Morte sospetta di una minorenne

If you are expecting a 'giallo' to unfold, and with the title, box art and opening of the film, you have every right to do so, you will be a little disappointed.

For instead this is a right hotchpotch of styles and levels of seriousness. Once aware that this is going to go all over the place and include social comment and slapstick comedy whilst retaining a sleazy back story of under age prostitution one can relax and enjoy, at face value, a most likable film.

Made after most of his 'giallo' greats this is always watchable with fine moments. It's just that it's not what you would expect.

Technically, The Suspicious Death of a Minor is a giallo. It has a mystery, and all of the exploitation elements of prostitution, crime, and violence. Too bad this film wanted to be trashy American tv.

As an American watching Italian films, part of what I appreciate about giallos is that they are very Italian (though some are also Spanish) and differ from American mysteries and horror from the 1970s in significant ways - with the exception of Alfred Sole's Alice Sweet Alice and the British film Don't Look Now. These last two films are excellent English-language tributes to the giallo. But The Suspicious Death of a Minor is decidedly NOT an excellent tribute to American cinema.

Essentially, it's a buddy comedy featuring an adult man in his 30s befriending a younger petty thief of about 20, who showers his mother and siblings with gifts he steals by snatching purses from street walkers and other tacky ventures. They team up to solve a murder, and from there it's all downhill.

This mediocre giallo is filled to the brim with fist fights, numerous car accidents, and slapstick comedy better suited to an episode of The Dukes of Hazard and features mystery elements reminiscent of the cop soap Hart to Hart rather than of giallo-inspiration Agatha Christie. I mean, I can see why some people would like this sort of thing, but I just don't. There was some physical comedy which appeared to be an intentional homage to 1920s silent film which I appreciated, but it just wasn't enough to carry the flick. I cannot believe Sergio Martino was even involved with this.

As other reviewers have said this is a strange movie. It is kind of an "unofficial" sixth entry to the series of excellent gialli directed by Sergio Martino in the early 1970's (although, as such, it is definitely step down from his previous film "Torso"). It has a very familiar "giallo-esqe" starting point where the investigation of a murdered underage prostitute leads to a lot of equally nasty killings. It also functions as a "poliziani" with lots of action and chase sequences and a cynical plot involving high-level political intrigue. Claudio Cassinelli plays a cop who makes Dirty Harry look restrained and by-the-book. He sleeps with prostitutes, consorts with minor criminals, feels up underage girls, shoots at civilians, and even leads the regular police on a wreckless high-speed chase for no real reason. The people he is after though are even worse, involved in everything from kidnapping to drugs and teenage prostitution to money laundering.

But if all this isn't a little too much, the movie also tries to be a comedy. Cassanelli has a comical side-kick, and there is a running gag where he keeps breaking his glasses. Sometimes the comedy works, but other times it tends to sabotage the drama, like when he incorporates slapstick pratfalls into what is already a very over-long car chase (a bane of these type of movies ever since "The French Connection" was released in Italy). Fortunately, Cassinelli has charisma to spare in his first of many roles for director Martino (he didn't have the impressive breasts of Martino's other frequent collaborator Edwige Fenech, but he was no doubt a better actor). Jenny Tamburi, on the other hand, was pretty much wasted (both as an actress and pair of impressive breasts). But Mel Ferrer and most of the other obscure more actors acquit themselves pretty well. Not as good as Martino's earlier movies, but better than his later ones, and it has just been released in widescreen with English subtitles on (import) DVD. So check it out for yourself.

