DAY OF THE COBRA (IL GIORNO DEL COBRA)
Color, 1980, 95 mins. 7 secs.
Directed by Enzo G. Castellari
Starring Franco Nero, Sybil Danning, Mario Maranzana, William Berger, Licina Lentini, Mickey Knox, Romano Puppo
Vinegar Syndrome (Blu-ray) (US R0 HD), FilmArt (Blu-ray) (Germany R0 HD), AVU (DVD) (Germany R0 PAL) / WS (1.66:1) (16:9)

DESTRUCTION FORCE (LA BANDA DEL TRUCIDO)
Color, 1977, 99 mins. 55 secs. / 94 mins. 39 secs.
Directed by Stelvio Massi
Starring Luc Merenda, Tomas Milian, Massimo Vanni, Elio Zamuto, Franco Citti, Mario Brega
Vinegar Syndrome (Blu-ray) (US R0 HD), Cinestrange Extreme (Blu-ray & DVD) (Germany R0 HD/PAL), Cinekult, Eagle Pictures (DVD) (Italy R2 PAL) / WS (2.35:1) (16:9)

THE IRON COMMISSIONER
Color, 1978, 83 mins. 3 secs. / 78 mins 17 secs.
Directed by Stelvio Massi
Starring Maurizio Merli, Janet Agren, Ettore Manni, Chris Avram, Massimo Mirani, Mariangela Giordano
Vinegar Syndrome (Blu-ray) (US R0 HD), Cinestrange Extreme (Blu-ray & DVD) (Austria R0 HD/PAL), Avo Film (DVD) (Italy R2 PAL) / WS (1.85:1) (16:9)

Though some of the heaviest hitters in the Italian crime movie wave that ran from the early '70s to around 1980 have hit U.S. Blu-ray like The Tough Ones and High Crime, there are dozens more that haven't had their shot yet and haven't been around since VHS, if at all. Aimed to correct that situation is Eurocrime Rarities Vol. 1 from Vinegar Syndrome, a three-disc set featuring some of the biggest stars of the subgenre known in some quarters as the poliziottesco or poliziesco doing what they do best: fighting crime and causing havoc on the streets of Italy. It's worth noting that the packaging of the set (which features new 2K scans from the camera negatives of all three films) prioritizes their Italian titles, but here they'll be referred to primarily by their English titles since those are more familiar to the target audience.

First up is one of the last golden age Franco Nero crime movie vehicles, Enzo G. Castellari's The Day of the Cobra ( Il giorno del Cobra), which was in mom and pop video stores everywhere in the '80s from Media thanks to the presence of star Sybil Danning. The film also capped off an impressive run of Castellari-Nero collaborations over the past decade including Street Law, Keoma, The Shark Hunter, High Crime, and... uh, Cry, Onion. Here Nero plays rumpled San Francisco private eye Larry "The Cobra" Stanziani, who even gets his own ridiculously catchy theme song courtesy of regular Euro-cult crooner Charlie Cannon. When a DEA agent gets murdered in Italy, Larry is pressed into service by his old boss (Berger) to hop on a plane to Genoa where his beloved son (played by the actor's real-life son, Carlo) has been sent to boarding school. Soon Larry is tangling with lowlifes at a nightclub including the formidable Lola (Lentini) who has a jaw-dropping secret, and he also falls for one of its patrons, the ambiguous Brenda (Danning). All of this is tied to a mysterious crime lord who made Larry's life hell back in his federal enforcer days, which will come back with fatal consequences in his current job.

Massively entertaining and one of the strongest of the twilight era crime movies, The Day of the Cobra gets a lot of mileage out of its two stars, a funktastic soundtrack by Paolo Vasile (which recycles multiple disco tracks from his earlier The Face with 2 Left Feet), a few crazy plot twists, and a show-stopping martial arts fight scene on the dance floor you will definitely never forget. For some reason this dropped off the radar everywhere after its initial VHS run except for Germany where it remained quite popular, including a DVD release and a solid Blu-ray in 2019 featuring the English DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono audio plus two German options (optical or mag track), plus the German trailer and a 3m12s gallery. The Vinegar Syndrome release features a brighter and warmer look by comparison, with slightly tighter framing; here you get the original English audio and the Italian dub, both DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono, with English translated or SDH subtitle options. A new audio commentary by Eugenio Ercolani, Troy Howarth, and yours truly obviously can't be evaluated here but will hopefully prove worth a listen. In "The Director Who Looked Like a Stuntman" (24m16s), Castellari (whose daughter also cameos in the film) looks back at his career including his gravitation to action-oriented cinema, the original plan for writer Aldo Lado to direct this film and to set the action in Trieste, and anecdotes from the shooting of several of his crime films and working with Nero. Then in "Henchman with a Heart of Gold" (21m57s), actor-stuntman Massimo Vanni talks about his dual functions in the industry in the '70s with plenty of opportunities in cop movies, and his experiences on the set with "mentor" Castellari starting on High Crime.

