Stateline Motel, 1973.
Directed by Maurizio Lucidi.
Starring Eli Wallach, Ursula Andress, Fabio Testi, Barbara Bach, Howard Ross, and Massimo Girotti.
SYNOPSIS:
An armed robber on the run hides out in a remote hotel close to the US border, but his plans get messed up by the owner’s beautiful wife.
On first impressions you could be forgiven for thinking that Maurizio Lucidi’s 1973 movie Stateline Motel (a.k.a. Last Chance for a Born Loser, a.k.a. Motel of Fear) is a standard politziotteschi Euro-crime thriller, thanks to its plot about a jewel robbery gone awry, criminals hiding out and double-crossing each other, car chases across sprawling city landscapes and a cast of familiar international faces all doing their bit to earn a pay check outside of the Hollywood system. However, this is a Euro-crime thriller that isn’t set or shot in Europe, and despite the crime element to the plot it veers away from the usual exploitative action tropes into character-driven melodrama territory.
After serving six months in a Canadian prison for car theft, American Floyd Gambino (Fabio Testi) is released and immediately goes to his next job with partner-in-crime Joe (Eli Wallach). Whilst holding up a jewellery store, Floyd hesitates to shoot when an unsuspecting customer walks in, prompting the hot-headed Joe to shoot the innocent bystander as he runs away, and so the two escape with whatever jewels Joe could lift from the safe before the interruption.
Agreeing to split up and meet near the Canadian/US border, the two separate with Floyd taking the jewels in his car, but after he loses control of the vehicle in the snow he ends up at a remote motel run by Fred (Massimo Girotti) and his beautiful wife Michelle (Ursula Andress), who luckily employ an on-site mechanic called Jacques (Howard Ross). However, Jacques cannot repair the car in time for the two robbers to meet up, causing Joe to get suspicious, and once news of the robbery gets out it doesn’t take long for Michelle – who has fallen for Floyd – to realise who he is. Unfortunately, Jacques is also aware and with the local police asking questions and Joe closing in to find out where his loot is, things start to get a bit hot for Floyd in the frozen Canadian motel.
Despite the comical dubbing that is a trademark of these movies, Stateline Motel is a surprisingly clever and entertaining crime thriller that keeps you guessing where it is going to go right until the final frame. Opening with Floyd being released from prison and going straight into the robbery followed by an exciting car chase, the first 20-or-so minutes does a superb job in setting up the story, letting us know who these characters are – Eli Wallach doesn’t even need to say anything and you know exactly all you need to know about Joe – and then it transports us to the motel, and this is where it gets interesting as there is a genuine chemistry between Fabio Testi and Ursula Andress, which makes spending time with them both so enticing.
As a character, Michelle may not be everything she seems as she has some fancy stories to tell about her past, and when Fred alludes to this later in the movie it derails where you think the plot is heading, and not for the first time as not only does Floyd not know who to trust but neither does the audience.
This is because, in true Italian cinema style, there are several red herrings to try and fool us, for not only is Floyd torn between fearing Joe and wanting to be with Michelle, there is also Michelle’s questionable relationship with Jacques, her nosey niece Emily (Barbara Bach) being engaged to a local policeman, and then a coach party arrives just as Joe turns up to collect. It hasn’t been noted anywhere so far, but you can bet Quentin Tarantino has seen this movie.
But unlike Tarantino movies, Stateline Motel does not go over-the-top with the violence, with only a few splats of gloriously gloopy red blood here and there when called for. The chemistry between Testi and Andress comes to fruition in an erotically charged sex scene that feels like a natural conclusion to their interactions and it would have felt weird if there wasn’t one (they did become a couple during filming of this movie), but it is Eli Wallach who commands this movie, even though Joe disappears for a large portion of it. Despite looking like a middle-aged shopkeeper, Joe’s grumpy but intimidating persona dominates Floyd’s actions to the point where it does become a bit tricky knowing who to root for, as Floyd is the more amiable of the two but Joe just wants what he came for and isn’t interested in the lovey-dovey stuff. You could root for Michelle, but the twisty nature of the plot doesn’t really allow for that either, despite Ursula Andress fluttering her eyelashes and laying on the sob stories.
Stateline Motel isn’t perfect – it does run about 10 minutes too long, the pace slowing down a notch when Joe and the coach party turn up at the motel – and it isn’t as gratuitously violent as any number of other politziotteschi movies you care to name, but the fact that Shameless Screen Entertainment have acquired it and put it onto Blu-ray instead of re-releasing or upgrading an older title from their back catalogue shows they have faith in it, and it is a faith that is well placed because Stateline Motel is a solid entry in the Euro-crime cycle, despite it not actually taking place in Europe.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
