THE UNKNOWN & OBSCURE EURO CRIME, EURO SPY AND ACTION FILMS
This is a huge subject, as many movies in European cinema from the early sixties were navigating through both genres, and sometimes even adding some comedy to it
The Euro Crime genre could be used as the generic term to call all the films involving police inspectors, gangsters, mafia, drug dealers, organized crime, vigilantes, heists, and corruptionand usually have plenty of gun fights and car chases, with most of the time spent with an emphasis on violence.
The Euro Crime includes many different kinds of movies, and if most of them fall in the above description, some others are quite different and crossed the genres mixing sleaze, comedy, horror and the fantastic. Some of these fall into a few categories such as Krimi, Gialli, Action, Poliziotteschi, Thillers, Spies and even include super heroic figures.
The Italian directors usually worked in any kind of production, depending on what was the most profitable type at the time, they produced Peplums, Western, Gialli, Comedy and some were more successful in a genre than in another.
Even if these films are Italian branded, they were most of the time co-produced with other countries, mostly France and Spain, using also Directors and actors from these countries. There were also hundreds of films that came from Europe that were not Italian related, but they fall perfectly in the Euro crime genre that was very famous at the time, even if of course it was never called that way, this is typically an American term.
So I’ll just try to give you a bit more information about some movies that belongs to this genre, but are less famous, forgotten or underrated but deserves to be discovered outside of their country of origin where sometimes they’re also buried very deep as they’re not considered as good cinema by the lobby of the Movie business.
Docteur Justice (1975)Directed by: Chistian-JaqueCast: John Phillip Law, Nathalie Delon, Gert Fröbe, Paul Naschy.
Docteur Justice is a comic book adaptation of a very successful series created by the drawing artist Raphael Marcello and the writer Jean Ollivier. Originally Justice is a Doctor working for the OMS organisation (World Health Organisation) and is travelling around the world to help people, but ends up using his karate, judo and Ju-jitsu knowledge in various adventures against organised crime lords and villains.
The movie was not really appreciated by the fans, as it removed a few important characters of the comics such as Justice Asian Master Hiamuri, and John Phillip Law, if visually convincing as the Doctor, was clearly not a Judo fighter and his skills were very limited so he was not the virtually invincible fighter the comics depicted, requiring in many situations the help of his fellow co-stars.
As many productions of this time, the budget of the film is limited, so it gives the film a “cheap James Bond” aspect that doesn’t serve it well.
The film provides nonetheless some good moments and still is today the only attempt of a “Docteur Justice” in cinema, even if many rumours were heard about other adaptations through the years. Gert Fröbe makes a great villain as usual and the charming Nathalie Delon is always a delight to see. Paul Naschy the Spanish Horror icon appears in a small role as Ralph.
If you’re a Eurospy fan, you probably have seen worse than this one and can really get a kick out of it. This copy is from a Satellite TV DVD recording in widescreen and is in very good quality to help to appreciate the nice locations sets.
BERU AND HIS WOMEN aka Beru et ces Dames (1968) Directed by: Guy Lefranc Cast: Gerard Barray, Jean Richard, Paul Presboit, Maria Mauban.
San Antonio is a very popular series of novels about this strange character, Police inspector, secret agent, writer and especially a ladies man who had countless adventures written by Frederic Dard during more than thirty years. The success of the books was due to the comical tone thrown in the mix and to witty dialogs and the use of a “slang” mostly made up by the creator. To this day, three movies were made about this French “bond” agent:
Sale temps pour les mouches (1966) aka Commissaire San Antonio aka Next time I’ll kill you.
Beru et ces Dames (1968) aka Beru and these women aka Dames aka Warning, Male sex in danger (?)
-San Antonio (2004) with Gerard Lanvin and Gerard Depardieu as Berurier. This one was a big box office failure, and the worst of the three, with no plot and low key humour.
The first two first films were directed by Guy Lefranc, and if not completely successful in translating the books on screen, which is very hard anyway as all the pleasure comes from the unique style of the writer that proves to be almost impossible to be put on film, these little crime comedies are really entertaining and with a very good cast, constitutes little classics of this era. The movies are more light on sex than the books, the action takes place in the Paris area understandable budget restrictions, but the stories move pretty fast for this time and you don’t have the time to be bored a second. Gerard Barray used to the “Handsome Hero” roles in many productions of this time such as “Baraka sur X 13” (1966) aka Agent 77: Order to kill, and many adventure flicks, is very good and act’s with the required second degree attitude, and Jean Richard, very famous in France as a Circus owner and for his incarnation of “inspector Maigret” for television is a perfect choice for the role of San Antonio’s side kick “Berurier”.
In this second installation (and last) in the series, Inspector Berurier discovers that the house he’s renting to a so called Lorenzi who just has been murdered, is now a Brothel. He doesn’t have much time to ask any questions to the Lady in charge, as she’s murdered too, this all leads him and San Antonio to discover a huge drug traffic involving many important people, with of course more deaths in the process.
Some original book covers:
THE PENCIL MURDERS(1982) aka Meurtres au crayon/ De PotloodmordenDirected by:Guy Lee Thys Cast: No one worth mentioning.
This one is probably the only attempt at Giallo from Belgium, using all the codes of the genre, with cruel murders and a police investigation about a maniac who kills people by sticking a pencil in their noses to the brain. Sounds exciting? Yes it is, but the only problem is the incredible lack of talent of the director to achieve an ounce of suspense, or even a decent shot. Now this doesn’t mean this movie is not interesting in it’s own way, the film could be the “Guide for giallo beginners: the mistakes to avoid”. Every shot in this film is flat and uninspired, the music is ugly as hell and the characters and dialogs are ridiculous, but the worst is yet to come, this movie is totally racist to the core. The inspector’s wife has a black lover, so is the main suspect, so it allows for some of the most insane dialogs such as “Arrest every nigger you find in the streets” “Chief, I got two creoles not very dark, do I keep them”, and more of that kind. Director Lee Thys, seems to be concerned about racism, as he did two other movies about this subject, “Cruel Horizon” (1989) with Bruce Baron (that says a lot about the quality of this one) about the Vietnamese and Thaï, and “Kassablanca”(2002) about Muslims, both reputed to be bad. The murders are not very bloody, except one in a bath, considering the modus operandi of the crimes. It’s still a treat for bad movie fans and giallo completists and is very rare, and will probably never be released on DVD, as no companies would ever take the risk.
