Happy (Belated) Birthday Barbara Bouchet !! MILANO CALIBRO 9 - 1972

AKA CALIBER 9  

    Born on this past Fri. the 15th of Aug. in 1943 in Germany she and her family moved to San Francisco after WWII and as a teenager she became a dancer on the THE KPIX DANCE PARTY show and won The "Miss Gidget" beauty contest. In 1962 she moved to Hollywood and appeared in such films as 1965's IN HARM'S WAY as Kirk Douglas's cheating wife & CASINO ROYALE from 1967. She also made numerous TV appearances including THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. and STAR TREK. In 1970 she relocated to Italy where she made a name for herself starting in various gaillos, poliziotteschis ("cop" movies) and thrillers among them BLACK BELLY OF THE TARANTULA (1971), AMUCK (1972 - with Rosalba Neri !), THE LADY IN RED KILLS SEVEN TIMES (1972), DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING (1972) and THE FRENCH SEX MURDERS (1972). She had a small role in Martin Scorsese's GANGS OF NEW YORK from 2002 and continues to work to work steadily up till today. 

  

     MILANO CALIBRO 9 (CALIBER 9) was one of 13 (!) films Barbara appeared in during 1972 (as partially seen in the brief list above) and was the first part of a loose trilogy by director Fernando Di Leo that was followed by LA MALA ORDINA (MANHUNT - U.S. Title THE ITALIAN CONNECTION 1972) and ILL BOSS (THE BOSS 1973). Although he dabbled in other genres (most notably spaghetti westerns and the weird gaillo ASYLUM EROTICA from 1971 - with Rosalba Neri !) his best work was undoubtedly the crime films he made during the 70's.
    Filled with garish clothes & decor, machine guns, violent shootouts & beatings, car chases and larger then life characters the Italian police/crime films of the 70's have been rather sorely unrepresented on region 1 DVD, but Blue Underground released some awhile back (including Enzo De Castellari's excellent STREET LAW) and Raro has brought out two blu-ray sets collecting the best of Di Leo's crime films.

    1972's CALIBER 9 is one of his best and along with an excellent performance by Barbara (this is my favorite of hers) it features gritty and restrained performance by Gastone Moschin as the lead protagonist which is balanced out by a delirious scenery chewing Mario Adrof as his nemesis. Moschin plays Ugo Piazza (love that name !), a gangster who upon being released from prison finds himself the center of attention from both the police and the mob as they believe he knows the whereabouts of $300,000 that went missing during an elaborate money changing scheme shown in the prologue.

    Mario Adorf (who was Peckinpah's initial choice for Mapache in THE WILD BUNCH) plays Rocco who engages in an elaborate and brutal game of cat and mouse with Piazza as he seeks to learn the whereabouts of the missing money (which may or not be known by Piazza). Overseeing everything mafia-wise is the "The Americano" played by Lionel Stander (who pre - HART TO HART had quite a career going in Italy during the 70's).
   Although the basic story is an oft used crime/mob plot the film moves at a terrific pace as it only gets bogged down in a series of what seems like endless debates between the two main police characters concerning communism vs. fascism - which was a common underlying theme in many of these movies.  Moschin (best known for playing Robert DeNiro's early NYC nemesis in THE GODFATHER PART II) is excellent as the ex-con who while initially coming across as a mindless hulking thug (as are most of the male characters) actually carefully plans out each move and its fascinating watching him pit various characters against one another.

    Barbara plays Nelly a go-go dancer (who lives in a mind bogglingly decorated apt.) and was Piazza's girlfriend and while not being entirely faithful to him while he was in prison she does come back to him (although her means to an end aren't exactly 100% kosher). Her go-go dancing sequence as filmed with tilted and sideways camera angles along with pulsating lights is one of the highlights of the film (and probably 70's Italian cinema in general).
   Still currently living in Italy, in the mid 80's she came out with a line of exercise videos and books and opened up a health club in Rome.