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[Stephen Grimes]

Interesting heist movie about an old thief(Joseph Cotton) just released from prison who wants to do one last big job-a diamond robbery.It's a little dated but looks quite stylish with the screenplay written by Fernando di Leo.
The copy i have is a decent looking lbx Italian language print which has a censor notice dated from 1994 at the start,don't think it ever had a video release over there though?
There's also a German dvd release and Movietime have the English dub.Anyone seen either of these?
Movietime Distribution

[Stephen Grimes]

German dvd on Carol Media-1.85:1 (16x9) with German language options only.
Just ordered a copy seeing as it's selling for less than 5€.

[Jonny]

Can't go wrong for 5€!

Let us know what the quality is like when it arrives will you mate.

[Johan Melle]

I've had this DVD for a while. Looks quite good but I found the film itself to be pretty boring in spite of the good cast. The DVD appears to be incomplete, however, as I was unable to find Linda Sini anywhere in the film in spite of her being prominently listed in the credits. It makes sense as I see Movietime lists 110 minutes as the running time - I can tell you that the German disc runs considerably shorter than that!

Too bad that the English version doesn't appear to have had a release. A full uncut version in English might have made me appreciate it more. As it was, I found it pretty unremarkable...

[Stephen Grimes]

I've had this DVD for a while. Looks quite good but I found the film itself to be pretty boring in spite of the good cast. The DVD appears to be incomplete, however, as I was unable to find Linda Sini anywhere in the film in spite of her being prominently listed in the credits. It makes sense as I see Movietime lists 110 minutes as the running time - I can tell you that the German disc runs considerably shorter than that!

The Italian language version i have runs 1h 34m so there's a good chance that's incomplete as well.I'll have a comparison with the German dvd when it arrives in a week or two.

[vigilanteforce]

The DVD appears to be incomplete, however, as I was unable to find Linda Sini anywhere in the film in spite of her being prominently listed in the credits. It makes sense as I see Movietime lists 110 minutes as the running time - I can tell you that the German disc runs considerably shorter than that!

If I ever come across a German DVD or VHS that is complete that will be a miracle. Germans are ridiculous when it comes to cutting movies. They even cut stuff that isn't particularly bloody or violent. I used to think Brittish people were the worse but not anymore. 

GANGSTERS sounds interesting- always used to confuse it with Giuseppe Vari's film RETURN OF THE 38 GANG.

[mattblake]

I like this film a lot.  It's very much a 60s crime film... slow, twisty, existential, complete with nihilistic ending.  I agree that it would be great to see an English version of this - I've got an old German VHS, but that's it (and I'm pretty sure that doesn't have Linda Sini in it either)

Guerrini also made Date for a Murder, which is also pretty good, before drifting into comedies in the 70s.  Has anybody ever seen his Colpo del sole?  It's one I've never been able to track down a copy of and it sounds interesting...

[Johan Melle]

I have DATE FOR A MURDER but not seen it yet. Guerrini's output seems to be mixed, though. His THE THIRD EYE is excellent but his final movie, THE MINES OF KILIMANJARO (1986), is pretty awful! Not that I didn't find it enjoyable, because I did, but for all the wrong reasons! 

I didn't think the ending in GANGSTERS '70 works at all. It wasn't convincing. A big part of the problem is Franca Polesello, who I thought was totally bland as the female lead. Which is too bad because I thought she was quite good in LSD - FLESH OF THE DEVIL (1967).

Germans are ridiculous when it comes to cutting movies. They even cut stuff that isn't particularly bloody or violent.

I know! It's really frustrating! I remember watching THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS on German TV and they had cut out huge chunks! Not just violence but complete scenes. For example, all the scenes with Debra Berger at the partisan camp were removed. They cut out her entire performance except for the brief bit at the end. It doesn't make any sense when she shows up in the final scene because the audience does of course not know who she is!

[vigilanteforce]

I know! It's really frustrating! I remember watching THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS on German TV and they had cut out huge chunks! Not just violence but complete scenes. For example, all the scenes with Debra Berger at the partisan camp were removed. They cut out her entire performance except for the brief bit at the end. It doesn't make any sense when she shows up in the final scene because the audience does of course not know who she is!

