The Heroin Busters | |
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Directed by | Enzo G. Castellari |
Screenplay by |
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Story by |
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Produced by | Galliano Juso [1] |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Giovanni Bergamini [1] |
Edited by | Gianfranco Amicucci [1] |
Music by | Goblin |
Production company | Cinemaster [1] |
Distributed by | Titanus |
Release date |
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Running time | 100 minutes |
Country | Italy [1] |
Box office | ₤1,308 billion |
The Heroin Busters (Italian : La via della droga) is a 1977 Italian crime film directed by Enzo G. Castellari and starring Fabio Testi, David Hemmings and Sherry Buchanan.
The Heroin Busters was director Enzo G. Castellari's last crime film of the 1970s. [2] The film was shot in Rome, Genoa, Cartagena, Amsterdam and New York. [1]
The score of the film was provided by the Italian progressive rock group Goblin who had just written their score for Dario Argento's film Suspiria . [1] [3] [4] The score is composed of funk, psychedelia, and rock music. [3]
The Heroin Busters was released in Italy on August 13, 1977. [1] It was distributed by Titanus and grossed 1,308,550,110 Italian lira. [1] Roberto Curti, author of Italian Crime Filmography, 1968-1980 described the box office gross as performing "moderately well", but not as well as expected. [3]
It was released on DVD by Blue Underground on April 25, 2006. [1] [5]
Among modern reviews, AllMovie gave the film three stars out of five, referring to it as "a stylish and fast-paced entry into the Italian crime genre that hits all the right marks for genre fans." as well as noting "The one real defect of La Via Della Droga is that it lacks a human story element to get the viewer emotionally involved but Castellari makes up for that oversight by keeping the story taut and fast-paced." [2] Roberto Curti, author of Italian Crime Filmography, 1968-1980, compared the film Casterllari's The Big Racket , stating that unlike that film "the result is a cold, technically impeccable yet overindulgent formalist exercise in style" that contained a "comic book-style script, populated by dull characters" [3]
Goblin is an Italian progressive rock band known for their film scores. They frequently collaborate with Dario Argento, most notably creating the scores for Profondo Rosso in 1975 and Suspiria in 1977. Because their collaborator Dario Argento specializes in creating horror, suspense and slasher/giallo genre movies, scores made by Goblin in these movies often had eerie and ominous tones. CD re-releases of their scores have performed well, especially in Germany and Japan. Goblin returned with a series of live concerts in Europe in 2009 and in North America in 2013.
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Enzo Girolami Castellari is an Italian director, screenwriter and actor.
Fabio Testi is an Italian actor. After growing up witnessing film work done around Lake Garda, Testi entered the sets of the film and began work as a stuntman and a double on set, where he worked as a stuntman on The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Testi continued stunt work and getting roles in low budget genre films until he was cast in Vittorio De Sica's film The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. Following this film, Testi became a star in Italy, appearing in some artistic films by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi and Claude Chabrol. Testi also continued to work in poliziotteschi genre films in the 1970s as well as a few gialli, and gained infamy for his publicised relationships with actresses Ursula Andress and Charlotte Rampling.
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