The Sicilian Connection - Code Red (Blu-ray)

Theatrical Release Date: Italy/France, 1972
Director: Ferdinando Baldi
Writers: Ferdinando Baldi, Duilio Coletti
Cast: Ben Gazzara, Silvia Monti, Fausto Tozzi, Steffen Zacharias, Luciano Catenacci, Mario Pilar, José Greci, Malisa Longo, Luciano Rossi, Bruno Corazzari, Jess Hahn

Release Date: August 24th, 2015
Approximate running time: 100 Minutes 30 Seconds
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Widescreen / 1080 Progressive / MPEG-4 AVC
Rating: R
Sound: DTS-HD Mono English
Subtitles: N/A
Region Coding: Region A
Retail Price: OOP

"Nightclub owner Joe (Award winning Ben Gazzara, Saint Jack, They All Laughed, Inchon) becomes involved with drug trafficking. What we know (but the villains don't) is that Benny is actually going to double cross them and the car chase and action is going to start! The tension level noticeably sags until the showdown denouement." - synopsis provided by the distributor

Video: 3.25/5

Here’s the information provided about this release's transfer, "Brand new HD transfer from Italian vault element."

The Sicilian Connection comes on a 25 GB single layer Blu-ray.

Disc Size: 22.2 GB

Feature: 22 GB

The source used for this transfer comes from an unrestored source that resembles a Grindhouse print. There are scratches, emulsion stains, and print debris throughout. Colors generally fare well; image clarity and compression are very good; black levels are never convincing; and there are some instances of black crush. Fortunately, the image always looks organic.

Audio: 3.5/5

This release comes with one audio option, a DTS-HD mono mix in English. This release continues Code Red’s trend of not including Italian-language tracks in Italian films that they have released. Though dialog comes through clearly and range-wise, things sound good. There are some sibilance-related issues and a few pops and crackles.

Extras:

Extras for this release are limited to a theatrical trailer (3 minutes 32 seconds, Dolby Digital mono English, no subtitles). It should be noted that this theatrical trailer looks like it was taken from a compressed source, as it is filled with pixelation and other distracting anomalies.

Summary:

Directed by Ferdinando Baldi, a versatile filmmaker who worked in most of the genres that were popular in 1960s and 1970s Italian cinema. Notable films that he directed are Texas, Adios, Django, Prepare a Coffin, Blindman, and Nine Guests for a Crime.

The narrative revolves around an American who finds himself in too deep after immersing himself in the world of smuggling heroin.

The Sicilian Connection opens with a fantastic sequence in which a funeral procession ends with a nosy cop looking for narcotics inside the corpse and ends up buried alive in a coffin. This sequence does a superb job setting the tone and laying the foundation for what follows.

After an intense opening sequence, the narrative then introduces the protagonist, Joe Coppola, who has recently arrived in Turkey, and when things don't pan out there, he makes a new connection in Sicily. The bulk of the narrative is essentially characters getting to know each other and Joe Coppola learning the business of making and smuggling heroin.

Ben Gazzara (The Killing of a Chinese Bookie) is cast in the role of Joe Coppola, a confident hustler who's trying to make moves in the world of smuggling drugs. And without giving away too much about his character's motivations, the finale provides one of the better twists that I have seen in a poliziotteschi.

When it comes to the rest of the cast, most of them are very good at their roles. Also, the cast is made up of many recognizable faces for anyone who's familiar with 1970s Eurocult cinema. Notable cast members are Luciano Rossi (Death Walks at Midnight) and Bruno Corazzari (Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man), two actors who made a career out of portraying nasty, violent characters.

Ferdinando Baldi does a great job with all his resources. And yet the result is a film that some viewers might find to be too slow and uneventful. The Sicilian Connection is not as violent or action-heavy as one would expect from a poliziotteschi. Also, The Sicilian Connection opens and closes with its best sequences. The aforementioned funeral procession opening sequence and a car chase finale. Ultimately, The Sicilian Connection is a film that I can only recommend to poliziotteschi completists.

The Sicilian Connection gets a serviceable audio/video presentation from Code Red.

Written by Michael Den Boer