BY FRED BLOSSER
In
“Stiletto,†a 1969 release from Joseph E. Levine’s Avco Embassy Pictures,
Cesare Cardinali (Alex Cord) enjoys a jet-setting lifestyle rivaling and maybe
even surpassing those of his real-life contemporaries in the “Playboyâ€
era. He resides in a lavish Midtown
Manhattan penthouse, hobnobs with movie stars and minor European royalty at
red-carpet parties, races cars on the international circuit, and romances two
beautiful girlfriends. But he’s
increasingly uneasy about what he has to do to keep the money coming. On the books, he earns his millions through a
lucrative importing business. In
reality, he’s on the Mafia’s payroll through his patron, crime boss Ettore
Matteo (Joseph Wiseman). Whenever a
particularly important murder contract is ordered, Cesare is called in to do
the job. His specialized tool is a
medieval stiletto, and although he’s good at what he does, he’s begun to worry
that, sooner or later, as all those knife-punctured bodies pile up, the law
will trace the murders to him. When he
tells Matteo that he wants to retire before that happens, reasoning that he has
more than repaid the Mafia for its support, Matteo and the big Boss in Sicily,
Don Andrea (Eduardo Ciannelli), decide that the hit man has become more a
liability than a valued asset. Their
fears are underlined when a tenacious detective, Baker (Patrick O’Neal), finds
circumstantial evidence linking Cardinali to two recent murders ordered by
Matteo. With the clock ticking to bring
a case against the Mafioso, Baker sends word that he’s closing in.
“Stilettoâ€
was one of five high-profile films executive-produced by Joseph E. Levine from
the best-selling novels of Harold Robbins, back in the days when people devoted
as much time to light, leisure reading as they now spend on Facebook and
Netflix. As movie historian David Del
Valle and filmmaker David DeCoteau observe in an excellent audio commentary on
a new Blu-ray edition of “Stiletto†from Kino-Lorber Studio Classics, Robbins
and Levine maintained an association for several years that nearly bordered on
symbiosis. One partner thrived on the
other. Robbins wrote trashy but shrewdly
crafted pulp novels like “The Carpetbaggers†and “The Adventurers,†and
tirelessly promoted them through TV and press interviews in those ancient days
before social media. Levine then
processed them into equally highly publicized movies, each branded with the Robbins
name, promising viewers a level of sex and glamor that they couldn’t find in
the staid TV shows of the time. In turn,
the movies primed audiences for Robbins’ next book. Even after the careers of Levine and Robbins
eventually diverged, the novelist pursued the same strategy with other
producers on properties like “The Betsy†and “The Lonely Lady.â€
If
you’ve forgotten “Stiletto†or never heard of it in the first place, there are
many plausible reasons why, as Del Valle and DeCoteau discuss in their commentary. As a traditional, mid-list studio release, it
had the misfortune to appear in theaters in the pivotal year of 1969, when
studios, critics, and audiences were focused instead on game-changing arrivals
like “Midnight Cowboy,†“Easy Rider,†and “The Wild Bunch.†The cast was competent but unexciting, the
direction by TV veteran Bernard L. Kowalski plodding and uninspired, and fans
may have been disappointed that the production didn’t really deliver the promised
goods of sex and nudity. The movie’s
only topless scene occurs early on, when an enthusiastic casino patron
momentarily spills out of her low-cut dress. The lady’s bare breasts appear so briefly that the scene itself readily
qualifies as a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, to borrow a phrase that my
brother in law likes to use. As Cesare’s
girlfriends, Britt Ekland and Barbara McNair remain more or less fully clothed,
and the bedroom scenes go to fade before anything becomes explicit.
Still,
as with any obscure movie, there’s always the chance that new viewers will find
something to like that eluded the rest of us. On that count, it’s encouraging to see “Stiletto†given new exposure on
Blu-ray. Fashionistas will enjoy the
garish Age of Aquarius clothing styles on display in a party scene, and there’s
a nighttime escape through Midtown traffic on a motorcycle at night, with the
old Hotel Manhattan looming briefly in the background, to remind us that movies
didn’t always depend on computer-generated scenery. Producers used to spend money to film on
actual locations. In their commentary,
the two Davids have fun spotting various Cinema Retro-era actors in supporting
roles who would shortly go on to bigger credits, including Charles Durning,
Olympia Dukakis, Raul Julia, and as Matteo’s oily lawyer, Roy Scheider. In fact, the droll, informed exchanges
between Del Valle and DeCoteau are worth the purchase price of the Blu-ray
alone. Their anecdotes about Robbins,
Levine, the glitzy trash literature of the ‘60s, and the downslope careers of
once-famous actors suggest that a movie about the making of “Stiletto†would be
more enthralling than “Stiletto†itself.
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(Fred Blosser is the author of "Sons of Ringo: The Great Spaghetti Western Heroes". Click here to order from Amazon)