April 2011:

After a family friend kindly allowed me to borrow a DVD of the Dario Argento film The Bird with the Crystal Plumage,I began to talk to him about other titles in the Giallo movie sub-genre.With also having recently heard of another movie sub- genre called Italian Crime,I was thrilled to hear that there was a movie which combined both sub- genres,which had had trouble in the UK,with the BBFC never allowing for an uncut version to come out,due to there being a scene involving a psycho holding a razor blade near a baby.

2011-2012:

With discovering that the movie has not been brought out on DVD,I was disappointed to find that the only 2 bits of material that were around for the movie,was a leaflet about the Italian Crime sub-genre that was named after the movie,and a heavily cut,pre-cert UK Video,that was selling on some sites for outrageous amounts .

Late 2013:

Since having given up almost a year ago on ever seeing the film,I decided to search around late one night for any info related to the title.Originally expecting nothing more than some stills to appear,I was instead happily caught by surprise,when I stumbled upon an uncut DVD of the movie,which led to me excitingly getting ready to find out how blazing this magnum really is.

The plot:

Prepairing to go on a night out with his wife,Dr George Tracer's plans are interrupted,when his secret girlfriend Louise Saitta phones him up,and ask if he can rush over to her student hall to revive a student who has mysteriously fainted.

Changing his plans at the last minute,George rushes to the hall,gets Louise a drink to help calm her nerves,and then begins to attempting to revive the student.Catching everyone by surprise,the "ill" student suddenly jumps up,and reveals that she was just playing some fun and games.As Tracer tries to make sense of what is taking place,Saitta suddenly becomes extremely ill and falls to the ground,dead.

Ringing up the cops,George is greeted by the sight of Sgt Ned Matthew,and Louise's brother,Capt.Tony Saitta.Finding Louise to have been poisoned,Tony & Ned push Tracer around to find out why he would want to poison her.Relising that George is as shaken up by Louise death as he is,Tony vows to take what ever steps necessary to uncover the less than innocent world that his beloved sister lived in.

View on the film:

Being one of the few Italian movies from the period to feature an original soundtrack, (until the late 80s,most Italian titles were filmed silent,with the audio dubbed on in post-production)the screenplay by Vincenzo Mannino and Gianfranco Clerici has an eerie Giallo edge which acts as the perfect complement to the more bombastic Italian Crime side of the film,with the writer's using a character's blindness to create a real sense of menace,and to also reveal that the blind character is the only person who's "seen" the real life of Tony Saitta's sister.

Jumping off from a cliff right from the start,the writers make the Italian Crime side of the movie as delightfully deranged as possible,with Tony's attempts at tracking down his sister,being interrupted by a wonderfully vicious fight against a gang of transvestites,and a wild car chase,which leads to him getting the bare ,minimu of evidence!

Kicking down doors right from the start,Stuart Whitman gives a great gruff performance as Tony Saitta,with Whitman making Tony's relationship with Louise (played by the pretty Carole Laure) feel more dad/daughter,than the brother/sister one that its made out to be.Along with showing a gruffness in the hunt for his sisters killer,Whitman shows a real glee in his eyes,as he jumps into each of the overly exaggerated action scenes with a real relish.Giving the movie some sense of calm,Martin Landau gives a softly spoken,quiet performance as George Tracer,with Landau creating a real sense of intimacy between Tracer and Louise.

Showing no fear in not just taking on 1,but 2 sub-genre's,director Alberto De Martino packs every corner of the film with a number of stunning set-pieces,as Martino goes from smashing every piece of glass in Tony's battle with a gang of deadly transvestites,to placing a brilliantly animated 10 minute (!) long car chase scene at the centre,as Martino reveals that he is going to send this film out,all guns blazing.

Known in Italy as Una Magnum Special per Tony Saitta (A Magnum Special for Tony Saitta) and Blazing Magnum in the UK, this movie caught my attention with Stuart Whitman as a "Dirty Harry" type detective named - you guessed it - Tony Saitta solving the giallo-esque murder of his sister.

She was played by Carole Laure, a Quebec singer whose first major acting role in Sweet Movie nearly ended her career. She plays a Miss Canada who is married off to a milk tycoon on the basis of her virginity. The film has coprophilia, emetophilia, implied child molestation and footage of remains of the Polish Katyn Massacre victims. And Laure left the production after growing increasingly upset over what was required of her, especially after a scene where she had to give a handjob. Ah, art! At least she'd go on to be in the Pele, Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone movie Victory.

Well, she doesn't last too long in this movie. At a party where people are faking their deaths to get a reaction, she ends up getting poisoned and really dying at the hands of Dr. George Tracer (Martin Landau!). Working with Ned Matthews (John Saxon!),Tony's on the case of his sister's death. And damn anyone who gets in his way.

If you've ever wanted to see Stuart Whitman get thrown out a plate glass window by a karate-kicking transvestite, good news. This movie was made for you. And me. Because man, it's absolutely bonkers.

Seriously, this entire scene is insane. But let's go back a little bit.

