Cry of a Prostitute (O.V. Quelli che contano)

Italy, 1974

Director: Andrea Bianchi

Genre: Thriller, polizziesco, action

Screenplay: Piero Regnoli

Cast: Henry Silva (Tony Aniante), Barbara Bouchet (Margie), Fausto Tozzi (Don Ricuzzo), Vittorio Sanipoli (Don Cascemi)

Plot

Tony Aniante (Henry Silva) is a hitman recently returned to Sicily from the USA. He has been hired by Don Cascemi, one of the local Mafia bosses, to sow the tares between two rival families; so that they proceed to decimate each other, leaving the way open for Cascemi’s group, who intends to climb to the pinnacle of power once his adversaries are weakened. With his dangerous two-pronged game (never better said), Tony is looking for discord to break out between the Cantimo and the Scannapieco, who are fighting over a lucrative heroin trafficking business.

Ricuzzo Scannapieco, the head of one of the two families, is married to Margie (Barbara Bouchet), an American ex-prostitute with a penchant for drinking, who constantly insinuates herself in front of Tony. He rejects her, because he wants to avoid problems, but she insists (on several occasions), until the icy and stony hitman in the first occasion possesses her forcefully in the kitchen and in the second he has no choice but to beat her up in the haystack (“belts” included) to make her leave him alone.

Tony achieves Don Cascemi’s goal: the Scannapieco and the Cantimo kill each other; through ambushes, assaults and mutual attacks. The leader of the Cantimo is mortally wounded in a shootout when one night they are picking up on the beach a stash that has just washed ashore.

There is also a “Romeo and Juliet” love story in the background between two teenagers from rival families. Tony tries to help them escape from this atmosphere of violence, but shortly before he succeeds, Scannapieco’s men (who have been ordered to kill Tony for having beaten Margie) burst in, armed with shotguns, manage to reduce Tony and subject him to a brutal beating, after which they leave him for dead and throw him down the ravine.

But Tony manages to recover, receives a gun from the paralyzed grandson of the deceased Don Cantimo and goes to the farmhouse of Ricuzzo Scannapieco to take revenge. Margie, his wife, has committed suicide after a massive ingestion of barbiturates. Tony arrives alone and is greeted by Scannapieco and a dozen of his men, all armed. At the least expected moment, men who were hiding behind the walls of the farmhouse emerge with their shotguns and shoot Scannapieco and his henchmen. Tony has managed to disintegrate the rival gang.

After completing his mission, he is reunited with the boss Don Cascemi, who in the back of his vehicle congratulates him for having fulfilled his objective and is ready to thank him for his collaboration… paying him with lead. He points his gun at him, pulls the trigger… but nothing happens. Tony had already counted on that betrayal and had taken care of getting the bullets out. Moreover, it is discovered that the main reason he had returned to Sicily was not to carry out that assignment as a sower of tares, but something more personal… to take revenge on his mother’s murderer, who turned out to be Don Cascemi himself. As if that were not enough, the elimination of Don Cascemi had already been decided by the Mafia Commission (“those who count”, hence the title of the film); for Cascemi was engaged in heroin trafficking using methods that were too unscrupulous and grotesque (hiding the drugs inside the corpses of small children).

Finally Don Cascemi is shot by his own bodyguards and Tony takes power within the Mafia.

Comments

Violent and shocking polizziesco full of fast-paced action and memorable scenes. Its protagonist Henry Silva (American of Puerto Rican origin) appeared in numerous films of the genre, the most noteworthy being Fernando Di Leo’s excellent “Milano Calibro 9” (1972), which also features the attractive Barbara Bouchet. Director Andrea Bianchi is the director of the unintentionally hilarious “Le Notti del Terrore” (1981) (a.k.a. “Burial Ground”) a zombie nonsense that is highly entertaining.

It is quite obvious that “Quelli che contano” has marked stylistic reminiscences of italo-western; in fact it is basically an italo-western in mafia context and set in 20th century Sicily. Also the detail of the melody that the protagonist whistles mysteriously before each intervention recalls works by Sergio Leone, see Charles Bronson and his harmonica in “C’era una volta il West” (1968) (a.k.a. “Once upon a Time in the West”). Likewise the plot of the lone outlaw/hitman between the two gangs/clans is reminiscent of “For a Fistful of Dollars” (1964) (which in turn is based on the chambara ‘Yojimbo’ – 1961 – by the Japanese Kurosawa), and the final detail of the family revenge also once again takes us back to “Once upon a Time in the West”.