NO WAY OUT (TONY ARZENTA)

Italy, 1973, 100 minutes, Colour.
Alain Delon, Richard Conte, Anton Diffring, Carla Gravina, Roger Hanin.
Directed by Duccio Tessari.

No Way Out (Tony Arzenta) is a star vehicle for Alain Delon. He portrays a cold hit-man – immediately showing the audience his capacities, cold, ruthless, handsome. However, he wants out but those who employ him want him to continue. This gives rise to various gang battles and psychological and emotional complications. There is an interesting cast with American Richard Conte as well as Carla Gravina in support. The film was directed by Duccio Tussari, a long-time director of many ordinary action films in Italy.

1. The thriller conventions, the genre of the hired assassin, Mafia? The world of the killers? The quality of this example? Interest, entertainment, insight into character?

2. The world in which this killer moved: the world of Milan and the way that it was portrayed, the contrast with Copenhagen, the contrast with Sicily, the contract with the North Italian countryside of farms? The sad aspects of this world, big business, wealth, fear, sudden death? Anger, hate and revenge? The musical score an reflecting this kind of melancholy?

3. The significance of the title, the inevitability and pessimism? Its focus on Tony and his experience? Audience interest in Tony as a character, what would happen to him?

4. The build-up of the initial murder, the atmosphere of the world of criminals and business, sauna, offices, the cold murderer travelling towards his tank? Lack of sympathy for Tony as he committed the murder? The cool and brittle way in which it was performed?

5. The contrast of Tony going home, the knowledge of the murder, the encounter with his family, his wanting to get out of this way of life? Altering sympathies?

6. Tony's encounter with Nick and his pleading for getting out, the inevitability of their rejection of his request, their meeting, discussing his fate, the various representatives of interests and from various countries? The bosses and the types that they represented? The rituals of their meetings, their greed, their votes about people's lives and deaths? The decision about Tony? Making him a victim? The tenderness of the home sequences, the ordinariness of wife and child and the starting of the car, his watching their death? The shift of sympathies against Tony to Tony because of his being victimized? Was this just?

7. The importance of the character of the girl as a moll, her relationship with the gangster, the bath sequence and his brutality to her, the importance of her having information, communicating it to Tony, enabling him to kill hie executioners? The importance of her moving in, support of him, loving him, his loving her and the difference in her life? The fact that she was prepared to be bashed and tortured for him? The bonds between them, his taking her home to meet his family, the possibility of their marriage, the building of a future? How well delineated was her character as a woman, as a woman mixed up in this kind of world, trying to survive, vindictive yet loving?

8. The portrayal of the group of bosses and their various deaths: Tony and his skills as a hired assassin: the murder in the train, the man watching television at home after he had engineered an attempt on Tony's life? The chases and the danger in the Italian streets, Danish streets? The assassination of the man in Copenhagen on the steps of his offices? The contrast with the attempts on Tony's life? Audience interest in and disgust with this kind of world?

9. The inevitable build-up to the attempt on Nick and his assistant? Nick and his quiet irony: his support of Tony, the meeting in Copenhagen and his wanting to allow Nick be? The transition to Sicily and the funeral? The friendliness? And yet the double-dealing? The irony of Tony relying on his friend in Copenhagen for support and his being sheltered? (The atmosphere of this kind of night club and the lewdness, the exploitation, money being made on this kind of way of life? surprise that this man would then betray Tony?)

10. The sequences in Sicily and the atmosphere of the funeral? Tony's friend supporting him? Yet Nick winning him over?

11. The contrast with Tony going home? The introduction of his family, his father and his attitudes, his mother? Their being seen at the funeral of Tony's wife and child at the beginning of the film, their receiving him home at the end? Their knowledge of what he did, their countenancing it, their inability to do otherwise? Their acceptance of Tony's girl friend? The importance of the priest acting as the go-between from Sicily to Milan? The inevitability of the wedding invitation being a set-up? Did the audience think that Tony would survive?

12. The build-up to the wedding sequence, the atmosphere of festivity, the presentation of the people in the church, the movement from Nick to Tony, the seeming atmosphere of peace. the wedding ceremony and its liturgy, no atmosphere of foreboding? The exit, Tony going to see his friend and the suddenness of the death and betrayal? The final freeze of Tony's face in surprise? Was this the only possible ending? Do all men in that kind of profession have to end this way?

13. Themes of good and evil, human nature, big business and corruption, international criminal activities, conspiracy? A reflection of the ugliness of a sinful world?