Un uomo dalla pelle dura

Barely released italian crime-drama boxing film, and watching the film shows why it took so long to get the film released. Choppy looking film (U.S. distributor seems to have edited it) that headlines Robert Blake, Thomas Milian and Ernest Borgnine in a dull and badly put together would be drama. The film is muddy looking, as if the American distributor had no care to transfer the italian negative correctly. The video print runs if it was a TV print and had a very short running time.

The film played in Seattle in 1978 as BUMMER, a second feature to MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH with no ad slick of showing what BUMMER was. Sitting watching this film is a real bummer, and I guess the independent film company that pick this film up in the late 70's was probably trying to release it as if it was "Baretta" stars new film, which it wasn't. Blake is a underrated actor, and this film isn't good.

Teddy (Robert Blake, In Cold Blood), a talented boxer, decides to leave his crooked manager Paul (Fortunato Arena, Terza ipotesi su un caso di perfetta strategia criminale), who happened to have picked up from him his girlfriend (Camille Keaton, Cosi avete fatto a Solange). He seeks a new opportunity in New Mexico, and meets a former college friend, the newspaperman Mike (Orazio Orlando, Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto), who introduces him to his new coach Nick (Gabriele Ferzetti, Alta Tension). Teddy resumes a successful career, but a strange hippie (Tomas Milian, La Vittima designata) seems to prowl around them, dealing with a bet on tricked match issue with the bookmaker Chink (Emilio Messina, Tre Notti Violente).

And the canonical "black leather gloved mysterious killer" beats to death Nick while framing Teddy, who gets no alternative but to flee from the police led by the captain Perkins (Ernest Borgnine, The Split), in order to lead his own inquiry and track down the unknown murderer. In his quest to clear himself and save his "hard skin", he can rely on the help of Nick's daughter (Catherine Spaak, Il Gatto a nove code), but corpses continue to pile up in all kind of bloody ways as he gets closer to the solution. This original giallo set in the sport circle will allow the spectator to stay caught until the very epilogue. (Viewed in an English 1.85:1 aspect ratio 1h26 version.)

In RIPPED-OFF, originally titled THE BOXER and also going by COUNTER PUNCH, MURDER IN THE RING, CHAMP CHEROKEE and TOUGH GUY, Robert Blake, after establishing himself as a great actor in IN COLD BLOOD, is a drifting Vietnam Vet boxer (the next year he'd be a vet cop in ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE) named Cherokee...

After a come-back and then being set-up to lose an important match, is accused of slaying his manager and, in the usual Noir fashion... which this is an extremely low budget version of... is desperate to find the real killer...

Most of the movie feels pasted together with dubbed dialogue and a myriad of awkward, often hilarious close-up/inserts, one in particular involving a brawling Blake blinded by a spiked rag: making his eyes blink like a frantic cartoon character...

Also includes an evil hippie (Tomas Milian); a stone-faced love-interest Catherine Spaak, an overly obvious surprise villain, wah-wah peddle music (which inserted breaks sounding very much like the instrumental noises in Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love) and, last but not least, Ernest Borgnine's sporadic "guest appearance" scenes as a growling cop out to nab our troubled bruiser...

Blake whose performance is more BARETTA than IN COLD BLOOD... makes this corny, campy, obscure import a thoroughly addictive guilty pleasure...

(PS In TAXI DRIVER you can see this movie's playing outside Robert DeNiro's cab, in the dirty New York streets... and it would be a real trip escaping from that hell and finding your way into this one.)

To call Ripped Off the second half an adequate drive-in double feature is being charitable. However, the movie does have some redeeming qualities for the Drive-In community. One redeeming quality is the appearance of Catherine Spaak. If you are familiar with her, you might be entertained.

As for the movie itself, Robert Blake was probably in a career slump and did this Italian action drama filmed in Albuquerque, NM. The film was shelved or played in second-rate drive-in/walk-in grindhouse theaters and quickly disappeared from the screen. A few years later, Robert Blake hit it big with Baretta, and this film was reissued to the same type of theaters for another go-round for newfound Robert Blake fans.

A decent action film with Blake giving it his all, but I think this is the TV edit I saw a while back. I would like to see its original edit.

As of this writing, I believe Camille Keaton is in the official eighty-two-minute version of this film. My copy runs seventy-three minutes.

Just another boxer movie. Blake is framed. He needs to find out who did it. There are some murders committed. There are some really ugly bad guys. The plot is sort of convoluted. Blake can be seen as a pretty handsome, Brandoesque kind of figure.The cinematography is pretty kind to him. He is a man of few words (mostly because he probably doesn't know many), and he must get the law off his back so he can get to the person who framed him. There is little suspense. There is a surprise. Where'd that come from? I just can't watch Blake playing a violent character without thinking of his current situation. He's a pretty good actor who peaked early with "In Cold Blood," did a little television, and then pretty much disappeared. The movie is dull and seemingly unending.