‘They tried to murder my Poopsie!’
When an Englishman is killed in Lisbon while working undercover to expose a drug ring, a British policeman is sent from London to claim the body. Instead of returning home, he becomes involved in the hunt for the killer…
International crime thriller with some hints of the Giallo from co-writer and director Juan Bosch. Anthony Steffen stars in this Spanish-Italian co-production, along with Eduardo Fajardo, Maria Kosty and Raf Baldassarre.
While trying to pump an informant about the drug trade on the streets of Lisbon, undercover Interpol agent Alistair MacAndrew (Julio Pérez Tabernero) is brutally murdered. No-nonsense detective Inspector Michael Lawrence (Steffen) is sent to collect the body and bring it back home to England. However, the murdered man was an old friend, and he inserts himself into the investigation instead, joining an international task force of agents, including Olalia (Baldassarre), DuValliere (Julián Ugarte), and Van Erick (Alfonso de la Vega). His interference gains only the reluctant approval of Inspector Albert (Antonio Pica), but the senior policeman’s hands are tied.
After pretending to board a flight home, Steffen keeps a rendezvous with Ugarte, who has promised vital information, but the agent is murdered before he can talk. The circumstances of his death leave Steffen free to work underneath the drug gang’s radar, and his first port of call is Diana Marquis (Carmen Liaño), whose name appears in Tabernero’s address book. Eventually, the trail of corpses leads him to slick tycoon Costa (Fajardo), whose import-export business provides the perfect cover for smuggling. Unfortunately, Steffen’s cover is blown, and he becomes a target for the mysterious killer. But is it Fajardo who is pulling the strings or other forces involved?
It’s hardly surprising that filmmakers wanted to move on from the Giallo by 1973. After an over-saturation of the marketplace, its popularity at the box office was waning in favour of more action-orientated crime thrillers. So, it’s no surprise that the stalk and slash in Bosch’s film takes a backseat to the more routine police action. Yes, a gloved killer is working his way through the supporting cast, but Steffen’s investigation is firmly focused on the drug lords rather than their assassin for hire. It’s a pity as Tabernero’s death at the start of the film is typical of Giallo; death by Garrotte delivered by a backseat driver wearing what looks a lot like a clown mask.
After that intriguing opening, though, it’s more car chases and fisticuffs than creeping suspense and flashy camera angles. Steffen is a typical hard-nosed copper of the time, chatting up the ‘birds’, knocking them about when required and generally being very 1970s indeed. Most of his informants tell him that they do have crucial information, but, no, they can’t tell him what they know right now because…you know… ‘reasons’… and could he meet them in the abandoned wax museum at the end of Pier 13 in the middle of the night? There are no prizes for guessing how that keeps turning out.
In fact, characters often enter the story only to be shot in short order with a high-powered rifle, rendering their appearance somewhat pointless in terms of the plot. Mostly, Steffen just runs around in circles as the bullets fly and the witnesses drop. His investigation doesn’t develop so much as it staggers around haphazardly until getting the benefit of coincidence and luck. This is primarily the result of a vague script which prioritises action over intelligence, but it does serve to infuse the events with a brisk pace. There’s always something happening, even if it’s never very compelling.
The film’s most memorable scene is just a throwaway but demonstrates how much times have changed in the half-century since the production wrapped. Fajardo hosts a high-class, swanky party at his home where guests drink cocktails, swap small talk and make a few business contacts. Somewhat surprisingly, the in-house entertainment is a cock fight, to which most of the guests pay scant attention, although it does ring the bell of Fajardo’s bloodthirsty girlfriend, Sarah (Kosty). Nothing graphic is shown, but the almost off-hand nature of its inclusion in the proceedings will be an eye-opener to most members of a modern audience.
In terms of action, there’s an assortment of brief punch-ups and a little gunplay. Their staging and execution are stubbornly unremarkable and lack creativity, but it could be argued that this falls in line with Bosch’s grounded approach to the material. Some of the use of outdoor locations is quite good, as the waterfront area is painted as a run-down collection of gloomy warehouses and cheap hotels, an appropriate setting for the characters to play out this tawdry drama of greed, crime and substance abuse. It’s a long way from the playgrounds of the idle rich favoured by Giallo moviemakers and far more in line with the conventional crimes that Bosch presents.
Steffen was a veteran of Spaghetti Westerns, where he usually played laconic, emotionless heroes, so it’s pleasing to see him getting to stretch his acting chops a little here. However, if you are familiar with him from those films, it may take a lot of work to get used to the English dubbing of his character. It’s not that the voice acting is terrible; it’s just weird hearing the actor speaking like a rough-and-tumble Londoner. On the other hand, Fajardo plays precisely the same character he usually did on his excursions into the Old West: the smooth, villainous Mr Big hiding behind a respectable front, usually a banker, a lawyer or a land baron.
Bosch was born in Catalonia in Northeastern Spain and began his movie career co-scripting the family drama ‘Día tras día’ (1951) and acting as the film’s assistant director. More scriptwriting assignments followed before he got the opportunity to direct his work on the episodic crime drama ‘Sendas marcadas’ (1959). During the 1960s, he was more in demand as a director than a writer, generally working in comedy. He belatedly turned his talents to the Spaghetti Western with ‘I’ll Forgive You, Before I Kill You/La diligencia de los condenados’ (1970) and subsequently delivered another half dozen or so similar films, sometimes working with Steffen. ‘The Killer Wore Gloves/La muerte llama a las 10’ (1974) was another venture into Giallo country, but it was the Paul Naschy horror ‘Exorcismo’ (1975) that provided him with a more distinct change of pace. Opportunities began to dry up as the decade waned and the European film industry struggled financially. His last few films found him back in the comedy arena, the last being released to little fanfare in 1983. He passed away at the age of 90 in 2015.
This is an acceptable crime drama, but there’s not a lot of meat here for the true Giallo fan.