After University of Montreal student - and Tony's sister - Louise (Laure) gets in a battle with her married lover Dr. Tracer (Landau),she tries to call her brother but he's in the middle of a busy case. So she turns to her ex-boyfriend Fred and they come up with a scheme to get back at the perhaps not-so-good doctor.

That night, as everyone parties at the home of Professor Margie Cohn (Gayle Hunnicutt, The Legend of Hell House),Louise becomes sick and Tracer is frantically called. He gives her a stimulant and everyone laughs when she reveals she was faking. But soon, after a heart attack, no one is laughing.

Tony comes in from Ottawa for the funeral and despite being 200 kilometers (124 miles) from home, Detective Ned Matthews (Saxon) just decides to let him do whatever he wants, which includes the aforementioned transvestite party fistfight, which starts with one of their number saying, "Cinderella, answer the door," before Tony beats one into oblivion and announces that everyone needs to settle down. Spoiler: They don't, tossing him out a window before he violates another with a hot curling iron and throwing the surviving ladyman into a swimming pool. This scene is incredibly baffling, perhaps because I'm viewing it through the lens of 2020 films.

Blind university music teacher Julie Foster (Tisa Farrow!) is the only person who may have a clue as to what's going on, but there's also a little person crime boss, several car chases, a graphic stabbing, the aforementioned Ms. Farrow wandering down the street blind through traffic and so much more.

This movie was written by Vincenzo Mannino (Phantom of Death, Murder Rock, The Last Shark) and Gianfranco Clerici (Don't Torture A Duckling, The New York Ripper, Cannibal Holocaust),so you know that there's no way that this movie isn't going to involve depravity and mayhem.

It was directed by Alberto De Martino, who also was behind Operation Kid Brother, The Antichrist, Holocaust 2000, The Pumaman and Miami Golem, a movie I keep meaning to get to.

This is a movie devoted to entertaining you by any means necessary. It's all wood-paneled 1970's, mixing the Canadian tax shelter magic with some of that good old fashioned Italian blood and guts. What a recipe!

"Blazing Magnum" often gets too easily categorized as a spaghetti imitation of "Dirty Harry", its first sequel "Magnum Force" and "The French Connection" (groundbreaking hardcore American action movies of the early 70's),but this slick and unforgettable Italian exploitation product has SO much more to offer. Director Alberto De Martino, clever marketer that he was back then, does indeed cash in on the popular tough cop-thriller trend, but simultaneously his film also contains authentic Giallo story lines, which was another contemporary favored exploitation sub genre at the time. The versatility of the script is illustrated through particularly two of the numerous titles for the film. "A Special Magnum for Tony Saitta" is an archetypal "Poliziottesco" title and "Strange Shadows in an Empty Room" is a prototypic Giallo title. Both of them titles are very irrelevant, by the way, as there's nothing even remotely special about Tony Saitta's Magnum and the shadows in an empty room only refer to a minuscule sequence near the end of the film, but admittedly they sound terrific. Unorthodox Canadian copper Tony Saitti is too busy blasting bank robbers to pieces one day, and so he misses a phone call from his sister who sounded clearly upset. Later that same night, the girl – who's at least 30 years younger than Saitti for some reason – dies from poisoning during a party at her university. Tony Saitti now takes his time to devotedly investigate the case, along with his reliable colleague Sgt. Matthews. He discovers that his sister was having an affair with the prominent Dr. Tracer and holds him responsible for the murder, but the case soon proves to be more convoluted and including jewelry theft and a community of local transvestites. The story of "Blazing Magnum" could be told in barely half an hour or so, but the exciting and adrenalin-paced action interludes make the film so indescribably entertaining! Of course nobody wants to cooperate with Tony Saitti's investigation, thus all his attempts to question suspects or witnesses result in extended bare-knuckle fights and incredibly flamboyant chase sequences; either by car or on foot. It's almost hilarious to witness Tony apprehend a suspect after a 10 minute chase and having beat half of the poor guy's teeth out, only for it to end with him asking: "Have you ever seen the necklace in this photograph before?" Especially the car chase sequence deserves to be legendary, in my humble opinion. It truly feels as if Alberto De Martino and his camera crew opened a big picture book with descriptions of all possible car stunts imaginable and then simply re-enacted them one by one! Other irresistible exploitative highlights include Tony's bitter fight with a clique of transvestites and a tough confrontation in the little boy's room. There's a lovely amount of sleaze and several scenes in the film are delightfully tasteless, like for example the killer threatening to slice up a newborn baby at the hospital. The filming locations are adequate, the soundtrack is quite exhilarating and De Martino could also depend on a stellar cast. Stuart Whitman is a decent enough Clint Eastwood clone, but I particularly fancied seeing John Saxon and Martin Landau starring together in this Italian-Canadian co-production. Tisa Farrow plays a poor defenseless blind girl, just like her more famous sister Mia did in "See No Evil" a couple years earlier. Talk about exploitation and clever marketing!