GLI INTOCCABILI (MACHINE GUN McCAIN)
Italy, 1968, 94 minutes, Colour.
John Cassavetes, Britt Ekland, Peter Falk, Gabriele Ferzetti, Florinda Bolkan, Tony Kendall, Gena Rowlands.
Directed by Giuliano Montaldo.
Machine Gun Mc Cain is an interesting gangster film – Italian-made with generally an American cast. John Cassavetes is the central character, being pursued by the Mob, especially by the don played by Gabriele Ferzetti. Peter Falk gives a very strong performance as a gangster. Britt Ekland is the young woman that Mc Cain meets and marries. Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes’ actual wife, plays a former girlfriend.
The film is pre-Godfather Mob film but interesting in its own right if not outstanding. This was the kind of film that John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands made in order to get money to finance their own films – which Peter Falk sometimes appeared in as well.
1. Audience interest in gangster films, the attraction for this type of tough drama?
2. Audience expectations of crime drama? Types of characters, conventions of gangsters? How routine was this film?
3. How evident was it that it was an Italian film? The Italian version of America? The use of settings, fashionable presentation of gangsters?
4. The use of wide screen, colour, the musical accompaniment?
5. The introduction to the world of big deals, meetings, executions, pressures, the running of clubs, politics? The ugly realism of the film? The approach to audience values for a sense of right? To condemn these criminals?
6. Charlie Adamo? As a gangster type, rough, not in the full know, brash? The membership of his gang and their lack of skill? McCain's son? The deaths of the gang? Catching up with Adamo? The violence of his death? His wife and her relationship to the syndicate chiefs?
7. The introduction to McCain? His release? The way he was photographed? The background of jail, his son and his reaction to him, going on the job again? The meeting with Irene? The humane side of McCain? His courtship and marriage? His relentlessness and toughness? Was he a sympathetic hero for the film? Audience reaction to his criminal values?
8. How well did the film draw his character? His effect or people? His cleverness? His son and his son's death? His plan for robbing the club, its execution and success?
9. The importance of the chase and its impact? Irene's death? His own death?
10. The importance of Rosemarie? Her importance as a character? The type of woman, relationship to McCain? Her impact in the film? Her reaction to the syndicate bosses? Her death?
11. Comment on the types in this kind of film? The accuracy of the picture of the gangster world? The world of big business, money, lack of feelings?
12. This kind of film as a presentation of the individual in society, and against It?
