Colpo in canna (1975)

Director:

Fernando Di Leo

Writers:

Fernando Di Leo (screenplay)
Fernando Di Leo (story)

Release Date:

18 January 1975 (Italy)

Genre:

Action

Plot:

An air hostess gets involved in Naples, against her will, in the in-fighting amongst rival gangs. |

Plot Keywords:

Drug Smuggling | Napoli Italy | Mafia | Beautiful Woman | Female Nudity

Cast

Ursula Andress	...	Nora Green
Woody Strode	...	Silvera
Marc Porel	...	Manuel
Isabella Biagini	...	Rosy
Lino Banfi	...	Commissario Calogero
Aldo Giuffrè	...	Don Calò
Maurizio Arena	...	Padre Best
Rosario Borelli	...	Silvera's Man
Carla Brait	...	Carmen
Renato Baldini	...	Ali
Raul Lovecchio	...	Blindman
Sergio Ammirata	...	Commissario Ammirata
Loris Bazzocchi	...	Nora Henchman
Jimmy il Fenomeno	...	Tano
Roberto Dell'Acqua	...	Zanzara

Also Known As:

Loaded Guns (Philippines: English title)
Stick 'em Up, Darlings

Runtime:

Portugal:96 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:PG | Iceland:16 | Finland:(Banned) (1975) | Portugal:M/18

Company:

Cineproduzioni Daunia 70

Movie Connections:

Spoofs Per un pugno di dollari (1964)

Loaded guns

At his best, director Ferdinand DiLeo was on par with great Italian genre directors like Bava, Argento, Fulci, and Sergio Martino. But he was also kind of uneven, especially when he got too far from his comfort zone of violent crime thrillers. Fortunately, he isn't TOO far away here. This is kind of like a sex comedy/parody of a crime thriller. It has a typical strong DiLeo plot: a stewardess is offered $100 to deliver a letter and finds herself involved in a Neapolitan gang war between drug traffickers, and has to outwit both sides (and the police) "Yojimbo"/"Fisftul of Dollars" style. Naturally this isn't nearly as good as one of DiLeo's serious crime thrillers, but if you take it as an Italian sex comedy, it's a relative masterpiece. Italian comic Lino Banfi has a dual role as a police chief and a cabdriver, and even though I've seen more of his films than any non-drunken Italian peasant from the 1970's should, this and Sergio Martino's "Creampuffs" were the only two where I thought he was actually funny.

I thought this was my first DiLeo comedy, but I found out from the accompanying documentary that a DiLeo film I saw earlier, "Mr. Scarface". was also supposed to be a comedy; it was so badly presented on public domain DVD I had no idea (I just thought it REALLY sucked). Nocturno really deserves kudos therefore because their presentation here really makes this movie (they have also released DiLeo's "La Seduzione" and Sergio Martino's similar comedy/crime thriller hybrid "Suspicious Death of a Minor"). Bond girl Ursula Andress made this film during her late 70's "Sensuous Nurse"/"Mountain of the Cannibal Gods" phase when she was regularly throwing all her clothes to the wind. One of the guys in the documentary complained that she was "over-the-hill". Well, maybe compared to her 20- year-old self in "Dr. No", but compared to 99.9 percent of twenty year olds and pretty much 100 percent of forty year olds, she stacks up pretty well. (She's a lot sexier than Jack Palance in "Mr. Scarface" at any rate). The supporting cast includes Marc Porel from "Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man", hulking African-American actor Woody Strode from DiLeo's "Manhunt", and, of course, Banfi. This is not Dileo's best movie by a long shot, but you could certainly do worse.