THE FIFTH CORD (1971)

  Franco Nero plays a drunk reporter trying to solve a string of murders because civilians doing police work is a weird staple of giallos. This is based on a novel and it's a bit slow and talky. There is a creepy scene towards the end when a little boy gets stalked by our mysterious killer which was the most memorable bit to me. Franco's excellent acting does make it more enjoyable than it otherwise would be though. This was also known in the U.S. as EVIL FINGERS which makes more sense since the killer cuts off one finger of a glove that he, or she, leaves at each murder scene. 

                                                 French video release as EVIL DAY!:

STREET LAW (1972)

 Franco Nero does his Charles Bronson bit in this vigilante epic. Of course DEATH WISH only came out at the beginning of this same year, so I'm not sure how much of an inspiration it was in this getting made or not. Either way it stands on it's own as a fast-moving Eurotrash action/revenge flick. The bank-robbing villains here never get as rapey as you might expect but they do appear to believe in equal-opportunity brutality towards anyone who gets in their way.  You get death by construction vehicle, car chases and lots of bullet holes in various people. Maybe the most macho role Franco has been in and that's saying a lot!

DJANGO THE RUNNER (1966)

 Italian splatter-master Lucio Fulci made 3 spaghetti-westerns and this is the first one. Most commonly known as MASSACRE TIME they slapped an alternate DJANGO titte on it at some point because it stars Mr. Django himself Franco Nero and just about every western he starred in got that kind of treatment. The story here deals with Django, who is never called that of course but instead called Tom Corbett, having to return to his hometown that has been taken over by a rich jerk(Giusseppe Addobbati) and his sadistic son(Nino Castelnuovo) who always seems to wear the same white suit and looks vaguely like Oliver Reed. George Hilton also stars as Franco's alcoholic gunslinging brother. Things turn out pretty much how you would expect with one big reveal thrown in. There is one incongruous scene where Franco does a flip over a group of people which seems like something out of a kung fu flick and is quite jarring. If you're looking for gore there's not really any of that on display but for 1966 there's a pretty bloody whipping scene that results in a  bloody faced Franco that looks like he lost a steel cage wrasslin' match and a guy gets torn apart by dogs which is bloodless but you can just imagine what Fulci would have done in that scene just a decade later. AKA THE BRUTE AND THE BEAST and COLT CONCERT


                                            Bullet-blasting excitement!:

 

THE SHARK HUNTER (1979)

 Franco Nero Vs. JAWS? Kinda, sorta. Unlike the other movie I have this on a double-feature DVD with, DEADLY JAWS, this one does feature people getting ripped apart by sharks and Mr. Nero, or at least his stunt-double, does spend a lot of time hunting down and wrestling with sharks. Just like that other JAWS-reminiscent feature though this one is mainly concerned with a treasure in the ocean and some gangsters battling our hero to get their hands on it and really isn't any sort of horror film. Nero wears a wacky long blond wig that gives him the 70s glam-rocker look and director Enzo G. Castellari does a decent enough job with the action sequences but I would definitely recommend their earlier collaboration KEOMA over this but maybe if I was able to view this on a better looking DVD and it all not look so dark and murky I would rate it a bit higher. AKA GUARDIANS OF THE DEEP.  The German re-title of DJANGO AND THE SHARKS makes it sound like it might be an interesting spaghetti-western.

DJANGO UNCHAINED (2012)

 I'd given up on Quentin Tarantino back after he made that stupid DEATH PROOF/GRINDHOUSE thing and then that stupid talky-talk fantasy movie about World War II so I put off seeing this one until now. Surprisingly I thought this was a pretty decent take on and homage to the classic spaghetti-westerns and due to it's subject matter this has the feeling of something like GOODBYE UNCLE TOM sprinkled in there as well. It was also cool that Tarantino included the real Django, Franco Nero, in one scene and I think the main highlight for me was the great soundtrack. Of course most of these tunes are from some amazing classics of the Italian western genre and watching this made me want to go back and watch some of those again. I coulda done without the out-of-place modern rap jams but I knew this couldn't be perfect. Interestingly this is not in any way a remake of Django but is more closely a sort-of re-imagining of THE LEGEND OF NIGGER CHARLIE but I'm sure calling your movie that nowadays would get you lynched by the intolerant "social justice warrior"-filled masses. There is no shortage of the word "nigger" which in itself is a miracle in any modern movie and there's also not much skimping on the blood. In the two main shock scenes we get a bloody slave fight with eyeball violence and another slave ripped apart by dogs.
 Having seen a whole lot of movies that use the name DJANGO in their title I would have to say even though this is a newer big-budgeted Hollywood film, this is one of the better examples of what a western-exploitation film can be. I'm back on team Quentin. I'm sure he'd be so very relieved to hear this.