This one is slightly odd tonally - there is a bit of poliziotteschi, some giallo and some broad and slapstick humour. If I had to pick a genre to pigeon-hole it in it would be a poliziotteschi. It owes more to that genre than giallo for me. Giallo purists will likely be disappointed. Some giallos have a little humour so that isn't necessarily a problem. This has more humour than I've seen in a giallo before but I think the giallo label goes by the wayside for me for a few reasons. The main one - it can't really be a giallo if you see the face of the killer during the first scenes of the film. After seeing the killer it is not a whodunnit, more of a who-hired-them-to-do-it and why? It also leaves you dangling as far as exactly what the main character's role or job is until about 40 minutes in. A few other fairly crucial giallo conventions or tropes are flouted here but I won't say which as they would be potential spoilers. There are some heavy nods to (or maybe little borrowings from) Profondo Rosso, which precedes this by only a few months - evidence of how quickly these films were made. The first track on the soundtrack is certainly Goblin-esque and the trashy, falling-apart car I assume was "inspired" by Argento's film. The tone wobbles around and this may make or break the film for you. It feels deliberate and mischievous rather than clumsy. Once you get that it will break with convention, and play with tone and genre I think it is a lot of fun. The price you pay is less tension, although some is achieved especially in the latter half. It is reasonably paced and a few bits of the humour work. The main two characters interact quite nicely together. There is no glaring deadwood in terms of the actors. The last hour of the film is more conventional and rattles along well. Glasses (spectacles) are a running theme - the main character spends the whole film repeatedly breaking his prescription glasses and the killer wears mirrored sunglasses (which enable a few nice little camera shots). I can't resist mentioning two other things. (I guess this technically counts as a spoiler but it is not related to any plot or anything crucial). Firstly, during a car chase they hit the front of a bicycle and when the bicycle loses its front wheel it magically turns into a unicycle leading to a wobbly ride and fall. Secondly, again in a car chase, there is an unfortunate pedestrian who is narrowly missed (twice) and manages to contort himself into an almost-breakdance-move headspin both times before dizzyingly walking into a lamppost to knock himself out. (Was this breakdancing move around in 1975? - I don't know). The subject matter should be dark. Abuse/prostitution of underage girls (a la What Have You Done To Solange and What Have They Done To Your Daughters), a network of corruption, cover-ups, murder etc.....). This film feels less dark, depressing and gritty and has less exploitation-type sequences. In fact, for this type of film it is quite light on nudity. If that disappoints you it does have a topless Barbara Magnolfi in what seems to be her first credited role - if you are a fan of 70s Italian genre films you will possibly know her from Suspiria (as Olga) and Sister of Ursula (in the lead role). With the subject matter it seems wrong to say but this film is quite fun. Have a look. I definitely like it. Just don't come in to it with a fixed idea of what genre it is and what that genre should constrain it to.

A young prostitute is found brutally killed and is up to detective Germi (Claudio Cassinelli) the investigation of the case, as the search progress he uncovers a girls trafficking ring with connections to powerful people.

The script comes from Ernesto Gastaldi, possibly the most prolific writer in the Italian film industry. He wrote scripts for Bava, Fulci, Leone and more. If he has not written an autobiography, he really should... few scribes can claim to have put so many trashy masterpieces on the screen. Director Sergio Martino claims he added to the script and "changed it radically", though it is evident that the vast majority is Gastaldi's work.

Martino was responsible for possibly the best-named giallo film out here, "Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key" (1972). This one is also usually called a giallo, though it may blur the line with a police procedural. Typically, a giallo protagonist is a common person, or at most a journalist, but rarely a police officer -- someone who should actually be involved in a mystery.

Sergio and his brother, producer Luciano Martino, were the grandsons of director Gennaro Righelli, who directed the first Italian sound film, "The Song of Love" (1930). While the Martino brothers worked heavily in cult and genre films, there is no denying they had a deep family history in cinema.

This may be Claudio Cassinelli's best-known film. He did go on to appear in "The Mountain of the Cannibal God" (1978) and "Hands of Steel" (1986), both directed by Martino. In fact, he tragically died in a helicopter crash while making the latter film, an event that Martino talks about in length on the Blu-ray.

The 2017 Arrow Blu-ray has a brand new 2K restoration of the film from the original camera negative, with the sound either mono Italian or English (your choice). We get a new audio commentary by Troy Howarth, author of "So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films". And, last but certainly not least, a new 42-minute interview with co-writer/director Sergio Martino. Oddly, Barbara Magnolfi was not interviewed, despite her being generally accessible.