646f9e108c After 2 years in prison Ricco is released and on a path of vengeance. His father, the head of a mafia family, is gunned down by the ambitious Don Vito and now Ricco is looking to settle the score. Watched RICCO (1973) aka CAULDRON OF DEATHI am on a trail of Barbara Bouchet films.<br/><br/>You&#39;ve got to admire directors like Tulio Demicheli who had the gumption to make films based on their sleaziest fantasies. I really like these Italian crime thrillers with lots of nudity, plot twists and graphic violence. Ricco (played by Christopher Mitchum, Robert Mitchum&#39;s son) is out of jail. His mother incites him to take revenge on the men who killed his father. He takes the help of his ex-girlfriend&#39;s father and cousin (Barbara Bouchet). Both Malisa Longo (who plays Ricco&#39;s ex girlfriend and mistress of the man who killed Ricco&#39;s father) and Barbara Bouchet shed their clothes regularly to keep us from falling asleep. But the film isn&#39;t that bad. The hands on action scenes are quite decent. There is a really graphic penis cutting scene.<br/><br/>I was struck by two instances of unusual camera work. The first one when Mitchum arrives at his house (next to a gas station) after coming out of jail and cavorting on the gas station grounds with his sister and brother that sort of hints at an incestuous triangle. There is a close up of them rolling around and kissing each other on the ground. The second one is when Malisa Longo seduces her husband&#39;s henchman and there is a shot between her naked legs/thighs at the henchman making a house of cards.<br/><br/>The tall, young and gangly mitchum reminded me of Christopher Walken. He does have a reasonably good screen presence.<br/><br/>A couple of memorable tunes in the background score by Nando De Luca was used very well, especially during a sex scene.<br/><br/>(6/10) I saw this onea pretty good example of a &quot;B&quot; version of the early &#39;70s Italian crime films. On those terms, it&#39;s pretty good. I&#39;m not really sure you can take it seriously enough to rate against the &quot;A&quot; grade, but I think it pretty much announces that. One of the taglines from a poster at the time was &quot;No swords, no guns, no knives, no weapons. Just a burning pool of acid!&quot;. No weapons? No knives? Tons of those. And…just a minor point…soap is made from an alkaline solution, things like sodium hydroxide. That&#39;s the opposite of acid. So the only thing in the tagline accurate is &quot;no swords&quot;. Like I&#39;d expect that of a &#39;70s Italian crime film.<br/><br/>So, you can&#39;t get too deep with this one. As an over the top take on the sub genre I think it works. As much &quot;early &#39;70s&quot;it is &quot;Italian crime film&quot;, it doesn&#39;t spare any mod visuals. Worth a go, I say.
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