During the 1960s Luciano Lutring committed more than one hundred armed robberies in Italy and on the French Riviera. To the media he was the ‘machine gun soloist’, a name he’d earned as he kept his weapon in a violin case. To the public he was a Robin Hood figure, one who only targeted the wealthy, stealing more than 35 billion lire during his criminal career.
Wake Up and Kill was the logical extension of such fame. It became the first feature to commit Lutring’s story to celluloid, shooting having begun mere months after his eventual arrest. Capitalising on the breakthrough success of his performance in French television’s The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Robert Hoffmann is perfect as Lutring, bringing just the right amount of charisma and youthful exuberance to his first major big screen role.
Directed by Carlo Lizzani (Requiescant), scored by Ennio Morricone, penned by the future screenwriter of Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, and featuring that film’s star, Gian Maria Volonté, in a key supporting role, Wake Up and Kill’s true-crime thrills serve as an enthralling dry run for the poliziotteschi movies that would follow a few years later.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
•Brand new 2K restoration of the film from the original camera negative
•High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
•Optional English and Italian soundtracks presented in their original mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-rays)
•Newly-translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
•Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
•Theatrical trailer
•Limited Edition illustrated collector’s booklet containing new writing on the film by Roberto Curti, author of Italian Crime Filmography 1968-1980 and Italian Gothic Horror Films 1959-1969
