Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection (Caliber 9 / The Italian Connection / The Boss / Rulers of the City) [Blu-ray]

Caliber 9:Ugo Piazza (Gastone Moschin, THE CONFORMIST) has just gotten out of prison after serving a three year sentence for a botched bank robbery. His former boss The Americano (Lionel Stander, THE EROTICIST, Polanski's CUL-DE-SAC) believes that Piazza made off with the loot and got himself arrested and imprisoned purposefully. The police commissioner (Frank Wolff, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST) offers to give Piazza the money to return to Stander in exchange for insider information, but Piazza insists that he did not steal the money (even his girlfriend Nora [Barbara Bouchet, AMUCK, Black Belly Of The Tarantula] does not believe him). Piazza is constantly harassed by The Americano's men Rocco (Mario Adorf, THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE), Pasquale (Mario Novelli, VIOLENT CITY) and Nicola (Giuseppe Castellano, ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN). Piazza appeals to hitman Chino (Philippe Leroy, THE FRIGHTENED WOMAN) for help, but he does not want to get involved (Chino has been caring for blind Don Vincenzo [Ivo Garrani, BLACK SUNDAY]). When Rocco busts in and harasses Piazza, Chino gives him what-for. The Americano takes this as an insult and demands an apology. After another bungled exchange that results in more missing loot and a dead henchman, The Americano sends Piazza to kill the suspected robber. When he discovers that the target is Chino, he balks but Rocco gets off some shots and hits Don Vincenzo. Piazza is able to cast doubt on The American's suspicions, but Chino is already planning a bloody revenge. CALIBER 9 was the first of Di Leo's noir trilogy (including THE ITALIAN CONNECTION and THE BOSS). Based on a novel by Giorgio Scerbanenco (Di Leo had previously adapted a Scerbanenco novel for the film NAKED VIOLENCE), CALIBER 9 is widely regarded as Di Leo's best film (I'd say To Be Twenty is his masterpiece). It has one of his strongest casts (including Moschin, Adorf, and Leroy), a cool score by Luis Bacalov (performed by Osanna) that vacillates between solo piano, classical strings, and progressive rock (the near wordless opening smuggling scene and its brutal aftermath set to the main theme is a mini-masterpiece of a movie in itself). Di Leo's action scenes are rousing and riveting (the final death scene had to be trimmed by the censors, not of any graphic gore but because of the intensity of Adorf's performance).The Italian Connection:Irish by way of South Africa - New York mobster Corso (Cyril Cusack, SACCO & VANZETTI) sends Steve Catania (Henry Silva, THE BOSS) and Frank Webster (Woody Strode, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST) to Italy to take out small-time pimp Luca Canali (Mario Adorf, WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO OUR DAUGHTERS?) in a very public and brutal manner as a message to the Italian mafia from the American mafia. They obtain the consent of Don Vito Tressoldi (Adolfo Celi, THUNDERBALL), but he is suspicious as to their motives. Lovely guide Eva (Luciana Paluzzi, also of THUNDERBALL) reluctantly guides them through the city's fleshpots in search of Canali (even though Don Vito has promised to deliver him to them). Canali dodges Catania and Webster as well as Don Vito's men (delivering brutal beatings when they attempt to capture him), all the while not knowing why he is being targeted. When Don Vito targets his ex-wife (Sylvia Koscina, LISA AND THE DEVIL) and his daughter (Lara Wendel, PERFUME OF THE LADY IN BLACK), Canali arms himself and faces off against the local mafia and the American hitmen. Di Leo ups the violent content considerably from CALIBER 9 here (perpetual Italian giallo victim Femi Benussi does get a bit more dialogue before she is stripped and roughed up and a shocking hit-and-run precedes the film's most exciting car chase). It's always fun to see smirking Henry Silva and stoic Woody Strode kicking a**, and Adorf's charismatic-yet-brutal Luca Canali is quite