L'ultima chance

For reasons wholly obscure, and not just a trifle baffling, most appraisals of, Maurizio Lucidi's profoundly entertaining Poliziottesco, 'Motel of Fear' (aka) 'L'ultima Chance' (1973) are somewhat lukewarm affairs, this is a dismissive reading I happily don't share, since, Lucidi's lively, jewel-heisting, dangerously double dealing actioner remains a prime example of punchy Italian exploitation, with solid performances from two legitimate icons, the eternally sleek and moistly fabulous, Fabio Testi, and indelible cult hero, Eli Wallach playing a querulous pair of hard-boiled jewel thieves on the lam who discover to their considerable cost that hot rocks and a hotter blonde are too much for them to handle!

Tougher than a butcher's stropping belt, 'L'ultima Chance' is all about the devious machinations of hard-nosed wise guy, Joe (Eli Wallach), and slickly scheming, funky-looking baller, Floyd, played with a singular machismo by the tremendously testicular tearaway, Testi! The hopped up hoods fretful flight to the Stateline Motel is propelled by robust filmmaking, and a booty-boppin' deluge of righteously funky 'action-riffs' from the funk-master general of B-Movie cool, Luis Bacalov! While much of the amusingly pulpy narrative feels overly familiar, its reliance on all the bellicose, bullet-blasted poliziotteschi clichés works to its advantage.'Stateline Motel' is well worth a visit, the decor's a bit dingy, but who cares about the skeevey upholstery when you can eyeball dazzling screen sirens, Barbara Bach & Ursula Andress?

Notable actors: Ursula Andress! Eli Wallach! Fabio Testi! Barbara Bach! Howard Ross! Carlo De Mejo!

Most of the plot of this film occurs because Fabio Testi's character is such a dumbass. Really, if you were just released from prison and told to leave Canada, then take part in a jewel heist and sent over the border by your violent partner, would you then start making your car 'dance' all over an icy road because you heard a song you like on the radio? That's what Fabio does, and of course he crashes and ends up not meeting his partner and even more stupidly losing the diamonds he had with him.

The young Ursula Andress stays in the hotel with older husband Fred and step-daughter Barbara Bach. Barbara is going out with a local cop and Ursula seems to be getting it on with a local mechanic (Howard Ross), so Fabio's just walked in on a bloody soap opera. Ursula also makes a beeline for Fabio once he shows up, but when everyone in the hotel catches a news report detailing the heist, some folks figure out what's going on...and violent mobster Eli Wallach is getting impatient for his share of the loot...

Part Eurocrime film, part old school giallo, this one might not have enough nakedness and gore for more folk, but it's an interesting film anyway. It's one of those 'someone has loads of money and everyone is out to get it one way or another' films, like those late sixties Umberto Lenzi gialli. It's got a fair few twists and turns but might just be a wee bit too laid back for its own good.

It probably didn't have enough Eli Wallach when I think about it. How can you underuse Tuco? Especially with that mighty combover he's sporting in this one.

Stateline Motel is an Italian crime film shot in Montreal, featuring Fabio Testi and Eli Wallach as the criminals, and Bond girl Ursula Andress as the femme fatale, who throws a wrench into their plans.

After being released from a Canadian prison, where he was holed up for stealing a car, Floyd (played by Testi) is picked up by his partner Joe (Wallach), as the two petty criminals plan on robbing a bank before fleeing back over the border to America.

They manage to pull the job off, but Joe shoots a guy in the process.

So they split up, with plans of meeting back up in New England to split the loot.

However, on his way to the unattended border crossing, Floyd crashes his car, and ends up stuck in the Last Chance Motel, as he waits for his car to be repaired.

But things aren't exactly going smoothly.

Because after a news report airs, with CCTV footage of the robbery, a number of people in the town begin to suspect him of the crime, and want to cash in on the reward for turning him in...that is...if they can't manage to steal the jewels from him, for themselves.

Meanwhile, the wife of the motel owner (Andress) becomes infatuated with the dangerous allure of this mysterious man, and instigates an affair with him, in hopes he will whisk her away from her mundane life in this small border town.

But before he gets a chance to leave, the jewels mysteriously disappear from his room.

