Coartada en disco rojo

It's exactly the kind of movie you forget as soon as you've seen it, it's so "memorable". Being a writer and filmmaker myself, I know how difficult it is to produce a valuable script, a masterpiece. This film is far from that, it is just a boring string of dialogues between the same characters, four in number, minus one who is eliminated at the beginning, plus a policeman who appears after the elimination. The policeman is none other than the legendary Fernando Rey, my main reason for wanting to see this movie. Very prolific and brilliant in Luis Buñuel's films, "Viridiana", "Tristana", "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" Original title: Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie, "That Obscure Object of Desire" Original title: Cet obscur objet du désir, plus the excellent "The French Connection", Fernando Rey, having a beautiful wife, Mabel Karr, actress and not very well paid, and having to eat as well as support two children with the actress, he agreed to play in many 14th-rate films, for money, as the case of this "The Two Faces of Fear" Original title: Coartada en disco rojo, and many others. He is also the best actor in the film, the others trying hard to seem believable and convincing in an embarrassing story.

Fernando Rey, George Hilton and Anita Strinberg- that trio alone gives you an eight star base with two stars added on just because it's a pretty good movie. The year 1972 certainly doesn't hurt as that was an outstanding year for movies in my opinion.... Great scenery just don't know what cities they were in it's not mentioned IMDB... saw it three times....

All star cast with Fernando Rey (from The French Connection) who is a police inspector investigating a murder where the suspects are Anita Strindberg, George Hilton, and Luciana Paluzzi (from Thunderball). The acting is great across the board.

The mystery and writing is fairly well done. The directing was serviceable. The score was quite good.

This is a low body count whodunit. There is very little gore/special effects with the exception of an open heart surgery which was very well done.

At the end of the day, this one was all about the acting, the relationships, and figuring out the mystery.

"The Two Faces of Fear" (I still can't quite figure out how the title is relevant, by the way) is an obscure Giallo that is mixing up my thoughts and opinions! It's a slow-paced, uneventful, and often borderline tedious whodunit, but at the same time it kept me intrigued and curiously guessing until the final plot-twist. It's admirable for a Giallo with so few characters (and thus suspects) to remain tense and challenging until the end.

The set-up is typically Italian and even more typically early 70s. All the protagonists are beautiful, rich, and decadent surgeons working in the private clinic owned by a lady who inherited it from her father. They're all married or engaged, but secretly desire for someone else's partner. When one of them hesitates to accept an offer from another clinic, he gets murdered and it's up to the skeptical homicide detective Nardi to break through their solid alibis. "The Two Faces of Fear" is remarkable for featuring a stellar contemporary cast. Fernando Rey, George Hilton, Luciana Paluzzi, Anita Strindberg, and Eduardo Fajardo were all prolific names at the time, and their acting is flawless. There's hardly any blood or gore in this Giallo, apart from extended (and real) footage of an open-heart surgery, but that doesn't count in my book. Instead, the film thrives on performances, mystery, and also some effective bits of subtle humor; - like the detective's assistant trying to interrogate a parrot or the detective himself being grumpy because everybody smokes while he was forced to quit on doctor's orders.

Murderous clinics are definitely a high place for giallo, after La Lama nel corpo, La Bestia uccide a sangue freddo, and of course Una sull'Altra. In this excellent giallo, with a more descriptive Spanish title and an Italian one inspired by Bava, the Argentinian director Demicheli brightly passes his giallist degree, with a classical plot very well handled.

Elena (Luciana Paluzzi, Femmine insaziabili) is the owner of a renowned private clinic inherited from her father, but she suffers from a heart disease due to congenital subaortic stenosis. She is married to Roberto (George Hilton, Tutti il colori del buio), a brilliant surgeon, and the clinic is directed by Luis (Eduardo Fajardo, Il Coltello di ghiaccio), a competent manager. The doctor Michele (Luis Davila, Paranoia), the main expert within the clinic, is engaged to his colleague Paola (Anita Strindberg, La Coda dello scorpione), a former friend of Roberto, but both want to leave the clinic to take a new situation in Milan, to Elena's despair. But Michele is soon murdered by the expected mysterious faceless killer.

The traditional whodunit takes place within this medical quartet of amateur shooters, where love, hate and jealousy stream from one to another. Will the commissioner Nardi (Fernando Rey, L'Occhio dietro la parete), helped by his funny assistant Felix (Manuel Zarzo, Mio caro assassino), be more efficient than usual to unmask the culprit? Who should be the next victim of the stealthy killer? Between mad high speed car race, deadly pursuit in spiral staircase, and thrilling operation on a palpitating heart, the track for the assassin shall wait for the very last minutes to reveal the final key of this bright enigma. (Viewed in Italian 1h24 version.)