Mario Bava
Cani arrabbiati

Hello guys, today we're talking about lesser-known Italian cinema, and moreover, according to prevailing voices, "cursed," both for the themes addressed in the film we're going to discuss and for the film's highly troubled distribution history, which led to it being released only on DVD in the '90s.

The author of the film is the Sanremo-born director Mario Bava (1914-1980), whom some have already reviewed here on Debaser, portraying him as a champion of Italian thriller/horror, but whom we analyze here for what he probably was: the author of low-budget films, often produced in a superficial way, but shot with authentic talent: a) for photography; b) for narrative tension; c) for the uncompromising underlying message, where men are only greedy for money and power, sacrificing everything else.

Mario Bava, in short, is a small master of the small B-movie cinema, with a visionary talent that would have deserved greater glory; however, he was forgotten by many, only to be belatedly re-evaluated in the pulp area, as well as by Yours Truly Il_Paolo.

I've seen many genre films, and many of Bava's, allowing me to consider this "Rabid Dogs" ('73, never distributed in theaters) not only as his personal masterpiece, but above all, as the best action film ever made in Italy: better, to make myself clear, than the entire "Naples Shoots," "Milan Trembles," "Rome is Tormented," "Acqui Terme is Afraid" series.

The story is very simple: four bandits rob the treasurer of a company, and, fleeing from the police on their tails, are forced to kidnap a middle-aged man along with a child, in a car stopped at a red light, and a young woman. Thus begins a chase along the sunny highway, through Lazio in August, that will end with a mocking epilogue.

To the linearity and simplicity of the plot, the claustrophobic nature of the entire representation is added: indeed, the film is mostly shot inside a car, with a sense of heat, sweat, tension, anxiety, anguish, and as this climax progresses, it culminates in an authentic slaughter, where even the innocents aren't.

The photography, which in many of Bava's films reaches peaks of authentic expressionism, is here extremely realistic, denouncing a raw, authentic reality, devoid of mediations, where man is practically alone against the horror of everyday life, and above all, without escape routes. A description of the criminal phenomenon that should have served as a lesson to generations of filmmakers but was never fully resumed: think of Placido in the still valid "Romanzo Criminale," which at times dwells on sketchiness and narrative artifice, as well as on the choice of cool actors, which Bava would never have chosen.

Precisely regarding acting, the film makes the most of the qualities of the employed actors, who, even without being absolute headliners (issues of budget), perform their tasks very well: from the stolid Riccardo Cucciola (1924-1999), who well embodies the petty bourgeois victim of events but full of resources, to the agitated George Eastman in the role of the sex-crazed bandit "32" (imagine to what the size refers), passing through the female victim, Lea Kruger (to her credit, the film's redistribution in the '90s), and the cold, composed, and cynical gang leader played by Maurice Poli.

Above all, the mad, intense, and distressing performance of the most bloodthirsty of the bandits stands out, the terrible "Scalpel", used to using blades and knives on his victims: the character who leaves the most lasting impression throughout the film, who induces the most anxiety and fear, suggesting the barely restrained explosion of violence on which the entire narrative tension of the work is based; really excellent is the actor who plays him, Aldo Caponi, and it's a pity that cinema never utilized him again. Many of you might not recognize this name, perhaps because he's known by the pseudonym Don Backy, from the vastness of the '60s to the small interiors of a vehicle speeding towards nowhere in that sunny summer of '73.

The film is a masterpiece, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Anxiously Yours

Il_Paolo