La polizia brancola nel buio

What a bizarre mess!

We begin by seeing a woman having her car break down and getting a pair of scissors in her neck for her trouble, which then leads to a shot of a deranged man tending a lettuce patch and chuckling. We then cut to another young lady who breaks down and calls her boyfriend to get help. He's says he'll be right along, but neglects to mention he's in bed with another girl. Naughty, fella, naughty!

This guy is Marcello and every single female member of the cast wants to tug his tummy banana. Marcello does eventually head off to pick up his girlfriend, but not before she receives a pair of scissors to the neck (although she's given time to strip off for the camera of course). Marcello is confused when he discovers his girlfriend's car is still around, so he's unsure where she's disappeared to, and instead he ends up at a villa full of very emotional people/suspects.

There's the afroed-wheelchair scientist who has perfected a machine that can print out peoples thoughts (which it does by taking pictures via the eye of a gold statue situated in the dining room!). His wife, who suffers from 'Erotomania', whatever that is - she just seems pissed off that she lives in the country, and their neice, a blonde, sexually repressed girl who lives in terror of her uncle and seems to be the main subject of the thought machine. Plus, there's the doctor who looks after the scientist, the giant gardners guy, angry butler Alberto and yet another sexually repressed maid who has the hots for Marcello, and everyone else for that matter.

This film looks like it cost about five lire to make and even though there's plenty of nudity to keep you awake, an interminable dinner party in the middle almost derails the whole thing. Luckily the thought machine and a novel death for the killer goes in its favour. Of course the killer's motives don't make much sense and there's a couple of extra twists at the end because...you know...it's a giallo. Got to have twists!

Police are Blundering in the Dark (1975) is an Italian giallo that I recently watched on Prime. The storyline follows an area on the Italian highway known for people going missing. When a young lady has car troubles and stays at a local hotel she's never seen again. Her "boy friend" arrives at the hotel the next morning to pick her up; and when she's gone, she starts investigating the area looking for the killer.

This movie is written and directed by Helia Colombo, in his only major project, and stars Gabriella Giorgelli (The Organizer), Elena Veronese (Scent of a Woman), Halina Zalewska (The Leopard) and Margaret Rose Keil (Escape from Galaxy 3).

This has a lot of worthwhile classic giallo elements - extended chase scenes being a big part of the "horror" elements, all of the victims are female, all of the females are gorgeous, the cinematography and Italian countryside shots are magnificent. The stab scenes were better than I anticipated with some that are very, very good. The inn keeper couple were fantastic and had me cracking up. The soundtrack is a bit cliche but fun and the attire is entertaining and very European. The demise of the killer at the very end is great too.

Overall, this isn't the greatest giallo ever but it's a fun watch. I would score this a 6/10 and strongly recommend it.

Talky, nearly gore-free, and overlong at under 90 minutes, The Police Are Blundering in the Dark might be one of the least interesting giallos ever made. While most giallos aren't known for their award winning scripts or realistic dialogue, there's usually a little style or sleaze to keep one's interest, but this film is too coy and pedestrian to keep one's attention.

First, this movie was made years before 1975, but didn't get released until 1975, when long movie titles with "police" were trending, due to the popularity of eurocrime. This movie was meant to have been titled The Salad Garden or something, but they changed it. This however, is a cheap and poorly executed province giallo with at least one recognizable face, most other actors you probably rarely ever saw before - and for good reasons. I don't know where to begin, you need to see for yourselves, but the bizarre salad dinner scene has some of the most hollow dialogue and acting - and not to mention the overlong crazy scientist scene performing his arts on a regular home mixing table, randomly pushing knobs for what feels like several minutes. Good lord, how did Vinegar Syndrome even go the whole mile restoring and releasing this mediocrity, when there are real low budget diamonds waiting to be recovered?

A reporter agrees to meet a model friend at an isolated villa. Turns out she's been stabbed to death by an unknown assassin. The owner of the villa is a wheelchair-bound man who has invented a device for photographing thoughts. Typically for these types of movies, the house is also populated by a selection of other oddballs and eccentrics.

The Police Are Blundering in the Dark is a bargain basement yet extremely strange giallo. It opens with a half-naked woman being chased by an unseen assailant and then being stabbed to death with a pair of scissors. But from hereon in it just gets stranger. The very idea of a machine that photographs thoughts is of course ludicrous. Its nearest giallo equivalent would be the ridiculous eye device in Dario Argento's Four Flies on Grey Velvet. But that's where the comparison ends, as this flick is hardly on the same level as Argento's one. It is a somewhat bizarre entry in the giallo sub-genre it does have to be admitted and for that alone it deserves at least some recognition. But it's strictly a movie for Euro-trash connoisseurs, it's not even going to necessarily appeal to giallo enthusiasts as it's a little bit too clunkily offbeat for its own good.