It was a time when Elvis Presley and Jimi Hendrix passed away, Microsoft and Apple set out to conquer the globe and Argentina won its first World Cup. Meanwhile, in Italy, lead and blood were flowing, the Mafia was getting annoyed by Peppino Impastato’s voice and via Fani witnessed the kidnapping of Aldo Moro.
These were the 70s, and with the massacres and the Red Brigades’ assaults on the Country, western movies got old all of a sudden, allowing a new genre take over movie theatres.
Between spaghetti and 44 Magnum, disguising Sergio Leone’s masks with the noir of the American and French masters, the directors from the Bel Paese started to crowd with police inspectors in the streets of Milan, Genoa, Rome and Naples, cities that were shaped at the time by enraged and livid conflicts. Violence, fear, and gunshots stood out on the posters: the Italian detective story was born.
Based on an epic (correctly) judged by many critics to be the reactionary and right wing, this new trend offers a decade of films, often awkward and imperfect, yet damn popular.
Confined by contemporaries to the suburbs of B-movie, the Poliziottesco has been now re-evaluated thanks to the praise of masters such as Quentin Tarantino, who fondly remembers over a hundred titles capable of crystallizing a decade and which was as controversial as it was fascinating and offered the audience absolute cult characters.
“If one day I realize that I am very much appreciated by the critics, but no longer by the public, then I would not enjoy working any longer and I would quit.”
Cold-eyed, with an athletic body, Maurizio Merli has probably been the most popular face of the genre that brought fame to Sergio Martino and Umberto Lenzi.
He was discovered in the pages of photo stories, but he had a short history of theatre appearances at the court of Luca Ronconi. Merli embodies the face of the law, which is as rough in its manners as it is elegant in its image.
Made immortal by a thick mustache that he decided to grow ― on the advice of director and producer Marino Girolami ― to resemble as much as possible the star Franco Nero, the Roman actor conquered the public with his features; at once harmonious and squared, as well as with his flawless style.
Beige trench coat or black turtleneck, the main character of ‘Roma a mano armata’ (1976) and ‘Un poliziotto scomodo’ (1978) pops on camera, chasing criminals and girls through the amber lenses of a pair of Ray-Ban Aviators, while his right wrist is handcuffed by watches with fine leather straps and massive gold-colored dials.
Blue dress shirts or white polo shirts, partially unbuttoned, complete the portrait of a very honest professional, whose mild expressiveness is balanced by an effective presence on screen and by the ability to perform even the most complex action scenes, without ever having to rely on stuntmen.
“The Underpaid Police Association wishes you a goodnight!”
Far from the glossy elegance of Merli, the charm of Mark Terzi and his interpreter Franco Gasparri is, on the contrary, more light-hearted and mysterious.
With a sharp look, and a slightly sketchy smile, Gasparri’s face is framed by a scruffy beard and a mass of dark hair. His slimmer physique and natural ironic vein make him a character capable of lightening the violent and severe tones of the contemporary Poliziottesco.
Milanese and beat, less bourgeois and more “sixty-eight” than his blond colleague, Gasparri became famous with the trilogy of Mark il Poliziotto, directed by Stelvio Massi, virtuous expert of the camera and talented director of photography.
Massi was, in fact, able to sketch a new model of “man in uniform” on Gasparri’s acting, dilating the brutality of contemporary films to dilute it in an original reading of the genre.
White vertical striped or denim shirts, flared trousers and black jacket with upturned collar, in the last Markian act ― ‘Mark colpisce ancora’ (1976) ―, inspector Terzi leaves the stage to agent Mark Patti, completing his own filmography with an interpretation marked by a subtler and less physical virility than Merli’s one, though it’s still effective in grabbing the audience by the throat. One chase after another.
“Inform the Attorney General. Tell him that former Commissioner Grandi killed Giulio Sacchi.”
There were not only photo story models though (Gasparri, like Merli, came “from the newsagents.) The “Poliziottesco” was indeed mainly fed by disturbed characters, bad guys and femmes fatales, starting from inspector Walter Grandi in ‘Milano odia: la polizia non può sparare’ (1974) and from the underworld cosmos of ‘Milano calibro 9’ (1972).
Born in New York and already adopted by the western universe, Henry Silva’s face rips the Italian scenes under Lenzi’s direction, focusing on serpentine aesthetics, in contrast to the pleasing features of the main characters in the films mentioned above.
Choked by a turtleneck sweater ranging from amaranth to black ― as if to show the leading tones of a season marked by lead and blood ― Silva’s impassive features summarize the impotence of the police who, in order to play level with crime, are forced to overcome its moral limits.
From the cult directed by Ferdinando Di Leo, instead, what sticks out is the wild cruelty of Ugo Pizza ― masterfully portrayed by Gastone Moschin ― and the unbridled eroticism of Nelly Bordon ― a smoking hot Barbara Bouchet.
While the first, with a cigarette in his mouth and shaved skull, paralyzes the viewer’s heart with a mad, penetrating and vengeful look, the other kind of shiver shakes the movements of the girl’s go-go dancing.
In the famous Night Club scene, the curves of Barbara Bouchet, in fact, whipped as much of the fantasies of the male audience as the beads of an extremely skimpy bikini, which left little room for imagination.
