Born Winner (1976)
"L'ultima volta" (original title)

A young man whose passions are money, beautiful women and racing motorcycles comes up with a scheme that will allow him to combine all three, all while committing the "perfect" crime.

Director:

Aldo Lado

Writers:

Stefano Calanchi, Lucio Collo,

Stars:

Joe Dallesandro, Eleonora Giorgi, Massimo Ranieri

Cast

Cast overview:
Joe Dallesandro	...	Perikles
Eleonora Giorgi	...	Marzia
Massimo Ranieri	...	Sandro
Pino Colizzi	...	Bank Manager
Marisa Mell	...	Jusy
Giancarlo Badessi
Luigi Casellato
Dominique Demarest
Gianfranco De Grassi
Severino Saltarelli
Giovanni Ventura
Bruno Rosa

Storyline

A young man whose passions are money, beautiful women and racing motorcycles comes up with a scheme that will allow him to combine all three, all while committing the "perfect" crime.

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Plot Keywords:

criminal | skinny dipping | female nudity | female frontal nudity

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Genres:

Crime | Drama

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Details

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Also Known As:

Born Winner

Company Credits

Production Co:

Marzia Cinematografica

Technical Specs

Runtime:

97 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Connections

Referenced in Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape (2010)

User Reviews

Itallian "buddy" crime thriller with more homoerotic overtones than usual,

This is an interesting Italian crime film in that is a "buddy movie" where the "buddies" are criminals rather than cops and there are a few more homoerotic overtones than usual. It kind of reminded me of Ruggiero Deodato's "Live Like a Cop, Die like a Man", but with more sympathetic protagonists.

An armed robber (Joe Dallesandro)and a part-time caterer (Massimo Ranieri) have a kind of male "meet cute" after the armed robber holds up a party the caterer is working. They then team up to rip off some mob money from a corrupt Vatican courier. They use the money to advance the armed robber's motorcycle-racing career (cue the 70's Italian motorcycle-racing footage), but soon find themselves pursued by merciless mob killers.

It's pretty hard to avoid the homoerotic overtones here, especially with American bisexual hustler/erstwhile actor Joe ("Little Joe") Dallesandro cast as one of the leads. He's pretty decent though, and Ranieri, who I'd personally never seen before, is actually pretty good. For the record, the movie doesn't actually ever give in to its homosexual undercurrents, but they do kind of waste a pair of beautiful Euro-actresses who seem to only be there to distract from the potentially gay relationship between the male leads. Marisa Mell is pretty much completely wasted as an older, married woman the Dallesandro character is sleeping with. Eleanora Giorgi has a bigger part (and full-frontal nude scenes), but doesn't have much more to do as Ranieri's love interest. The director is none other than Aldo Lado, who was also responsible for "Short Night of Glass Dolls", "Who Saw Her Die?", and "The Night Train Murders". This isn't quite up to the standards of those classics, but it's worth a look.