Città violenta

Città violenta
Cover of the DVD release
Directed by	Sergio Sollima
Produced by	Harry Colombo George Papi
Written by	Massimo De Rita (story) Gianfranco Galligarich (screenplay) Lina Wertmüller
Starring	Charles Bronson Jill Ireland Telly Savalas
Music by	Ennio Morricone
Cinematography	Aldo Tonti
Editing by	Nino Baragli
Distributed by	International Co-Productions United Artists
Release date(s)	17 September 1970
Running time	100 min
Country	Italy/France
Language	English, Italian

Città violenta (Violent City, also known as The Family) is a 1970 Italian film directed by Sergio Sollima and starring Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland and Telly Savalas. Set and shot in the city of New Orleans, the film is an urban crime thriller with a plot of hitman revenge.^[1][2]

Plot summary

The film opens with professional assassin Jeff Heston (Charles Bronson) and mistress Vanessa (Jill Ireland) pursued mercilessly while holidaying in the Virgin Islands. Jeff is shot and left for dead, while Vanessa runs off with his shooter and former business associate Coogan (Michel Constantin). After his release from prison on a framed murder charge, Jeff tracks the pair to New Orleans. However, after taking revenge on his betrayer and reuniting with Vanessa, Jeff is blackmailed by the very crime boss (Telly Savalas) who framed him, took Vanessa as his mob wife, and who is now intent on having him join his organisation.^[3] When Jeff refuses, he is hunted through an unforgiving city only to discover that his real enemy is closer than he realised.

Release and reception

The film was a commercial hit,^[4] and one of Sergio Sollima's more political films, and less successful than the director's earlier Spaghetti Westerns.^[5] It was released just as Bronson was emerging from his career as a character actor into a period of stardom as a leading man.^[6] That transition was ultimately effected by the success of his later films for United Artists beginning in 1972, and greater fame with Paramount's Death Wish (1974), and during this era Città violenta received distribution in the United States first by International Co-Productions, and later in even wider release by UA, and retitled The Family.^[4] By the time of its domestic release, UA edited some eight minutes from the Italian version. Only in recent years has this footage been restored by Anchor Bay Entertainment for DVD issue. In a review of the 2008 DVD release, Slant Magazine singled out the opening car chase sequence for praise, claiming that it almost outdoes those of Bullitt and The French Connection "by staging its engine-revving, pedestrian-dodging antics not on the wide streets of American cities but, rather, the narrow, winding pathways (and, in one case, staircases) of a Caribbean island."^[3]

Related articles

• Le Samouraï, a 1967 French crime drama which influenced Città violenta
• New Orleans in fiction
• Out of the Past, a 1947 film noir with a similar plotline

References

1. ^ Hughes, Howard (2006). Crime Wave. London: I. B. Tauris. p. xx. ISBN 1845112199. 
2. ^ Frayling, Christopher (1981). Spaghetti Westerns. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 95. ISBN 0710005032. 
3. ^ ^{a b} Henderson, Eric (March 23, 2008). "Violent City". Slant Magazine. http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/dvd_review.asp?ID=1305. 
4. ^ ^{a b} Talbot, Paul (2006). Bronson's Loose!. United States: iUniverse, Inc. p. 27. ISBN 0595379826. 
5. ^ Hughes, Howard (2006). Once upon a Time in the Italian West. London: I. B. Tauris. p. 181. ISBN 185043896X. 
6. ^ Hendrix, Grady (March 25, 2008). "Fun With the Human Testosterone Shot". New York Sun. http://www.nysun.com/arts/fun-with-the-human-testosterone-shot/73572/. Retrieved 2008-09-30. 

External links

• Città violenta at the Internet Movie Database
• Città violenta at AllRovi