formidable.Rulers of the City:Tony (Harry Baer, BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ) is a low-level mob leg-breaker working for Luigi Chercio (Edmund Purdom, PIECES). When rival mobster Manzari (Jack Palance) - aka Scarface - deliberately passes a bad check for three million lire at Luigi's gambling hall, Tony is the only guy dumb enough to volunteer to get the money back. He makes the acquaintance of Ric (Al Cliver, THE BEYOND) - just been ousted from Manzari's group - who comes up with a con to get the money (with plans to then hightail it to Brazil). Tony hires an actor to pose as a tax inspector and accompanies him in disguise to Manzari's office. Tony convinces Manzari's second-in-command Luca (Roberto Reale, TO BE TWENTY) to bribe the tax inspector and Tony makes off with ten million lire. He is brash enough to leave the bad check for Manzari and to pay Luigi the three million lire. Luigi goes into hiding and his second-in-command Beppe (Enzo Pulcrano, THE KIDNAP SYNDICATE) spills the beans about Tony (they have no knowledge of Ric's involvement). Beppe kills Luigi and is offered a top position by Manzari in exchange for taking out Tony, so he mobilizes his own band of lowlifes: debt collectors, purse snatchers, and burglars with the more violent assistance of Manzari's seasoned goons. With the help of veteran hood Napoli (Vittorio Caprioli, TOUT VA BIEN), Tony and Ric try to stay one step ahead of Manzari and his men. RULERS OF THE CITY is somewhat atypical Di Leo. While it is entertaining with some nice action setpieces, fisticuffs, shootouts, and stuntwork (along with the requisite nudity), the film is a bit more lighthearted and at times very funny (more so than Di Leo's Ursula Andress vehicle LOADED GUNS). Baer and the iconic Cliver are likeable leads and Caprioli adds some nice comic relief. Purdom and Palance are not particularly formidable as mobsters, but it appears that they were not meant to be (Luigi constantly defers to Napoli's advice in front of his own men, while Manzari seems easily flustered). The pre-credits childhood trauma sequence and its bearing on the rest of the plot is a touch spaghetti western and a tad giallo - well done.The Boss:Under orders from exiled Don Daniello (Claudio Nicastro, HOW TO KILL A JUDGE), hitman Lanzetta (Henry Silva, THE CRY OF A PROSTITUTE) takes out Don Attardi (Andrea Aureli, LADY FRANKENSTEIN) with a rocket launcher (along with several of his men). In retaliation, Attardi's second-in-command Cocchi (Pier Paolo Capponi, CAT O'NINE TAILS) has Daniello's daughter Rina (Antonia Santilli, DECAMEROTICUS) abducted and agrees to return her only in exchange for Daniello's life. The Don is willing to make this sacrifice, but Don Carrasco (Richard Conte, THE GODFATHER) fears that Cocchi will torture Daniello to get his mafia contacts. When Daniello tries to rescue his daughter, Carrasco has Lanzetta kill him. Since Lanzetta was an orphan raised by Daniello, he goes ahead with rescuing Rina, although she proves to be no innocent (and remains a horny thorn in his side while he is dealing with other pressing matters). Despite pressure from higher up (Milan and Palermo, the corrupt government, the clergy) for Carrasco to make peace with Cocchi, he orders Lanzetta to use all his resources to take out Cocchi's gang. Cocchi survives and wants revenge on Lanzetta and corrupt Commissioner Torri (Gianni Garko, NIGHT OF THE DEVILS) needs a scapegoat for the citywide massacre. Carrasco gives him the evidence to arrest Lanzetta, but Lanzetta has decided he wants to grab some power for himself. Marino Mase (THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES), Howard Ross (IMAGES IN A CONVENT), and Andrea Scotti (WEREWOLF WOMAN) co-star. THE BOSS was based on a novel by American pulp author Peter McCurtin and the double/triple/quadruple-cross plot is a bit hard to follow. The violence and sexual content is upped from the previous films (there's a montage of Lanzetta and company doing away with Cocchi's men set to Luis Bacalov's score) and Di Leo's direction (and Amedeo Giomini's editing) is wildly