Cani arrabbiati (1974)

Director:

Mario Bava

Writers:

Alessandro Parenzo (screenplay)
Alessandro Parenzo (story)

Release Date:

25 February 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

Lock the doors, rollup the windows, and buckle up ... for the ride of your life!

Plot:

Following a bungled robbery, three violent criminals take a young woman, a middle-aged man, and a child hostage and force them to drive them outside Rome to help them make a clean getaway.

Plot Keywords:

Robbery | Criminal | Hostage | Grindhouse | Urination

Cast

Riccardo Cucciolla	...	Riccardo
Don Backy	...	Bisturi (Blade) (as Aldo Caponi)
Lea Lander	...	Maria
Maurice Poli	...	Dottore
George Eastman	...	Trentadue (Thirtytwo) (as Luigi Montefiori)
Maria Fabbri	...	Maria Sbravati
Erika Dario	...	Marisa
Luigi Antonio Guerra	...	Employee (as Luigi Guerra)
Francesco Ferrini	...	Gas Station Attendant
Emilio Bonucci	...	Taxi Driver
Pino Manzari	...	Toll Collector
Ettore Manni	...	Bank President

Also Known As:

Kidnapped (Italy) (restored version) (USA) (DVD title)
Rabid Dogs (USA) (literal English title)
A Man and a Boy (International: English title)
Semaforo rosso (Italy) (alternative title)
Wild Dogs

Runtime:

96 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

West Germany:18 | Canada:16+ (Quebec)

Filming Locations:

Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

International Media Films

Trivia:

Director Cameo: [Mario Bava]as a walk-by extra during the crowd scene.

Movie Connections:

References Grand Hotel (1932)

Soundtrack:

Hold on to Me

Mario Bava takes a little drive in the country

Some films are just born unlucky. Mario Bava's 'lost' film 1974 Rabid Dogs is a classic case in point. Shooting started as A Man and a Boy with Al Lettieri and an extremely low budget: Lettieri dropped out after a week due to 'illness' and the money barely materialised only for the film to never get through post-production when the producer died and the film was seized by creditors for a quarter of a century. When co-star Lea Lander pulled together a deal to get Bava's rough cut restored, the only US deal she could get with it was with producer Alfred Leone, who, in a throwback to the old days when no foreign film could be allowed on US shores untouched, promptly re-edited, rescored and redubbed the film with new dialogue and added stock footage and new scenes shot by the director's son Lamberto Bava 'to complete it the way my old friend wanted it to be seen.' Sure… An attempt to make a more contemporary shocker in a more naturalistic setting as the European horror genre was hitting the skids, it plays a bit like an automotive addition to the Last House On the Left genre as the surviving members of a payroll robbery kidnap a female hostage and, later, a driver rushing his unconscious son to hospital to help them in their getaway. Cue much humiliation, boorish behavior, relentless nihilism and fatal divisions coming to the fore as you wait for the tables to be turned Tall-T style by the 'little man' (Riccardo Cucciolla, literally miniscule whenever seen standing next to the towering George Eastman). That it doesn't always do so in the most obvious ways and offers a remarkably passive hero is all to the good and Bava's confident handling never makes the fact that most of the film takes place in a car seem uncinematic – harder than you might think.

Not that Bava Sr's cut is a lost masterpiece. Like most of his films, it isn't as shocking as his reputation implies: the violence is never especially convincing even if the film's mean spirit seems genuine enough. But the re-edited version, retitled Kidnapped, certainly makes it look like one. The new footage makes the final twist, already fairly heavily signposted if your suspicions are roused early even more obvious – and a lot less bleak than in Bava's version. And while the image and sound are clearer, the constant irrelevant cutaways to police control rooms or new characters presumably intended to open up the picture simply act as irritants that dilute the drama and waste screen time without adding anything to the show. Even the new title sequence looks like something from a cheap 80s porno video.