Quella carogna dell'ispettore Sterling

It seems that the US version differs from the European one. Anyhow we are talking about a great movie. Inspector Henry Silva is accused of having killed a police informer and is kicked out of the Department. He will have to do all by himself to discover the truth.

The ace of this movie is director Miraglia who manages to make a wonderful direction. Everything is no nice to see, even when Inspector Sterling is simply moving from one room of his house to another. The images are clear and full of light. The atmosphere is tense. The music is great. Beba Loncar is the mysterious blonde that Sterling will have to tail in order to solve his case. Keenan Wynn is the harsh (but comprehensive) chief inspector. Pier Paolo Capponi is the journalist that will try to get a scoop from the surprising epilogue. All these ingredients are magnificently blended in a beautiful San Francisco!

An early Italian crime film set in San Francisco. Henry Silva is on top taciturn form as per usual playing a renegade cop hunting for revenge after a family tragedy. Essentially the film is set around a series of beatdowns as our hero gets closer to the truth. Not as gritty as the genre would become in the 1970s, nevertheless this still proves a tough and workable genre instalment.

Sometimes you've just got to accept defeat and get on with life, because life isn't like a Hollywood film, you don't always surmount all obstacles and triumph in the end. Sometimes, when you think you're getting revenge for being framed for murdering a police informant, life will throw you a curveball by the same people that framed you subsequently murdering your young son. Then, then, when you think things have hit rock bottom, your wife will dump you straight after your son's funeral.

It's around about there we first meet ex-cop Henry Silva. Henry's just buried his son and now he's also single again, and he's out for justice. He's got nothing better to do really, but he still has the support of his old cop buddy Keenan Wynn, and is still being pestered by an annoying journalist. Henry has the names of those involved, and two pictures, and it doesn't take him long to track down the first guy. Of course, this guy is played by Luciano Rossi, and therefore is a bit creepy and snidey.

On the other hand, someone is trying to cover their tracks and seems to be taking out all those involved in the killings, but this is not a giallo, it's a Henry Silva ass-kicking film, so we get to see Henry going around threatening everyone and giving people a kicking. A few years later Henry would be gunning down most of Sicily but this is a summer of love era-film, so we don't get too much violence, and we also get one of those ridiculous freak-out party sequences.

While not filled with absolute carnage like Cry of the Prostitute, you can't beat a bit of Silva as he glowers, glares, cajoles, threatens, berates, eyeballs and hairs everyone involved. It's nice to see the man stoating around San Francisco too. Think of it as a practise run for all those killer Eurocrime films of the seventies.

Except Kidnap. That one wasn't so good.

Competent enough, but not very spectacular Italian thriller set in San Francisco and starring the great Henry Silva in a textbook "one man against all" cop-tale. Silva, as the titular inspector Sterling, is out for revenge and to clear his name. He got framed by local mobsters, undoubtedly with help from within the police corps, and trialed for killing an informant. The mobsters also killed his son, but surprisingly enough, he seems less upset about that then about the frame-up. "The Falling Man" isn't dull or bad, but it's very predictable and contains far too many overlong and redundant sequences. There is, for example, a lot of footage of Silva simply staring dazed and confused into the distance, or repeating pieces of flashbacks into his head that aren't even very relevant. It's very easy to guess who the secretive "Charlie" is, and the body count lies much too low for an Italian crime-thriller. The music is great, though, and blond actress Beba Loncar looks ravishing. Too bad her role is fairly small.

PS: in the fantastic documentary "Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the '70s!", it's explained how the city of San Francisco charges film productions for the use of footage of the famous Golden Gate bridge in their movies. I guess the producers of "The Falling Man" wanted to get the most out of their money then, because footage of the bridge is shown every couple of minutes.