Big Guns, a crime thriller from the late, prolific Italian director Duccio Tessari, starred French acting legend Alain Delon as Tony Arzenta, a mob hitman whose decision to retire angers the bosses and leads to the accidental death of his wife and child. Arzenta sets out on a bloody revenge mission, unleashing his particular set of skills on the criminals who wronged him. Richard Conte, who had starred in The Godfather a year earlier, also features as Nick Gusto, a Sicilian crime boss who wants to bury the hatchet with Arzenta, much to the consternation of his associates.

The film was released internationally (as No Way Out in the US, for example) and this poster was printed for Japan, a country in which Delon has a huge fan base. The main image is taken from a moment during one of the car chases for which the film is perhaps best remembered, and a clip from it can be watched here.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

The first in a line of blaxploitation horror films, Blacula was produced by the prolific studio American International Pictures who’d had success in the 1960s with a series of horrors directed by Roger Corman and based on Edgar Allan Poe‘s stories, which included House of Usher and The Raven. During the 1970s they produced multiple blaxploitation films that included Coffy and Foxy Brown, and they are credited with making Pam Grier a household name.

Blacula tells the story of Manuwalde an African prince (played by William Marshall) who is bitten by Count Dracula after visiting him to ask for his help in the ending the slave trade. Imprisoned in a coffin in the 18th century, the prince is unwittingly transported to Los Angeles two hundred years later by antique dealers who sell his casket. Unleashed on the city, Manuwalde goes on the hunt for human blood and later comes across the beautiful Tina (Vonetta McGee) who is the reincarnation of his old wife that was murdered by Dracula. Unfortunately one of Tina’s friends, Dr. Gordon Thomas (played by the brilliantly named Thalmus Rasulala) learns of the prince’s true nature and vows to hunt him down.

The film was followed a year later by a sequel called Scream, Blacula Scream. Another production company put together Blackenstein and Sugar Hill (1974) was AIP’s blaxploitation zombie film.

The original trailer is on YouTube.