WAKE UP AND KILL

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 precursor for the first wave of poliziotteschi movies just a few years later.

In the ‘60s, Luciano Lutring committed more than 100 real-life armed robberies in Italy and on the French Riviera. To the media, he was the “machine gun soloist”, a name he’d earned by keeping his weapon in a violin case. To the public he was a folk hero who only targeted the wealthy, stealing more than $100 million during his criminal career. WAKE UP AND KILL was the first feature to commit Lutring’s story to film, shooting having begun mere months after his arrest.