Andrea Bianchi the director of the gory zombie film Burial Ground and the sleazy giallo Strip Nude for Your Killer turns his subtle (ha ha) hand to the Italian crime film with Cry of the Prostitute. It's Yojimbo time! The feuding between two warring families in rural Italy has become so fierce that the heat is coming down on the big families in Rome. Henry Silva is a gun for hire sent in to stop the fighting. He does this by playing the two gangsters against each other, offering his services to first one and then the other. Bianchi provides more gore than expected for the genre but none of it is overly convincing: a fake severed head, a band-saw mishap, and a dead child that looks, well, like a mannequin (and the camera lingers over it!). The adorable Barbara Bouchet appears playing a washed up former prostitute who has turned to drink. She wears heavy make-up and looks less than flattering. Nonetheless, I was glad to have her. Silva was fine as well. There isn't much here to praise and technically the film is less assured than many others in the genre. Fans might like it more than I did though.
Review of Cry of a Prostitute
