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.

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.

UN UOMO DALLA PELLE DURA stars Robert Blake as Teddy, a down-on-his-luck university grad who wound up a low-level boxer. He finds out that his manager has been lying about money, so he hits the road in search of opportunity. Teddy runs into an old college buddy, who steers him toward a new boxing manager. The manager and Teddy hit it off, and things seem too good to be true. The resulting partnership leads to a string of vicious killings, Teddy's involvement with a determined police detective (Ernest Borgnine), and a budding romance with the new manager's daughter (Catherine Spaak). Fans of the great Tomas Milian will get a kick out of his creepy, funny, mysterious hippie who may be involved with all of the murder and mayhem.

Much of the fun is not knowing where the narrative will lead, and which genre it will touch upon. It starts as a noirish road movie, with a drifter comes to realize there's an array of characters out to get him. His novice sleuthing, coupled with some horror elements (jump scares, bloody murder sequences, creepy music, etc.), gives much of the film a strong giallo (Italian murder-mystery) feel, a sub-genre that was popular at the time. There are occasional action moments, in the form of fighting (both in and out of the ring) and some jarring gun violence, giving the film a strong eurocrime/poliziotteschi vibe.

The performances are all uniformly fine. Blake is particularly good here, presenting us with a likable central character who isn't without faults. The writing is surprisingly sharp, filled with memorable dialogue, especially Teddy's colorful, profane, occasionally hilarious verbiage.

I'm not surprised by the negative reviews here. The movie is almost solely available in a highly truncated and censored version. If people could finally see director Francesco Prosperi's cut, this would likely garner a sizable following.

I've seen this one a number of times. It's a favorite. It's clear that no one involved set out to make a masterpiece, just a tough, clever, scary, entertaining movie. I think it wound up being a masterpiece.

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.