June 1: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Italian crime!

Milano odia: la polizia non può sparare (Milan Hates, The Police Can’t Shoot) is another reminder that Umberto Lenzi is the greatest, regardless of genre. He mastered gialli (Spasmo, So Sweet… So Perverse, Orgasmo, Seven Bloodstained Orchids, Eyeball) as well as war movies (Bridge to Hell, From Hell to Victory), poliziotteschi (Rome Armed to the Teeth, Violent Naples, The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist), peplum (Ironmaster, Samson and the Slave Queen), Eurospy (SuperSeven Calling Cairo, 008: Operation Exterminate), cannibal films (Eaten Alive!, Cannibal Ferox, Man from Deep River) and enjoyable junk (Nightmare City, Ghosthouse, Nightmare Beach, Hitcher In the Dark, Black Demons).

Throw in a script by Ernesto Gastaldi, and you have a war between Giulio Sacchi (Tomas Milian) and Inspector Walter Grandi (Henry Silva). Not everyone in their world will survive. Hell, the two of them might not even make it.

After screwing up a bank robbery and being threatened with castration, Saachi goes absolutely wild and pretty much kills everyone in his path. Tomas Milian must have heard that David Hess was coming to Italy and said, “Let me show you something.” He’s an equal opportunity maniac in this movie, as everyone is in the crosshairs. He might have a gorgeous woman like Iona (Anita Strindberg) in love with him, supporting him, and yet he comes home just to assault her at will. Then, he uses her to take her boss’ daughter, Mary Lou (Laura Belli), and ransom her life, as if life means anything to him.

His partners Carmine (Ray Lovelock) and Vittorio (Gino Santercole) aren’t ready for the drugged-up menace that Saachi is about to bring. Tying people to a chandelier and letting it spin as he plays roulette with his victims? That’s just the start. No one is safe, whether that’s old people, people begging for their lives, cops, children…even a man who Saachi forces to go down on his little Giulio while he keeps a gun at his head. They have second thoughts about being in a gang with him, but who will tell him he’s going off the deep end?

Morricone soundtrack, Silva as a cop, you’re just waiting to go insane, lawyers getting scummy crooks off with no charges, justice in the streets—this has it all. And so much more. And wow, it was so close to being a totally different movie, with Richard Conte playing the cop and Marc Porel playing the criminal, but Lenzi found the actor  “unreliable from both a human and professional point of view.”

As it was, Lenzi’s first meeting with Milian didn’t go well. Milian heard that Lenzi was an impulsive director who could go off on his actors, but by the film’s end, they realized they could work together in a love/hate way for seven films. As for how Millian got this performance, in true Method style, he drugged and drank it up before Lenzi said, “Action!”

That’s how you do it.

Over here,  Joseph Brenner released several times, first as The Kidnap of Mary Lou, then a year later as The Death Dealer and finally in 1980 as Almost Human. All hail Temple of Schlock.

You can watch this on Tubi.