'Rome Express' (1932) - Walter Forde.

Towering Teutonic Terror Thespian Conrad Veidt is propah crazy train in Walter Forde's locomotive 1930s crime thrill-spiller! Moving like 'Grand Hotel' on a rail, 'Rome Express' is sleek, first-class entertainment, with a luminous array of stars no less dazzling than a trip to the planetarium! The enchanting, vibrantly acted 'Rome Express' remains a genuinely gripping thriller, steeped in scintillating 30s glamour, Walter Forde's refined, smartly written feature is a brisk, non-stop adventure with a suitably rumbustious climax. This witty, elegantly made film, while undeniably charming, is never quaint, as the masterfully malevolent Veidt oozes a cool reptilian menace as the tall, debonair villain with a heart of unleavened granite, desperate to lay his steely fingers on the stolen van Dyck painting! Vintage thriller fans are strongly urged to venture aboard the eventful 'Rome Express' at the soonest opportunity, as they are guaranteed an unforgettable journey into British film history!         

 

 

'Road Games' (1981) – Richard Franklin.

'Young, pretty, carefree hitch-hiker Pamela (Jamie Lee Curtis) was out on the road looking for kicks, and it was a pretty sweet ride...until she got picked up by a total trucking nutcase!' Richard Franklin's playful, tantalizingly twisted, garotte-tight, turbocharged Aussie road thriller doesn't take his foot off the gas right until the exhilarating climax! The consistently intriguing narrative is brought to vivid wide-scream life with engagingly naturalistic performances by Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis, with legendary stuntman Grant Page making for a monstrous, meticulously maiden mutilating maniac! With ace composer Brian May's rousing score and stylish lensing by Vincent Monton, this intelligent, deliciously quirky 80s serial killer chiller glistens ever more provocatively on this immaculate-looking 'Indicator' Blu-ray transfer! Like Hitchcock on speed, Richard Franklin's shock-accelerated 'Road Games' deliriously delivers the meaty goods!

 

 

 

'il Commissario Di Ferro'(1978) – Stelvio Massi.

The relatively obscure, aptly titled late 70s poliziottesco 'il Commissario Di Ferro' (1978) aka 'The Iron Commissioner' has the good fortune to feature the dangerously dishy, heroically hypertensive, distractingly chiselled champion of the underdog; that ferociously fleet-fisted, majestically macho Maurizio Merli, with the film's female eye candy being voluptuously provided by a delectable duo of exquisite Eurocult lovelies, the uncommonly juicy-looking Janet Agren, and the no less slaveringly sensuous screen siren Mariangela 'Burial Ground' Giordano! 

Capably directed by Poliziotteschi maestro Stelvio Massi, his moderately undercooked 'il Commissario Di Ferrio', is, perhaps, not the most dynamic example of the genre, but it is not without charm, having a number of pleasingly indelicate scenes of Merli mayhem, and the righteously diggable crime-funk score by Lallo Gori is a delight! Not oft mentioned, but I have spent much of my misbegotten movie-obsessed life mentioning 'not oft mentioned' genre films, so, here we go again! Apparently 'il Commissario Di Ferro' was not a favourite of esteemed action maestro Merli, seemingly a problematic shoot, but, to be fair, when I first saw 'The Iron Commissioner' it robustly ticked MOST of my required Euro-crime boxes, even sans English subtitles! And appreciated on a more basic level, Massi's twin-fisted, late 70s poliziottesco still delivers enough of Maurizio Merli's Alpha-centric, serviceably slap-happy skell-thrashing to appease the more forgiving Merli fans who still relish his blissfully bellicose ouvre!! 

      

 

 

 

'The Cynic, The Rat & The Fist' (1977) – Umberto Lenzi.

'The Cynic, The Rat & The Fist' boisterously remains a most genial Lenzi-helmed poliziottesco classic, starring the appealingly familiar Teflon-tough triumvirate of Merli, Milian and Saxon; replete with so much scene chewing testosterone, it's a miracle that any celluloid remained for the final print!!! Sinful Saxon plays the boorish crim, Frank Di Maggio with charismatic muscularity, and there really can be only one avenging, fists-first, triumphantly thug-baiting copper up to the titanic task of carving a crimson swathe of retrograde justice through the ubiquitously iniquitous backstreets of Rome, and that man is the icon of hep-cat Poliziotteschi cool; an uber bellicose, bullet-blasting geezer with a majestic moustache fashioned out of living granite; give it up for, Maurizio Merli!!! the protean arch nemesis to sordid skeezers, blood-thirsty blaggers, and pernicious pimps, be they vertical inebriate, or horizontal degenerate; you foolhardily cross that intractable line on murderously macho Merli's gimlet-eyed watch and you're going home in a gore-spattered, snug-fitting zip lock tuxedo! The swarthy Saxon fatally bites off more than he can chew, and ends up choking on the fist-sized, jaw-breaking, righteously roundhouse-rocking might of Maurizio Merli!

While 'The Cynic, The Rat & The Fist' isn't the greatest Merli/Lenzi pairing, it's pretty damn close, and that can only mean one thing, my Eurocrime-loving compadres, an exhilaratingly intense example of J&B-fuelled, ferociously Fiat-fragging Italian action!