Review By-Johan Melle
(1977/Italy/Austria)[a.k..a. Poliziotto senza paura]  
Cast: Maurizio Merli, Joan Collins, Gastone Moschin, Werner Pochath, Jasmine Maimone, Franco Ressel, Alexander Trojan, Annarita Grapputo, Massimo Vanni, Andrea Scotti, Luciana Turina, Marcello Venditti, Salvatore Billa, Sergio Mioni
Directed by Stelvio Massi. Written by Gino Capone, Stelvio Massi & Franz Antel.
Source: Westlake Entertainment Group DVD (US, NTSC Region 0, 89 minutes)

As far as Italian B-movie cinema goes, Maurizio Merli is a legend! A one of a kind. Throughout the 1970s this fabulously mustached guy specialized in playing tough, hard-hitting cops fighting for justice in Italian towns full of sleazy, violent criminals and corrupt officials in high positions – dishing out justice with his mean and stinging bitch-slaps. Merli really proved his star power with a string of excellent, hard-hitting crime actioners for the great Umberto Lenzi. Their collaborations, THE TOUGH ONES (1976), VIOLENT NAPLES (1976), THE CYNIC, THE RAT & THE FIST (1977) and FROM CORLEONE TO BROOKLYN (1979), make up some of the very best of the Italian polizieschi genre. However, Merli also appeared in a number of crime/action films for other directors such as Stelvio Massi, a former cinematographer. Though generally enjoyable, Massi’s films are usually more middle-tier polizieschi, and not of the same caliber as the works of the genre’s masters Lenzi, Ferdinando Di Leo and Enzo G. Castellari.

FEARLESS is one of the Merli-Massi collaborations, and rather than playing a tough cop, Merli instead plays the role of an Italian private investigator by the name of Walter Spada – nicknamed Wally. Poor Wally isn’t able to get much work, though, and instead spends most of his days in his run-down office in Rome, where he goofs around with his partner Vinnie (Massimo Vanni). Wally’s luck seems to turn for the better when a P.I. friend of his from Vienna contacts him with a mission: track down the missing daughter of a wealthy banker. If he can do this there will be a nice payment. The banker’s daughter, Annalise (Annarita Grapputo), is a rather free-spirited hippie-ish type and is believed to be somewhere in Rome. Wally quickly manages to find the girl and brings her to his apartment. Annalise, however, is none too keen on the prospect of being taken back to Vienna so she tricks Wally and slips away. But unfortunately for Annalise, Wally isn’t the only one looking for her, so a gang of bad guys led by a despicable character (Werner Pochath) and his hulking, limping sidekick (appropriately nicknamed Pegleg Vincenzi) manage to kidnap her. Wally starts hunting them down and the trail quickly leads him to Austria. 

Through collaboration with his Austrian P.I. friend Karl Koper (Gastone Moschin), Wally is also dragged into the case of a dead teenage girl, whose death may not have been an accident like it was first ruled. Further investigations at a nightclub leads to involvement with a seductive, vivacious stripper named Brigitte (Joan Collins) and a dangerous conspiracy to lure young teenage girls into prostitution. Unlike the films of Lenzi and Castellari, this is in many ways a rather lighthearted affair with plenty of humor and jokes. The first half in particular has Merli showing his comedic side by goofing around with his partner, shooting dart and acting silly. While it is good and refreshing to see a different side of Merli, it does get a bit too much at times; especially the scene where he does some incredibly idiotic and exaggerated facial expressions and big eyes as Annalise disrobes in front of him.

The many humorous scenes between Merli and the great Gastone Moschin as his Austrian P.I. friend, however, work very well because the humor is somewhat more underplayed and comes more naturally. Whereas Moschin’s character leads an elaborate P.I. firm with plenty of resources, Merli’s character is constantly lying and trying to hide the fact that his own “firm” is nothing more than him and a buddy in a dumpy little office. This makes for quite a few amusing scenes, and the two actors have very good chemistry between them. But as the film progresses, the tone grows more and more serious. There is certainly nothing funny about young, naïve schoolgirls being exploited as prostitutes. Of course, this plot point is extremely familiar – having been done to death in earlier, better polizieschi but it nevertheless works here thanks to some good performances. Still, the sometimes uneasy mix between comedy and gritty exploitation mars FEARLESS somewhat – preventing it from becoming a top Merli vehicle.

There’s plenty of good stuff to keep us entertained, though. We get some nicely done action scenes, shootings, and Merli getting to do his very welcome tough guy act; including slapping Joan Collins around a bit. There are also a couple of pretty well-staged chase scenes that are rather suspenseful, and Merli is seen taking more of a beating here than in some of his other films. Other interesting details include the many cool, old movie posters decorating Merli’s flat; not to mention a delightfully sleazy scene where Collins has her naked body caressed by a gun. Curiously, this was a co-production between Italy and Austria. Italian co-productions with Spain, France and West Germany were quite common but Austrian co-productions certainly were not. It makes for a nice change, though, and the largely Austrian setting is quite welcome and offers some very good-looking locations. Many reviewers have made a point about how the presence British actress Joan Collins feels very out of place. She is, however, not nearly as misplaced as many would have you believe. Collins actually made her first Italian film as early as in 1960 when she starred in ESTHER AND THE KING.

