Better Late Then Never

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

A political thriller involving secret plans to re-create a fascist government in Italy. This film is chocked full of stars like Christopher Lee, Anthony Quinn, Eli Wallach and the whole parade is led by Franco Nero who does a top notch job as high ranking officer investigating the murders involved in trying to obtain these documents.They had some cash to spend on this film as you can see how elaborately furnished the interior shots are and most everything else.The film mostly has Nero obtaining facts from interview to interview and there is a few chase scenes but its not a tense thriller just really interesting. The actors were amazing. If you get a chance give it a watch.

it was one of favorite films of my childhood. today, it is only a promise. large, noble, interesting but prisoner of good intentions. the impressive torture scene, Franco Nero as Prince Charming, presence of Claudia Cardinale are little sparkles of a work without axis. sure, a thriller not must be a masterpiece but in this case it is a lost seed of fantastic tree. because story is fragile and almost boring. because central impression is to be at a great lunch without forks and knifes. and the script may be only improvisation . sure, it may be a cruel verdict. but after years, only gloomy memories about a nice film saves this movie.is it enough ? may be. in a little measure.

This is the first movie I saw in a theater;I was 4 or 5.I liked it enormously,I found Franco Nero very cool and very handsome.The snatched nails shocked me;I was impressed with the tragic atmosphere and I found the movie extremely violent.Maybe,indeed,it was.The bearded fat man looked evil and was certainly scary.Years later,when I was now 11,I saw The Salamander on a B/W TV set.I liked it that time,too.I guess it may be considered the first straightforward thriller I ever saw; later,I maintained this taste--for Italo-crime things,for thrillers with a twist,and,on a different artistic level,for action dramas (like the Mickey Rourke masterpiece A Prayer for the Dying ,like Walter Hill's Johnny Handsome,like Craig Lahiff's Heaven's Burning,like Hana-bi ,like J. Lee Thompson's The White Buffalo ...).I see I am the only one to comment favorably on The Salamander;I also see that the director Peter Zinner did not make another film.Well,kudos for this one!When I have seen The Salamander,I did not know about Eli Wallach,John Steiner,Christopher Lee and Sybil Danning,therefore I can not tell if they were good or not in this film.

The ingredients are here for a passable political-thriller but the approach used to tell the story is numbingly routine. Investigator Franco Nero pursues his case simply through a series of interviews, thus allowing the movie to present its roster of marquee-names -- Christopher Lee, Eli Wallach, Claudia Cardinale, etc. -- in a succession of talky, static scenes that lack interest and vitality. (Though these interviews provide an opportunity to show off a series of impressively furnished and decorated rooms.) And then, when it comes time for Nero to present his solution to the case, he does so by showing to a group of people a movie which simply re-caps information gleaned from his interviews!Attempts to liven up the proceedings with spurts of action merely serve to emphasize the overall dullness of the movie. For example, when Nero falls into the clutches of a villain known as "the Surgeon" who is determined to torture information from him, we only see Nero -- stripped to a jockstrap and strapped to a chair -- being given an injection with a hypodermic needle. Surely this is one of the most boring forms of torture ever shown on the screen.