REDNECK (1973)

 I like the idea of a team-up of Franco Nero and Telly Savalas as a couple of criminal types on the run from the law but I don't think it's done all that well in this film. The main drawback is the tone of this movie, which is all over the place. It goes from hard-driving crime film where people are getting gunned down by Savalas(who's playing the title character as a real over-the-top nutjob) to an almost-slapstick comedy with goofy music playing over wacky car crashes until finally becoming basically a drama. There's also some kinda message in here, I think, but I'm not sure what it is except maybe that kids are influenced by adults bad actions. Which might be one of the most simplistic and stupid messages of anything I've ever seen. On the plus side young kids get shot and murdered which is very rare in American films. On the weird side there's a scene where Franco Nero shaves his face while standing in front of a mirror completely naked while a 14-year old boy stares at his bare ass and crotch?? So that's something you probably won't see again.
 The version I watched of this felt like it might have been cut since whenever things started to get too nasty(a possible rape scene, a dog getting shot etc.) it cut away, which I'm guessing isn't the way it originally played so the full version may be a little more disturbing.

This movie starts out in a pretty awesome way before getting lost in its psychological drama trappings:

CONFESSIONS OF A POLICE CAPTAIN (1971)

 Most of these 70's Italian poliziotteschi, or cop dramas for you English speaking-types, are violence-filled action movies and a lot of them just rip-off DIRTY HARRY and American films and cop TV shows. This one, although it does feature a cop taking the law into his own hands played brilliantly by Martin Balsam, was released the same year as HARRY and takes an interestingly different slant on things. It's also really more of a drama than an action film although you do get some mafia hijinks including a kid tossed off a cliff and some lady-killing. Overall it takes a pretty nihilistic slant and dim view of the way society works. It touches on some deeper questions such as when servants of the law go outside the book to obtain justice should they now be viewed as criminals or heroes? How can an officer justify enforcing the law if it isn't entirely moral? Do ends justify means? etc. Franco Nero plays the opposing force to Balsam as a District Attorney who sticks to a strict code of conduct. He's not necessarily a bad guy here just a person doing their job. I like the fact that this movie isn't black and white at all, there aren't really any concrete answers given and even the ending is completely left up to the viewer to ponder the correct course of action. This will probably disappoint hardcore trash-fiends looking for heavy-duty bloodshed but if you want to see Nero acting his ass off this might be one of the best places to see that.

HITCH HIKE (1977)

 Besides LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT this is my fav David Hess movie and besides some of the spaghetti-westerns he's done this is my fav Franco Nero flick. The team-up of these 2 cult stars works great. Clorinne Clery as Franco's wife also does a great job and is naked most of the time which makes for nice scenery. Hess has mentioned in interviews that he was planning on doing more films with director Campanile right before he died. It's really a shame that never happened. So, if ya think it would be groovy to see Hess doing his LAST HOUSE shtick in a well-made Italian thriller this would be the one to check out. Of course this, along with HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK, are the big 3 movies of Hess' career. Franco plays a character pretty dissimilar from most of the ones I've seen him do. He's a bitter married drunk and I find his portrayal very humorous. In fact the more times I watch it the more comedic elements I find, although maybe those are unintentional. It's probably due to director Pasquale's usual forays in silly sex comedies. It's really too bad he didn't make more movies like this.

DJANGO STRIKES AGAIN (1987)

DJANGO was a classic western starring Franco Nero. So, being that it was made in Italy, a gazillion rip-off's and unofficial sequels followed. Finally, 20 years later, this official sequel comes. My main problem with this is that it's not a western. While it could have been a good idea to put the character in a different setting, I don't think it works in this. Django is basically turned into Rambo in this. Just take a look at that silly depiction of Nero with the rippling muscly arms up there. The whole thing just comes off as a typical 80's action flick. Being more of a fan of spaghetti-westerns than 80's muscle-head action flicks I suppose I was bound to be disappointed. They even have him spouting off those cliched one-liners while killing bad guys. Ugh! Avoid this and watch the original. DJANGO KILL is a good movie too and features a gang of gay cowboys. Yeah, I should really watch that one next.