Dirty Weekend (1973)

Those of us who have followed Frederico Fellini and leading man Marcello Mastroianni in many of those classics of World cinema, including 8 and a half, will be rather surprised and maybe shocked to see him starring in this scattergun crime thriller.

Directed without much flair and featuring many quite loosely shot car chases and lively crime-sprees and shoot-outs, the cast to many of us Brits will be spearheaded by the relentless macho dominance of Oliver Reed. He's the brutal head kidnapper, jumping at the opportunity of the chance kidnapping of business head Mastroianni, who really only wants to rush off with his mistress for a weekend of hanky-panky (hence the title.)

The version on TCM (TV) was dubbed - and not too badly at that. I'm sure Reed's voice is as was though but with an 'accent' - how accurate it is and how insulting it would be to Europeans, I do not know. I'm presuming that they had to dub him into Italian for its home release.

The film skips along briskly, featuring many of the things we associate with Italy, largely through aforementioned films by Fellini and the like. Namely, scavenging paparazzi in pursuit of story and scandal, jostling with the Police on the chase. The price of capitalism and trappings of wealth all questioned through the dialogue. The whole feel seems to be par of the course of its era for many adult crime thrillers, both from Hollywood and the UK.

It's the first time I'd ever encountered the film, let alone on TV. The number of reviews and votes here on IMDb shows it's quite rare and it's unlikely I'll get to see it again. Not that I'd particularly want to but am kind of glad I did.