Sollima delivers extended setpieces of pure cinema in eye-searing colour, with or without Morricone’s slamming electric guitars. Are you a civilized country?” “Me? I never even finished high school.”)Īnyhow, Jeff is pretty ruthless and Bronson is the right guy to play him. Jeff is a hitman - the kind of character who was only just becoming possible as protagonist - spaghetti western amorality spreading its web over the urban thriller - though Seijun Suzuki was there first with BRANDED TO KILL (an influence? - Leone and Morricone certainly exerted a big influence in Japan, did it return to Italy, more twitchy and psychotic?) - and I guess there’s the remarkable MURDER BY CONTRACT (“To buy one of these things you have to be a civilized country. And we also know that Telly Savalas is Al and Jill Ireland is Vanessa. And you will know it, because everyone calls him Jeff in every single line of dialogue, it feels like. What you need to know is, Charles Bronson IS Jeff Heston. The title is misleading, semi-irrelevant. As with the same director’s BIG GUNDOWN, I was familiar with the score for decades, but have only just heard it in context. Sergio Sollima’s VIOLENT CITY (1970) is one hell of a thing.
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