1976, Italy. Starring Maurizio Merli, John Saxon, Barry Sullivan, Elio Zamuto, Maria Grazia Spina, Silvano Tranquilli, Massimo Deda, Guido Alberti, Pino Ferrara. Directed by Umberto Lenzi. Written by Vincenzo Mannino.

Click here for Man with a Moustache Month Roll-Call

This post brings us full circle, back to the beginning of the article and the film that sparked my initial interest in poliziottechi and the tough Italian cops with big, thick moustaches that have served as the defining characters for Teleport City's Man with a Moustache Month. If we do this again next year, maybe we'll focus on Indian or Filipino films, two national cinemas that have traditionally and still enthusiastically embrace heroes with moustaches. I didn't initially mean for this month to focus solely on poliziottechi films, but it sort of turned out to be a brief introductory history to the genre, regardless of my original intentions to also review at least one 1970s Burt Reynolds films. After all, what would a moustache month be without Burt?

But one thing led to another, and I didn't want to write about Violent Naples without tracing its roots back to High Crime, or without covering Violent Rome, the first film to introduce Maurizio Merli as the quintessential poliziottechi cop. And then it seemed like good form, before moving on to Violent Naples, to touch on director Umberto Lenzi's first foray into the genre, in the form of Milano Rovente.

So now, finally, we've come to the beginning again. Violent Rome was good but not great. Milano Rovente was much the same, only slightly less so. It seems inevtibale, at least looking back, that Umberto Lenzi would end up directing a poliziottechi film starring Maurizio Merli. The intersection of careers finally happened in Violent Naples, in my opinion the best of all the many poliziottechi that came out during the 1970s. This was, as I stated (I think -- perish the thought I would go back and reread my own material for confirmation), the first poliziottechi I saw, and to say it blew me away would be a mild understatement. My initial review was so half-assed, however, that I vowed on the grave of my long lost twin brother who was killed by Communist agents in Vietnam, to one day rectify the situation and rewrite the review. Also, to bring down Communism and avenge my brother's death. On the second count, I can say, "Mission accomplished." Now it is time to finally turn my attention to the first count.


I started my career as a cult and obscure film aficionado by growing up on Godzilla, Mazinger, and kungfu instead of Sesame Street, Smurfs, and Disney films, though I did see a smattering of each of those as a wee one. I think it was Pinocchio that initially put me off Disney films. You see, the first film I remember seeing in a movie theater was Jaws, and I adored it. Oh ho ho! The shark is biting Quint in half? What a grand old time this is! Very shortly thereafter, I went with my mother to see a re-release of Disney's Pinocchio, and spent a considerable amount of time screeching like a banshee with a stubbed toe as I crouched and hid in the aisle, terrified beyond belief, as I was, by the big, aggressive whale. My parents then vowed to only let me see movies in which salty sea captains are bitten in half amid a vibrant splash of blood, and forever protect me from seeing things like a cartoon whale with angry eyebrows drawn on it. Years later, I still get a shudder down my spine any time I walk by a Carvel (the ice cream parlor or James) and see Fudgy the Whale staring back at me...waiting...waiting...

My third movie was one of the Herbie films, but all I remember about that was a scene where they're driving across a lake or ocean and some guy is taking a shower atop Herbie. I do seem to also recall regretting that no shark showed up to bite him in half, but I hear it wasn't meant to be that kind of film.

Some couple of decades after becoming conscious of my status as a film fan, it's very difficult to wow me. It's easy to please me. Hell, put a guy in a ninja suit or a go-go dancing woman on screen, and you've pretty much got my vote. Throw in some ass-kicking midgets and you got a classic. But it's been rare lately that I am totally blown away by anything anymore. Happily, we seem to be entering a golden era of truly batty films finding exposure on DVD thanks to companies like Mondo Macabro and plenty of others, and I am constantly assured by the fact that no matter what I see, there is always something else waiting in the wings to say, "You thought that was insane? Wait 'til you see this one, baby." Yes, in my dreams all weird cult films refer to me as "baby." What's your point?

