I bought this film because Troy Howarth, in the first volume of his So Deadly, So Perverse books, had written about it, claiming that it just about fell on the right side of the giallo boundary line. How he came to this conclusion, while tossing films like Short Night of the Glass Dolls over said line, is anyone's guess. Perhaps the terrible print used for the Retromedia release played extra-dark on Troy's TV, leading to his imagination taking over and concocting a half-imagined film out of the darkened embers which remained onscreen. Nah, I'm kidding. Fair play to Retromedia for at least releasing this, and I'll call Troy's bluff and review this as a giallo. It kind of is, I suppose, in a way.

After a weird hippie gives him a gift of a mannequin (?!), frustrated artist John Ward does what anyone  would do-he takes her home and dresses her up like a prostitute who he's just met and who let him sleep with her for free for no reason and then he fantasises that the mannequin is real and has conversations with her and starts fucking her and then imagines that she's actually his old girlfriend/muse who at some point in the recent past started sleeping around behind his back. Well, that's what I'd do anyway. Anyway, the Sensuous Doll, as the ex-gf/muse seems to be credited, becomes more overt and brazen in her manising, and John becomes more and more consumed with jealousy, with shocking consequences (in a murdery, if not plotty, sense).

It's slightly unclear whether the portion of the film detailing the breakdown of John's relationship (and mind) is a flashback, or if its a subjective depiction of his reliving his recent past through the mannequin. If it's the latter, he engages in a lot of supposition and extrapolation when imagining conversations between other people to which he did not bear witness. Logic suggests it's the former, until an end-of-film 'revelation' tells us that John has been seen chatting away to the mannequin, apparently re-enacting scenes from their past. 

I suppose if you view everything as occurring through the crazy filter of Crazy John's mind, it would explain one or two things. For example, the Sensuous Doll's forgiving her clandestine lover-played by Venantino Venantini-abandoning her for a sojourn in Barcelona when he shows her a plane ticket as proof that he was indeed abroad, and not aboard a broad (although he may, of course, have been aboard a broad while abroad). Anyway, why does that plane ticket also gain loverboy his forgiveness-he still abandoned her! (And, he keeps bloody raping  her too.*)  Even after we seem to have left John's warped perspective behind, the film resolutely refuses to settle down and behave normally. The police apparently decide not to bother investigating whether or not the Sensuous Doll ever did exist as a real person, instead *SPOILER* arresting John for mannequin murder *END SPOILER*. I say 'spoiler'; anyone who has seen any Italian film ever will know where this is going based on the synopsis above. And this film, even though it's technically Italian-Turkish**, is no different.

That's one of the most disappointing things when considering this film as a giallo; the lack of a twist or surprise to liven things up. Even the mannequin aspect, while bizarre, isn't exactly original; Mario Bava had well and truly been there and done that before. The central figure of the tortured artist is also pretty much a classic cliché, even if here he's possibly less tortured and more batshit crazy. If I wanted to stretch this piece out, I'd ruminate on the possible metaphorical significance of the Sensuous Doll as representative of a piece of art which takes on a life of its own, leaving its creator languishing in the dusty doldrums. Sort of like how a director of a successful film for which the star takes all the plaudits might feel. However, from browsing his filmography it doesn't seem like Renzo Russo was the victim of anything of the sort. In fact, this film being a success may have prevented his career seemingly stopping stone dead after its release.

It's not terrible; Farley Granger is always fun to watch, even if he must've been hard up for cash at this stage in his career, such was his omnipresence in Italian genre fare. And Erika Blank and Krista Nell are pretty good to look at as the dolls (calling their characters the Sensuous Doll and Subservient Doll respectively pretty much defines the parameters by which they should be judged, so I can objectify them, thank you very much). There's some good location footage of Istanbul, and the hippie scene is one of the better examples of how middle-aged Italian directors were all at sea when it came to engaging with the counterculture.

​There are also moments of visual style, with some neat scene transitions involving characters walking 'through' the camera (again, not original-Bava and Margheriti in particular were fond of this-but you'll find some well-crafted examples of it here). The music is pretty poor for the most part, apart from one unbelievably beautiful and haunting theme, replete with warbly Edda dell'Orso-style vocals, which plays as the mannequin first comes to life. Despite some shaky handheld camerawork, the acting, lighting and (especially) music combine to create a moment of almost transcendental beauty, as the disconnected, damaged artist finds momentary kinship and acceptance and even love, albeit only within his crazy mind.

So, all in all, this is barely a giallo, and doesn't really bring much to the table. I may reassess if I get a chance to view a better presentation than is currently available, but then again I definitely won't. Still worth watching for that transformation scene, though, and then you can sit back and let the nonsense wash over you like a lovely, albeit rape-scented, Turkish bath.

