Weapons of Death

“Who let the lioness out?” I asked as Waldo clung for dear life on the fake tree in the Sheena: Queen of the Jungle exhibit. The Revenging Manta, the ninja vigilante of downtown Orlando, stuck two fingers into his mouth and whistled. The lioness swerved around and darted straight for us. The Revenging Manta gripped his sword as she lunged at him, jaws wide open. With the hilt of his sword, he cracked her on the noggin and down she went.

— To be continued.

This week’s movie is 1977’s Weapons of Death from director Mario Caiano. Last week I covered Violent Naples which is part two of the Commissioner Betti Trilogy. I was not aware of this trilogy and frantically began searching for the first and third parts, Violent Rome and Special Cop in Action. Neither are available on the various free streaming services on my Roku player. However, Weapons of Death is a kind of spin off from that series as it features Gennarino (Massimo Deda), the boy who got disabled after his father, a mechanic, saved his life before being burned alive. When Commissioner Benti was about to quit the force, he saw poor Gennarino struggling to cross the street and for that reason alone, he stayed on the force.

Gennarino is getting by okay in this movie. He walks with a limp, but has figured out a way to earn some cash with some other boy hoodlums. He sells old newspapers to cars on lover’s lane so the couples can cover their windows while discreetly doing the deed. Other scams involve stealing the tires off of rich men’s cars and selling crappy tap H2O as fancy mineral water. There’s even a scene where young Gennarino steals a race car for a joy ride.

I wanted him to crash and burst into flames, but we don’t always get what we want. 

A Commissioner Belli (Leonard Mann) keeps a close eye on Gennarino, trying to keep the kid on the straight and narrow, but the commissioner has a lot on his plate. A violent train robbery happens at the start of this movie. Money is stolen and guards are shot by masked robbers. This is a nasty bunch. When one of the robbers gets wounded, another robber shoots him dead rather than take him with them. Chief orchestrator of these robberies is Santora (Henry Silva), a close relation of Don Alfredo Criscuolo, his godfather. You kids may recognize Henry Silva as Kane from the hit TV show Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

Other members of the Camorra are too happy with Santora’s antics. They don’t like the attention he brings to their organization while trying to become legitimate businessmen. They organize an assassination that gets foiled when Commissioner Belli saves Santora’s life.

Sure Santora has been robbing banks and killing security guards and other innocent bystanders, but he needs to be taken down the right way. Think of all the lives Belli might save if he just lets Santora get taken down like the dog that he is.

Commissioner Belle finally takes down Santora in a train station, but not before Santora sends a round into the chest of young Gennarino. The poor kid dies, never getting to fulfill his dream of becoming a Rhodes Scholar.

Those are the breaks in Italian cop films, kid.

 Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, episode 496, episode 545, episode 546, episode 547, episode 548, episode 549, episode 575, episode 596, episode 597, episode 598, and episode 599) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.