Light Blast | |
---|---|
Directed by | Enzo G. Castellari |
Written by | Enzo G. Castellari Tito Carpi |
Produced by | Galliano Juso Paul J. Kelly Achille Manzotti |
Starring | Erik Estrada Ennio Girolami |
Cinematography | Sergio D'Offizi |
Edited by | Gianfranco Amicucci |
Music by | Guido & Maurizio De Angelis |
Production companies | Faso Film Metro |
Distributed by | Overseas FilmGroup |
Release date |
|
Running time | 89 minutes |
Country | Italy |
Colpi di luce (internationally released as Light Blast) is a 1985 Italian science-fiction action film directed by Enzo G. Castellari. It stars Erik Estrada alongside Peggy Rowe, whom he would soon marry in Rome. [1]
This section needs expansionwith: more information about the plot. You can help by adding to it. (June 2015) |
In San Francisco, two teenagers playing hide and seek among the cars in an abandoned railway depot exchange affection. A white van arrives in the vicinity of the store and points a gun toward a large LCD clock. The teens have sex, the cannon fires all around, catches fire, and melts. Then doctor Yuri Svoboda, former University of San Francisco professor, menace the municipality of the town with his laser ray if he is not given five million dollars.
This section contains too many or overly lengthy quotations .(October 2020) |
"Blackmail laser for the city of San Francisco. California. Some criminals are threatening to reduce it to a heap of glowing embers unless they are given a huge sum. The authorities did not give up and investigations are handled by Ron, a skilled inspector with a reputation for hard (like the 'Dirty Harry' cop interpreted to asbestos years ago by Clint Eastwood). (...) As reflected in more than evident from the plot, it is an action film, produced by cutting the loaf typical of yellow crime. Moreover Enzo G. Castellari is a director who moves in film spectacular, but the results are not striking, however, not unseemly in the strength of his consummate craft. How, exactly. this 'Shots of light', starring Ennio Girolami, Michael Pritchard. Peggy Rowe, Bob Taylor." [2]
"Much like the U.S. has pushed Enzo Castellari to release this crime by the pace, but the subject trivial: all other films revisited by cutting typically American. Situation experienced in many other stories and many other TV series. From Professor maniac who wants to destroy a city if it is not satisfied his thirst for power and dollars, the intrepid cop who alone makes a massacre of unspeakable proportions, by the death of the great cop chases flat out better, engine on land, on streets and highways of the metropolis. All in all, the film has merit, is to be attributed to the unconscious provincialism Castellari that focuses the true protagonist of the story: San Francisco, photographed documentary with wisdom, in its new and its old. San Francisco, with its skyscrapers and its nineteenth-century houses, with its beautiful bay, its iconic bridge. Here, then, that the good cop's lives on a houseboat, the cop does amazing chase of a stock car (sort of off-road racing), while the bad guy working with none other than a laser beam. To face it is, in the role of Lt. Ronnie Warren, that Erik Estrada known to television audiences for a successful series, that of 'Chips' intrepid policemen of California Street." [3]
"Maybe Castellari does not know, but probably no one before him had done with the laser power our cars. A new type of fuel? No, let's say a propellant, a pretext to launch cars, trucks and vans of all shapes and sizes in the usual whirlwind of slalom, carambola and spin. For years the amount of our Series B movie adventure filmed in the U.S. is the car crash in slow motion video (best final burst). Shots of light is not the exception, but uses the expedient mad-scientist-with-deadly-weapon to heat engines." [4]
Enzo Anselmo Giuseppe Maria Ferrari was an Italian motor racing driver and entrepreneur, the founder of the Scuderia Ferrari Grand Prix motor racing team, and subsequently of the Ferrari automobile marque. Under his leadership, Scuderia Ferrari won 9 drivers' world championships and 8 constructors' world championships in Formula 1 during his lifetime. He was widely known as il Commendatore or il Drake, a nickname given by British opponents in reference to the English privateer Francis Drake, due to Ferrari's demonstrated ability and determination in achieving significant sports results with his small company. In his final years, he was often referred to as l'Ingegnere, il Grande Vecchio, il Cavaliere, il Mago, and il Patriarca.
Henry Enrique Estrada is an American actor and police officer. He is known for his co-starring lead role as California Highway Patrol officer Francis (Frank) Llewelyn "Ponch" Poncherello in the police drama television series CHiPs, which ran from 1977 to 1983. He later became known for his work in Spanish-language telenovelas, his appearances in reality television shows and infomercials and as a regular voice on the Adult Swim series Sealab 2021.
Nash Bridges is an American police procedural television series created by Carlton Cuse. The show stars Don Johnson and Cheech Marin as two Inspectors with the San Francisco Police Department's Special Investigations Unit (SIU).
