Based on a story by powerhouse writing duo Massimo De Rita and Dino Maiuri, responsible for some of Italy’s most engrossing and upscale Italocrime films such as Carlo Lizzani’s BANDITS IN MILAN (a.k.a. THE VIOLENT FOUR, 1968), Sergio Sollima’s VIOLENT CITY (a.k.a. THE FAMILY, 1970), and Enzo G. Castellari’s THE BIG RACKET (1976), to name just a few, Tonino Valerii’s GO GORILLA, GO! (1975) is yet another exceptional effort, which not only provides star Fabio Testi with one of his best ever roles, but it’s also one of Valerii’s grittiest and emotionally intense pictures. Never officially released in North America, German label FilmArt have given this largely underseen film its due with a much-needed – and English-friendly – HD release, which should be at the top of any Eurocrime enthusiast’s must-have list.
In Rome, wealthy and high-strung industrialist Gaetano Sampioni (Renzo Palmer) becomes the target of a growing criminal trend wherein (pressbook quote) “a new method of making people pay” is devised. The film’s pressbook goes on to explain that “without actually kidnapping it is made clear that if the money is not paid up you will be severely punished”, but Sampioni refuses to give in to these demands. Enter Marco Sartori (Fabio Testi), an ex-stuntman who is forced to give up his career due to a job-related accident, so he’s hired by his professional bodyguard friend Ciro Musante (Al Lettieri) as un gorilla – Italian street slang meaning bodyguard – to give round-the-clock protection to Sampioni. Given his client’s increasingly stubborn and belligerent disposition, the frequency and intensity of the threats begin to increase, so at the behest of Marco, Sampioni sends his daughter Vera (Claudia Marsani) out of the country. In retaliation, Marco is brutally beaten by members of the pseudo-kidnapping ring, so Sampioni finally gives in and elects to pay, but Marco quickly retorts, “If you pay them once, you’ll never get rid of them!” As a precaution, Sampioni is then falsely ‘kidnapped’ and taken out of harm’s way by Marco and his kid brother Piero (Saverio Marconi), so they alone can end these threats and violent reprisals, which results in double-crosses, divided loyalties, and a botched swoop-down on the kidnappers by commissario Vannuzzi (Adriano Amidei Migliano) and his Flying Squad…
As with many polizieschi of the time, GO GORILLA, GO! is essentially a contemporized spaghetti western, which should come as no surprise coming from a director of several prestigious oaters. The turbulent streets of Italy at that point in time (“Criminals reflect the society they live in.”), which were awash in a sea of criminality, political upheavals, and corruption, mirrored the lawlessness of the western frontier where disputes were almost always settled with violence. Much like Giuliano Gemma’s character in Valerii’s exemplary political western THE PRICE OF POWER (1969), Testi’s character is a lone unsinkable island of integrity, and his increasingly desperate efforts to protect his client severely tests his courage and convictions to their very core. Testi, a former stuntman himself who also starred in Castellari’s aforementioned THE BIG RACKET and Lucio Fulci’s uncompromising CONTRABAND (1980), gives another highly credible performance as the frustrated bodyguard who finds his newfound profession utterly humiliating (“It’s a question of dignity.”) falling several notches lower than a toilet-cleaner on the totem pole of social respect, who is regularly belittled even by the very people he protects. When Sampioni’s controlling nature begins to take its toll, Marco vehemently replies: “You get protection! That’s all! My thoughts are my own!” Despite the general disrespect afforded to him, Testi’s character can just as readily waive the rulebook, and when the chips are down, he has no qualms about beating down his opponents or even shooting them down in cold blood.
Briskly paced, Valerii and his stunt team orchestrate several nail-biting moments including a messy car chase wherein Marco is forced off the street and beaten senseless by a carload of goons, and in one of the film’s most nerve-wracking scenes, a yo-yo ride inside a floorless elevator, which severely tests Marco’s mettle. Further punctuated by several bursts of unglamourized violence, which includes genre fave Luciano Catenacci getting pulverized by Marco, and thrown through a giant plate-glass window, whereafter another character has his legs repeatedly crushed by on onslaught of motorcycle-riding thugs. Later, during the film’s incredible high-speed shootout between a hijacked commuter train and a Giulia cop car, an old man is creamed at a railway crossing while one hijacker has his brains messily blown-out through the back of his head. Testi, performing all his own stunts, really earns his paycheck during the finale as he transfers from car to train to face off with the bandits in a western-like showdown, all of which is all tied together by the ever-reliable triumvirate of Franco Bixio, Fabio Frizzi and Vince Tempera, whose superb score is rife with ‘70s funk rock stylings, which effectively echo Marco’s steadily mounting tension, and later desperation.
Outside of foreign VHS videocassettes from either Italy, Germany or Greece (where it was released by J.P. Video Productions under its alternate English-language export title THE HIRED GUN), GO GORILLA, GO! was a difficult film to see for most English-speaking viewers. During the DVD era, the film was released on Italian disc by Mustang Entertainment, but of course it too wasn’t English-friendly. Featuring a “brand new 4K restoration”, this Region Free disc marks the film’s HD debut, and it certainly looks far superior than anything that has come before it, which highlights superior clarity and definition, and sports a natural amount of normal film grain; a big improvement overall. The DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono tracks feature German, Italian and English audio, and while it’s always nice to have to have the English dub track (which features familiar voice talent such as Michael Forest, Ed Mannix, Robert Sommer, and Ted Rusoff), the audio is noticeably hissy (most likely taken from a VHS source), but all of the film’s action highlights, violent punch-ups and gunfire, still sound effective enough. In a nice gesture, optional German and English subtitles are also included. The brief extras include an unrestored version of the film, complete with surface scratches, dirt, and several other imperfections, which seems rather pointless, but it’s here just the same for those that enjoy seeing it this way. Other extras include the film’s Italian opening credits (1m31s), The Italian closing credits (58s) and a cut comparison (1m34s) of the shortened Italian version.
Limited to 1000 copies and housed in FilmArt’s customary DVD-sized red keepcase (which also includes a 14-page booklet with nice colour reproductions of the film’s Italian locandina, due fogli, various fotobusta and pressbook), this is a very welcome release of a solid film, which is enlivened by some dynamite sequences of intense physical action and a rock-solid performance by Fabio Testi. GO GORILLA, GO! should not be missed! Order it at DiabolikDVD.
