In 1929 Dashiel Hammett published his novel "Red Harvest", and though the title may not have the instant name recognition as some of his other work that was adapted for the screen (like, say, "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Thin Man") it has been adapted several times for the movies ... though you might not know it, since none of the film versions were titled "Red Harvest".

The first adaptation came in 1961 ... a certain Japanese director you may have heard of by the name of Akira Kurosawa used the novel as the basis for his film "Yojimbo", and four years later Sergio Leone remade "Yojimbo" as his classic debut western "A Fistful of Dollars" (according to Leone's biographer, Sir Christopher Frayling, Leone was aware of, and had even read Hammett's novel before he wrote the script), making it the second adaptation of "Red Harvest" to reach the screen. More recently it was remade as a Bruce Willis vehicle titled "Last Man Standing" (unseen by this writer), and, unknown to me until now, it was filmed yet again in the 1970's in Italy as "Il Conto e Chiuso", or "The Last Round" to us in the English speaking world.

Now, chances are that screenwriter Piero Regnoli and director Stelvio Massi weren't aware of Hammett's novel, since Italian genre cinema is full of examples of films that are simply ripoffs of earlier successes, and so I'd venture a guess that they thought they were just stealing a plot from Sergio Leone and Kurosawa, since neither of those films had credited Hammett's novel. But the plot is basically the same. A mysterious ass-kicking stranger arrives in a corrupt town ruled over by two rival crime families, the Manzettis and the Belmondos, and the stranger decides to take them both down by acting as a double agent and exploiting each family's hatred of the other.

In this case, the mysterious stranger is Marco, played by Carlos Monzon, a man who speaks softly and packs a mean punch. When we first meet him, he comes across a trio of thugs hassling some poor schmuck and he basically introduces them first to his fists and then to the pavement. Carlos doesn't carry a gun, seems to have some mysterious past in which he may have killed someone, but you know he's a good guy because he befriends a young blind girl and her father who live on the edge of town (filling in for the innkeeper and undertaker that appear in the novel and previous film versions of the story) and if he's that sensitive deep down then he must be a good guy, right?

One of the crime families make their money selling guns and drugs on the black market, while the other family are flesh peddlers. Both organizations could always use some muscle, and it isn't long before Carlos is rubbing shoulders with the low and sleazy members of the families, and ... well, I'm going to assume you've seen at least one of the other film versions of the story (and if you haven't, then I recommend you check out both the Leone and Kurosawa films as they are excellent) and the mechanics of the plot are familiar to you.

And one of the pleasures the film accorded me was spotting how they handled the scenes in this version, and how they correspond especially to scenes in "A Fistful of Dollars". Another is the feeling I had while watching it that this might have been one of the movies Quentin Tarantino saw and loved on videotape when he was building up his considerable film sense, judging from the raw way Massi handles his fistfights and shootouts. This is plain old fashioned meat and potatoes action filmmaking, and what's not to like about that?

No Shame films is releasing this bit of tough guy ephemera, and they've assembled an impressive package for what is an essentially unknown (and derivative) genre movie. The label boasts this is the first time the film has been released uncut in the US, but not having seen any edited US versions before now, I can't say if this includes any extra violence or action, but the movie looks pretty good (some signs of age and wear are present, but No Shame is up front about this from the start via a disclaimer at the start of the film that some elements were just not up to par but they included them anyway rather than edit the film). The sound is, well, not so good, but it's a low-budget Italian movie so if you were expecting a showcase for your 5.1 surround system you need to bark around another tree ... preferably a bigger budget one from more recent times. One thing that surprised me was that the crappy sound effect used to dub punches is present in the Italian version as well (I always thought that was a side effect of hastily prepared American dubbing, but apparently not). When someone hits someone, it sounds mysteriously like a piece of wood being snapped in two, but if you're in the right frame of mind that kind of thing can add to the fun.

Extras include a brief documentary/interview with actor Luc Merenda, who plays one of the villainous Manzettis in the film, now retired from acting and running an upscale antique shop. He is quite a character, and in some ways I found this featurette to be more interesting than the film itself. There's also the Italian and American trailers (each very similiar), a still gallery, and a little extra that is worth the price of the dvd all by itself -- an eight track audio CD of songs from Italian film scores redone by a band called Entropia. Put this in your walkman and you can walk around the streets of your town looking to kick somebody's ass like a Buono Italian Tough Guy. (There's even a bonus track on the CD ... let the last song keep going for a few seconds and a cover of Ennio Morricone's theme from Brian DePalma's "Untouchables" movie starts playing.)

High marks to No Shame for a well assembled package for a fun, if derivative, tough guy movie.