Fernando di Leo Movies
- 1990
This melodrama begins with the death of a family patriarch. The man's children gather from all over to honor him at his funeral. His wife at first manages to get by on her own, but as time progresses, she is increasingly need of care and attention. Her children, however, have lives of their own, and her increased neediness (especially for attention) wreaks havoc on their relationship with her and with their own families. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chela Ruiz, Victor Laplace, (more)
- 1983
In a confusing plot that seems to skip a few vital points, three men fight together to rescue children in a region near the Lao-Thai-Cambodian border. Then Paolo (Woody Strode) turns against his two buddies and sets up shop running arms for the KGB and drugs for the Mafia. Eventually, one of the three buddies comes hunting for Strode to offer him a better deal: the U.S. government will give him even more money for what he is selling. Before a huge question mark can be raised over this twist, the three former buddies are back together again and out on another mission. Logic might have been a good ingredient to add here, anywhere. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Henry Silva, Harrison Muller, (more)
- 1979
An escaped convict (Andy Warhol superstar Joe Dallesandro) plays the occupants of a remote home against one another for his own sadistic pleasure while searching for the loot he buried there following a previous robbery. The plan was simple: get the money out from under the fireplace, avoid detection by the police, and get out. He thought the farm was abandoned, but the current owners have just arrived on holiday. The occupants are a man, his wife, and her sister. The sister is a nymphomaniac who is secretly sleeping with her sibling's husband. Fascinated by the unusual dynamics of his victims' relationships, the maniacal deviant decides to stick around for a while and get a few sick thrills by playing the dysfunctional trio against one another. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
This Italian feature is about an ambitious criminal who attempts upward mobility in the criminal world. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- 1975
- R
After his son is kidnapped, a millionaire industrialist (James Mason) seeks revenge, in spite of the potential danger that his rash actions will bring about for his child and another kidnapped boy, the son of a poor mechanic (Luc Merenda). ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- 1975
A secret agent goes undercover as a flight attendant to crack a drug ring. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- 1972
- R
This Italian action film focuses on a crook, framed as a drug kingpin, whose wife is killed by the mob as a result. He must take matters into his own hands to have revenge. Manhunt was also re-titled The Italian Connection to steal thunder from its French counterpart. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Woody Strode, Cyril Cusack, (more)
Fernando DiLeo, best known for a series of westerns and crime films, tried his hand at horror with this extremely sick little item loaded with nudity and violence. Set at a remote mental institution (inexplicably located in a castle), the film features Klaus Kinski as a doctor whose mostly female patients are being brutally dispatched by a psychopath. Margaret Lee and Rosalba Neri are among the frequently unclothed cast, and there are decapitations, crossbow bolts in the eye, and -- in some foreign prints -- fairly explicit sex. Nothing in the film, however, is as tasteless as its original ad campaign, which played up its similarity to the crimes of Chicago mass-murderer Richard Speck (who actually killed student nurses and not patients). ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Klaus Kinski, Margaret Lee, (more)
- 1970
- R
In this drama, a young woman goes on vacation with her husband and her daughter. While there, she learns that sex can be passionate and wonderful. Unfortunately, she learns this with a handsome lifeguard, not her husband. She feels guilty and confesses all to her husband, but afterwards she commits suicide. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Françoise Prevost, Gianni Macchia, (more)
- 1969
This interesting crime film, based on a book by Giorgio Scerbanenci, deals with the search for an adult who pushed a classroom full of troubled teens to gang-rape and murder their female teacher. A hard-bitten Police Inspector named Liberti (Pier Paolo Capponi) is put on the case and sets about brutally interrogating the young punks. He finally settles on a blond Slav named Fiorello Grassi as the one most likely to squeal, but when Grassi jumps (or is pushed) from a rooftop, Liberti knows there is more to the teacher's murder than meets the eye. He and pretty social-worker Livia (Nieves Navarro) manage to move one of the other boys in with them, hoping to earn his trust so he will talk. The usual seriocomic urchin-taming scenes follow, but Liberti and Livia finally earn the boys' trust, learning surprising details about an older woman and a diamond-smuggling operation before finding out the sordid truth. Capponi is outstanding in the lead, and Franco Villa's photography is noteworthy, particularly in the hallucinatory montage re-creating the horrible crime. Well-acted and nicely paced, DiLeo's film suffers from its predictable denouement, but is otherwise quite good. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1969