Great White is a 1981 Italian horror film directed by Enzo G. Castellari, having originally been assigned to Ruggero Deodato. In the film James Franciscus and Vic Morrow attempt to save hundreds of swimmers in a coastal resort after a large great white shark starts terrorizing the area and eating tourists.
Adolfo Celi was an Italian film actor and director. Born in Curcuraci, Messina, Sicily, Celi appeared in nearly 100 films, specialising in international villains. Although a prominent actor in Italian cinema and famed for many roles, he is best remembered internationally for his portrayal of Emilio Largo in the 1965 James Bond film Thunderball. Celi later spoofed his Thunderball role in the film OK Connery opposite Sean Connery's brother, Neil Connery.
The New Barbarians is a 1983 Italian post-apocalyptic action film directed by Enzo G. Castellari, written by Castellari and Tito Carpi, and starring Giancarlo Prete and George Eastman. The plot takes place in 2019, following a nuclear holocaust, where two loners among the remains of the starving human race protect a group of pilgrims from a vicious gang bent on genocide.
The New Centurions is a 1972 American Panavision neo-noir action crime film based on the 1971 novel of the same name by author and policeman Joseph Wambaugh.
Walter Annicchiarico, known as Walter Chiari, was an Italian stage and screen actor, mostly in comedy roles.
Franco Citti was an Italian actor, best known as one of the close collaborators of director Pier Paolo Pasolini. He came to fame for playing the title role in Pasolini's film Accattone, which brought him a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Foreign Actor. He subsequently starred in six of Pasolini's films, as well as 60 other film and television roles. His brother was the director and screenwriter Sergio Citti.
Poliziotteschi constitute a subgenre of crime and action films that emerged in Italy in the late 1960s and reached the height of their popularity in the 1970s. They are also known as polizieschi all'italiana, Italo-crime, spaghetti crime films, or simply Italian crime films. Influenced primarily by both 1970s French crime films and gritty 1960s and 1970s American cop films and vigilante films, poliziotteschi films were made amidst an atmosphere of socio-political turmoil in Italy known as Years of Lead and amidst increasing Italian crime rates. The films generally featured graphic and brutal violence, organized crime, car chases, vigilantism, heists, gunfights, and corruption up to the highest levels. The protagonists were generally tough working class loners, willing to act outside a corrupt or overly bureaucratic system.
Enzo G. Castellari is an Italian film director, screenwriter and actor.
Giuliano Gemma was an Italian actor. He is best known internationally for his work in Spaghetti Westerns, particularly for his performances as the title character in Duccio Tessari's A Pistol for Ringo (1965), Captain Montgomery Brown/'Ringo' in Tessari's The Return of Ringo (1965), the title character in Michele Lupo's Arizona Colt (1966), Scott Mary in Tonino Valerii's Day of Anger (1967) and Michael "California" Random in Lupo's California (1977).
High Crime is a 1973 Italian-Spanish poliziottesco film directed by Enzo G. Castellari. The film stars Franco Nero, James Whitmore, Delia Boccardo and Fernando Rey. High Crime was a large financial success at the time of its release and helped popularize the Italian cop thriller genre.
Escape from the Bronx, also known as Bronx Warriors 2 in the United Kingdom and Escape 2000, is a 1983 Italian action film directed by Enzo G. Castellari. It was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 under its Escape 2000 name. It is a sequel to 1990: The Bronx Warriors.
The Big Racket is a 1976 Italian poliziottesco film directed by Enzo G. Castellari. Fabio Testi stars as a police inspector who takes on a gang of hoodlums who terrorise an Italian city by extorting cash from local shop and bar owners.
Day of the Cobra is a 1980 Italian poliziottesco film directed by Enzo G. Castellari.
CHiPs is an American crime drama television series created by Rick Rosner and originally aired on NBC from September 15, 1977 to May 1, 1983. It follows the lives of two motorcycle officers of the California Highway Patrol (CHP). The series ran for 139 episodes over six seasons, plus one reunion television film in October 1998.
Special Cop in Action is a 1976 Italian poliziottesco film directed by Marino Girolami, here credited as Franco Martinelli. The film is the final chapter in the Girolami's Commissioner Betti Trilogy, after Violent Rome and Violent Naples, though a spin-off in the series entitled Weapons of Death would be released the following year.
Enio Girolami, sometimes credited as Thomas Moore, was an Italian film and television actor.
Tex and the Lord of the Deep is a 1985 Western film co-written and directed by Duccio Tessari and starring Giuliano Gemma and William Berger. The film is an adaptation of the Tex comic series that were popular in Italy. Previously attempted to be made into a production in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the film was eventually made by Tessari who adapted the film from the comics originally to be a pilot for a television series.