Una Magnum Special per Tony Saitta

"Blazing Magnum" often gets too easily categorized as a spaghetti imitation of "Dirty Harry", its first sequel "Magnum Force" and "The French Connection" (groundbreaking hardcore American action movies of the early 70's), but this slick and unforgettable Italian exploitation product has SO much more to offer. Director Alberto De Martino, clever marketer that he was back then, does indeed cash in on the popular tough cop-thriller trend, but simultaneously his film also contains authentic Giallo story lines, which was another contemporary favored exploitation sub genre at the time. The versatility of the script is illustrated through particularly two of the numerous titles for the film. "A Special Magnum for Tony Saitta" is an archetypal "Poliziottesco" title and "Strange Shadows in an Empty Room" is a prototypic Giallo title. Both of them titles are very irrelevant, by the way, as there's nothing even remotely special about Tony Saitta's Magnum and the shadows in an empty room only refer to a minuscule sequence near the end of the film, but admittedly they sound terrific. Unorthodox Canadian copper Tony Saitti is too busy blasting bank robbers to pieces one day, and so he misses a phone call from his sister who sounded clearly upset. Later that same night, the girl – who's at least 30 years younger than Saitti for some reason – dies from poisoning during a party at her university. Tony Saitti now takes his time to devotedly investigate the case, along with his reliable colleague Sgt. Matthews. He discovers that his sister was having an affair with the prominent Dr. Tracer and holds him responsible for the murder, but the case soon proves to be more convoluted and including jewelry theft and a community of local transvestites. The story of "Blazing Magnum" could be told in barely half an hour or so, but the exciting and adrenalin-paced action interludes make the film so indescribably entertaining! Of course nobody wants to cooperate with Tony Saitti's investigation, thus all his attempts to question suspects or witnesses result in extended bare-knuckle fights and incredibly flamboyant chase sequences; either by car or on foot. It's almost hilarious to witness Tony apprehend a suspect after a 10 minute chase and having beat half of the poor guy's teeth out, only for it to end with him asking: "Have you ever seen the necklace in this photograph before?" Especially the car chase sequence deserves to be legendary, in my humble opinion. It truly feels as if Alberto De Martino and his camera crew opened a big picture book with descriptions of all possible car stunts imaginable and then simply re-enacted them one by one! Other irresistible exploitative highlights include Tony's bitter fight with a clique of transvestites and a tough confrontation in the little boy's room. There's a lovely amount of sleaze and several scenes in the film are delightfully tasteless, like for example the killer threatening to slice up a newborn baby at the hospital. The filming locations are adequate, the soundtrack is quite exhilarating and De Martino could also depend on a stellar cast. Stuart Whitman is a decent enough Clint Eastwood clone, but I particularly fancied seeing John Saxon and Martin Landau starring together in this Italian-Canadian co-production. Tisa Farrow plays a poor defenseless blind girl, just like her more famous sister Mia did in "See No Evil" a couple years earlier. Talk about exploitation and clever marketing!

Until rugged cop Stuart Whitman makes full use of his Dirty Harry tool, you've got to wait until the very end of the movie. Along the way, you get your money's worth – a lineup of veteran Hollywood actors having fun poliziottesco style, a sex shop scene high on the 70s sleaze-o- meter, karate killer transvestites, Mia Farrow's sister as a blind girl, the stunning beauty of H'wood actress Gayle Hunnicutt, the admirable tits of Québécois Adjani lookalike Carole Laure, the creative use of a curling iron, plus a quite spectacular car chase in the streets of Montreal, expertly executed by legendary stunt coordinator Rémy Julienne (The Italian Job, six Bond movies, a dozen Belmondo action flicks). Of course Blazing Magnum is just a ripoff, but a highly entertaining one, in its molto-trasho-appeal unquestionably superior to each and every 70s Clint Eastwood vigilante vehicle. Gritty six stars, the seventh being for Armando Trovaioli's groovster soundtrack: That ain't Montreal, it's Funkytown.

There are 2 respected movies in the euro police movies that always shine above all the other great ones, the first one is in Fernando De Leo "La Mala Ordina", Part of his Milan trilogy films, with his extreme and fast paced chase that never let go and just keeps on going till the last brutal finish. The second one is blazing magnum's, which can be a very good lesson to all the action directors out there planing to do a one good chase sequence. There are 2 chases here, one in the beginning which is short but very efficient , and the second at the end, which you must see to believe, it got everything in it and more. I do urge you, the fans of this type of cinema to grab Blazing Magnumes if only for the chases that prove that you can do a bad acting movie with a simple thriller script, that still got some hard hitting sequences that shine overall. I can't finish without mentioning that the music is also a masterpiece in itself and it is always there at the right moment. If only Dark Sky/NoShame/Blue Underground or any other respected label will do us a favor and release a collector edition DVD, that would be fantastic!

When this briefly played in the U.S. in 76-7, American International marketed it more in the line of a horror thriller than the shoot-em-up it leaned toward. Six capable perfomers, most of whom were accustomed to making the most out of low-budget material, appeared to varying degrees of success. DeMartino was a workmanlike director who, like most of his Italian contemporaries of the era, made his way around all of the heavily produced genres from western and superhero to crime and horror.

Now this is more like it! An Italian/Canadian 'joint' that isn't dubbed, starts with the feel of a seventies TV movie but then veers madly in tone as the film goes on, and has the distinction of being on of the few De Martino films that doesn't drag. At all!

On the campus of a Montreal college, a young man watches as his ex-girlfriend has a very public argument with her lecturer and possible lover, Martin Landau. Scheming with her, the young man and the girl later play a prank on Landau when the girl (Carol, her name is Carol) fakes being ill during a party. When she non-prankingly dies after being administered medicine by Landau, he becomes suspect number one. Unluckily for him Carol's brother is hard-ass actor Stuart Whitman, and he's a cop to boot, with John Saxon as his icy-eyed partner.

De Martino scores a winner here because he's been clever enough to have a giallo (murder, many suspects, photograph clue etc) with all the elements of a Euro-crime film thrown in for good measure. For example, when we first meet Whitman, he's too busy blowing away bad guys to answer an important call from Carol, and when he approaches the transvestite community to merely ask them if they knew any transgender mates that have been missing, it turns into a huge, random, over the top battle where people are punched through glass windows, Whitman himself nearly falls off a building, and a transvestite gets a pair of straighteners up the arse for his/her trouble!

Not content with that, De Martino also throws in a random car chase that lasts for ages too, and this time he only wanted to show a guy a photo! These two scenes make the film a lot more fun than it would have been as a straight giallo, some I'm grateful they're there.

Tisa Farrow, who would go on to some real Italian exploitation highs in a few years after this film (Zombie Flesh Eaters, The Last Hunter and Anthropophagus), gets the best scenes as the blind piano tutor who is unlucky enough to have quite a bit of the film's action take place in her apartment. This might actually be my favourite De Martino film. Well done mate!