Ricco (1974)

I saw this one as a pretty good example of a "B" version of the early '70s Italian crime films. On those terms, it's pretty good. I'm not really sure you can take it seriously enough to rate against the "A" grade, but I think it pretty much announces that. One of the taglines from a poster at the time was "No swords, no guns, no knives, no weapons. Just a burning pool of acid!". No weapons? No knives? Tons of those. And...just a minor point...soap is made from an alkaline solution, things like sodium hydroxide. That's the opposite of acid. So the only thing in the tagline accurate is "no swords". Like I'd expect that of a '70s Italian crime film.So, you can't get too deep with this one. As an over the top take on the sub genre I think it works. As much "early '70s" as it is "Italian crime film", it doesn't spare any mod visuals. Worth a go, I say.

Ricco Aversi (an amiable and acceptable performance by Christopher Mitchum) vows to get revenge on ruthless drug smuggler Don Vito (Arthur Kennedy in peak mean and slimy form) for not only killing his father, but also for stealing his girlfriend Rosa (ravishing busty brunette Malisa Longo, who spends the bulk of her screen time either nude or wearing some skimpy apparel). Brash and beautiful con artist Scilla (the divine Barbara Bouchet at her most saucy and desirable) helps Ricco out.Director Tulio Demicheli, working from an exceptionally gritty script by Mario di Nardo, Jose G. Maesso, and Santiago Moncada, keeps the entertainingly trashy story moving along at a brisk pace, maintains a tough seamy tone throughout, delivers oodles of tasty gratuitous distaff nudity (Bouchet's jaw-dropping late night striptease in the middle of a road rates as a definite scorching highlight), stages the stirring action with rip-roaring brio, and goes whole hog with the no-holds-barred brutal violence that includes a truly wince-inducing castration set piece. The ubiquitous Vic Israel pops up as wormy club owner Checana while Eduardo Fajardo does well as the slippery Cyrano. Nando De Luca's funky-grinding score hits the get-down groovy spot. Francisco Fraile's slick cinematography provides a nice glossy look. The surprise bummer ending packs a devastating punch. A supremely nasty and scuzzy treat.

Originally, when "Ricco The Mean Machine" came out on VHS in America, it was an edited version, but the 2006 DVD release put all the footage back into it that makes it a violent, brutal movie. This contemporary Italian produced revenge thriller chronicles the last days of Ricco Aversi (Christopher Mitchum-the son of the legendary Robert Mitchum) after he gets out of prison where he served two years. He has been let out of jail a year ahead of time for good behavior. Ricco is coming home to see his married sister and invalid mother. Mom tries to thrust an automatic pistol into his palm because Mafiaso Don Vito (Arthur Kennedy) had his father, Gaspara Aversi (Luis Induni), murdered. Duty-bound Ricco assures his mom that he will handle things in his own way. Ricco infiltrates the gang with the help of an old friend (Eduardo Fajardo of "The Mercenary") who turns out to be pretty treacherous and his new girlfriend Scilla (Barbara Bouchet) who likes to hustle guys with her cleavage when she is trying to exchange funny money for genuine green.Basically, this is a violent shoot'em up crime movie with some tough, gritty action. The uncut version shows a mafia soldier getting dumped naked into a tub of acid after the villains have cut off his genitals--yes, you see a super hairy cock & balls slashed off and then shoved in his mouth before they tumble him into the acid bath. Rosa (Malisa Longo) joins him a moment later; Rosa was the girlfriend of Don Vito and she was cheating on him with one of his crime lieutenant because she wanted to have sex with young meat.This nimble European actioneer opens with the ambush of Gaspara Aversi. He is ambushed trying to get the night watchman to open a gate so that he can park his car. Three men open fire on him and wound him repeatedly but the mafia chieftain guns them down. Gaspara is not as lucky when the fourth gunman delivers a coup de grace to the him and blasts away his noggin. Amoral crime drama from start to finish with its own message that revenge begets killing and more killing until there is nobody left to kill, including the protagonist who dies in a duel with Don Vito. One interesting scene occurs about half-way through the movie when Ricco and Scilla rob two guys carrying protection collection money gathered by the Vito mob. Scilla walks in front of their car on a foggy bridge and strip-teases. When they get out of the car to approach her, Ricco surprises them from behind and sends them plunging into the river. The consequences for their ill-advised behavior is not good. An unhappy Don Vito has both of them thrown unceremoniously into an acid bath. The ironic thing about the Don Vito character is that he is a mobster who makes soap! If you crave exploitation European movie-making at its best, do not miss "Ricco The Mean Machine!" This movie was made when it was fashionable to zoom and pan with film cameras. Christopher Mitchum studied karate, too. The production lensed the action on location around Rome, Italy.

A young man (Chris Mitchum) gets out of prison to find that his mafia don father has been brutally murdered, and that the man that who did it (Arthur Kennedy)has also taken his fiancée (Malisa Longo). This sounds like the perfect set-up for a revenge movie, but this is actually a very atypical one. The young man had little respect for his gangster father and after years in prison is not all that desirous of revenge, but is drawn into it by his vengeful, invalid mother, his father's crooked business associates, his promiscuous former fiancée, and, above all, the utterly ruthless paranoia of the new don. This movie also takes the saying that "if you go seeking vengeance, dig two graves" to whole new extremes. The hero should have dug many, many graves since his vendetta gets practically everybody in the cast, sympathetic or evil, killed. Of course, digging graves is largely unnecessary since the evil don gets rid of most of HIS victims by putting them in an acid bath and turning them into soap for his soap factory (hilariously, he is therefore, afraid to use soap). This movie is VERY violent including graphic scenes of castration, a guy getting his face caved in with a rifle butt, ad infinitum. It was actually first released in the US as a horror movie called "Cauldron of Death".What's interesting though, without giving away the end, is that the final revenge is strangely unsatisfying, and the movie ends up being more a tragedy like "Hamlet" than a revenge flick. It's more violent than your average American revenge flick, but also ironically a lot less fascist. Violence is not the answer to every problem and only begets more violence that ultimately stains the "good guys" as well as the "bad". (Also, even the ruthless don is humanized a bit in that he does seem to genuinely love his faithless mistress). Although certainly not all Italian crime/revenge movies are like this, I would still maintain that Italians seem to have learned something from their dark, fascist past that has been lost on many Americans.But if all that's too left-wing for you, here's something that should appeal to ALL crime movie fans--the women. Barbara Bouchet does a sexy striptease that'll have your tongue unspooling onto the floor, but she also has an especially meaty role for a woman in one of these films as the protagonist's partner as well as his lover. Malisa Longo (whose body, uh, of work I was previously unfamiliar with) is a more the typical piece of meat (she's naked in every one of her scenes), but she does get to do some acting in her brief screen time. Ditto with future porn star Paola Senatore playing the protagonist's sister (who spends a hilariously amount of her time in bed with her husband)--I didn't even recognize her until the credits because I've never actually seen her actually ACT before. I would definitely recommend this one.