energetic.Extras: Generous and well-organized when it comes to the supplements they've provided, with extras spread out over the set's four discs and included where most relevant; each film is accompanied by a documentary centering on it alone, while the first disc (Caliber 9) also contains the set's more general, career-spanning extras. Most of the additional programs were directed by Manlio Gomarasca in 2004 for what appears to be a television documentary (or perhaps an earlier Italian DVD re-release) on di Leo and his films, and they all draw on different portions of the same interviews with di Leo himself, collaborators like producer Armando Novello, editor Amedeo Giomini, and composer Luis Enriquez Bacalov, and a cross-section of Italian screenwriters and critics, with cast interviews interspersed where the actor-interviewees appeared in the film under discussion. Everyone is knowledgeable and forthcoming (di Leo himself is an amusingly cranky elderly gentleman, guileless and frank, with idiosyncratic views on many things--his eccentric thoughts on sexuality being among the most memorable--that explain much of the films' cartoonish excess), and the supplements are well worth digging into to find out what all the garish 'n overheated craziness you just saw was all about from both the production end (di Leo and crew) and the reception end, with the critics doing a warmly enthusiastic job of expounding upon the films, their status, and their relation to and place in Italian culture.Caliber 9 contains three documentaries: the disc-specific "Caliber 9," (30 minutes) a making-of/recollection that also includes interview footage with actor Phillippe Leroy and actress Barbara Bouchet, and the complete career-of-Fernando di Leo overview (going all the way back to his start in the frantically prolific Italian spaghetti Western industry of the '60s), "Fernando di Leo: The Genesis of the Genre" (40 minutes). There is also a 25-minute piece, "Scerbanenco Noir," in which the critics discuss the loose but kindred-spirited relationship between the Italian crime fiction of Giorgio Scerbanenco and the film di Leo adapted from it. Finally, there is a brief (three-minute) slideshow/photo gallery "narrated" by a short telephone interview with cast-against-type actor/comedian Gaston Moschin, star of Caliber 9, in which he reminisces on di Leo, his fellow actors, and their experience of making the film.The Italian Connection disc's documentary is the 20-minute "The Roots of the Mafia", which brings in actress Francesca Romana Coluzzi (who played the film's sexy bohemian-revolutionary, Trini) to discuss the experience of working with di Leo and the affability of actor Mario Adorf (the film's main character, Luca), and also sees critic Maurizio Colombo comparing the film to Kubrick's The Killing and Melville's Le Cercle rouge."Stories About the Mafia" is the 25-minute piece included on The Boss, gathering interviews with actors Gianni Garko (the double-crossing police inspector); Howard Ross, who played the sexy mobster that menacingly comes onto the kidnapped mob boss's daughter, and who discusses how the actors and crew became a "family" that defused the tension of acting out the film's sexuality, particularly for the actress; and Pierpaolo Cappone, who played the vengeful mafia brother and goes into how an actor would build a character and performance with di Leo. Rulers of the City, in its turn, offers a 15-minute piece, "Violent City,", in which the actors and director comment on working with Jack Palance, actor Al Cliver waxes nostalgic about the fun and easygoing time he had making the film while recounting anecdotes about the shoot, and weapons expert Gilberto Galimbati discusses the film's elaborate stunts and gunplay.Finally, each disc includes an on-screen-text director biography and filmography (the same each time, of course) for handy reference, and the box also contains a 20-page booklet with a bevy of photos from the films, a recap of the director's biography and of each film's credits, and an introduction and extensive interview with di Leo by Italian film writer Luca Rea.

