Marina Giordana in La Belva col mitra (1977)

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Review

Director Sergio Grieco went out with a bang with the gritty Italian crime thriller La Belva col mitra (1977), his final film. Little could he have known that, two decades later, Robert De Niro and Bridget Fonda would be watching the flick in a Quentin Tarantino movie (Don’t believe me? Fast-forward through Jackie Brown [1997] and see for yourself). Helmut Berger stars as a gun-wielding criminal with a few screws loose. Indulging his psychopathic tendencies in an orgy of rape, robbery, and murder, he runs afoul of a hard-boiled cop (Richard Harrison) committed to justice. Berger also encounters the enchanting Marisa Mell; her sex scenes are brutally rough, but they also offer a rare opportunity to see the pouty-lipped Austrian beauty in the nude.