He thinks the promiscuous young woman has honey trapped him...but he can't be sure.

While he's trying to figure out who the culprit is...his partner Joe returns in an attempt to track him down.

Thinking he is trying to take the whole score for himself.

So a situation has developed where everyone is paranoid of everyone else, and trying to play each other, in one way or another.

Floyd thinks that if he and Joe work together, they can solve the mystery as to who actually stole the jewels, get them back, and make their escape over the border.

But Joe is suspicious, and thinks that Floyd is trying to make off with the jewels- and the motel owner's wife- for himself.

Now Floyd thinks their lives are at risk.

Believing that Joe is willing to kill them both, so that he can take the whole cache for himself.

So, thinking the motel owner's wife has the jewels- but won't give them to him unless he runs away with her- Floyd agrees to do so, after trying to distract Joe.

But everyone is way off.

As the whole thing ends up a comedy of errors, with a bit of a twist at the end, that leaves everybody a loser.

It seems like this film was shot in both English and Italian, dubbed for the Italian market, then redubbed in English for the American market...and poorly at that.

Because the audio is so out of sync with the video, that it's kind of distracting.

On top of that, none of the acting is very good.

And the twist is rather predictable.

So the whole thing comes off as rather bland.

4.5 out of 10.

***SPOILERS*** Terribly dubbed into English Canadian movie where the actors look and sound like their a bunch of ventriloquists without having dummies to throw their voices at. Even the non-spoken sounds and noises in the movie aren't even synchronized to where they come across like far away echos.

Floyd, Fabio Testi, is just released from a Montreal jail after serving six months for car theft and is given 48 hours by the Canadian Government to leave the country. Floyd is picked up by his criminal associate Joe, Eli Wallach, then in what seems like ten minutes the two of them hold up a jewelry store shoot one of the costumers, critically, and are chased by the police all over the city of Montreal. After all that they split up in two cars and head across the Canadian border to Newport Maine.

They split up all right but for some strange reason Joe let's Floyd keep the entire amount of jewels that they just robbed, some $500,000.00 worth that they both agree to meet in Newport to split them up between themselves; why didn't they do it right there? Floyd driving on the icy and frozen highway like an idiot runs his car off the road and breaks it axle leaving him stranded at the "Last Chance Motel" just across the border from the state of Main in Canada leaving Joe in Newport left waiting for him and his share of the jewels.

The unbelievable story goes on with Floyd stuck at the motel and not being able to get across the border to Portland to get to Joe with the jewels. This has Joe thinking that Floyd is trying to take off with the entire load of stolen jewelry. At the motel Floyd falls in love with the motel owners wife gorgeous Michelle Nolton, Ursula Andress, who's, unknown to Floyd at the time, a bit flaky. The local cops come to the motel to check out Floyd and anyone else there trying to cross the border in connection to the Montreal jewel robbery and are then told by the police radio that the two robbers were caught, obviously a false alarm.

Earlier in the film Floyd and Michelle had a roll in bed and when Floyd comes back from the police and checks his motel room he finds that the jewels are missing! who took them? Michelle? Or was it the other half dozen or so people in the motel at the time? If Floyd doesn't find them and split them up with Joe who's getting a little restless waiting he'll end up with his head split in half.

if it wasn't for the aforementioned bad dubbing the movie "Stateline Motel" would have been a pretty good crime drama. The fact that we see Ursala Andress undressed and nude in a really hot and sizzling love scene with Floyd was more then worth the rental coast alone. The ending was pretty bland but very unintentionally funny with the final confrontation between Joe Michelle and Floyd. The shooting of Joe by both Michelle and Floyd looked and sounded as if their guns went off some 5 to 10 or so miles away; thats how long it would have taken for the sound waves to reach the audience. But in reality the gun shots that did Joe in went off at point blank range no more then ten feet away from him.

L' ultima chance is one of those Italian films overdubbed in English in order to appeal to english-speaking audiences. It's about the love of a woman for a criminal who stays at the motel she owns. Well, it's a little more complicated than that, but it's an interesting plot. The movie, however,is poorly made, complete with lousy acting (Andress being an exception). Suspense is maintained throughout the movie, which is certainly a plus.

5