My first experience with Fernando di Leo's films was on Video Asia's Thug City Chronicles: Volume 1 collection, which contained decent transfers of "Milan Caliber 9," "The Italian Connection," and "The Boss." The drawback about the Video Asia set was the presentation, which had panned-and-scanned letterbox versions of each film to fit a 4:3 frame. When I looked up the movies from the Thug City set on Amazon and found this Blu-Ray box set, I was thrilled, and even more so when I found that it was on sale for almost 50% off. I snatched up a copy and have recently completed watching the set on Blu-Ray, and thought it deserved a review.I started with the first and arguably the best film, "Milan Caliber 9," which is simply labeled "Caliber 9" by Raro Video. This movie was Fernando di Leo's first entry into the euro-crime genre and the first part of the loosely-connected Milieu trilogy. Gastone Moschin plays Ugo Piazza, a hood who just spent three years in prison after getting nailed for robbery. Unfortunately, Ugo's old mafia buddies (which includes Italian mainstay Mario Adorf as the vicious Rocco and Lionel Stander, the voice of Kup from Transformers: The Movie, as Rocco's boss) believe that he has $300,000 of Stander's money hidden somewhere. The cops, who are really no better than the crooks, want Ugo to snitch on Stander and send him and his associates up the river. Even the beautiful Barbara Bouchet, who plays Ugo's girlfriend, believes he has the money. When push comes to shove, Ugo starts manipulating Stander, Adorf, Bouchet, and the cops like a chess master, making all of them run around like a Chinese fire drill. But boy, he didn't see that double-cross coming, and neither will you.The second film in the Milieu trilogy is "The Italian Connection," which has been available for years in the public domain as "Manhunt." Henry Silva and Woody Strode headline this tale of two American hitmen sent to Milan to eliminate a small-time pimp named Luca Canoli (played to the hilt by Mario Adorf). They're told that he ripped off a New York cocaine shipment, but that couldn't be further from the truth, and the more Luca tries to figure out why he's been fingered in this mess, the more people his boss, the detestable Don Vito, sends to kill Luca. Even Luca's ex-wife and daughter aren't safe from Don Vito's wrath, and while Silva and Strode live it up nightly in the clubs, trying to find Luca, Luca is slumming it out with a hippie girl he knows, trying to find some place to hide and some place to figure out why his life is going to hell. When the truth comes out and the final confrontation between Silva, Strode, and Adorf is set to take place, you will be in for a real treat.The third and final film in the Milieu trilogy is "The Boss," which is my absolute favorite. Henry Silva returns as the lead star in this film, but loses the useless appendage that Woody Storde was in "The Italian Connection." Silva plays a bad-ass mob hitman named Frank Lanzetta, who opens the film by blowing up a group of men watching a skin flick in a screening room. He does this via a 1970's-style grenade launcher, and as he escapes uses his last grenade on one of the filmgoer's henchmen, tearing him to shreds. The screening room hit was ordered by Don Corasco (played with expert reserve by Richard Conte), a man who heads up the Sicilian mob. Unfortunately, Lanzetta got all but one of the skin freak's men--Coukky, a crazed and wild mobster who refuses to make peace with Don Corasco and kidnaps Lanzetta's boss's daughter in broad daylight. Lanzetta is sent in to rescue her, but having been given orders from Corasco, he makes sure his boss and his assistant won't cause Corasco any more trouble, and soon makes his way up the mob food chain, double-crossing everyone in his path and laying waste to Coukky and his men.The fourth film included in this set is "Rulers of the City," which has been widely available in the public domain as "Mister Scarface." Jack Palance plays Mister Scarface, a mob boss who smokes cigarettes in an old-fashioned holder and has a reputation of shooting first and asking questions later. Tony, a debt collector for a small-time mob dude named Luigi, dreams of making it big someday and going to live with his brother in Brazil (which is made pretty clear by Tony wearing a shirt that says "Brazil" for the first half of the movie). When Rick, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed pretty boy who works for Scarface loses some of Scarface's money while playing poker at Luigi's place, Scarface comes in to make the deal right, and roughs Rick up to teach him a lesson. Tony takes pity on Rick and takes the puny thug to his place, where they concoct a plot to rip off Scarface for ten million dollars. