Champ Cherokee

To call Ripped Off the second half an adequate drive-in double feature is being charitable. However, the movie does have some redeeming qualities for the Drive-In community. One redeeming quality is the appearance of Catherine Spaak. If you are familiar with her, you might be entertained.

As for the movie itself, Robert Blake was probably in a career slump and did this Italian action drama filmed in Albuquerque, NM. The film was shelved or played in second-rate drive-in/walk-in grindhouse theaters and quickly disappeared from the screen. A few years later, Robert Blake hit it big with Baretta, and this film was reissued to the same type of theaters for another go-round for newfound Robert Blake fans.

A decent action film with Blake giving it his all, but I think this is the TV edit I saw a while back. I would like to see its original edit.

As of this writing, I believe Camille Keaton is in the official eighty-two-minute version of this film. My copy runs seventy-three minutes.

UN UOMO DALLA PELLE DURA stars Robert Blake as Teddy, a down-on-his-luck university grad who wound up a low-level boxer. He finds out that his manager has been lying about money, so he hits the road in search of opportunity. Teddy runs into an old college buddy, who steers him toward a new boxing manager. The manager and Teddy hit it off, and things seem too good to be true. The resulting partnership leads to a string of vicious killings, Teddy's involvement with a determined police detective (Ernest Borgnine), and a budding romance with the new manager's daughter (Catherine Spaak). Fans of the great Tomas Milian will get a kick out of his creepy, funny, mysterious hippie who may be involved with all of the murder and mayhem.

Much of the fun is not knowing where the narrative will lead, and which genre it will touch upon. It starts as a noirish road movie, with a drifter comes to realize there's an array of characters out to get him. His novice sleuthing, coupled with some horror elements (jump scares, bloody murder sequences, creepy music, etc.), gives much of the film a strong giallo (Italian murder-mystery) feel, a sub-genre that was popular at the time. There are occasional action moments, in the form of fighting (both in and out of the ring) and some jarring gun violence, giving the film a strong eurocrime/poliziotteschi vibe.

The performances are all uniformly fine. Blake is particularly good here, presenting us with a likable central character who isn't without faults. The writing is surprisingly sharp, filled with memorable dialogue, especially Teddy's colorful, profane, occasionally hilarious verbiage.

I'm not surprised by the negative reviews here. The movie is almost solely available in a highly truncated and censored version. If people could finally see director Francesco Prosperi's cut, this would likely garner a sizable following.

I've seen this one a number of times. It's a favorite. It's clear that no one involved set out to make a masterpiece, just a tough, clever, scary, entertaining movie. I think it wound up being a masterpiece.

Teddy (Robert Blake, In Cold Blood), a talented boxer, decides to leave his crooked manager Paul (Fortunato Arena, Terza ipotesi su un caso di perfetta strategia criminale), who happened to have picked up from him his girlfriend (Camille Keaton, Cosi avete fatto a Solange). He seeks a new opportunity in New Mexico, and meets a former college friend, the newspaperman Mike (Orazio Orlando, Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto), who introduces him to his new coach Nick (Gabriele Ferzetti, Alta Tension). Teddy resumes a successful career, but a strange hippie (Tomas Milian, La Vittima designata) seems to prowl around them, dealing with a bet on tricked match issue with the bookmaker Chink (Emilio Messina, Tre Notti Violente).

And the canonical "black leather gloved mysterious killer" beats to death Nick while framing Teddy, who gets no alternative but to flee from the police led by the captain Perkins (Ernest Borgnine, The Split), in order to lead his own inquiry and track down the unknown murderer. In his quest to clear himself and save his "hard skin", he can rely on the help of Nick's daughter (Catherine Spaak, Il Gatto a nove code), but corpses continue to pile up in all kind of bloody ways as he gets closer to the solution. This original giallo set in the sport circle will allow the spectator to stay caught until the very epilogue. (Viewed in an English 1.85:1 aspect ratio 1h26 version.)

Saw this in 1978 in Houston at The McClendon Triple Drive In on South Main as "Bummer". I was an amateur boxing champion at the time and this was the filler for "Massacre At Central High". I was a big Robert Blake fan and was disappointed as I thought this was going to be another "Rocky" which was the reason this film was re-released to Drive Ins to try and piggyback on the Oscar winner to make a few bucks. Blake tries and is his usual cool self, but the fight scenes are not well staged and it is very hoaky looking. Completely hack job in terms of editing - just a piece of Italian junk an amateur could do a better job of making. Still, the 70's memories are nostalgic and it is fun to see the old cars again and what the heck, if you are home sick from work like I am, give it an hour and 14 minutes of your time. I do miss ol' Blake after watching this as he gave so many people a lot of joy on television.

In RIPPED-OFF, originally titled THE BOXER and also going by COUNTER PUNCH, MURDER IN THE RING, CHAMP CHEROKEE and TOUGH GUY, Robert Blake, after establishing himself as a great actor in IN COLD BLOOD, is a drifting Vietnam Vet boxer (the next year he'd be a vet cop in ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE) named Cherokee...

After a come-back and then being set-up to lose an important match, is accused of slaying his manager and, in the usual Noir fashion... which this is an extremely low budget version of... is desperate to find the real killer...

Most of the movie feels pasted together with dubbed dialogue and a myriad of awkward, often hilarious close-up/inserts, one in particular involving a brawling Blake blinded by a spiked rag: making his eyes blink like a frantic cartoon character...

Also includes an evil hippie (Tomas Milian); a stone-faced love-interest Catherine Spaak, an overly obvious surprise villain, wah-wah peddle music (which inserted breaks sounding very much like the instrumental noises in Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love) and, last but not least, Ernest Borgnine's sporadic "guest appearance" scenes as a growling cop out to nab our troubled bruiser...

Blake whose performance is more BARETTA than IN COLD BLOOD... makes this corny, campy, obscure import a thoroughly addictive guilty pleasure...

(PS In TAXI DRIVER you can see this movie's playing outside Robert DeNiro's cab, in the dirty New York streets... and it would be a real trip escaping from that hell and finding your way into this one.)