cult film freak: italian import

Showing posts with label italian import. Show all posts

Written by James M. Tate / 6/13/2023 / No comments / action , antonio fargas , christopher connelly , eighties , exploitation , italian import , janet agren , john steiner , mobster , neo noir , nina soldano , sal borgese , shark , stelvio cipriani , thriller , tonino ricci

TREAT WILLIAMS IN THE ITALIAN IMPORT 'NIGHT OF THE SHARKS'

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjloxEGwCbjmTpaQflBUfY14etbMfG5UnmugkIC61_syzNALPuLbyDOmyd5Us3oRGCyJzWe1Pq_8LuuUw2oLkFJYLRwUlSbgLBI4jiydlhCMSOYFupTAukaQ29P_gZg5SRa9AO5V8o-WWI7HqJgS8sjKZdeu4ni1KFI08leP93QurxMTceXnNQemzfnGA/s2525/Screen%20Shot%202023-06-13%20at%202.32.13%20AM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1296" data-original-width="2525" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjloxEGwCbjmTpaQflBUfY14etbMfG5UnmugkIC61_syzNALPuLbyDOmyd5Us3oRGCyJzWe1Pq_8LuuUw2oLkFJYLRwUlSbgLBI4jiydlhCMSOYFupTAukaQ29P_gZg5SRa9AO5V8o-WWI7HqJgS8sjKZdeu4ni1KFI08leP93QurxMTceXnNQemzfnGA/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202023-06-13%20at%202.32.13%20AM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Treat Williams and Janet Agren in NIGHT OF THE SHARKS Year: 1988 Rating: ***</td></tr></tbody></table>Extremely low-budget imported Italian exploitation involving one of the most familiar potboiler plot-lines: a careless, flaky sibling (in this case younger brother) and their inevitable, semi-deserved death from being involved with the seedy crime world to begin with  — thus dragging their family into a proverbial whirlwind... Herein a vengeful, tropical-shark-hunting older bro Treat Williams (with sidekick Antonio Fargas, priest Christopher Connelly and love-interest Janet Agren), whose balmy turf is encroached by killers... either the dorsal-finned kind (the deadliest shark actually plays intentionally goading mind-games) or those wearing cheap hoodlum suits... providing danger from the blood-soaked ocean into a machine-gunned jungle...

action, antonio fargas, christopher connelly, eighties, exploitation, italian import, janet agren, john steiner, mobster, neo noir, nina soldano, sal borgese, shark, stelvio cipriani, thriller, tonino ricci

TREAT WILLIAMS IN THE ITALIAN IMPORT 'NIGHT OF THE SHARKS'

Treat Williams and Janet Agren in NIGHT OF THE SHARKS Year: 1988 Rating: *** Extremely low-budget imported Italian exploitation involving on...

ROBERT BLAKE 'RIPPED-OFF' AS 'THE BOXER' IN 'COUNTER PUNCH'

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu0kNvaGohY2CfUGSzO7vkV1h3snWixQR3sFGu2ICZW3qJduJ9y1SztbLpXVhNJywnzE7QCiGYyQsPqZ5pALkHwDRTCiSrJsU6krD1g1PoZ6anrWzkAkkE-B9R-7OXK1bN5eJFeprNlLmNoISlgZ4FDQXcRVBEEdj44N3AqhT6S9_8YDbRylxNkRIWnw/s1696/Screen%20Shot%202023-03-11%20at%2011.12.47%20PM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1012" data-original-width="1696" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu0kNvaGohY2CfUGSzO7vkV1h3snWixQR3sFGu2ICZW3qJduJ9y1SztbLpXVhNJywnzE7QCiGYyQsPqZ5pALkHwDRTCiSrJsU6krD1g1PoZ6anrWzkAkkE-B9R-7OXK1bN5eJFeprNlLmNoISlgZ4FDQXcRVBEEdj44N3AqhT6S9_8YDbRylxNkRIWnw/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202023-03-11%20at%2011.12.47%20PM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robert Blake in Ripped-Off YEAR: 1972 Released: 1975 Rates: ***1/2</td></tr></tbody></table>In
 RIPPED-OFF, originally titled THE BOXER and also going by COUNTER 
PUNCH, MURDER IN THE RING, CHAMP CHEROKEE and TOUGH GUY, Robert Blake is
 a drifting Vietnam Vet boxer named Cherokee... 
 
After a
 come-back and then being set-up to lose an important match, is accused 
of slaying his manager and, in the usual Noir fashion, is desperate to 
find the real killer...

action, boxing, catherine spaak, crime, ernest borgnine, import, italian import, neo noir, robert blake, seventies, sport, tomas milian

ROBERT BLAKE 'RIPPED-OFF' AS 'THE BOXER' IN 'COUNTER PUNCH'

Robert Blake in Ripped-Off YEAR: 1972 Released: 1975 Rates: ***1/2 In RIPPED-OFF, originally titled THE BOXER and also going by COUNTER P...