Come on, they even remove violence from mainstream films (let alone "cult" ones) I have a box of the first 3 RAMBO films and there's a body explosion missing from part 2 and the famous "gunpowder in wound" from part 3 is obviously cut! I will think twice before buying any German release again. Sorry for going off topic 

[Johan Melle]

I think the problem with many of these films is that, for whatever reason, various scenes (not just violent ones) were cut before the films were screened in theaters, and hence these cut scenes were never even dubbed into German. So when DVD companies are releasing these films today, they don't bother to include the cut scenes because they're not in German.
More serious DVD companies who actually care about the fans will include the cut stuff but a lot of these smaller companies just don't give a damn...

[mattblake]

I have DATE FOR A MURDER but not seen it yet. Guerrini's output seems to be mixed, though. His THE THIRD EYE is excellent but his final movie, THE MINES OF KILIMANJARO (1986), is pretty awful! Not that I didn't find it enjoyable, because I did, but for all the wrong reasons!  Tongue

I've come to the conclusion that it's impossible to blame Italian directors for making bad films from the mid 80s on.  For these kind of low-budget pics, well, the good ones were more unusual than the bad ones.  Just about the only director who continued with any dignity at all was Antonio Margheriti (and no, I wouldn't include either Argento or Fulci in there, the rot set in with them back in the early 80s).  The budgets, production circumstances, lack of good scriptwriters, influence of TV... just about everything was conspiring against making good b-movies (not just in Italy, the same was true throughout Europe).  I'd even argue that Lamberto Bava could have been a pretty well-respected director if he'd been making films fifteen years earlier!

[Andrew Monroe]

DATE FOR A MURDER is also very much a 1960s film, sort of a spy thriller/giallo hybrid. Extremely convoluted story with twist after twist and some great quirky camera-work, along with a killer groovy score. Giorgio Ardisson is unusually charismatic in this one, it`s one of my favorite films of his. His girl in the film is constantly changing her hair styles, some of them are hilarious! Outlandish doesn`t begin to describe a couple. Once you see this, you`ll never forget two scenes: a motorized wheelchair attack and the watermelon bit. Di Leo cowrote the screenplay I believe.

[Stephen Grimes]

Just got the German dvd this morning which has a decent looking transfer and like the Italian language version is 1:85.1 with just a little cropped from the top and bottom,runtimes are:
German 1:29:01
Italian 1:33:59
Most of the missing footage is from the opening credits as Cotton is released from jail as well as entire 4 minute sequence of Giulio Brogi wandering around the street sick from heroin withdrawl before breaking into a pharmacy.There's also a little bit of nudity (if you can call it that!) missing from the scenes at Bruno Corazzari's house.
Strangely the German disc does include about 1 minutes worth of material not in the Italian version which makes me wonder if it is infact a tv print (any idea Polla?),this includes Giampiero Albertini's beating by Corazzari's henchmen which goes on for a bit longer and [spoiler]Franco Ressel having acid poured over his face and hands after being shot during the robbery.There's also a couple of close up's of Franca Polesello being injected into the arm.[/spoiler]

[Pollanet]

mmmh... I saw this movie only one time several years ago and I don't remember it very well 

however as you know in the 70's was usual that the same movie could be very different for italian internal market and for the other countries, I think that in the late 60's also little scenes of sex, violence or drugs could be cut in italian version

i think there are a lot of different edition, for example, of Non si sevizia un paperino/Don't torture a duckling and it's very difficult to say about what is the uncut or director's cut edition

more, italian law for broadcasting don't allow to show movies for people more than 18 years in any time, so if a network get a movie who was born in this way they have to make a revision of it...

[Stephen Grimes]

more, italian law for broadcasting don't allow to show movies for people more than 18 years in any time, so if a network get a movie who was born in this way they have to make a revision of it...

Thanks Polla.i've got a feeling it might be from a tv master tape that,as you say,they had to cut/revise for broadcast.