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Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films that Ruled the 70s

Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films that Ruled the 70s

Production Year: 2014
Release Date: 10/14/2014
Studio: Cinema Epoch
Director: Mike Malloy 



There are documentaries...Then there are DOCUMENTARIES!  Eurocrime! is clearly the latter.  The love child of director Mike Malloy, the documentary explores the Italian crime films that were (mostly) predominate in the 70s.  The documentary is split up into several chapters, the first chapter delves into early Italian cinema and the habit of taking popular US trends and "making it their (the Italians) own."  In the 60s the Italians were fixated on westerns, but when the money for that fad began to dry up the new found popularity of films like The Godfather and Dirty Harry resulted in the creation of the poliziotteschi genre.  The rest as they say, "is history."



The film then dives into the very hectic social climate of Italy and how that played into the creation of the films.  During this time period violence was prominent; murder, kidnappings, and bombings were becoming the norm.  This was a theme that would typically play out in the 70s crime film.  Even some of the films crew were criminals!


From there the the film takes a look at the actors and the directors.  Thankfully a number of the more prominent poliziotteschi participants (try saying that three times fast!) were interviewed.  Their stories and anecdotes were all very colorful and painted a pretty clear portrait of an industry that was more concerned with getting the film made as quickly as possible than the safety and (occasionally) quality of the film.


One other important aspect of the documentary was the extreme violence featured in the poliziotteschi films.  It was as if each movie was trying to out do the last.  A chunk of time was spent on one memorable scene featured in 1974s Almost Human, apparently one extremely violent scene was so popular patrons would leave their film and sneak into the Almost Human auditorium just to see the violence on display.  These films were known for their sadistic violence, from genital mutilation to the killing of innocent children and Im glad Malloy made a point to spend a bit of time on that subject.


Overall Eurocrime! is a very satisfying watch, as someone whos a fan of these films I was extremely happy to see such effort put into glorifying a number of these underrated movies.  I was also pleasantly surprised with not just the number of interviews, but the amount of films covered.  Thanks to this film I have a lot of research and hunting to do.  This documentary is not to be missed!

Available link for download