La polizia chiede aiuto (1974)

Director:

Massimo Dallamano

Writers:

Massimo Dallamano (screenplay)
Ettore Sanzò (screenplay)

Release Date:

April 1980 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Plot:

Police investigate apparent suicide of teen girl and uncover details of a teenage prostitution racket. They go on the hunt for a motorcycle riding killer. |

Plot Keywords:

Racket | Motorcycle | Police | Killer | Prostitution

Cast

Giovanna Ralli	...	Assistant District Attorney Vittoria Stori
Claudio Cassinelli	...	Inspector Silvestri
Mario Adorf	...	Inspector Valentini
Franco Fabrizi	...	Bruno Paglia (photographer)
Farley Granger	...	Mr. Polvesi
Marina Berti	...	Mrs. Polvesi
Paolo Turco	...	Marcello Tosti
Corrado Gaipa	...	District Attorney
Micaela Pignatelli	...	Rosa
Ferdinando Murolo	...	Sgt. Giardina
Salvatore Puntillo	...	Napoli
Eleonora Morana	...	Polvesi's housekeeper
Sherry Buchanan	...	Silvia Polvesi (as Cheryl Lee Buchanan)
Roberta Paladini	...	Patrizia Valentini
Luigi Antonio Guerra	...	Journalist

Also Known As:

Coed Murders (USA)
The Police Want Help (International: English title)
What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (USA) (dubbed version)

Runtime:

France:90 min | USA:96 min | West Germany:91 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Germany:18 | UK:18 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Botticino, Brescia, Lombardia, Italy

Company:

Primex Italiana

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: In the scene when Cassinelli and Ralli are looking at a strip of film footage, they repeatedly stop the projector to pause on a singleframe. However, the shadow of the projector planly reveals that it is still rolling.

Movie Connections:

References L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo (1970)

A giallo by virtue of association and a police proceedural at heart.

As is probably obvious by the lurid title, Massimo Dallamano returns to the same teenagers in peril themes he explored two years earlier in his giallo What Have You Done to Solange. Only this time around the focus is more on the police procedure than the blood and sleaze that is associated with the giallo. What remains the same though is the classy visual style and the mystery aspect.

The discovery of a young girl hanged in a run-down attic leads the police to an underground prostitution ring. The story lacks the myriad red herrings of the giallo but it retained suspense and mystery well enough to keep me glued on the screen. Dallamano however throws a black-clad killer in the mix and punctuates this police proceedural with a couple of very well done gore scenes (hand decapitation, machete in the head, screwdriver in the belly; take your pick). As a testament to Dallamano's style, the killer is always shot close-up with wide-angle lenses that adds a reality distortion of sorts.

Add to that a sterling score by Cipriani that is equal parts suspenseful and subtle and some well handled action scenes and car chases in the poliziottescho mold (although it lacks the rampant energy of one, so I wouldn't classify it as such) and here you have a movie that is definitely worth the time of ANY fan of 70's Italian crime cinema. I shouldn't forget to mention that the copy I saw had surprisingly good dubbing too.