). But someone wanted to the public to think that the film featured as much of Fred Williamson as it did the actual "two tough guys", when in fact, Williamson is barely involved. I would be surprised if analysis revealed that he was on-screen for more than 10 or 12 actual minutes. So if you want to see this film just for Williamson, you probably will be disappointed. But the film has a lot going for it - at least for a genre exploitation film. I could listen to Hayes read the phone book and enjoy it.He's not really an actor, but he's relaxed and comfortable on camera and he's fun to watch. It's a shame that his film career didn't go further. I've never seen the Italian guy before, but he is pretty convincing here as the world's toughest crime-fighting priest; he has a forceful presence that lets him pull off what is essentially a ridiculous role. A lot of actors couldn't make this part work (even some pretty good ones), but he mixes piety and punching in a way that carries the movie quite well.There isn't a lot of chemistry between the two leads, but the dialog is spare and unsentimental and it hardly ever seems forced. The screenwriter (and the Italian film industry) didn't indulge in their normal practice of having everyone talk way too much (especially in the English dub) for once, and the results are pretty good for American sensibilities. There's lots of punching, lots of gun-play, a bit of actual suspense, and some fairly good characterization (for an Italian exploitation flick) even for the minor parts. (One exception is the "bishop", who is forced to play the exasperated part usually reserved for the rogue cop's chief in standard cop thrillers. He sucks on toast, but it's not really his fault - it's the weakest and most contrived role in the movie and there isn't much he can do with it.) The DVD conversion in the "Grindhouse Experience" collection is pretty bad - lots of blurring, some scenes so dark you can hardly tell what's going on, some muffled sound here and there,etc. But I've seen worse conversions - even in this collection - and for once the English dub is pretty good. If you can't find this movie, don't fret - you aren't missing all that much. But as a representative choice for a "Grindhouse Experience", this is actually a very strong entry in the collection, easily in the top 5.

It's probably due to the cheap and clumsy transfer to the Grindhouse Collection DVD, but the picture quality and lighting of this film are absolutely awful! I know this is supposed to be some type of "Blaxploitation" movie, but if I'm not mistaken, this term doesn't mean staring at a black screen the whole time! Several sequences, especially during the first half hour, you have completely no idea what to make of because you only see darkness and vague shadows moving around. And now that we're pointing out the abnormalities anyway, there's something seriously wrong with the title of "THREE Tough Guys". Three? Somebody bring on an abacus, because the correct title ought to be TWO tough guys. At least the soulful theme song got it right. It's not hard to guess why the producers opted to put the number three in the title, though. Fred Williamson receives top billing even though he barely has any screen time and he's also referred to as another one of the tough guys in spite of the fact he's not so tough (he beats women and shoots people in the back) and operating on the wrong side of the law. Williamson's name obviously just served to attract more viewers, as he just scored big Blaxploitation hits with "Black Caesar" and "Hammer", whereas the real tough black dude - Isaac Hayes - would only become a huge star shortly after the release of "Three Tough Guys", namely with his very own testosterone-packed blockbuster "Truck Turner". Say what you want about these Italian filmmakers, but they are great marketers! Anyway, onwards with the story, this opens with the cowardly murder of an insurance agent outside a nightclub. Apparently he was single-handedly investigating a million dollar bank heist and came a little too close to the truth. His closest friend – a tough ex-veteran turned priest – swears to catch whoever killed him and starts a nightly private investigation via sleazy bars and dark alleys filled with heavily armed thugs… on his bike, nonetheless! Father Charlie soon receives back-up from a former cop who has a score of his own to settle. It's no real secret that all traces eventually lead to Williamson, the über-villain for a change! "Three Tough Guys" is a neat hybrid between Italian exploitation and Baadassssssss Cinema, although not highly memorable and badly suffering from the lamentable production values. There are slightly too many tedious sequences to struggle through, but the on screen chemistry between Isaac Hayes and Lino Ventura feels surprisingly authentic and the script contains several funny parts. The amount of brutal violence and sleaze is quite a letdown, but Hayes' own soundtrack is very catchy and Duccio Tessari's ("The Bloodstained Butterfly", "Death Occurred Last Night") direction is fairly solid. So far, the Grindhouse Collection box-set is the only way to get your dirty little hands on this film, but I do hope a fully restored version will appear on DVD in the near future, as it deserves to be slightly more known.