An expert in tough-guy cinema, filmmaker Mike Malloy appeared as a tough guy in the 2011 Western ”The Scarlet Worm.”
CREDIT HEATHER D’AUGUSTINE
In Westerns and crime movies, the tough guy is essential. He’s gritty; he’s intimidating, and he’s a fighter. He rarely smiles, and he never cries.
Atlanta-based filmmaker Mike Malloy is a tough-guy expert.
At 19, he got a contract to write a book about tough guy Lee Van Cleef. He’s been a tough guy in a couple of movies and has written screenplays featuring tough guys. He co-wrote the upcoming film “Django Lives!”
A former film journalist, he covered a wide swath of cinema and tough guys.
He also made a documentary about the tough guys in 1970s Italian crime movies. The documentary, “Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the ’70s,” features interviews with Italian and American actors who were in these films.
“Italians were really fad-oriented. They didn’t have TV until the late ’70s, so they went to the movies four or five times a week,” Malloy said. “They produced more films than Hollywood ever did.”
The Italian filmmakers drew from films from around the world, appropriating characters and pulling excerpts from scripts.
Like Spaghetti Westerns, production on these Eurocrime films was rapid.
“They didn’t use live sound. It [was] quicker to dub everything later,” Malloy said.
Sets were also dangerous.
“Actors, even big, big worldwide leading men were asked to perform their own daring stunts,” Malloy said.
He explained the insanity of some of the stunts for actors like John Saxon. “The same year he co-starred with Bruce Lee in ‘Enter the Dragon,’ he was also over in Italy crouching for his life behind a car fender as they shot up the car with real bullets because it was just quicker and easier to use live ammo.”
For more on crime, tough guys and Malloy’s projects, tune into the interview above.
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