Street People (1976)
"Gli esecutori" (original title)

A Mafia boss is enraged when he is suspected of smuggling a heroin shipment into San Francisco. He dispatches his nephew, a hotshot Anglo-Sicilian lawyer, to identify the real culprit. The ... See full summary »

Directors:

Maurizio Lucidi, Guglielmo Garroni

Writers:

Roberto Leoni (story), Franco Bucceri (story),

Stars:

Roger Moore, Stacy Keach, Ivo Garrani

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Roger Moore	...	Ulysses
Stacy Keach	...	Charlie Hanson
Ivo Garrani	...	Salvatore Francesco
Fausto Tozzi	...	Nicoletta
Ennio Balbo	...	Continenza
Loretta Persichetti	...	Hannah
Pietro Martellanza	...	Pano
Luigi Casellato	...	Pete
Romano Puppo	...	Fortunate
Rosemarie Lindt	...	Salvatore's girlfriend
Aldo Rendine
Emilio Vale
Salvatore Torrisi
Franco Fantasia	...	Priest
Ettore Manni	...	Bishop Lopetri

Storyline

A Mafia boss is enraged when he is suspected of smuggling a heroin shipment into San Francisco. He dispatches his nephew, a hotshot Anglo-Sicilian lawyer, to identify the real culprit. The lawyer also enlists the aid of his best friend, a grand prix driver with an adventurous streak.

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Plot Keywords:

heroin | mafia | driver | smuggling | revenge | 

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Taglines:

The Hunting Season Has Opened In The Naked City

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Drama

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Release Date:

17 September 1976 (USA)

Also Known As:

Street People

Filming Locations:

Pier 45, San Francisco, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Aetos Produzioni Cinematografiche

Technical Specs

Runtime:

105 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Quotes

Charlie Hanson: Excuse me sweetheart, can you tell me where the powdered milk is?
Grocery Store Cashier: Row four, behind the sugar, in front of the flour. Pasteurized, pulverized, reconstituted, dehydrated and skimmed; add water, stir, tastes like shit.
Charlie Hanson: ...thanks.

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Connections

References Jaws (1975)

User Reviews

Forgettable even while you're watching it

When a film has as many alternate titles as The Sicilian Cross – Street People, The Executors and Opium Road among them – it's a pretty strong warning sign that it's not going to turn out well. Take the central casting: Roger Moore and Stacy Keach in an Italian movie about a half-Sicilian Mafia lawyer and his racing driver pal trying to find out who planted a million dollars' worth of drugs in a cross from Sicily that a gangster has donated to a San Francisco church – and Roger Moore's the one playing the Sicilian ("Smartest thing I ever did was to get you out of Sicily and into that English law school." "Being half-English, half-Sicilian was a good deal for both of us.). Well, he was married to an Italian at the time, though it's more a sign of the poor state his non-Bond film career was in during the 70s during that long gap between his second and third bond films (he's even second billed) that he ended up being cast in an Italian grindhouse movie.

The general rule in exploitation flicks, particularly Italian ones, is the bigger the star, the weaker the film, and most of the money here seems to have gone on the leads with little left over for action scenes. In the film's one big car chase both cameras somehow manage to miss the one big stunt with an oil tanker overturning while Moore is very obviously doubled by a Bo Hopkins lookalike. Mind you, that's nothing compared to the Italian actor playing his father in the flashbacks, who looks like Baron Frankenstein decided to build a Roger Moore out of the leftovers of his first creation but had to fill in the gaps with bits of Richard Kiel.

In his defence, Moore never made a secret of using a running double whenever possible in the Bond films, though his natural run here isn't half as bad as Keach's, which makes him look like a sped-up silent movie clown. It's hard to shake the feeling that Keach's role was intended for Tony Curtis, though Keach models his performance on Bing Crosby in a Road movie (his best scene sees him scoring powdered milk from a geriatric hooker!).

With no fewer than six credited writers – Ernest Tidyman and Randal Kleiser among them – it's surprising just how bland and uneventful the film is. The central premise really doesn't make much sense and nothing particularly interesting happens along the way to the underwhelming climax. The unoriginality extends to Luis Bacalov's score, which brazenly uses Ennio Morricone's flashback theme from Fistful of Dynamite for its own flashbacks. The kind of film that you can watch while doing your homework or tax returns without worrying about getting a bad grade or a surcharge, there's little going for it other than curiosity value.