Street People (1976)

So, last week I posted about Roger Moore's inter-Bond excursion into Italian crime movies, The Sicilian Cross (1976) and mentioned that a second, shorter, English language version of the film existed in the form of Street People (1976).  The latter was the US release version, distributed by AIP, who, just they had done in the sixties, took a foreign film and re-edited it, cutting nearly fifteen minutes of footage, bringing the running time down to just over ninety minutes.  I finally managed to catch up with Street People and have to say that the edits actually improve the film.  While original was frequently confusing, with a poorly executed plot and thanks to an excessive running time, was slackly paced.  With some judicious trimming of a number of too talky scenes and the rearrangement of several scenes, the plot becomes somewhat clearer, (although if you stop to think about it, still nonsensical), with the faster pace resulting from this tightening up carrying it over its many absurdities.

Most interestingly, the trailer for this version puts the emphasis firmly upon Street People being a 'buddy picture', focusing on the antics of the mismatched pairing of smoothy Roger Moore and rough and ready rogue Stacy Keach.  Clearly trying to evoke memories of Roger Moore's pairing with Tony Curtis in The Persauders TV series, this contrasts sharply with the promotion of The Sicilian Cross, which presented the film primarily as a Mafia thriller and utilised a far more sombre tone in its trailer.  In practice, of course, Keach lacks Curtis' street-wise charm, although he comes off slightly better than Moore here, who isn't given enough opportunities to deploy his trademark suaveness and charm.  That said, the AIP re-edit presents Moore's character far better than the original had.  Street People is one of those instances where cutting large parts of the narrative actually improves a film by bringing more clarity to its plot and I'd be inclined to give it the nod over The Sicilian Cross version for anyone wanting to watch a version of this Roger Moore obscurity.