Story concerns a criminal just released from prison; actor Fabio Testi, I think (although the star, Testi gets no billing on many of the video and DVD boxes, the billing reserved for bigger international stars such as Ursula Andress, Eli Wallach and Barbara Bach.)
Right out of prison, Testi robs a jewelry store with partner Eli Wallach. They split up, the plan being for Testi to take the jewels across the border while Wallach awaits him in Vermont. But Testi's car breaks down, and he winds up in the Stateline Motel, populated by sleazy people who've guessed that he's the jewel thief, and plot to steal the jewels themselves. Ursula Andress is the love-starved, and possibly crazy, wife of the motel owner, who seduces Testi. Bach is the main squeeze of a police officer.
The story sounds like classic film noir, but the style is not. It's very much a 1970s Italian crime drama, filled with 1970s clothing, lots of zoom-ins and zoom-outs, and hyperkinetic music.
It's a decently entertaining film, but AVOID the DVD. The DVD didn't sync up the sound properly, so the entire soundtrack is off-sync, the dialogue, gunshots, everything, occuring after the picture. In some scenes, one character's voice comes from another character's mouth. Dreadful.
I checked my VHS copy, and it's all properly synced. Although this is an Italian film, the lips are perfectly synced to the English dialgue. It appears the actors spoke English. So there's no excuse for the poorly synced DVD.