I'll preface this review/ramble by saying that I've only seen the US version of this film, which is slightly shorter than the original, and has different music cues. Shorter though it may have been, it was nonetheless very much long enough...

Inspector Franz Bulon is hot on the trail of a drug-dealing gang who keep offing suspects just as he's about to take them in. He's also on the trail of his hot wife, whom he suspects of infidelity. Does that last bit make grammatical sense? Probably. You know what I mean, anyway. But yeah, Bulon tracks down the assassin, Sexy Max, but decides against taking him in. Instead, he cuts a deal: Sexy Max will kill his possibly unfaithful wife, and Extremely Unprofessional and Crazy Bulon will overlook all the other murders. But that's not the end of it; strap in for a couple of slight twists which will literally make you breathe normally.

As you may have gathered, I don't overly rate this one. The characters are all extremely unlikable, which isn't necessarily an issue, but they're also so fucking stupid. Max, played by Robert Hoffmann (an actor who frequently gets slammed for being bland, but he's perfectly fine here), gets caught after he leaves his trademark lucky dollar right beside one of his victims; Bulon is incompetent on any number of levels. As for Lisa-who's supposed to be a mysterious femme fatale figure-the only mystery here is how she can be so blithely reckless without getting herself killed. (That's not a spoiler; the film begins at its end [in the US cut at least] with Lisa at a funeral wearing the titular veil, and takes the form of an extended flashback.)

The film was made in the pre-Argento days, when The Sweet Body of Deborah had supplanted Mario Bava's early works as exerting the most influence on gialli. Unlike that film, and most gialli actually, the main male characters are of the what-you-see-is-what-you-get variety, with no real hidden agendas to provide intrigue and twists. There's a slight police procedural vibe too, without too much procedure actually being on display (there's no real need; the film-taking after its male characters-doesn't hold many cards close to its chest, so we know the murderer's identity, for example, almost immediately). And the policing-Christ, is John Mills's Bulon an annoying protagonist! His obsession with proving his wife's infidelity is such that you start hoping that he's right, just so all that time and energy won't have been misplaced. And, so you can watch his stupid grizzled face crumple with grief. The character is probably supposed to come across as obsessive and driven, but it's just pushed a bit too far, especially when he engages Max to kill his wife based on nothing more than a gut feeling that she's been fooling around. Where's the evidence, Mr Policeman?! And stop ignoring your co-workers when they greet you in the morning, you asshole!

There are a few twists and turns as the film progresses, but they're more like leisurely sweeping turns than sudden rug-pulls. As well as Lisa's potential infidelity, the question of whether or not she's involved in criminal activity is also bubbling to the surface, but the end reveal here is incredibly anodyne. I was hoping against hope that the criminal subplot would pack a greater punch than the fidelity one (which wouldn't be hard), but it's resolved in an extremely casual, throwaway manner, which pretty much sums up the film as a whole. 

The sexual envelope is slightly pushed, with regular flash cuts to shots of female nudity (featuring an obvious body double for Luciana Paluzzi), and Paluzzi does look pretty damn good, but the film is still under-charged sexually. The scenes with Lisa and Max might have come across as a bit steamier if I wasn't shaking my head in bemusement at her naivete in admitting him to her house (and body),when it should've been patently obvious that he was a hired assassin. I guess Lisa's just a bad girl with a death wish, or something.

Luciano Ercoli's first giallo film doesn't hit the heights of his later Death Walks films, but it's still well worth a watch. Why? Why, I'll tell you...

Pill-popping drunk Minou spends her days lounging around her moddy apartment resolving to get her life in order, while her husband spends long hours at the office. Unfortunately, her life gets even more out of order when a strange man follows her one night, before pinning her to the ground and claiming that her husband is a murderer. After a creditor of her husband turns up dead under mysterious circumstances, Minou's faith in him, and her marriage, begins to crumble. The mysterious stalker man produces apparent proof, in the form of an audio recording, of her husband's complicity in the murder, and uses this as leverage to sleep with Minou. Unfortunately, this is only the beginning of her problems, as the mysterious stalker man isn't done yet; he comes back with some forbidden photos of Minou and him having sex. Her repeated claims that she's being blackmailed fall on deaf ears due to a lack of evidence, resulting in her husband, as well as the police, being not above suspecting that the lady is going mad...*

This film was made just as  Argento's era of dominance was beginning, and it represents a juncture between the Ernesto Gastaldi-led money-grabbing schemes, and the psychosexual madness of the new wave of gialli. Here, the central plot relies upon the police mistaking one of these motivations for the other, although the long arm of the law does reach out just in time to save the day (while we're at it, the justification a leading character gives for withholding crucial information from the police until the last minute is one of the more egregious examples of 'cinematic logic', which would hold absolutely no sway in the real world).

