I suppose if I could time travel to any period, it would be Italy in the 1970s. What the blazes was going in that country? Years back, I bought some vinyl records titled Criminale and their slipcases are so bizarre. Look at this one.

Do you know what’s going on? That lady doesn’t seem to be having a good day. Keep in mind these records feature music used in Italian television shows of the 1970s.

Perhaps this artwork is from the Italian version of H.R. Pufnstuf?

It’s June and that means it’s Poliziottesco Month here at the Museum of Schlock. As a reminder, these are crime movies usually focusing on the mob or the police or police that work for the mob. Infamous for their violence, one of these movies almost pushed me off the deep end a few years back. Let’s see if it happens again. Tonight’s movie is 1974’s Almost Human from director Umberto Lenzi. The Italian title for this motion picture is Milan Hates: The Police Can’t Shoot. Is Milan Hates the title of a series?

Our movie begins with a car full of bank robbers driving through the streets of Milan. The robbers don funny masks while their getaway driver, Giulio Sacchi (Tomas Milian), waits outside the bank. If I were to rob a bank, we’d wear masks depicting the different ape characters from Planet of the Apes. I would be Dr. Zaius. Giulio isn’t good under pressure. When a traffic cop tells him he’d better move this car or he’s getting a ticket, Giulio plugs the guy. This causes a premature end to the robbery as they all try to escape the half dozen police cars chasing them down. They also kidnap a young boy during the pursuit, but they toss him out of the car to distract the cops.

These robbers must work for the mafia and they’re not too pleased with Giulio. They rough him up, but don’t kill him. Maybe it’s at this point that Giulio snaps. He kills another cop when he gets caught trying to rob a cigarette machine. During a tryst with his girlfriend, he discovers that her boss is a rich man with a lovely young daughter, Mary Lou (Laura Belli), who enjoys tennis. Giulio figures he can kidnap her and get the old man to cough up half his fortune. He gets two other hoodlums to join him in his mad scheme, Carmine (Ray Lovelock) and Vittorio (Gino Santercole).

Giulio and his gang procure some illegal assault weapons and then shoot the guy trying to rent the guns out to them. They then spot Mary Liu and her boyfriend making out in a parked car in the middle of the woods. Why do young couples do this? You’re just easy prey for Cropsey or the man with the hook. Giulio and company make short work of the boyfriend, but Mary Lou escapes to a nearby country house. A bunch of yuppies don’t get what she’s going on about, but they make sense of the situation when the three gunmen show up at their house. 

Giullio and company humiliate and kill the family living there including a young child who wakes up to the noise. On their heels is Inspector Walter Grandi (Henry Silva) who’s a bit miffed over the cop killings and the child murder and whatnot. Giullio is still a bit trigger happy, and more killings await before this runtime is over. I’m not sure what the moral lesson is for this motion picture. Killing is bad?

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, episode 599, episode 642, episode 643, episode 644, episode 645, episode 670, episode 686, episode 687,  688, and 689) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.