La porta del cannone

World War II: The Italian secret agent Riccardo Cloro ( Gianni Garco again as John Garko and voiced by Giancarlo Maestri) is sent undercover as a Swiss businessman to Graz by train, in which he gets to know Rada , a Czech Jew. He is then informed about his mission: He is to kill Tsaimitis, head of the resistance movement in Budapest. But another head of the Nazi secret service receives the same mission, Müller (Horst Frank) of the Gestapo, thus their assignments intersect. Coming back to the hotel, Cloro meets Müller and has to let him search his apartment and interrogate Rada brutally. Forced to follow the young woman's companions, of whom she is a prisoner, Cloro goes on his mission but he little by little he has doubts. Among the partisans there is a German spy, Müller's agent, who, in agreement with the latter, tries to lure Flori into a trap, inviting him to go to the villa where Zaimitis takes refuge. Thing go wrong when Cloro finally arrives in Czechoslovakia.

The film mixes two sub-genres the Macaroni Combat and espionage, adding a lot od stock footage. Dealing with an Italian secret agent is sent to Graz with the mission of killing the head of the resistance, along the way after his meeting the Nazi and meeting a Jewish woman, the Italian begins to doubt his ideals. Based on the novel of the same name by Giuliano Friz, a blend of espionage and partisan warfare, set just the outbreak of World War II. Gianni Garco gives a passable acting as agent Flori who begins to lose his faith in fascism, but at the same time he feels tormented by a sense of duty and the obligation to keep his word. The Dalmatian/Italian Gianni Garco or John Garco or Gary Hudson was well known for performing the classic character Sartana and making a large number of Spaghetti Westerns and some Giallos; as Garco played a lot of Pasta Westerns, such as : Have a Good Funeral, My Friend... Sartana Will Pay , Per 100.000 dollari t'ammazzo , 10,000 dollari per un massacro , Bad man river , Et.... Sabata les tua tous ,Sartana arrives , His Name Was Holy Ghost , Taste of Vengeance , 7 Chacales , Those Dirty Dogs , and several others . While co-starring , not bad Irina Demick, is really very beautiful, she will be future performer in the 'Sicilian clan' along with Alain Delon. And of course, the always baddie, the German Horst Frank, who steals the show as the villain Gestapo officer.

Leopoldo Savona directs as best he can, despite a script full of rhetoric and not without holes, helped by the satisfying Slovenian landscapes and Carlo Rustichelli's intense musical score. There are many fine technicians and nice assistants as the professional cameraman Enzo Sarafian who makes an adequate photography from Yugoslavian outdoors. This wartime movie was mediocrely and professionally directed by Leopoldo Savona . Leopoldo Savona's direction is so-so, he made several Spaghettis under pseudonym as Leo Coleman: ¨Posate Le Pistole Reverendo¨ , ¨Killer Kid¨ , ¨Apocalypse Joe¨ , ¨Dio Perdoni La Mia Pistola¨, ¨Texas Il Rouge¨ ; adventure/war/drama movies : ¨L'Aigle Rouge¨ , ¨L'Ultima Carica¨ , ¨Fra Diavolo¨ , ¨Le DueOrfanelle¨ , ¨Weapons of War¨ , ¨Thunder from the West¨ , ¨Mongols¨ and Giallo/Terror : ¨Death Falls Lightly¨ , ¨Bytleth¨ , among others . Rating: 4.5/10. Average. Only for WWII enthusiasts.

An obscure but fairly decent WWII actioner that has recently been shown on late-night Italian TV; the cast is made up of some moderately familiar faces like Gianni (1972's NIGHT OF THE DEVILS) Garko, Irina (1962's THE LONGEST DAY) Demick and Horst (1971's THE CAT O'NINE TAILS) Frank. Garko plays an Italian agent who doubles as a neutral Swiss citizen in his mission to track down the leader of the Hungarian resistance; Demick is a Jewish member of the Resistance who meets (and beds!) Garko on the initial train journey; and Frank is the proverbial Gestapo sourpuss who hounds both Garko (of whose mission and true identity he is obviously unaware) and Demick (for her unfortunate heritage). Besides, Garko's long-lost flame (the ailing Resistance leader's nurse) and a duplicitous female partisan are also added to the fray – the latter also managing to convince a practically converted Garko to diffuse an explosives-laden bridge! The tragic ending sees the nurse being shot in front of Garko's own eyes and the latter ironically expiring at the hands of the partisans themselves when they mistake him for – of all people – the hated (and recently deceased) Frank! Apart from the war sequences and the various car chases, much of the fun to be had here is attributable to the confrontations between Garko and Frank; amusingly enough, director Savona – of whose films I am familiar with just THE MONGOLS (1961) and BYLETH – IL DEMONE DELL' INCESTO (1972) – also makes use of much (and, in my opinion, irrelevant) combat stock footage throughout...including at the film's very coda!