Una Magnum Special per Tony Saitta (1976) Reviews

• Supremely fun all the way

  hamburger2001-08-14

  With a great cast featuring Stuart Whitman, John Saxon, Martin Landau, AND Tisa Farrow this film glides with the greatest of ease. STRANGE SHADOWS IN AN EMPTY ROOM is sort of a cross between the Italian crime/police potboiler and your average giallo thriller. An interesting and fun blend it is. I'd rather not give too much of the film away since it's better going into it knowing next to nothing. Let's just say there's murder, mystery, car chases, blood, funky 70s music, karate-kicking drag queens, and of course your all-star cast! Have fun.

• Give me one more chase please!!!!!

  nirelizov2007-02-24

  There are 2 respected movies in the euro police movies that always shine above all the other great ones, the first one is in Fernando De Leo "La Mala Ordina", Part of his Milan trilogy films, with his extreme and fast paced chase that never let go and just keeps on going till the last brutal finish. The second one is blazing magnum's, which can be a very good lesson to all the action directors out there planing to do a one good chase sequence. There are 2 chases here, one in the beginning which is short but very efficient , and the second at the end, which you must see to believe, it got everything in it and more. I do urge you, the fans of this type of cinema to grab Blazing Magnumes if only for the chases that prove that you can do a bad acting movie with a simple thriller script, that still got some hard hitting sequences that shine overall. I can't finish without mentioning that the music is also a masterpiece in itself and it is always there at the right moment. If only Dark Sky/NoShame/Blue Underground or any other respected label will do us a favor and release a collector edition DVD, that would be fantastic!

• Overlooked 1970's Crime Classic

  sol12182003-10-10

  ****SPOILER ALERT**** Canadian whodunit that was overlooked back in 1976 here in the USA as one of many "Dirty Harry" clones that were released at that time is being rediscovered as one of the best crime as well as police action dramas of the 1970's. The movie includes two great chase scenes one on foot and the other on wheels the former exciting and the latter simply amazing rivaling the chase sequences of "Bullitt" and "The French Connection". At the start of the film we see Louise Saitta arguing with her collage professor Dr.George Tracer, just out of ear shot of the theater audience, on the Montreal University campus. Louise goes to a pay phone to call her brother Tony who's a captain on the Ottawa police force and is told that Capt. Saitta is out on assignment. Later that evening Louise partying with some friends at the campus falls sick and Dr. Tracer, who is also Louise's personal physician, is called to help. After giving her a mild stimulant Louise gets up and starts to dance with one of her friends at the party. Dr. Tracer, stunned at Louise's amazing recovery at first, realizes that Louise had played a joke to get even with him over the argument that they had earlier that afternoon. Later at the party after Louise sips some wine she suddenly collapses again and loses conciseness but this time it's no joke, it's real and despite the best efforts by Dr. Tracer to revive her Louise dies. At Louise's funeral her brother Capt. Saitta meets some of Louise's friends, Margi Cohn and her brother Terri and also Julie a blind music teacher at the collage and Louise's best friend. After the funeral at Julie's room in the college dorm Saitta is told by Julie that Louise was very depressed and despondent the week before she died. Capt. Saitta begins to suspect that there was foul play involved in his sister's death. He also notices that there's a number of photos of Louise on Julie's desk and asks Julie if he can have them. Julie tells Saitta that it would be only right for him to have the photos since Louise was his sister. From all the facts that he can gather Capt. Saitta thinks that Louise was poisoned by Dr.Tracer. There were rumors all around the collage campus that Tracer was having an affair with Louise and was afraid that she was going to go public with it because Dr. Tracer wanted it ended. The revelations of the affair would not only destroy Dr. Tracer's marriage but also his professional career. Capt Saitta and the police pay Tracer a visit at his home and ask to see the doctors bag where he has the stimulant that he gave Louise the night she died and To Tracer's surprise the bottle was missing. Capt. Saitta thinks that Dr. Tracer gave Louise a poison and later got rid of the bottle to cover up his crime. Tracer is arrested for suspicion in Louise's murder and Capt. Saitta thinks that his sister's death has been solved. Some time later a woman is found murdered and her body dumped in a junk yard. The police pathologist finds that the woman was really a man dressed in drag and is identified as Terri Cohn, a friend of Louise and one of the people that Capt. Saitta met at Louise's funeral. In Terri's handbag was a cropped photo of a women's neck wearing a blue necklace. Checking the photos Saitta thinks that the necklace photo looks very familiar and sees that it's one of the photos given to him by Julie of Louise, also found on Terri was a key to what turned out to be a locker at a Montreal bus station. It's then when Capt. Saitta went to the bus depot, to check out what was in the locker, he finds that it contained the blue necklace that was on the photo. Capt Saitta starts to realize that the necklace may be the reason for his sister's death. Saitta meets Margi about Louise's tie-in with Terri, in regard to the necklace, and gets into an argument with her over her brother Terri about why his sister would get involved with someone "like him". Margi, defending her brother tells Saitta that he shouldn't say anything bad about her dead brother when he knows so little about his sweet and innocent little sister Louise. Checking out all the leads about the mysterious blue necklace Saitta finds out that the necklace was stolen from a rich society woman , Mrs. Wilkerson, from Toronto who was savagely murdered some time ago.Saitta also finds that whoever had the necklace was trying to fence it off for a huge amount of cash but there were no takers the necklace was just too hot to handle! So how did Louise come into possession of that necklace? It now finally begins to dawn on Capt.Saitta that his sister was in some way involved in that murder in Toronto of Mrs. Wilkerson. Great thriller with a great and effective music score and top-notch acting from Stuart Whitman on down makes "Strange shadows in an empty room" head and shoulders above the many "Dirty Harry" imitations of it's day. In fact it has a much deeper plot and far less violence then the "Dirty Harry" films were noted for making it a much more effective film. With the exception of the exciting chase scene, there was a far better one later in the movie, and bank shoot-out at the beginning of the film I counted five deaths in the entire movie and that included Louise Saitta who was poisoned and another person who died of an apparent suicide off camera. What makes "Strange shadows in an empty room" so effective is that it not only makes you think while your watching the movie but also long after it's over.

