This film, bearing one of the more popular titles for gialli, is not one of the more popular giallo titles. It's a film which tries to marry giallo tropes with the isolated country villa-set, slow-moving mood piece (which seemed to be almost a trope itself within Spanish cinema in the 70s), with limited results. It's not shit though, so there's that.

Daniel, a weirdo writer who's fled his wife and home in Madrid, rocks up at an isolated country house occupied by Veronica, a weirdo hotelier and figurine-maker, and her invalid husband, name unknown and face unseen and voice unheard. A couple of couples rock up to the house to stay the night, only to be murdered by a black-gloved killer. When Elena, Daniel's wife, tracks him down (by methods unspecified), the truth finally outs.

Anyone who's read that and discounted a potential 'solution' based on its being too obvious should bear in mind that Spanish gialli typically were not possessed of labyrinthine whodunnit plots - oftentimes it seems that the identity of the killer was something of an afterthought (or, possibly more accurately, any attempt to obfuscate the identity of the killer was an afterthought). Paul Naschy's gialli exist somewhat outside this rule of thumb, but in a lot of cases (Night of the Scorpion being the best example that springs to mind) the films fail abjectly on a murder-mystery level. And this film's no exception-anyone who hasn't figured it all out after the first scene with Veronica's 'husband' (filmed, as all such scenes are, from a vantage point behind his chair, in which he apparently sits silently whilst somehow provoking his wife to continually reply to imagined slights) is, frankly, an idiot. (No offence.) Although maybe people who haven't seen Psycho are less likely to jump to the correct conclusion, who knows.

So - to deal first with the last - the 'twist' here is basically that there is no twist. This is possibly not how the filmmakers would see things - back in the late 1970s it's possible that cinemagoers wouldn't have seen Psycho (although at the same time they wouldn't all have been Fucking Idiots). I suppose the final few seconds of the film constitutes a twist of sorts, although it's up there with the least surprising reveals of all time (giving this film two entries on that list). Seriously - there are basically two potential suspects here, and it turns out that each of them is a killer. That'll catch out some people, but only because they've given the film too much credit and have sought a less obvious explanation.* There are multiple instances of that rare occurrence whereby the killer is presented as a red herring, rather than trying to smuggle them through proceedings in plain sight - probably partly due to the lack of potential killers, but possibly also because the filmmakers didn't really care, and were just ticking items (zoom in on black gloves - tick!) from a giallo checklist.

That's not to say that the film is badly-directed; it's not, and Leon Klimovsky does his usual solid job here, with a lot of slightly ropey handheld tracking shots to keep things visually interesting. There are also interesting touches such as Daniel's wife Elena being introduced to us through an extremely blue colour scheme. I mean, it doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it makes for a few nice-looking shots. The film clearly didn't have much of a budget, and was likely shot extremely quickly, but it's never really rushed or shoddy-looking (apart from possibly in the framing of the killer, as discussed in the footnote). The make-up effects are rudimentary-but-effective, with one sequence in particular perhaps revealing the true motives of the filmmakers.

I refer here to the scene in which young (very young) Irene Foster's nude body is slashed with a straight razor. Initially, the staging seems somewhat restrained - she grips the bedclothes around her when the killer starts hacking at her, and it seems that the violence will be limited to her facial area (very much a loose definition of 'somewhat restrained', I'll grant you). After she dies; however, the black-gloved hand and hairy wrist pops the bedclothes down, and gets to work on her breasts, in a sort of New York Ripper-lite sequence. This film was made shortly after General Franco's death, at a time when the Italian gialli were increasingly sex-infused (Play Motel, Giallo a Venezia etc). While the sleaze factor is never pushed as far as it was in the Italian flicks, it's certainly boundary-pushing for Spain, and I wouldn't be surprised if the giallo aspect was largely conceived of as a framework on which to hang the copious sex and nudity, with pretty much every character being nude at some point (apart from the young boy, who merely appears in tiny speedos). To be fair to the filmmakers, Daniel is played by Heinrich Starhemberg, the film's producer, and he doesn't exempt himself from the nudity requirements (much to no-one's pleasure).

The character of Daniel is a slightly odd one - he's the standard frustrated artist, but he's not exactly an obvious audience identification figure (SPOILERS) which very much lessens the impact of the climactic revelation regarding his character. It's difficult to know whether this was due to Starhemberg being an awkward and wooden actor, or if the role was intended to be played in this manner. If the latter, this decision falls squarely into the 'highlight a killer as a potential suspect' approach, as detailed above. (END SPOILERS) You'd have to say that the character as written is definitely a bit off, as even the most charismatic actor would have difficulty selling the sequence where Daniel strolls smiling towards a couple he's spotted copulating by the side of the road as Normal Behaviour.

The acting in general isn't too bad though, with the women being particularly impressive (and Antonio Mayans popping up for a brief period as well). Ágata Lys seemingly adopted a similar approach to Starhemberg, not really trying to sell Veronia as being 'normal', but instead giving a reasonably convincing portrayal of someone whose grip on reality is eroding at the seams. Much like Elena and her link to the colour blue, Veronica seems to be associated with wine being spilt, but I'll be goddamned if I know what that's supposed to symbolise.

The cinematography and music are solid, with sound design playing a more prominent role, at least initially, that it did in many gialli. The lack of attention typically shown for aural concerns was likely due to the practice of shooting without live sound, which presumably led to directors, who often weren't involved in the post-production process, seeing film as an almost-entirely visual medium. Here, though, we get a stormy night or two, and the mysterious husband in the upstairs bedroom provides an opportunity for some muffled bumps and smashes (not many though, and they gradually get phased out, presumably so the sounds aren't fresh enough in your mind that you ask "How did an empty chair make all that noise?" when the Big Reveal happens).