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and when Luigi gets word that Scarface is looking for Tony because of the rip-off, people get double-crossed, peopled get killed, and people get avenged.Each film is presented in 16x9 widescreen with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio (despite what the box says about "Rulers of the City" being in 4:3). They filled the entire screen on my 32" widescreen TV, something I very much appreciated. I watched all four films dubbed in English, which I think adds to the kitsch factor of it all, and found that the English dub's volume would only increase to a certain point and then wouldn't get any louder, regardless of how far you turned it up. Whether this was simply due to my television or something on Raro Video's part, I have no clue, but I would have liked it if the English audio were a little louder so I could pick up what Gastone Mochin's actor was mumbling in some of those scenes of "Milan Caliber 9."As for the image quality, these movies look great. Compared to that Video Asia release I had, this is like a blessing from Heaven, if Heaven showed Fernando di Leo movies, or any movies at all (I guess we'll know when we get there, huh?). As for the video glitches experienced by some viewers in "Rulers of the City," I had no such issues on my Samsung ST-66 Blu-Ray player. There are certain moments in all four films, however, where it looks like the film went off the reel during the transfer. This is clearly evident in "The Italian Connection," where the image runs almost totally off-screen for a good three to four seconds. It's jarring to say the least, and it looks like the transfer team kept adjusting the image back and forth to clear it up in the ensuing seconds, making for an even more dizzying experience. However, considering the age of the prints and the time these movies were made, I can easily forgive mistakes like this, but other (anal) viewers may not be so forgiving.So, after watching all four films, how would I rate them?"Milan Caliber 9" is the best one, as it has everything a good euro-crime thriller should have--mystery, action, drama, romance, and an ending you will never see coming."The Italian Connection" fell flat for me because of the strange performances Henry Silva and Woody Strode deliver in it and their lack of effort in searching for Luca while Luca is shooting up half the town trying to get to Don Vito."The Boss," as I said, is my favorite, because it's packed with action, double-crosses, shifty gangsters, and Henry Silva being a complete and total bad-ass, as he was meant to be. Richard Conte also turns in a noteworthy performance in "The Boss," and there's some great humor between the chief of police and the commissioner, who is an informant for Don Corasco. The only drawback to "The Boss" is the ending, which leaves you with the Italian phrase for "To Be Continued" on it, and regrettably, it never was."Rulers of the City" is very slow to start and kind-of wanders around for a good half-hour, trying to find its way, until Jack Palance comes in and tears up the joint. As one friend put it, "I think the plot just walked into the room." The movie was made in 1976, well after the Milieu trilogy, and Fernando di Leo had moved on to make a series of gangster thrillers that had lighter plots and some comedic elements to them (see his 1975 vehicle "Loaded Guns," with Ursula Andress and Woody Strode, for more evidence of this). "Rulers of the City" suffers from this formula, as it could have been a great bullet-riddled, double-crossing revenge flick. It does, however, deliver in the final twenty minutes, which is nothing but a huge gun battle between Tony, Rick, their friend Napoli, and Scarface's men in an abandoned slaughterhouse. It's wickedly awesome and clearly shows elements that John Woo would later adapt into his Hong Kong gangster thrillers (watch what Tony's shotgun does to cars and you'll see what I mean).So is this set worth the twenty-some dollars I spent on it? As Sarah Palin once said, "You betcha." If you're a fan of euro-crime thrillers or just want to have a crackling good time flashing back to the 70's, then pick up this box set (which is cheaper than buying the individual discs) and enjoy a time when crime was rampant, crooks were smart AND tough, and old movie stars could relive their glory days as A-listers in a country called Italy.

Although the boxset is loaded with add-ons, I had to return 2 boxsets for the same reason. The Italian Connection was defective. You could see the pixels on the discs. Amazon was really accommodating at allowing me to return the defective products. Raro Video (the distributor) never replied to my emails... Too bad.

For poliziotteschi's aficionado, this Fernando Di Leo's box set is an essential addition to your collection. Never before the films included in this box set has appeared as beautiful - we must admit that the previous DVD editions had a sometimes quite questionable image quality overall - and it is great to get these brutal and gritty stories back on screen. Also, it must be admitted that Caliber 9, The Italian Connection and The Boss may be Di Leo's best movies. It's not to say that they are without flaws but they are the one that defines the most Di Leo's contribution to the genre. Extras contained on the different discs also offers a very interesting view of the filmmakers approach to their craft. To buy without hesitation.

Es ist wirklich schade, dass man hier bei uns im deutschsprachigen Raum auf amerikanische Veröffentlichungen angewiesen ist, um einen deutschen Star (hier Mario Adorf) in zwei geilen Produktionen zu sehen. Hier in Deutschland erschienen diese Filme bisher, wenn überhaupt, in lausigen Edetionen!

The films were definitely an outdated 70's genre with low production value. No complaining though about the price and quality. I would purchase from this seller again.

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