When you watch a lot of 60s, 70s and 80s exploitation cinema successes from Italy, you'll find that many of them often have absurdly sensational but irrelevant international titles. This one, for example, is mostly known under its glorious sounding title "Super B...". Nice, admittedly, but totally nonsensical. "Mafia Junction" and "Blue Movie Blackmail" are also a.k.a titles, but not very good, neither. Most times, the best thing to do is to simply translate the original Italian title literally! In this case, you then get: "Can you be more evil than Inspector Cliff?" and that's the best and most suitable title imaginable indeed!
The tremendously charismatic Ivan Rassimov stars as undercover police inspector Cliff, but he's as corrupt as they come. He infiltrates into drug-smuggling gangs, double-crosses them for his own financial benefits and provokes violent gang wars between them. What makes the script greatly entertaining is the fact the rivaling gangs are so unique and original. The London gang lures prominent businessmen into sexual traps, and then blackmails them into smuggling artworks stuffed with drugs. The Beirut gang is a musical "Ma Barker" type of family, with Patricia Hayes as the crazed matriarch. This all may sound rather comical and light-headed, and it is, but you can rest assured that "Mafia Junction " (see, now I'm using it) also contains suspense, action and sleaze. There is perhaps slightly less action than in the films of Fernando Di Leo or Umberto Lenzi, but the violence is extreme and graphic, like the "bloody newspaper execution" or the massacre of Gamble's entire gang. The unearthly beautiful Verna Harvey and - especially - Stephanie Beacham provide several luscious and exciting nudity moments, Riz Ortolani's score is as stupendous as ever, and the climax is as grim and downbeat as possible.
Last but not least, Massimo Dallamano's direction is downright fantastic. I don't know what it was about this man, but practically every genre that he touched turned into gold! His "What have you done to Solange?" is my all-time favorite giallo (and I've seen more than 130 of those), with "Bandidos" he delivered one of the meanest and nastiest Spaghetti Westerns, and his other Poliziotesschi effort "Colt .38 Special Squad" is also really great. Sadly, Dallamano died in a car accident in the mid-70s already, because I'm sure he easily could have made another handful of excellent films in various genres.
PS: I realize the literally translated title in English doesn't 100% correspond with the original title in Italian, but the review policy standards of the website don't allow me to use certain words...
The tremendously charismatic Ivan Rassimov stars as undercover police inspector Cliff, but he's as corrupt as they come. He infiltrates into drug-smuggling gangs, double-crosses them for his own financial benefits and provokes violent gang wars between them. What makes the script greatly entertaining is the fact the rivaling gangs are so unique and original. The London gang lures prominent businessmen into sexual traps, and then blackmails them into smuggling artworks stuffed with drugs. The Beirut gang is a musical "Ma Barker" type of family, with Patricia Hayes as the crazed matriarch. This all may sound rather comical and light-headed, and it is, but you can rest assured that "Mafia Junction " (see, now I'm using it) also contains suspense, action and sleaze. There is perhaps slightly less action than in the films of Fernando Di Leo or Umberto Lenzi, but the violence is extreme and graphic, like the "bloody newspaper execution" or the massacre of Gamble's entire gang. The unearthly beautiful Verna Harvey and - especially - Stephanie Beacham provide several luscious and exciting nudity moments, Riz Ortolani's score is as stupendous as ever, and the climax is as grim and downbeat as possible.
Last but not least, Massimo Dallamano's direction is downright fantastic. I don't know what it was about this man, but practically every genre that he touched turned into gold! His "What have you done to Solange?" is my all-time favorite giallo (and I've seen more than 130 of those), with "Bandidos" he delivered one of the meanest and nastiest Spaghetti Westerns, and his other Poliziotesschi effort "Colt .38 Special Squad" is also really great. Sadly, Dallamano died in a car accident in the mid-70s already, because I'm sure he easily could have made another handful of excellent films in various genres.
PS: I realize the literally translated title in English doesn't 100% correspond with the original title in Italian, but the review policy standards of the website don't allow me to use certain words...