| Overview: | THE LAST ROUND (Il Conte è Chiuso) is gritty mid-70s updating of a plot dating back to Dashiell Hammett's 1927 novel RED HARVEST, inspiration for Akira Kurosawa's YOJIMBO, Sergio Leone's A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS and Walter Hill's LAST MAN STANDING. Luc Merenda (GAMBLING CITY, A MAN CALLED MAGNUM) stars as a stranger who puts himself between two rival gangs. Revenge is the motive... and hell to pay for both guilty and innocent. Backing Merenda is a cast of Italo-crime usual suspects, including Mario Brega (A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, THE GREAT SILENCE), Nello Pazzafini (SEVEN BLOODSTAINED ORCHIDS, MAD DOG) and Giani Dei (GIALLO A VENEZIA, PATRICK LIVES AGAIN).
Directed by spaghetti western veteran Stelvio Massi (I AM SARTANA... TRADE YOUR GUNS FOR A COFFIN), THE LAST ROUND was written by Piero Regnoli, better known for his contributions to Italian Gothic horror (I VAMPIRI, THE PLAYGIRLS AND THE VAMPIRE). Regnoli also contributed to the screenplays for BURIAL GROUND and NIGHTMARE CITY... but here engages in an altogether different kind of bloodletting.
THE LAST ROUND was shot by veteran Italian cinematographer Franco Delli Colli, a former camera operator for Luchino Visconti, Piero Paolo Pasolini and Sergio Leone. Delli Colli went on to lens some of the most distinctive Italian exports, including THE LAST MAN ON EARTH, DJANGO, KILL... IF YOU LIVE, SHOOT!, STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER and ZEDER. The film's musical score is the work of Luis Enriquez Bacalov, whose orchestrations grace films from Sergio Corbucci's DJANGO to Quentin Tarantino's KILL BILL, VOL. 1-2.
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