It's not a great giallo, or a great sex film. The filmmakers have somewhat stumbled on a slasher movie formula - disposable characters arrive at remote location and are murdered - but there's nothing here that wasn't done a lot better before 1978. And the odd bits where it seems like the filmmakers are at least trying to do something different (the blue and wine motifs, the hint at the strong bond between the young boy and Daniel) don't overly convince (the bond is quite convincing, but it's not something about which you want to really devote too much thinking time). But, it's not a bad film. It's short, competently made, and ticks pretty much all of the giallo boxes. Which just goes to show that there's a certain alchemy to filmmaking, a certain indescribable quality which separates the great from the good - this film is an attempt to construct a giallo from the sum of its parts. It succeeds, but great films have something extra, something indefinable, on top of that. But Leon Klimovsky, who retired after this film, didn't choose a bad aul note to exit on all the same.

*There is some ambiguity as to how many murders have actually been committed by one of the suspects - 'most, if not all, of them' would appear to be the answer if you examine the body of the killer in the set pieces (keep an eye on the wrist in particular), but it's likely that this is just slapdash blocking and editing, and the other suspect is probably intended to have committed all of the on-screen murders.

​Don't be fooled by the title of this film and the fact that it's being reviewed on a site called Giallo Reviews - it isn't a giallo. So why is it being reviewed on a site called Giallo Reviews? Well, because I ignored a similar warning to this one and watched it. And, even though I realised fairly quickly that it indeed was not a giallo, I'd already begun taking notes, and I was going to be goddamned if they went to waste.

Francisco Villaverde is a rich young artist who likes to play around with women who aren't his wife. He also has a nasty habit of taking things too far and strangling these women. When he chokes a Mrs Simmons mid-coitus, with two witnesses no less, you'd think his philandering days are at an end, but not a bit of it. Mrs Simmons' husband (Mr Simmons) hires some detectives to investigate, and they figure out whodunnit pretty damn quickly, but they need proof of Villaverde's guilt. Instead of doing any further detecting, they decide to send one of the dicks' fiancée undercover to hang out with Villaverde and essentially sit back to let nature take its course. Oh, and then there's the illegal bank, headed by Adolfo Celi and Anita Ekberg, who are trying to call in an illegal loan which was given to a local hotelier and his partner, who was one of the witnesses of the initial illegal strangling. After some spy film-esque hijinks the truth outs, and Francisco is free to keep on womanising. Except then he isn't, he dies. The end.

Alright, this isn't totally ungiallo-like: there is kind of a murder mystery at the centre of the film, plus the whole thing takes place in exotic seaside locales beloved of the filone in the late 60s. It's the sort of film which if made a year or two later would've been totally different, but as is it very much straddles the giallo/spy film divide (before toppling over onto the spy film side). The title, which naturally bears no relevance to anything that occurs on screen (you could probably come up with a somewhat convincing explanation to link it to what happens, but come on, you're better than that), is definitely the most gialloey thing about it, with only sparse rations of yellow illiberally sprinkled here and there to complement it.

The opening dialogue-free scene does contain a murder, albeit one in which we (apparently) see the murderer in broad moonlight. The scene - which contains the bulk of the film's nudity courtesy of the ever-reliable Femi Benussi - is somewhat awkwardly shot and edited, with some early shots seeming to include a few frames of the actors waiting to hear the call of "Action." From here on, though, the editing is a lot tighter, although that's probably down to the somewhat-cut print I watched.

The fact that the available print is cut means one is forced to become an active viewer, doing a bit of sleuthing and deductive reasoning simply in order to figure out what exactly is going on. Removing the exposition which links A to B requires the viewer to be attentive and engaged so they can join the dots of the plot themselves. Here, there are a lot of characters in the mix, so figuring out who everyone is and what motivates them is half of the battle. In fact, there are so many things going on that Dean Reed, the nominal hero, is barely in the second half of the film (at least the version I watched).

Fabio Testi, in an early role as Villaverde, is mainly required to look sexy (tick!) and alternate between horny and confused, which wouldn't really stretch many actors. Nonetheless, he's more than up to the task - a task which actually, the more I think of it, isn't all that easy. His character is very obviously nuts - take the painting he happily exhibits of a nude and dead Mrs Simmons. He makes no real effort to deny that she's the subject of the painting, and even if he did the fact that he included the necklace which was stolen from her corpse is a dead (!) giveaway. He seems to have some kind of kinky 'agreement' with his wife (or else she's been browbeaten over time, or maybe she just likes his money and is willing to put up with whatevs to get it) to facilitate his womanising. And in order to practise this womanising, he has to convey enough sexiness to make it believable that a lunatic could seduce such ladies as Anita Ekberg's Mrs Ferretti, something Testi manages to pull off, in every sense.

And yes, Mrs Ferretti does prove susceptible to his charms - the film contains a lot of spouses carrying on behind their spouses' backs. (And also a lot of spouses knowing their spouses are carrying on behind their spouses’ backs - the makers of this film were clearly struggling to get their heads around the sexy possibilities presented by the advent of Free Love). They might have been better advised putting a bit more work into the logic of the film; the way the 'heroic' detectives toss Ini Assmann's (great name) Ellen into the lion's den (aka Fabio Testi's bedroom) beggars belief, and the subplot (which essentially becomes the main plot) about the dodgy loan doesn't really convince. Even the supposedly downbeat finale, which sees the detectives climbing atop a high horse to decry one of the characters' deceptiveness, isn't thought through: in real terms, they've just punished someone by refusing to charge them for services rendered. I'm not saying the makers of this film shouldn't have been paid for their rendered services, but they shouldn't have been paid much. And it should have taken the form of a loan, repayable at 150% interest within seven days.