James Daly plays an American special operative who goes behind enemy lines during WW II. His mission: sabotage. Pier Angeli, Michael Wilding and Peter Van Eyck number among Daly's possible friends and foes. It's familiar territory, but suspenseful. We prefer the film's original title: Red Roses for the Fuhrer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1968
Unlike Clint Eastwood, who in the 1960s was cast as the Man With No Name, Beyond the Law star Lee Van Cleef has a name, and a very functional one. Van Cleef is known to one and all as Bandit Turned Sheriff. Actually, a more appropriate cognomen would be Bandit Turned Sheriff But Still a Bandit, since Van Cleef only pretends to reform so that he can steal a cavalry payroll. Since it's hard to watch Beyond the Law with a straight face to begin with, the producers wisely decided to turn this spaghetti western into a semi-comedy. Released in Italy in 1967 as Al Di La Della Legge, Beyond the Law was distributed in the US in 1971. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lee Van Cleef, Antonio Sabato, (more)
- 1967
In this spaghetti western, a bank robber becomes friends with the enigmatic Sabato by giving him back the money that he had just put into the bank. Trouble ensues when the robber discovers his murdered wife. He immediately suspects that Sabato did it, and rides off to get revenge. Sabato is innocent and when the robber realizes this, they team up to discover that it was Sabato's ex-partner that did the deed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Antonio Sabato, Fernando Sancho, (more)
- 1967
This bloody spaghetti western (filmed entirely in Spain) tells the tale of how an Indian (Burt Reynolds), whose entire tribe was slain by Anglo outlaws, gets gruesome revenge upon them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Reynolds, Nicoletta Machiavelli, (more)
Infidelity, murder, and betrayal lies at the center of this violent Spaghetti western. A scheming wife does away with her husband, causing the man's heir to seek revenge. A number of double-crosses and bloody gun battles follow, eventually driving the woman to flee into the desert. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mark Damon, Lawrence Dobkin, (more)
- 1967
In this comical spaghetti western, a companion film to Seven Guns for the MacGregors, two immigrant families move to Texas during the 1800s. The MacGregors hail from Scotland while their neighbors the Donovans come from Ireland. The two families frequently engage in rivalry, but it is all in fun as all six MacGregor boys are engaged to the Donovan girls. The trouble begins during an engagement party for Bailey and Flori. The festivities are interrupted by an outlaw gang which steals the trunk containing all the MacGregor's money. Naturally the boys, including Bailey, take off in hot pursuit. Flori, afraid her beloved may be tempted by the outlaw's wanton women, follows them and ends up taken hostage. Bailey tries to save her but ends up captured also. Now his brothers, aided by helpful natives must save them both. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Bailey, Leo Anchoriz, (more)
Although primarily known for gruesome 1980s horror films like L'Aldila and Lo Squartatore di New York, it took cult Italian director Lucio Fulci until this bloody spaghetti Western -- his 17th film -- before he began exploring the dark recesses of insanity and Sadean bloodshed which marked his later work. Bolstered by a commanding star turn from 24-year old Franco Nero, fresh from another Western success in the same year's Django, this dark, violent story -- which many fans consider the first "true" Lucio Fulci film -- begins with a man's murder at the hands of the insane Jason "Junior" Scott (Nino Castelnuovo) and the credits appearing over his victim's blood washing downriver. The rest of the film deals with the efforts of young prospector Tom Corbett (Nero) to avenge the death of his father...or the person whom he believes to be his father, for the familial relations in this film are as twisted as Fulci's violent imagery. At times, the film presages the hallucinatory atmosphere of L'Aldila, with Corbett returning to his family farm only to find it destroyed, and wandering the barren, windswept wreckage amidst a group of foraging pigs. George Hilton turns in a fine performance as Corbett's orphan half-brother, Jeff, an alcoholic whose years of dissolution have curbed neither his gunslinging talents nor his thirst for revenge, and the supporting cast does well by Fernando di Leo's somber script. Giuseppe Addobbati co-stars with Tom Felleghy, Salvatore Borgese, and Lynn Shayne. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Franco Nero, George Hilton, (more)
- 1966
Ruthless Four follows four prospectors who are out to strike a big lode in the Nevada gold rush days. When one of the four hits the riches, he finds the other three are out to partake of the hard-earned find. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1966
In this spaghettiesque western, a supposedly dead man returns to his village and finds his family being held captive by an evil desperado and his gang. The frightened man does all he can to save them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Giuliano Gemma, Fernando Sancho, (more)
