Knell The Bloody Avenger

Knell the Bloody Avenger (Sangue Di Sbirro) (1976)

Runtime: 100 minutes

Directed by: Alfonso Brescia

Starring: George Eastman, Jack Palance, Jenny Tamburi, Roberto Giraudo, Ugo Bologna

From: Cinematografia Internazionali Associate

I'll start this off by posting a video here, and it's of this film's theme song, from Alessandro Alessandroni, someone who worked with Morricone often. To say it was inspired by Theme from Shaft by Isaac Hayes is putting it mildly. It's a real close copy of that song so it makes me laugh how bold the ripoff is and yet the song is as great as the original. After the video is the Letterboxd review and I'll be back Tuesday night.

The first poliziotteschi I watched in months is a rather obscure one, a film I only know about as someone I follow/follows me watched and reviewed it late last year and while he wasn't a fan I was still interested as this film of many titles is on YouTube (under the name Knell the Bloody Avenger; it's also known as Bloody Avenger, For a Silver Dollar, Cop's Blood, Policeman's Blood, and a few others), it is set in Philadelphia-where some exteriors were shot but most of it was filmed in Rome-and it stars a pair of familiar leads in star George Eastman and in a small supporting role, Jack Palance.

The plot isn't complex as Knell has to return home to Philadelphia to investigate the death of his police officer father and he has to deal with various factions (from criminals to the police chief) and he's constantly targeted as he meets up with an old girlfriend (Jenny Tamburi) and he meets up with Palance, who he and you aren't sure if he's to be trusted or not.

There are some things you expect from the genre, such as sleaze, gunfights, a car chase, and wackiness (the way that a wooden Mickey Mouse wind-up toy is used is hilarious) but there are also some slow and long stretches and I had to power through that to get to the good parts, such as Palance firing a machine gun or the opening where several criminals are dressed up in Philadelphia Flyers stocking caps and hockey masks. It's not bad but it's not great either and there definitely are wilder and better entries in the genre to see first.