Easily the biggest ham in poliziotteschi, Cuban-born Tomas Milian found the perfect venue to switch from pretty boy dramatic roles to wild character routines involving wigs, eyeliner, and even outrageous ethnic stereotypes on occasion. One of his biggest hits was the character Monnezza (or "Garbage"), a charismatic antihero introduced in Umberto Lenzi's Free Hand for a Tough Cop in 1976. The two brought that character back in Brothers Till We Die, but Milian also went off to play the role for director Stelvio Massi in 1977's La banda del trucido, the second film in the Vinegar Syndrome set, better known in English as Destruction Force but cited on the box as The Rascal's Gang and Dirty Gang. Recycling Bruno Canfora's catchy score from Free Hand for a Tough Cop (including its opening spaghetti western theme in a very inappropriate spot), the film was part of a flurry of Milian films shot back to back around that time including Brothers and The Cynic, the Rat, and the Fist, with Milian's intended cameo appearance expanding into a large co-star role that allowed him to run riot with his own written monologues. As a result, what was intended as a starring vehicle for Luc Merenda (who teamed up with Milian earlier in Silent Action) ended up being a two-hander that shows how much the Italian cop film was transforming at the time.

After his predecessor is killed during a robbery, Commissioner Ghini (Merenda) decides to crack down ruthlessly on the rising crime proliferating around the city. Meanwhile Monnezza, now a new father and running a restaurant that fronts for his pickpocket operation, gets roped into a jewelry heist job that turns deadly thanks to the scheming Belli (Zamuto). Both men end up targeting the Sicilian gangster for different reasons, which results in lots of Monnezza grandstanding and violent chase scenes.

Essentially a film split in two, Destruction Force is at its best when Merenda gets to cut loose and do his thing including some perilous stunt work that apparently did some real damage near the end of the shoot. Among the best moments is a fun city chase that ends up atop a city bus involving Merenda and Pasolini regular Franco Citti, and while this may not be the most logical entry point if you're new to these films, it's a solid showcase for Massi's dynamic visual style. Apart from gray market copies pulled from European VHS releases decades ago and a couple of Italian-only DVD releases, Destruction Force was a tricky one to see for years until the 2021 German mediabook editions containing a Blu-ray and DVD from CineStrange (under either the Italian title or Die Gangster-Akademie). If you've seen the other Italian crime films coming out lately from Germany and the U.K., this one's about on par -- not a particularly dynamic transfer but at least it's in full scope. As with Silent Action, it's presented at 50i which would indicate the master was initially prepared for European HD broadcast and running fast at PAL speed. Audio options are DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono Italian, English, and German audio with optional English or German subtitles; the film was shot in Italian with pretty much everyone looped after the fact (including a Roman accent slapped onto Milian). However, you're better off just watching it in English if that's your preferred language since the subtitles are taken from the German version (which means they often don't match the Italian version in terms of both sync and translation), and the Italian track has a lot of fleeting dropouts scattered throughout. The archival Notturno Cinema featurette "The Three Ms: Milian, Merenda, Massi“ (19m59s), in Italian with English or German subtitles, features Merenda and Milian recalling the production including the massive embellishments to the Monnezza character, Merenda's injury that led to a lawsuit, and memories of Massi. Also included are the shorter German theatrical version (84m34s) with the same three language options, plus a gallery of frame grabs (1m45s), and a newly created trailer (plus bonus ones for all the other crime films in the series). The packaging also features a 24-page booklet with a new essay by Giorgio Navarro in both German and English about the film's production.

The Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray features a superior presentation in every way; framing is identical but the color timing is a lot healthier with less of a brown cast, and it runs the correct film speed here at 99 minutes instead of 94. On top of that you finally get the English and Italian tracks with SDH or accurately translated English subtitles, something that helps the viewing experience considerably if watch the latter audio option. A commentary with Ercolani and Howarth ably tackles the colorful history of Milian's crime films, Merenda's more sober contributions, Massi's career, and the major transitions going on in the industry with public tastes quickly dictating what would be acceptable at the box office. In "The Nonviolent Professional" (20m1s), Merenda talks generally about his career including his desire to play a wide range of cop roles, his personal distaste for violence, his brushes with Pasolini and Visconti, barely interacting with Milian on this film, that nasty stunt injury, and some of his favorite projects. Next in "A Beautiful Ugly Face" (23m50s), actor Corrado Solari discusses his stage work, his experiences on this film and others like The Tough Ones, the experience of being recognized on the street and getting associated with the hard-partying Milian, missing out on doing Violent Naples, and the guidance of the script for this film.

Launched as a budget-conscious headliner at the height of the cop action film wave, mustachioed Maurizio Merli has since come to embody the cult subgenre perhaps more than any other actor after his big breakthrough in 1975's Roma violenta. In quick succession he made a string of classics like Violent Naples and The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist, not to mention solid outliers like Mannaja. Merli, who would pass away very prematurely in 1989, was at the height of his cop cycle in 1978 when he made the third film in the set, Il commissario di ferro (or The Iron Commissioner), one of the earliest of six collaborations with Massi, a match made in action movie heaven. With its very brief running time and smaller number of action set pieces than usual, this may not be the most epic of their films together but it still delivers a hefty amount of entertainment value with Merli in fine form as usual.

