''Manhunt in the City'' ( it, L'uomo della strada fa giustizia, lit=The Average Man Gets Justice ), also known as ''The Manhunt'', 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

Umberto Lenzi Umberto Lenzi (6 August 1931 – 19 October 2017) was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and novelist. A fan of film since young age, Lenzi studied at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia and made his first film in 1958 which went unr ...

. It was co-written by Dardano Sacchetti and has a score by

Bruno Nicolai Bruno Nicolai (20 May 1926 – 16 August 1991) was an Italian film music composer, orchestra director and musical editor most active in the 1960s through the 1980s. While studying piano and composition at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome, ...

Cast

Henry Silva Henry Silva (September 23, 1926 – September 14, 2022) was an American actor. A prolific character actor, Silva was a regular staple of international genre cinema, usually playing criminals or gangsters. His notable film appearances includ ...

: Davide Vannucchi *

Raymond Pellegrin Raymond Pellegrin (1 January 1925 – 14 October 2007) was a French actor. Born in Nice, Pellegrin made his screen debut in the 1945 French feature '' Naïs''. He was also famous in France for dubbing Jean Marais for the voice of Fantômas ...

:Inspector Bertone *

Luciana Paluzzi Luciana Paluzzi (born 10 June 1937) is an Italian actress. She is perhaps best known for playing SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe in the fourth James Bond film, '' Thunderball'', but she had important roles in notable films of the 1960s and 1970s in ...

: Vera Vannucchi *

Silvano Tranquilli Silvano Tranquilli (23 August 1925 – 10 May 1997) was an Italian stage, television and film actor. Life and career Born in Rome, Silvano Tranquilli attended theatre lessons at the Sharoff Academy, and started his stage activity with the th ...

: Giordani *

Claudio Gora Claudio Gora, '' Emilio Giordana '' (27 July 1913 – 13 March 1998) was an Italian actor and film director. He was particularly prolific, making some 155 appearances in film and television over nearly 60 years (from 1939 to 1997). In the 1950s ...

: Lawyer Mieli *

Luciano Catenacci Luciano Catenacci (13 April 1933 – 4 October 1990) was an Italian actor and production manager who worked on mainly Italian produced films during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Life and career Born in Rome, Catenacci started his career as ...

: Pascucci

Production

''Manhunt in the City'' was filmed at Elios Film in Rome and on location in Milan. Lenzi originally envisioned

Claudio Cassinelli Claudio Cassinelli (13 September 1938 – 13 July 1985) was an Italian film, stage and television actor. Life and career Born in Bologna to Giuseppina Tafani and Antonio Cassinelli, a well known opera singer, he had two sisters, Paola Cr ...

in the role that Silva has. Henry Silva and Luciana Paluzzi are paired again, after their performance together in ''

The Italian Connection ''The Italian Connection'' ( it, La mala ordina, lit=The mob orders, also released as ''Manhunt in the City'' and ''Manhunt in Milan'') is a 1972 italian '' noir''-'' thriller'' film co-written and directed by Fernando Di Leo; starring Mario Ador ...

'' (1972).

Style

The film is part of vigilante subgenre. The films script overturns initial assumptions where the engineer Vannucchi get manipulated by a fascist lawyer who heads an army of vigilantes and ends up killing the wrong person. Lenzi stated that he desired to make a film in contrast to Enzo G. Castellari's '' Street Law''. The film also has a few elements of the ''

giallo In Italian cinema, ''Giallo'' (; plural ''gialli'', from ''giallo'', Italian for yellow) is a genre of mystery fiction and thrillers that often contains slasher, crime fiction, psychological thriller, psychological horror, sexploitation, and, ...

'' genre, as Silva's hunt for a criminal who wears a bracelet depicting a scorpion.

Release

''Manhunt in the City'' was released in Italy on 8 May 1975 where it was distributed by

Titanus Titanus is an Italian film production company, founded in 1904 by Gustavo Lombardo (1885–1951). The company's headquarters are located at 28 Via Sommacampagna, Rome and its studios on the Via Tiburtina, 13 km from the centre of Rome. Lom ...

. On its theatrical run in Italy, the film grossed 711.5 million

Italian lira 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 ...

. According to Lenzi, "censors found it very annoying that in the end the Commissioner, understanding the protagonist's motives that lead to his revenge, lets him go unpunished." The film was issued on DVD in Italy in 2010.

Footnotes

References

External links

* 1975 films 1975 crime films Italian crime films 1970s Italian-language films Films directed by Umberto Lenzi Films scored by Bruno Nicolai Poliziotteschi films Titanus films 1970s Italian films {{1970s-Italy-film-stub