lazarillo This is an interesting Italian crime film in that is a "buddy movie" where the "buddies" are criminals rather than cops and there are a few more homoerotic overtones than usual. It kind of reminded me of Ruggiero Deodato's "Live Like a Cop, Die like a Man", but with more sympathetic protagonists.An armed robber (Joe Dallesandro)and a part-time caterer (Massimo Ranieri) have a kind of male "meet cute" after the armed robber holds up a party the caterer is working. They then team up to rip off some mob money from a corrupt Vatican courier. They use the money to advance the armed robber's motorcycle-racing career (cue the 70's Italian motorcycle-racing footage), but soon find themselves pursued by merciless mob killers.It's pretty hard to avoid the homoerotic overtones here, especially with American bisexual hustler/erstwhile actor Joe ("Little Joe") Dallesandro cast as one of the leads. He's pretty decent though, and Ranieri, who I'd personally never seen before, is actually pretty good. For the record, the movie doesn't actually ever give in to its homosexual undercurrents, but they do kind of waste a pair of beautiful Euro-actresses who seem to only be there to distract from the potentially gay relationship between the male leads. Marisa Mell is pretty much completely wasted as an older, married woman the Dallesandro character is sleeping with. Eleanora Giorgi has a bigger part (and full-frontal nude scenes), but doesn't have much more to do as Ranieri's love interest. The director is none other than Aldo Lado, who was also responsible for "Short Night of Glass Dolls", "Who Saw Her Die?", and "The Night Train Murders". This isn't quite up to the standards of those classics, but it's worth a look.

mark czuba Joe Dallesandro Plays Perikles, a retired motorcycle racer, who now leads a life of crime. At the beginning of the film you see him crash a disco party (bell bottoms, bad music and all) and rob everyone of their money and jewelry. He hooks up with one of the waiters (Sandro) from the party, and they both start doing purse snatchings with the aid of a stolen motorcycle. One day they snatch a beautiful women's purse, Sandro is intrigued by a personal diary he finds in the purse, feeling bad he meets her to give it back. Soon Perikles and Sandro going out with her, creating jealousy on both sides, and a weird menage a trois type team. Perikles soon decides that the life of crime is not for him, he tries to win a motorcycle race but gets gunned down in the end by a sniper?!?! A great film despite the muddled ending. Joe Dallesandro made a ton of films in Italy during this period and this one I found to be the most enjoyable.