Women take centre stage here, with Dagmar Lassander's Minou struggling against the scepticism of her husband (Pier Paolo Capponi) and the unwanted attentions of her stalker  (Simon Andreu, playing Ivan Rassimov), with only her friend Dominique (Nieves Navarro) seemingly on her side. Sexuality is in plentiful supply (which is not to say that there's much nudity, so perverts can get back in their box), with Minou's repeated submissions and humiliations contrasted with Dominique's carefree attitude to sex and sensuality. Things do go a bit far, however, when DOminique reacts to her friend's tale of her initial encounter with Andreu/Rassimov by longingly stating her wish to be the subject of similar rapey attentions. She also tries to explain away Minou's behaviour when they come clean about the adultery and blackmail, telling Capponi that his wife thought "like a woman." 

That's not to say that Minou is reduced to a passive victim. She does lean heavily on her ever-present tranquiliser pills, which seem to have little effect, but she does show some bravery in seeking to take control of the blackmail situation, even though her attempts to do so prove futile. She's on the weak side, but she does acknowledge this, and laments the powerless of women in the macho culture in which she lives, something that could almost be seen as the thesis behind Dario Argento's approach to depicting terror in his first 15 years or so of work.

Even though she does resort to drink and drugs, the film doesn't really seek to use this to suggest any ambiguity as to whether the events depicted are real or imagined. Scenes such as the ingenious talking clock sequence leave us in no doubt as to the truth in what we've seen. Instead, the promoting of this ambiguity is part of the devilish plan which targetted Minou, as evidenced by the many instances where a crucial piece of evidence which would support her claims proves frustratingly elusive when she attempts to involve her husband or the police. 

The aforementioned talking clock sequence is one such instance of this, as is a classic example of the 'cleared out apartment' scenario, where Minou brings everyone to the blackmailer's apartment only to find it completely abandoned and, apparently, looking as if it hasn't been inhabited for "years." (One can only assume that there was a healthy layer of dust, or else a particularly musty smell. Otherwise, I'd imagine it'd be quite hard to date how long a newly-seen room has been empty with any accuracy). The Inspector's investigations apparently prove that the room hasn't been inhabited for over a year, and nothing more is said of the matter-it's just one more apparent symptom of Minou's escalating paranoia and madness. Except it isn't; we've clearly seen that Andreu/Rassimov did live in the apartment, and yet the exact mechanics of how he managed to rent/inhabit it-and furnish and unfurnish it-undetected are never revealed. This is nothing new though; it seems to be an unwritten filmic rule that such disappearing acts can be pulled off without leaving a trace of evidence. It's just a shame that the characters in the films aren't aware of this rule, or else people like Minou wouldn't have such a hard time being believed.

Her pill-popping habit exists primarily as grist to the mill of the plot devised by the film's villain, in that is predisposes people to think that she's prone to madness and hallucinations. It's redolent of the portrayal of drugs in the later Death Walks at Midnight; which is to say that none of the positive effects of tranquilisers are even considered; instead, it's viewed as a Drug, which automatically makes it bad. Even the kindly doctor has no time for them. To be fair, tranquiliser abuse is definitely a bad thing, and could indeed lead to an escalation of paranoia etc, such as is apparently suffered by Minou. But alcohol abuse is also a bad thing, and yet the film doesn't seem to have any qualms about this vice; several characters, not least Minou's husband, seem to take everything that happens to them as an excuse for indulging in a cheeky whiskey.

In terms of the plot/mystery angle, the film is fairly low key. There are no murders until the final ten minutes, and precious few characters who could be considered 'suspects'. This is one of the films where we can plainly see who's menacing Minou (Andreu/Rassimov), but his true motivations, and the identity of any possible collaborators, is where the mystery lies. In many ways, the surprise here is not who's involved, but who's not. Some reasonably clever framing towards the end, which deliberately obscures the identity of one half of a bed-dwelling couple, is a moment of excellent misdirection. The filmmakers initially seem to have goofed by being too obvious in their obfuscation, only for it to turn out to be a deliberate overplaying of their hand, designed to make us condemn them for being too 'obvious'. 

The final scene does come across as rather glib, all things considered, and the attempts at deep, psychological realism-an area to which the film occasionally closely strays-  are left eating the dust of the car which drives off into the sunset. All scars, physical and psychological, are forgotten, and all is well with the world. Except, it's still the same world which represents a constant threat to women. And, one of the people in the car is the person who withheld crucial information from the police for an absurdly long time. But still, the baddies are dead, the goodies are alive, and, at the end of the day, this is a pulpy thriller designed to entertain an audience. It's on the slow end of the genre, particularly for the time it was made, but in the hands of the hugely underrated Ercoli, its emerges as a definite winner.