El diablo tiene siete caras

"The Devil has Seven Faces" isn't a giallo, but admittedly it looks and sounds more like a giallo than most genuine gialli do. Now that was a weird sentence! Allow me to elaborate. The enticing title, the starring of George Hilton and Carroll Baker and the Stelvio Cipriani musical score have got written "GIALLO" all over it. Without even knowing what the plot is about, these elements are enough to convince all avid fans of Italian cult cinema that we're dealing with a bona fide giallo here. The plot, however, is that of a crime-thriller/mystery movie. There are no heavily breathing perverts with black gloves massacring scantily dressed fashion models here. Instead, "The Devil has Seven Faces" is an overly convoluted diamond heist thriller full of double-crossing and untrustworthy characters. Beautiful businesswoman Julie Harrison's life gets turned upside down when she suddenly receives threats, harassments and unwelcome visitors. It seems like her twin sister Mary stole a valuable diamond in London and vanished. Now the fellow jewel thieves that her sister double-crossed are mistaken Julie for Mary and terrorize her. She seeks help with a befriended lawyer Dave Barton and his hunky friend Tony Shane. Even though the men do everything to protect her, Julie's life is increasing danger. "The Devil has Seven Faces" is a fairly adequate Italian thriller, but like so often the case with these films, the screenplay tries to be overly clever and misleading, resulting in one too many convoluted plot twists. The film is also too talkative, especially during the first hour, and contains only a handful memorable moments of action, including a shoddy car chase and a tense confrontation inside a windmill. Speaking of windmills, for some reason the majority of the film (or at least all the exterior sequences) are shot in The Netherlands. I have no idea what the added value of that was, because it's weird to see all the road signs and newspaper clippings in Dutch. There are quite a number of shootouts and suggestive killings, but this definitely isn't a gory film. It's not even at all sleazy even though the cover image illustrates Carroll Baker in lingerie. Cipiriani's music is sensual and very lounge-like as usual.

Despite the title, which suggests that this will be a horror film, The Devil with Seven Faces is actually a straight crime thriller. The film features several of the Giallo trademarks; but gory murder isn't one of them, and instead the plot focuses on a missing diamond worth one million pounds. The style of the film is very much Italian, with all the characters being of the slick and cool variety and the plot taking a backseat to some odd decisions and unlikely happenings. It's safe to say that this isn't the usual Giallo and some fans may be disappointed; but in its own right, The Devil with Seven Faces is a fun little thriller with lots to enjoy. The plot focuses on Julie Harrison, a woman who finds herself being chased by criminals after it emerges that her twin sister Mary stole an expensive diamond and then double crossed her partner. She meets Tony; a suave racing car driver who saves her from the criminals and gives her a place to hide. But the plot thickens when a diamond dealer turns up and mistakes Julie for her sister...

The film features two of the major Giallo stars; George Hilton and Umberto Lenzi's favourite leading lady, Carroll Baker - who are reunited after 1968's The Sweet Body of Deborah. I'm not Carroll Baker's biggest fan, but she has a lot of experience playing the terrified woman and she does well with the central role. George Hilton also plays to his strengths as the charming, but strangely sinister leading man and the pair have a good on-screen chemistry. The plot flows well throughout and there's usually enough going on to ensure that the film never becomes boring. Director Osvaldo Civirani populates the film with enough car chases and shootouts to make sure that it remains entertaining even when the plot isn't doing much. It soon becomes obvious where it's going, but the ending is well handled and the twist is logical even if it isn't exactly difficult to guess. Overall, the fact that this film doesn't follow the Giallo formula may make it disappointing for people expecting a gory, murder-fuelled thrill ride - but in it's own right, this is a decent film and I recommend it.

Mary and Julie Harrison (both played by Carroll Baker) are in trouble with knife-wielding thugs. Julie turns to attorney Dave Barton and his detective friend Tony. A love triangle develops while the body count begins to rise.

The film was written by Tito Carpi (who also wrote Ruggero Deodato's "Last Cannibal World") and directed by Osvaldo Civirani. The film is Italian, filmed and set in the Netherlands, and dubbed by British actors. There is a lot of sexual nonsense going on, with Barton openly trying to get with Julie and a secretary with a boyfriend simultaneously. And succeeding wonderfully.

Luca Palmerini says the film "is rather short on thrills and lacking in action." Which, I suppose, is pretty accurate. I can say, though, the product placement is well done, with prominently displayed PEER brand cigarettes (made in Germany, but also available in the Netherlands).

The Alpha Video DVD is decent for a bare bones disc (all it has are some interesting and humorous exploitation trailers). Its biggest flaw is crediting Carroll Baker as "Carol", Dave Barton as "Steve" and titling the film "The Devil has 7 Faces" rather than "The Devil with 7 Faces", contrary to the opening credits.

After a series of close encounters, a woman enlists the help of her attorney and his friend to help her when a group of diamond thieves are convinced she has their stolen loot and that it's her twin sister who's really to blame, but no matter how much she tries to do so their quest to get the jewels back puts them all in danger.

This was a decidedly disappointing and uneventful Giallo effort. Among the few positives here stem from the initially intriguing storyline that starts off the film rather well. Immediately engrossing us in the threat by having the aborted abduction and reveal about not just the thugs on her trail but the reason for it as the duplicity with the twin who's the real target is the kind of fine introduction needed here. It gets to the action and setup from the start as that's all given barely ten minutes in which soon brings about a series of fine double-crosses and intense confrontations that try to pepper in some action into the proceedings as the thieves grow increasingly more intent on their misguided mission. Alongside a fun finale with some decent chases and action involved, there are some positives in this one. There are some issues to be had here that hold this one down. The main gist of the film is that once the initial setup has been revealed there's not a whole lot that happens that's interesting here. The inability of the thugs to recognize the twin duplicity has befallen them making them immensely underwhelming and non-threatening who carry on with their plans despite no real evidence of what's going on. As they try to catch up to her and the charges trying to keep her safe, their inability to recognize everything they're saying comes off more as a means of continuing the story than anything else. This ends up leading to a large assortment of scenes that are just not interesting with either these uninspired shakedowns or lifeless romance sequences featuring the couples coming together for the first time which drag this out. As well, there's also the wholly underwhelming series of action scenes that are far more lackluster than expected. Instead of the traditional stalk and slash which is usually found in these kinds of films, the use of gunplay and shootouts for everything renders this without the kind of body count or general feel associated with the genre as this type of action doesn't leave a good impression. Even worse is a cringe-inducing car chase that's criminally inept and flat-out embarrassing, rarely having the cars on-screen together in the same shot and trying to undercut everything by having not just the outside traveling shots but the interiors within the car shown through sped-up footage. It's immensely obvious with all of the unnatural behaviors and jerking going on and all come together to lower this one overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Language.

If you are expecting a good giallo from the title (Il diavolo a sette facce), especially with George Hilton (The Case of the Scorpion's Tail), and Umberto Lenzi's favorite, Carroll Baker (So Sweet... So Perverse, Silent Horror, Paranoia, A Quiet Place to Kill), you will be disappointed.

There is no blood and gore as most of the killing take place with a gun. It is a straight-up crime thriller.

It also stars Golden Globe winner Stephen Boyd (Ben-Hur).

Lots chasing around and some torture as everyone is trying to find a million dollar diamond. Some real excitement towards the end in a windmill. Not a lot of thrillers use windmills. There is Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, as well as The Black Windmill. which also involves diamonds.

Enjoyable action flick.