Likely taking its title from the previous year's Giuliano Gemma vehicle Il prefetto di ferro, this one kicks off on the right note with opening credits unfolding over loving shots of a movie theater showing The Swarm. Apparently delighted by their evening of killer bees, a young couple goes back to their car only to be accosted in slow motion by criminals wearing ski masks who toss them in the back of a car. It's all part of a string of kidnappings around town, and Commissioner Mariani (Merli) is on the case all the way to a nocturnal gas station shoot out that sends one thug barreling through the rollers of a car wash. Back at the office, his ex-wife, Vera (Eaten Alive's Agren), brings their son by just as a hostage plan is about to blow up at the station stemming from an arrest in Mariani's recent past. Soon it's a race against time on multiple fronts with these bad guys who mean business and aren't afraid to leave a few bodies in their wake.

Anyone expecting elaborate chase sequences and gun fights will find this a more muted affair, though you do get a fun pool hall brawl and lots of shots of Merli skulking around posing with his gun. Luckily the film never wears out its welcome and sports a strange, sometimes funky score by Lallo Gori, who scored everything from Four Times That Night to Werewolf Woman. Portions are in the usual jam family of composers like Stelvio Cipriani and Franco Micalizzi, but he also throws in some odd electronic shadings that give some nice flavor to the scenes of our hero exploring warehouses and frequently scouring the streets at night looking for culprits. On top of that the cast is peppered with some welcome familiar faces, most notably Chris Avram from Bay of Blood as the other main cop, the unforgettable Mariangela Giordano (a sleaze goddess from Burial Ground and Giallo in Venice among others), and spaghetti western and peplum staple Ettore Manni in one of his last roles. In short, it's a film that doesn't even try to upend the formula but should make Italian crime fans very happy.

This film was barely shown at all outside Italy for decades; a 2004 DVD was in Italian only but at least gave the curious a chance to see it, while the soundtrack CD actually proved to be far more easy to acquire for years. Released under the German title Kommissar Mariani - Zum Tode verurteilt, the film hit Blu-ray from Cinestrange Extreme in a limited mediabook edition with a DVD included as well. The German dub and the original Italian track are included (the latter featuring Merli's own voice, a rarity in most of his crime films preceding this one). Optional German and English subtitles are included, the latter very welcome even if they have a lot of odd typos ("Just tell me whereto!") and strange turns of phrase like "You're addressing reproaches!" There's also an odd translation of utterances of the film's title as "Mr. Super-Cop," which could've been a fun name had this ever gotten an English-friendly theatrical release. The biggest extra is a lengthy gallery (33m3s) playing over the entirety of the film's soundtrack, which makes for great, groovy listening on its own. In addition to the newly-created German trailer you also get two bonus ones for American Rickshaw and three for Subconscious Cruelty. The mediabook also comes with a liner notes booklet (in German) by Leonhard Elias Lemke.

The Vinegar Syndrome release is quite different by comparison, featuring a bit more image info at the top and a far less filtered look here with some inherent flaws in the negative (mainly some very visible water damage in a few quick spots and some scuffs here and there) versus the scrubbed, smooth look of the German release. The color timing is also dialed back here looking more neutral and less saturated by comparison, with the finer detail helping in many of the close-up shots in particular. The usual Italian track here sounds fine in a DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono mix with newly translated English subtitles, plus a commentary by Ercolani and Nanni Cobretti covering Merli's career, more about Massi, real-life crime erupting across Italy throughout the decade, the film's box office fortunes and failure to gain any traction abroad, and much more. In "Free Hand for a Tough DOP" (23m36s), cinematographer Sergio Rubini discusses his memories of Merli ("a real pain in the neck"), Massi, Merenda, and Milian, while "The Purest Form of Poliziesco" (20m9s) with assistant director Danilo Massi covers the apprenticeship he experienced working for his father, the shooting of Highway Racer, the avoidance of excessive bloodshed in these movies, technical methods with camera operators including when to go handheld, and the approach to these films as "metropolitan Westerns." Also included in the release is a booklet featuring the essays "Metallic K.O.: Down on the Mean Streets with The Iron Commissioner" by James Oliver, "Warrior Queen: The European Adventures of Sybil Danning" by Adrian Smith, and "Trash Cans and Cops: Analyzing Stelvio Massi's Dirty Gang and Tomas Milian's Career" by Francesco Massaccesi.

DAY OF THE COBRA: Vinegar Syndrome

DAY OF THE COBRA: FilmArt

DESTRUCTION FORCE: Vinegar Syndrome

DESTRUCTION FORCE: CineStrange

THE IRON COMMISSIONER: Vinegar Syndrome

THE IRON COMMISSIONER: CineStrange

Reviewed on April 26, 2026