Based on a story by the film’s star Richard Harrison, Roberto Montero’s seldom-seen crime melodrama THE SEWER RATS (1973), which was released in Italy under the far more fitting title UNA DONNA PER SETTE BASTARDI (trans: “A Woman for Seven Bastards”), is one of those oddball hybrids that defies adequate categorization. In keeping with the time and place in which it was made, the film merely transposes a rudimentary spaghetti western premise into a contemporary, cost-efficient setting, and like its predecessors, is also inhabited with the usual assortment of implacable characters. Simultaneously amateurish yet entertaining, Montero’s grubby little picture provides a convenient – if impoverished - bridge between the once fashionable spaghetti western trend and the grittier ’70s crime films, which at the time, were just gaining popularity on Italian cinema screens.
A veteran of numerous Italian westerns himself, Harrison stars as the eponymous stranger who arrives at a decrepit old mining town after his battered Volkswagen Beetle breaks down on a desolate dirt road. Burdened with a game leg (he is later referred to as simply “the cripple”), he immediately gains the distrust of the town’s deprived populace (which consists of six people in total!), and told to promptly, “Move it on outta here, like a cat with its tail on fire!” As if to recall his former days as a Clint Eastwood impersonator, Harrison (he was in fact offered the role in Sergio Leone’s trailblazing Italian western A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS [1964] before Eastwood) commits himself with the proper panache as the antiheroic lead, squinting his eyes and grasping at his one crutch (which serves as his weapon of choice in these here parts), as if he were about to take part in a quick-draw showdown.
It doesn’t take Harrison long to realize that the reptilian Carl (Antonio Casale, who also appeared in Sergio Martino’s solid Italocrime picture THE VIOLENT PROFESSIONALS the same year) holds “the knife by the handle around this joint”, which consists of several “pigsty shacks” in the middle of nowhere. And to make matters worse, Carl is also the owner of the town’s only vehicle, which he uses to bring back supplies like “beer and whiskey”, but it’s Carl’s insatiably adulterous wife Rita (Dagmar Lassander), the town’s only woman who, with her bedroom glances, causes further distrust and dissention among this group of scoundrels (“She’s worse than drugs that woman!”).
But despite the double-crossing inclinations of the entire cast, it is the brooding Gordon (Gordon Mitchell, nicely dubbed on English prints by prolific voice actor Robert Sommer), an ex-Army vet, who manages to keep most of the town in check. It is revealed early on that both Carl and Gordon have, unbeknownst to everyone else, stashed a substantial amount of gold mined by an earlier interloper, who was also done away with during the film’s cryptic prologue. However, when the gold suddenly goes missing, Gordon’s caginess soon escalates into hatred for his purely coincidental enemies, which leads to the expected, violent collision, and a none-too surprising revelation…
Utilizing Gordon Mitchell’s second-rate Cave Film Studios backlot (seen in umpteen Demofilo Fidani westerns and a sure-fire sign of the film’s cheapjack origins), the threadbare locale does serve the film well, lending further weight to its already claustrophobic atmosphere. Featuring plenty of underhanded behavior, the highly talkative script is rather light on action, but makes up for it with plenty of scuzzy sexploitation. Co-written by Leila Buongiorno (who also co-wrote the script for Brunello Rondi’s WOMEN’S PRISON [1974], yet another lurid sexploitation film), Dagmar Lassander is exploited to the max and seems to enjoy taking advantage of her smoldering sexuality (“Stop your playin’ around, or one day you’ll have to pay for it!”), but when Smith (Ivano Staccioli), one of the more unbalanced miscreants in the group, attempts to rape her (“I’m gonna get mine!”), she fights him off with a broken J&B bottle. However, this doesn’t stop her from continually teasing and taunting all the sexually frustrated men, much to the chagrin of her abusive husband Carl, whereupon he viciously rapes her in an extended bit of brutality.
Considering all the film’s nihilism, much of the colorful B-movie cast (which also includes the always reliable Luciano Rossi as a mute, harmonica-playing hunchback and Andrea Checchi, who is a long way from his role alongside Barbara Steele in Mario Bava’s gothic masterpiece BLACK SUNDAY [1960]), is rather poorly developed and given very little to do other than loiter around their ramshackle surroundings, which, for the most part generates little suspense. Unlike the westerns it draws inspiration from, not a single gun is seen or used in the entire film, which is most certainly a novel approach to the material, but for the scrappy conclusion, THE SEWER RATS still serves up a couple of gory demises via a switchblade to the neck and a pitchfork to the gut, with Harrison utilizing his trusty walking aid most effectively.
Montero (who is sometimes credited under his full name, Roberto Bianchi Montero), a more commercially-inclined filmmaker, who’s career goes all the way back to ’40s, worked in just about every conceivable genre the industry had to offer, but for whatever reason he never directed an all-out crime film. However, his earlier giallo-style hybrid THE EYE OF THE SPIDER (1972) and his subsequent softcore sex romp LA BRAVATA (1977), were set against the shadowy criminal underworld, but offer no such thrills seen in other, more prominent Eurocrime efforts. Despite its obvious financial limitations and somewhat leisurely pace, Montero wrings as much as possible from Harrison’s thin foundation, which is also helped along by the film’s enthusiastic cast, but the overall cheapness just about overwhelms everything.
Never released on North American home video, THE SEWER RATS made the rounds via several home video labels throughout Europe, including a few English-friendly options such as Sunrise Video’s Greek VHS videocassette, which was widescreen, but also slightly cut. Although decent quality for the time, this tape was missing a part of the fight between Casale and Staccioli, but was intact on the exceedingly rare Venezuelan VHS videotape (as UNA MUJER PARA SIETE MACHOS). Outside of the grey market, it has remained difficult to see even during the digital age, but thanks to Germany’s Mr. Banker Films, THE SEWER RATS was quietly released on DVD in 2022. Distributed under its German title DAS RATTENNEST (trans: The Rats Nest) and limited to only 500 copies, this PAL region 2 DVD contains German, Italian and English audio options, and also retains the film’s original 1.85 framing (with 16x9 enhancement, to boot!), which definitely helps better appreciate Mario Mancini’s widescreen compositions. On the other hand, anyone expecting a pristine restoration may be disappointed. Taken from a slightly faded Italian print (which actually helps better accentuate the bleak desert locales), the usual scratches, dirt and debris are frequent, as are some occasional missing frames, but for the most part, it is completely watchable. Unsurprisingly, the audio is also full of imperfections and saddled with a lo-fi, VHS-like hiss, but given the film’s rarity, it’s still great to finally see this film get some attention, which, despite its many shortcomings, amounts to a decent little programmer. Order THE SEWER RATS from Amazon Germany.
[Author’s Note: Many Thanks to Michael Anderson for some additional video info, and also to the late Bill Barounis for finding me a copy of the rare Greek VHS videocassette of THE SEWER RATS all those years ago.—DC]
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