Dean Martin plays a serious, straightforward lawyer in "Marlowe" director Paul Bogart's "Mr. Ricco," a predictable but violent crime thriller set in contemporary San Francisco. "Mr. Ricco" constituted something of a change of pace for the "King of Cool." Unlike his frivolous Matt Helm espionage comedies, this Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer release followed the efforts of a conscientious lawyer to obtain justice for an African-American accused of murdering a white woman. Actually, nothing that Joe Ricco does on behalf of his client, Frankie Steele (Thalmus Rasulala of "Cool Breeze"), proves his innocence. Later, when Steele is on the run and Ricco catches up with him, Steele admits to him that he did indeed murder the white woman, but he explains that he didn't set out to kill her. Nevertheless, this revelation comes as something of a shock to Ricco. As it turned out, Steele won his freedom because the police had tampered with evidence in the case. Unfortunately, we're never told who was responsible for the tampering. No sooner has Steele been released that two uniformed policemen are gunned down by an African-American wielding a shotgun. A young African-American adolescent spots the shooter as he is fleeing the scene of the murder. The child goes to the police and gives them a description of the shooter that fits Steele's description. Later, Ricco finds himself the target of this same African-American shooter. This individual attempts to kill Ricco three times without success. Naturally, Captain George Cronyn (Eugene Roche of "Newman's Law") assigns a man, Lieutenant Barrett (George Tyne of "Sands of Iwo Jima"), to shadow the lawyer. Meantime, the police pursue a lead and nearly capture Steele at his place where he serves as an activist. It seems Steele has attained legitimacy as an outspoken racial activist with an organization that he created known as 'the Black Serpents." There isn't a trace of altruism in Steele's bones, and he wastes the funds that Washington provided him with to help poor, disadvantaged African-Americans. Moreover, when the San Francisco police raided his headquarters, they found two of his underlings on the premises, Purvis Mapes (Philip Michael Thomas of "Miami Vice") and his brother Calvin (Oliver Givens of "Trader Horn"), and Detective Tanner (Michael Gregory of "Total Recall") shoots Calvin in the head. Unfortunately for the gung-ho Tanner who is a dyed-in-the-wool racist, he discovers too late that Calvin was unarmed. Tanner grabs a shotgun and plants the weapon on Calvin. Initially, Captain Cronyn believes Tanner. Our hero defends Purvis in court and the charges against him are dropped. Consequently, Purvis tells Ricco where Steele is holed up and hiding. Ricco has to throw the police off his tail; he has his rental Mustang repainted to complicate their efforts to track him, and he finds Steele. Steele confesses about the murder, and Ricco punches him out. This crime melodrama taps into the racism of the day. Tanner believes that he should have been given a commendation for tampering with the evidence and later shooting Calvin Mapes. Meanwhile, Ricco is set up by his Cupid of a secretary, Jamison (Cindy Williams of "Laverne & Shirley"), with a woman, Katherine Fremont (Geraldine Brooks of "Johnny Tiger"), who is twice divorced. They sleep together after one date. Later, they attend an art auction for the ACLU that Purvis's sister Irene (Denise Nicholas of "Capricorn One") has set up. The shotgun-toting assailant strikes again, killing three police as well as shooting Katherine in the back and Lieutenant Barrett. Earlier that evening after the police arrested Steele, Ricco left a snub-nosed revolver in a drawer at his residence because he felt like he no longer needed the gun. He retrieved Lieutenant Barrett's revolver and shot the killer to death. The catch here is that Bogart wanted audiences to think that Steele was out to ice Ricco. Of course, why would Steele want to kill the man who got him cleared of a murder charge. Everything comes out of the wash during the final twenty minutes. "Mr. Ricco" is a believable, conventional, but entertaining crime mystery, and Martin gives a restrained but convincing performance. Lenser Paul Stanley who photographed "Mr. Ricco" makes it look smooth and elegant at the same time. The film's only stab at humor involves Ricco's horny dog Hank who eventually knocks up a neighbor's dog. Altogether, "Mr. Ricco" qualifies as an above-average movie.