Umberto Lenzi's Violent Naples -- also known as Napoli Violenta and Violent Protection (not to be confused with Violent Professionals) -- is one of those films that altered my perception of cinema significantly. I'd never seen anything like it, or rather, I'd seen things like it, but never anything quite so dramatically over-the-top. Violent Naples opens with Maurizio Merli reprising his Violent Rome role as Inspector Betti, freshly transferred down to sunny, one assumes given the title, violent Naples. He isn't in Naples five minutes before he stumbles upon a group of young punk car thieves just begging him to slam a car hood on them and bounce their skulls off a windshield a couple of times. After all, he wouldn't want to show up for his first day at his new job empty-handed.

The film establishes a savage tone from the opening scene and never relents in its grim study of cops and criminals gone mad. Merli's main goal, and the main plot of the film, is to bust up the protection rackets. But that doesn't stop him from beating the ass of pretty much every other type of criminal he crosses paths with. And the crime in Naples is rampant. Rapists, fencers, thieves -- you name 'em, he's probably stomping on their head and yelling such memorable lines as "You make me want to box your ears in!" A dapper bank robber (Elio Zamuto) proves to be a particularly irksome thorn in Betti's side, as every time a heist occurs, the thief walks in mere moments later to sign in with his parole officer, thus supposedly exonerating himself from any suspicion -- well, from any suspicion except Betti's, causing the grim inspector to run his own high-speed experiment through the streets of Naples to see just how quickly a man could flee the scene of a crime and make it to the police precinct.

In fact, in Violent Naples world, it would seem that roughly 90% of the population of Naples is actively involved in mugging, raping, murdering, roughing up, or stealing from the other 10%, who were apparently transplanted there expressly so they could be victimized by the rest of the population. Now, I've heard plenty of stories about how everyone in Naples in a con artist, thief, and all-around criminal, but Violent Naples goes to great lengths to take the complete insanity of crumbling urban centers in the 1970s and ratchet the madness up well past the breaking point.

Amid the chaos, Betti befriends a streetwise young kid, the son of a mechanic who refuses to pay protection money to the local thugs. He's even been rallying the people to stand up for themselves and not be bullied. Betti first encounters the kid when he sees him slowly crossing the street, holding up traffic, and pretending to be a cripple. When the kid gets to the other side, he laughs and flips everyone off before running merrily down the street. This delights Betti to no end. And in case you're wondering, why yes, a film like Violent Naples pretty much does guarantee that at some point, sweet sweet irony will result in the kid becoming an actual cripple. I said the movie was good; I never said it wasn't somewhat heavy-handed.

Lenzi showcases a tight, relentless pace that I think remains unmatched by any film in the genre. Along with From Corleone to Brooklyn and The Cynic, The Rat, and the Fist (both also starring Maurizio Merli), this is the best film he's ever made, and as I said in the review of Milano Rovente, it's a shame Lenzi isn't known for these films instead of the slapdash splatter stuff that came later in his career. His command of mood, and his ability to infuse every scene with both tension and pathos is amazing. It's because the film takes the time to generate sympathy with the characters that the tension becomes so heightened. These aren't character studies or anything, but the script by Vincenzo Mannino wastes no time in creating archetypal characters that quickly become easy to identify with. Mannino was one of the most reliable poliziottechi screen writers, having previously worked on scripts for both Violent Rome and High Crime. Violent Naples takes the strong points from each of those films and blends them into a truly enthralling mix of outrageous action and high melodrama. He'd go on to pen the scripts for Italia Mano a Armato, which is the second film in the Commissario Betti series that began with Violent Rome (and sadly, I haven't seen it yet), and From Corleone to Brooklyn, not to mention writing the script for Ruggero Deodato's completely loopy Raiders of Atlantis.

Beyond Lenzi's frantic direction and Mannino's solid script, this movie belongs to Maurizio Merli. His portrayal of the hero with a broken heart, the cop on the edge, is as picture perfect a performance as you're ever likely to see in an action film hero. Every expression, every line drips with seething rage that betrays a sorrowful belief in compassion and justice at its core. Merli gnashes his teeth, grimaces, and exudes world-weary grimness at a level that will never be matched. He always seems five seconds away from having steam shoot out his ears accompanied by the sound effect of a steam locomotive's whistle. He's over the top, but in a way that matches the material perfectly and makes you notice the many strengths while being crazy enough that you miss the weak points. It's been said that Merli took the role very seriously, that he never approached it with anything but the utmost seriousness, and the acting job definitely benefits from the force of his conviction. So into his role was Merli that he often went (they say) a bit overboard in the fight scenes as well as the dramatic scenes, throwing extras and stuntmen around with such force that more than a few injuries resulted. Another actor might have been tempted to wink at the camera from time to time, to engage in a little good-natured camping up of the material. But not Merli. From beginning to end, through all his teeth grinding and fist shaking, you have no doubt that this man believes fiercely in Commissario Betti, and that ferocity comes through in the role and propels the film.