• An ultra-violent and Shakespearian "Thriller" + "Poliziotti"

  falmoury2004-09-16

  I agree with Sol2118's commentary : the chase car is close in effectiveness with those of Friedkin and Peter Yates'titles that he mentioned, and I would add also the amazing one in THE SEVEN UP [Police pursuance 7] (USA 1973) directed by Philip d'Antoni with Roy Scheider and Tony Lo Bianco. Besides, this Shakespearian plot including a murdered T.V. as "dea/deus ex machine" is directly connected with the great tradition of Film Noir. And it is Alberto de Martino under the pen-name of Martin Herbert who have done it ! In Canada, starring an incredible cast. This is enough to understand that this movie is mixing the best of both worlds : Italian "poliziotti" thriller and U.S. thrillers, at their most violent and deep backgrounds. The bank attack is amazing regarding the art of graphic cut - editing work - of violence on the screen. The final is also extraordinary. The rhythm itself of the movie is very strange and original : quite onirical sometimes and not only because there is a "flash-back" sequence shot as a nightmare. Between 44 magnum caliber and TV gang hardboiled encounter, Stuart Whitman plays a cool & sad character, a quite tragic one since it is a brother looking for his sister's murderer and learning that his sister was not at all an Angel sister (as Lautréamont said about Man in LES CHANTS DE MALDOROR), finally unveiling the darker from the dark. And as usual, of such a little masterpiece, no VHS and no DVD available worldwide except maybe the French VHS titled BLAZING MAGNUM in spite of the fact that the movie was released in France under the exploitation title of SPECIAL MAGNUM. And I agree also with the latest comment : there was, for sure, lower show on theaters than that one when it was released ! DVD soon : please !!

• Ultimately successful combination of action and mystery

  gridoon20192010-11-11

  The first 30 or so minutes of "Shadows In An Empty Room" (or whichever title you see it under!) are nothing special, and with a tired-looking Stuart Whitman in the lead, I was preparing myself to give this a middling-to-negative review. Luckily, it finds its footing after a while (as bizarre as it sounds, the turning point is probably Whitman's fight with a bunch of transvestites!), and it ends up as an overall success. The second half contains a very long, expertly done car chase (supervised by the veteran at this sort of thing Remy Julienne) which, if this movie was better known, would be regarded as a classic on a par with "Bullitt", as well as a fun foot chase in a subway station. Whitman may look tired in this movie, but he's alert enough for the action scenes. The mystery plot also picks up its pace, as it heads towards its twisted and downbeat resolution which cleverly fools the viewer, especially by showing how a seemingly innocent victim was not so innocent after all. There are also some tense, giallo-like scenes, mostly involving a blind woman, terrifically played by Mia Farrow's lovely sister, Tisa. Just stick with the film through its mediocre first half-hour, and you will be rewarded. *** out of 4.