When watching this film, the question is -- why did it end Dean Martin's film career? There were a number of reasons, really, that had nothing to do with the film itself. Just a little over a year before this film was released, Martin divorced his popular wife, Jeanne. And I personally know people who had been fans who "dropped" Dean, as a result. They saw the situation as Peck's bad boy really being bad, not just playing being bad. And, In 1974 his television show ended after a long (9 year) run. Since his smash hit (and financial bonanza) "Airport" in 1970, Dean had made only 2 movies before "Mr. Ricco". Clearly, Martin's career was winding down...and why not...he was approaching age 60.And that's where this film comes into the story. Dean Martin was getting old. I was in college when this film came out, and as a Dean Martin fan, I rushed to the theater to see it. There was a fair-sized audience in the theater that day, and 3 minutes into the film there was a scene that set the theater abuzz with chatter. I had only seen such a thing happen once before -- at a theater presentation of "Gone With The Wind" -- the scene looking down the staircase where we first see the dashing figure of Clark Gable. But unlike the GWTW experience, when the chatter was about how handsome the actor was, now it was about how old the actor looked. I heard people say things such as, "Oh my god! Look how old he is!" Now today, when you watch this film on television -- even a high def widescreen television -- he doesn't look THAT old. But in the theater, on a wide screen, with particularly crisp cinematography, the wrinkles were startlingly clear...and my guess was that Dean was wearing very little makeup. And, in this picture it mattered, because later there are fight scenes, and one can't help but think that it's illogical that a man that old could fight like that. In my opinion, that brutal photography of Dean's character playing cards 3 minutes into the film was the end of Dean's film career (not counting the much later Cannonball knock-offs).That's not to say that this is a bad film. It's not. Nor is it a great or almost-great film. It's a pretty average crime drama from the mid-1970s. As a TV-movie, this might have been a pretty decent release...much as was Frank Sinatra's "Contract On Cherry Street" as a TV-movie 2 years later. "Mr. Ricco" is a pretty gritty film, perhaps a little too gritty for a Dean Martin audience. Dean's acting is okay, in fact a little more subtle here, and he comes across believable as an attorney. And, this really is Dean's movie. While other roles are pivotal, and all the actors do their jobs, none have significant screen time.If there's a specific criticism I have it's that the stunt double for Dean is so not Dean in many of those scenes.It's interesting to watch the two flops at either end of Dean's solo film career -- this film and "Ten Thousand Bedrooms". Both are primarily for fans of Dean Martin.

In its opening scenes and setup, this film had several enjoyable and potentially interesting aspects to it. Dean Martin as Ricco had a pleasing understated realism in his performance, a million miles away from the plastic phoniness of his Matt Helm persona.Even the small roles were acted well - ranging from Geraldine Brooks as the woman Martin hooks up with Ricco to Ella Edwards as Sally (who informs Ricco that her son was a witness to the killing of the two cops) who gives such a nice performance that its a shame we don't see her character again later in the film.Also the plot, while nothing astonishing, has enough potential and variables in it to keep us interested to the end. In addition, the music added nicely to the atmosphere.So why does the film end up as nothing better then mediocre? Because it really loses its way in the second half. Not only because the plot takes some ludicrous turns (more on that later) but of Ricco resorting to fighting with admittedly disreputable characters on more then one occasion. It's bad not only because Martin is too old for the physical stuff but it seems so out of character for the intelligent and considered person Martin portrays Ricco to be earlier in the film. The almost comical fight Ricco has with Frankie Steele is the film's lowpoint and when it descends from a potentially top-quality crime film to a mediocre TV-standard crime drama lazily resorting to violence as a resolution to scenes.(SPOILER) But it's the plot and its resolution that really let down this film. Roger Ebert's review (available in the External reviews section) is spot on - who the killer actually is is so arbitrary (not to mention unbelievable) that it makes a large portion of the film redundant.The killer is actually the brother of the woman murdered by Frankie Steele that Ricco got off the murder rap on technical grounds at the start of the film. There's a scene with the killer in the film but his appearance is so brief that when his mask is taken off some might not even recall who he actually is.It's a watchable film but it could've been so much better.

I always enjoy watching '70's movies, even when it are bad ones. '70's movies always have a certain atmosphere and are made with a great style of movie-making, that is realistic, gritty and straightforward and also always makes uses of some experimental, non-formulaic techniques when it comes down to its storytelling and cinematography, among other things. "Mr. Ricco" might not the the best '70's movies around, it still is a good example of good old film-making from the golden '70's.The movie its story is quite messy and weak but still made look interesting at times, due to its style of film-making. It provided the movie with a couple of nice moments, including a typical '70's-like car chase trough the streets of San Fransico.San Fransico serves as a pretty good backdrop for the entire movie, as it always does in any movie.The storytelling makes sure that is hard to keep track on the movie, with as a result that all the movie its weaker points become less notable as well. The movie its story is actually quite unlikely and ridicules at points but due to the muddled way the entire story is told, it becomes less obvious and notable all. Lots of things don't really make sense in the movie once you start really thinking about them and to make it all the more confusing, the movie features many, unneeded, characters, that don't add enough to the movie and only provide the story with some needless and distracting subplots.Dean Martin of course already had his best years behind him but he still puts down a pretty good main character for the movie. The character is well developed and deepened out more thanks to Dean Martin's performance, who makes the character likable, by playing him mostly in a non-likable way.The movie on all accounts is a pretty average one. Nothing too exceptional, just another good enough movie from the golden '70's but you're just as good off watching a "Law & Order" episode, or something along those lines.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/