Later, as her career took somewhat of a dive in the mid 1970s, she returned to Italy to appear in a couple of quickly made films such as THE GREAT ADVENTURE (1975), and then this flick. Plenty of washed-up American and British actors went on to find work in Italian B movies, so there is nothing really sensational about her presence here. Shortly after making this film, though, Collins would make a minor comeback by starring in THE STUD (1978) and THE BITCH (1979), both based on the novels of her real-life sister Jackie Collins. Of course, her BIG comeback came in 1981 when she joined the cast of the American nighttime soap “Dynasty”; playing the delightfully bitchy villainess Alexis Carrington, a role that would make her a worldwide household name throughout the 1980s. It is also most likely her “Dynasty” fame that caused FEARLESS to become one of more widely distributed Maurizio Merli flicks (at least on VHS). Like most other releases, this DVD prominently displays Joan Collins on the cover but she doesn’t really have a starring role, seeing as she doesn’t appear until around 40 minutes into the film. When she does, however, the 44-year old actress literally lights up the screen with her performance. Her introductory scene, a nifty little striptease act, is pure gold in itself and Ms Collins brings her character to life in a typically elegant and glamorous fashion - looking absolutely fabulous throughout.

The rest of the cast is made up by a bunch of familiar genre veterans, though some of them are a bit wasted. Werner Pochath gets to play yet another slimy bad guy character but actually has preciously little to do here other than deliver a few evil stares at the screen. Stuntman/actor Massimo Vanni (a regular in the films of his cousin Enzo G. Castellari) is also surprisingly under-used in his humorous role as Merli’s buddy – never getting to display any of his skills in any action scenes. On the plus side, though, there’s the always dependable Franco Ressel (a ubiquitous face in various gialli and crime films) as yet another suspicious character; this time a doctor with some shady secrets. Salvatore Billa, another busy stuntman/actor, plays a bisexual gigolo in an absolutely garish orange jacket and he gets to feel the sting of Merli’s famous bitchslaps. A very young Jasmine Maimone, later one of the girls in the film-within-the-film in DEMONS (1985) and the leading lady in the awful PAGANINI HORROR (1988), delivers an impressive performance as a streetwise teenage girl who befriends Merli. Annarita Grapputo, also in other 1970s crime and police flicks such as THE TEENAGE PROSTITUTION RACKET (1975) and DOUBLE GAME (1977), is pretty amusing as the spunky kidnap victim, and even the flabby comedic actress Luciana Turina puts in an appearance; showing a bit more skin than what’s good for comfort as the cheating wife of one of Pochath’s goons.
 

Westlake’s DVD of FEARLESS is unfortunately culled from an old VHS and thus it doesn’t look too hot. It’s presented fullscreen but it must be said that this doesn’t really compromise the original compositions too badly. There are some scenes here and there where one can see how some picture information has been cut off on the sides but overall it isn’t too bad. The image itself, however, is both drab and faded with somewhat dull colors. The print also has its share of dirt and specs here and there. Overall this is exactly what you would expect to get from an old VHS transfer. It is, however, perfectly watchable seeing as how there aren’t any legitimate DVD releases around.

The only audio option is the English-dubbed track, which has Joan Collins dubbing her own lines. The rest of the cast have been dubbed by others and it’s generally a pretty good dub. The sole character that comes off somewhat badly in the English dub is young Jasmine Maimone, whose voice has been dubbed by Pat Starke, a very productive dubber whose voice should be familiar to most fans of Italian films as she also dubbed Francesca Ciardi in CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979), Sherry Buchanan in ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST (1980), Laura Trotter in NIGHTMARE CITY (1980), Laura Gemser in VIOLENCE IN A WOMEN’S PRISON (1982), BLADE VIOLENT (1983) and ENDGAME (1983) and countless others. Although an excellent voice artist, Starke is rather miscast here. Even though she has a somewhat youthful voice, she is far too old to voice a 15 year old girl and this slightly mars Maimone’s performance. Overall, though, it’s a very decent dub. The actual audio quality on the DVD is obviously nothing spectacular but it’s perfectly acceptable: dialogue is easy to make out and Stelvio Cipriani’s musical score comes through ok. There are no real extras to speak of on the DVD. We get filmographies and some very brief biographies of Collins, Merli and Pochath. This really tells us nothing that we couldn’t just as easily have found out on the IMDb. There’s also a photo gallery of 15 pictures but these are simply screenshots from the DVD itself. Overall a nice but minor Maurizio Merli flick that benefits from nice locations, some good suspense and an alluring Joan Collins. The DVD itself is crappy but watchable (especially at such a low price tag ) until someone releases a better version. 

2008 @ Cinema Nocturna