''Kidnap Syndicate'' ( it, La città sconvolta: caccia spietata ai rapitori, lit=The City is Shaken: Ruthless Pursuit of the Kidnappers) is a 1975 Italian ''

poliziottesco Poliziotteschi (; singular ''poliziottesco'') constitute a subgenre of crime and action films that emerged in Italy in the late 1960s and reached the height of their popularity in the 1970s. They are also known as ''polizieschi all'italiana'', ' ...

'' film directed by

Fernando Di Leo Fernando Di Leo (11 January 1932 – 2 December 2003) was an Italian film director and screenwriter, script writer. He made 17 films as a director and about 50 scripts from 1964 to 1985. Biography Fernando Di Leo was born on 11 January 1932 in ...

. Even being a minor work in the Di Leo's filmography, the film gained some critical attention for being an original re-interpretation of the "

vigilante Vigilantism () is the act of preventing, investigating and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without Right, legal authority. A vigilante (from Spanish, Italian and Portuguese “vigilante”, which means "sentinel" or "watcher") is a pers ...

" subgenre.

Cast

Luc Merenda Luc Charles Olivier Merenda (born 3 September 1943) is a French film actor. He was one of the most prominent actors of the Italian poliziotteschi genre, working several times with Sergio Martino and Fernando Di Leo. He is of Italian origin thr ...

as Mario Colella *

James Mason James Neville Mason (; 15 May 190927 July 1984) was an English actor. He achieved considerable success in British cinema before becoming a star in Hollywood. He was the top box-office attraction in the UK in 1944 and 1945; his British films inc ...

as Engineer Filippini *

Valentina Cortese Valentina Cortese (1 January 1923 – 10 July 2019) was an Italian actress. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in François Truffaut's ''Day for Night'' (1973). Personal life Cortese was bor ...

as Countess Grazia Filippini *

Vittorio Caprioli Vittorio Caprioli (15 August 1921 – 2 October 1989) was an Italian actor, film director and screenwriter. He appeared in 109 films between 1946 and 1990, mostly in French productions. Biography Caprioli was born in Naples. Having graduated fr ...

as Commissioner Magrini * Irina Maleeva as Lina *

Marino Masé Marino Masè (21 March 1939 – 28 May 2022) was an Italian actor who appeared in more than 70 films. Life Masè was born in Trieste on 21 March 1939. While still a teenager, he joined the laboratory for young actors of the production company ...

as Pardi

Production

The film's story is credited to Galliano Juso, the producer of the film. The film's director

stated that the producer came up with the idea for the film based on kidnappings which he described as "a hot topic back then". Di Leo stated that the producer would call up the distributors in Italy to tell them the story for the film and if more of them were not interested in the story than were, it would not get made.

Ernesto Gastaldi Ernesto Gastaldi (born 10 September 1934) is an Italian screenwriter. Film historian and critic Tim Lucas described Gastaldi as the first Italian screenwriter to specialize in horror and thriller films. Gastaldi worked within several popular gen ...

stated that despite being credited with Cesare Manzani that he himself wrote the script for the film, stating that Juso did come up with the idea for the film but that Di Leo did not write it, stating that the two just discussed the script after it was already completed with Gastaldi making adjustments where Di Leo felt the script was wrong. Gastaldi described the film as a "nasty film about nasty times". The film was shot at Rizzoli Film in Rome and on location in Rome and Milan.

Release

''Kidnap Syndicate'' was distributed theatrically in Italy by Medusa on 27 August 1975. The film grossed a total of 908,268,910

Italian lire The lira (; plural lire) was the currency of Italy between 1861 and 2002. It was first introduced by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1807 at par with the French franc, and was subsequently adopted by the different states that would eventually f ...

domestically. Italian film historian Roberto Curti described its profit as a "moderate box office success".

Reception

Curti stated that the film was lambasted by Italian film critics.

Claudio G. Fava Claudio is an Italian and Spanish first name. In Portuguese it is accented Cláudio. In Catalan and Occitan it is Claudi, while in Romanian it is Claudiu. Origin and history Claudius was the name of an eminent Roman gens, the most important ...

stated in '' Corriere Mercantile'' that "all the worst defects of the worst of Italian cinema can be found in this minutely banal film" Sandro Casazza of ''

La Stampa ''La Stampa'' (meaning ''The Press'' in English) is an Italian daily newspaper published in Turin, Italy. It is distributed in Italy and other European nations. It is one of the oldest newspapers in Italy. History and profile The paper was fou ...

'' declared it as a "immoral and asocial film (the thread dedicated to the "silent majority" numbers a large number of titles ever since '' Straw Dogs'')."

References

Footnotes

Sources

External links

* 1975 films 1970s crime drama films 1970s crime thriller films Films directed by Fernando Di Leo Poliziotteschi films Crime films based on actual events Films about child abduction Films about families Films about mass murder Films about murder Films about social class Films scored by Luis Bacalov Films about hostage takings Italian crime thriller films Italian vigilante films Films with screenplays by Ernesto Gastaldi 1975 drama films 1970s Italian films {{1970s-crime-film-stub