Gli esecutori

¨The Sicilian Cross¨ or ¨Gli Esecutori¨ 1976 is a passable thriller with international cast including two big name cast : Roger Moore and Stacy Keach . A Mafia Salvatore Francesco (Ivo Garrani) who does dark businesses is enraged when a holy cross that contained a shipment of drug is robbed and he is suspected of smuggling heroin from Sicily to port of San Francisco. He dispatches his nephew , a elegant advocate at law named Ulisse (Roger Moore) to identify the real culprit. The lawyer also enlists the aid of his best friend called Charlie Hanson (Stacy Keach) , a grand prix driver to discover the crook thieves . As Ulysse and Charlie Hanson join forces and go after three alleged , suspect delinquents (Fausto Tozzi, Peter Martell , Romano Puppo) , but then things go wrong . And the Hunting Season Has Opened in the Naked City! The Hunting Season Has Opened In The Naked City.

Average but passable thriller with brief touches of sympathetic humour in charge of the two likeable protagonists . Roger Moore and Stacy Keach form a stunning couple with adventurous streak , creating a funny Buddy Movie, as Roger Moore is a hotshot Anglo-Sicilian lawyer, while Stacy Keach is a resourceful car driver . There's also a motley group of Italian actors usual in the typical genres of the Sixties and Seventies as Spaghetti western , Peplum , Polizziesco , Giallo , such as : Ettore Manni , Fausto Tozzi ,Peter Martel (as Pietro Martellanza) , Romano Puppo , Rosemarie Lindt, Remo De Angelis , among others. In spite of known actors in the cast , it didn't have international success , failing at the boxoffice , even in some countries it was shown as part of a double bill with other movies.

It contains atmospheric and thrilling musical score by Luis Bacalov who subsequently won Academy Award for The Postman and Pablo Neruda . Evocative and appropriate cinematography by Aiace Parolin shot in several locations , as Paestum, Capaccio, Salerno, Seude , Capaccio , Vecchio, De Paolis Studios, Rome, and especially San Francisco , California : Fisherman's Wharf, North Beach , Sausalito, Broadway, Pier 45, San Francisco. The motion picture was professionally directed by Maurizio Lucidi , though it has some flaws , and gaps , but being an acceptable thriller flick . Lucidi was born in 1932 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy and died in 2005 , Rome . He was a director and editor, known for this ¨The Man from the Organization or The sicilian cross or Los ejecutores¨ (1976) and he made more thrillers as ¨The last chance¨ with Elli Wallach, Fabio Testi and Ursula Andress . And he directed three Westerns as ¨Halleluja for Django¨(1967) with Hunt Powers , ¨Saddle tramps¨ with Bud Spencer and ¨Pecos¨ with Robert Woods . And furthermore , wartime movie as Probabilità zero (1969) and La víttima designata (1971) , among others . Rating : 5.5/10. Acceptable and passable .

I was led to believe from reviews that this was some sort of buddy comedy with Roger Moore and Stacey Keach and although the film does have its lighter moments (mainly down to Keach) it is still a violent Eurocrime film that doesn't skimp on the car chases, punch-ups, or smoking.

You see Moore is a lawyer for his Uncle, who is a mobster trying to go straight. The Uncle has recently imported a huge wooden cross from a chapel in Sicily as a gift to his estranged priest friend Ettor Manni, but when three Sicilians turn up, kidnap the delivery men, then steal a shipment of heroin concealed in the cross, all hell breaks loose. Only we the audience are clued in that there's a black-gloved killer (possibly on loan from a giallo) who kills the delivery men with a silencer. Somebody doesn't want witnesses!

Moore seems to be some sort of mediator for all the mob bosses too, so he's given the task of recovering the heroin, tracking down the three gangsters, and finding out who set up his Uncle. To do that he enlists Stacey "You Never Forget the Taste of Human Flesh!" Keach, a race car driver, and you better believe that's coming in handy later in the film. Moore travels to Sicily while Keach hits the streets looking for the heroin, where he discovers that it's not being sold - so where is it?

I suppose you could complain that the film is all over the place tone-wise, with the drug dealing granny and Keach merrily destroying a car by driving it around San Francisco on one side and the gangland executions on the other side, but I liked it. You've got a bit of a mystery going on and James Bond fighting Romano Puppo, who doesn't want that?

We also get a car chase thrown in where two trucks get involved and I couldn't tell if they belonged to the bad guys or Roger Moore just killed them because they got in his way. All the Eurocrime elements are here, so I guess whether you enjoy or not depends on how you get on with Roger Moore and Stacey Keach.

Back in the 70s everything was possible; - just ask Sir Roger Moore! Shooting a down & dirty Italian mafia/gangster exploitation thriller in between two major James Bond productions? Sure, why not! In "Street People", the über-British Moore supposedly plays a half-Sicilian counsellor based in San Francisco. If you can believe that, the rest of the overly silly, far-fetched and pointlessly convoluted plot shouldn't be too difficult to accept, neither. The opening sequences are impressive, for certain. In the San Franciscan harbor, a massive Jesus' cross arrives in a container from Sicily. It's a gift to the local church, by the former mafia don Salvatore Francesco, but it turns out the hollowed cross was stuffed with heroin and three innocent harbor workers were killed during unloading. Furious over the accusation that the supposedly unaware Salvatore abuses the church to smuggle drugs into America, he assigns his nephew Ulisse to investigate who organized the drug-transport. Ulisse, at his turn, calls in the help of his buddy Charlie, who's a totally reckless and unscrupulous race car driver and thrill seeker. During their search, many double-crossings and nasty family secrets come to the surface, though.

The script of "Street People" (aka "The Man from the Organization" and about half a dozen other alternate titles) seriously lacks structure and coherence, but it also contains many clever little ideas and a handful of near-genius action sequences. I agree with what most reviewers mentioned already, namely that Stacy Keach steals the show as the pleasantly deranged Charlie. The "test drive" scene is unforgettable and there's another very spectacular and insane chase sequence with colossal trucks towards the climax. During this chase, you can clearly spot that the stunt drivers don't nearly resemble Roger Moore and Stacy Keach, but who cares? The flashback footage to Sicily in the 1930s is so exaggeratedly melodramatic, due to the slow-motion filming and the harrowing music, that it almost becomes hilarious!

This film is not dissimilar to many cop-buddy films, except that the two central characters trying to track down the contraband are working for the mob. And, to-be-fair, it is far better than a hell of lot of cop-buddy films I have seen. It is let down in places though, not least the awful flashback scenes which are far too sappy.

Aside from the novelty of seeing Roger Moore (as a half-Sicilian!) and Stacy Keach, there really isn't much of interest here. It's mostly people talking - all dubbed. Even Moore and Keach are dubbed! (Using their own voices, which leads to a weird effect) There are a few not-bad chase sequences, but there's a sloppiness to them, as there is to the entire production; this movie really screams, "Italians made this." Bobbing cameras, slightly blurred photography, uses of a zoom lens is more than enough evidence for that. Only for people into Italian cinema of this genre.