He's also helped by a superb supporting cast which includes familiar workhorse John Saxon as a seedy businessman who ends up, more or less against his will, helping Betti take down the protection rackets. Saxon is always a dependable performer, even if like most working actors he's appeared in a colossal number of stinkers. Other dependable stalwarts include Barry Sullivan as a slimy mafioso behind the protection game, Luciano Rossi, and Pino Ferarra (who also starred in a movie with one of my all-time favorite titles: Ubalda, All Naked and Warm starring my undisputed all-time favorite cult film actress, Edwige Fenech). No one lets the film down, and even our child actor is tolerable (but just barely).

But let's not forget the action. Umberto Lenzi pours on the thrills thick as molasses in January, and he films and edits the action sequences with an expert hand. Violent Naples delivers an almost uninterrupted orgy of brutal violence. Fistfights, shoot-outs, car chases, tram chases, the shaking of young punks by determined police inspectors -- there's plenty of fist-shaking action to get the blood pumping. Some of the violence is, as is common for the genre, gratuitous, gruesome, and over-the-top, but none of it is of the splatter variety. Everything is possessed of that gritty 70s realism that makes even the most unbelievable moments seem perfectly acceptable and more intense than if they'd happened in a film with more vibrant colors or less grainy film stock. Free from the glitz and shiny sheen that would undermine action films in the 1980s, Violent Naples -- like many of the action films that defined the "ultra-violence" trend that began with Dirty Harry -- feels completely and believable and understated even when it's being completely fantastical and over-the-top.

There's very little in the way of subtlety on display in Violent Naples. This isn't the film for understated nuance or hidden meaning. This is bloody melodrama played on the grand scale, holding nothing back. When a moment is symbolic, Violent Naples delivers it wit a heavy-handed thud to make sure you get it. But everything is played with such earnestness that it remains compelling despite the blunt delivery. The final scene marks the best moment in Merli's tragically short career (when the police film fell out of vogue in the 1980s, Merli devoted himself to physical fitness, but died at the age of 49 of a sudden heart attack during a game of tennis). Betti, disgusted with everything he has seen in Rome and Naples, decides to throw in the towel. Burned out and disillusioned, Betti turns in his badge and heads for the airport. He's sick of trying to work inside a corrupt system, one that allows you to yell the required line, "This damn system is designed to protect the guilty and punish the victims!" He's tired of the pain, the frustration, and the ultimate futility of the brutal war he wages every day. He's heading for a new life in the sun and a chance to simply relax and forget it all.

Until he sees that little kid again, once again limping slowly across an intersection and wincing with pain as he holds up traffic. Only this time, he's not pretending to be maimed. Betti stares at the boy as he struggles through the crosswalk. When the light changes, Betti flashes a devastating look of battered, world-weary grimness (his signature expression) and turns the car around. Back to the precinct. Back to the fight. It's not an especially unique or unexpected sort of ending, but Merli's expression during this final moment amplifies its power considerably. Like the classical warrior with a broken heart, try as he might, he can't turn his back on a world in need. Bloodied and saddened, he must continue. And it is in this moment that the underlying compassion that fuels this and many of the best poliziottechi shines through. Because it's not about power -- Betti has had it made perfectly clear that a man like him has no power, will never have power, and will never ultimately beat those who do have the power. Betti can't turn his back on the world because, although it has broken his heart, even though the struggle may be futile, it's still worth fighting for. As he heads back into the maelstrom accompanied by the superb score from Franco Micalizzi, it's hard not to get carried away by the raw emotion of the moment.

For my money, what little of it I have, action films simply don't come any better than Violent Naples. And moustaches and grim cops don't come any better than Maurizio Merli.

Labels: Director: Umberto Lenzi, Poliziotteschi, Stars: Maurizio Merli, Year: 1976