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Ricco The Mean Machine
[Dark Sky Films]
1973; color
Directed by Tulio Demicheli
Starring: Christopher Mitchum, Barbara Bouchet, Malisa Longo, Eduardo Fajardo, Manuel Zarzo & Arthur Kennedy
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According to some stuff I read online Ricco The Mean Machine was released in the US under the title The Cauldron Of Death and, apparently, marketed as a horror film. (You can check out the poster for that release, courtesy the personal collection of the Kommandant, here.) It's really more of a standard mob related revenge story though; not completely unlike the mob war that's getting started on General Hospital this week between the Corinthos and the Zacara families. At the risk of getting completely off topic, my work schedule has been crazy lately so I haven't really watched an entire GH episode in a while and have been keeping up with the plot via Soap Net's spoiler commercials. Therefore I am finding the series of events between Port Charles' warring mob factions to be a bit confusing and many of the details disjointed. After watching this film in it's entirety it kind of made me feel the same way. Much like a soap opera though, if you don't concern yourself with the timeline and details too much, you can easily follow along enough to get the larger point. So instead of repeatedly saying "Wait, what just happened?" or "Who the fuck is that guy?" everytime some new character pops up for no reason I decided to just go with the flow and follow the story of our typically blond and American looking Italian son of a mobster. (Who, in reality, is the son of Robert Mitchum.) When we first meet Ricco he's fresh out of jail and ready to reclaim his former life, or at least spend some time lazily hanging around the place where his wheelchair bound and widowed mother, sister and brother-in-law live, and maybe getting a hold of his former old lady (played by Malisa Longo; recently seen on the BMB in Black Emanuelle, White Emanuelle) for a little non-conjugal visit. La famiglia has other plans for his spare time though - like encouraging him to seek revenge on the man who killed his father in cold blood. Once he figures out who that is. Along the way he meets up with an old friend of his father's who just so happens to be an expert in the art of counterfeiting as well as being an uncle to a really hot redheaded chick (Barbara Bouchet) who fancies tight denim, dancing on car hoods a la Tawny Kitean and casual sex. (I think I heard the old guy say they're also cousins of Ricco's ex-girlfriend but I'm not sure; that's one of the details that just got past me and I never went back to figure it out.) While the trio infiltrate and investigate, the drug smuggling dude responsible for putting a bullet in Ricco's father's brain realizes what's going on and orders a hit on our hero's remaining relatives (and even his relative-in-law) which, naturally, does not help the situation. Eventually Ricco is hipped to the identity of the killer by his ex, who is supposed to be loyal to her boyfriend the gross old drug smuggler but is totally sleeping her way through her man's lackeys. At least until the fateful day Don Avito walks into his bedroom and finds his woman and his bodyguard making whoopie. Then he has to castrate the guy, shove his package in his mouth and throw him in the acid pool downstairs. (She gets killed too but we don't see that part and assume she only gets the acid bath as she has no penis to cut off; plus despite the fact that she's a total slut, the rest of her is too hot to mutilate.) Eventually Ricco and the Don do come face to face and, of course, that part is just as violent and bloody as everything that came before it. Without completely giving away the ending, suffice it to say, a sequel was in the works. Surprisingly, I actually liked this film, even though I admit I had to watch some of the more graphically violent scenes through a shawl I'm knitting. (Typically, I just happened to look up at exact second when they castrated the one guy. That part was definitely kind of gross but actually kind of... well, not funny exactly... but it did have a bit of an HG Lewis feel to it.) If you make it through the whole thing, definitely check out the 20 minute featurette "Mitchum The Mean Machine" which offers many interesting tidbits about the movie and fills us in on the rest of the young Mitchum's film career.
—Bunny
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