FRANCO NERO IN ENZO G. CASTELLARI'S 'THE SHARK HUNTER'

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6v_7LAOpw9fmYbmEQRwkkW7QHFNDsoNIqFUGKj01IOpsNjYl8gFD0rFW9pDvb0VBURT_anmCLpPkofNs_7MeunfqgN88dFrVEafiIHeWzZCdZVIX0bium_BAShgUAGjZWENBgDfkaoPNgisKbagpRzEukiX7Vgg6WfzuNUG7dmE7VJWar-jKvXIrhag/s1128/Screen%20Shot%202023-01-09%20at%209.01.33%20PM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="649" data-original-width="1128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6v_7LAOpw9fmYbmEQRwkkW7QHFNDsoNIqFUGKj01IOpsNjYl8gFD0rFW9pDvb0VBURT_anmCLpPkofNs_7MeunfqgN88dFrVEafiIHeWzZCdZVIX0bium_BAShgUAGjZWENBgDfkaoPNgisKbagpRzEukiX7Vgg6WfzuNUG7dmE7VJWar-jKvXIrhag/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202023-01-09%20at%209.01.33%20PM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Title: THE SHARK HUNTER Year: 1979 Rating: ***</td></tr></tbody></table>Actually more similar to Cornel Wilde's <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2017/02/sharksT.html">SHARKS' TREASURE</a> from 1975, the same year as <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2015/06/triad-jaws.html">JAWS</a>... The latter literally mentioned in Enzo G. Castellari's THE SHARK HUNTER and that he'd ingloriously rip off in THE LAST SHARK two years later... But this is really a pulpy and hard-driven, treasure-hunting picture: Within a cavern of "resting sharks" is the tail of a plane that fell deeper than the fuselage, holding a hundred-million dollars... 
 
So while the caper's described by our "gringo" in Mexico, Franco Nero as Mike, with a surfer blond wig resembling vanilla seaweed glued onto an omnipresent headband or scuba mask, most of the film has an array of stealthily, espionage-genre assassins trying to jump in on the action (working for a crooked millionaire), which results in tons of just that...

action, crime, enzo g. castellari, exploitation, franco nero, italian import, seventies, shark, treasure

FRANCO NERO IN ENZO G. CASTELLARI'S 'THE SHARK HUNTER'

Title: THE SHARK HUNTER Year: 1979 Rating: *** Actually more similar to Cornel Wilde's SHARKS' TREASURE from 1975, the same year...

JOSIE BISSETT FINDING HER PLACE WITH 'HITCHER IN THE DARK'

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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyKQ9A3_UA3i61K-UR-SAbF6R-8an7HRF9XxnuJHjEfmJt4IT8G_zRHWT6L1jyfR6YoGk42SfZGAYTQU74fee4-BsFsE1g2KEnapTHvvRyShJdV-Sjkcc2xspro0v7bxmEV6riLyoX0ohQ/s1600/71559568_799248560504322_6951175380531150848_n.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="434" data-original-width="563" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyKQ9A3_UA3i61K-UR-SAbF6R-8an7HRF9XxnuJHjEfmJt4IT8G_zRHWT6L1jyfR6YoGk42SfZGAYTQU74fee4-BsFsE1g2KEnapTHvvRyShJdV-Sjkcc2xspro0v7bxmEV6riLyoX0ohQ/s400/71559568_799248560504322_6951175380531150848_n.jpeg" width="400"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Josie Bissett tries and tries to survive as the lovely hitcher YEAR: 1989</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Before what would become an intensely popular super-bad horror phenomenon, TROLL 2, featuring a group of teenage boys traveling in a recreation vehicle, Italian producer Joe D'Amato and his synth-composing Carlo Maria Cordio used just one young man, a kind of misleadingly boy-next-door Ted Bundy type, who kidnaps, tortures, rapes and kills female hitchhikers in HITCHER IN THE DARK, where the title is also misleading, sounding as if THE HITCHER were the villain... 
 
Instead it's Winnebago-driving rich kid Mark (Joe Balogh), who picks up a girl he saw fight with her muscular, two-timing boyfriend, and she's one of the cutest blonde starlets in the history of cheap horror exploitation. Although MELROSE PLACE fans may not recognize a slightly younger Josie Bissett in her literal career beginnings with long locks. But soon enough, like put-upon wife Jane Mancini, it's cut short and dyed (actually a wig)... which wasn't her idea...