Delitto al circolo del tennis

CRIMES AT THE TENNIS CLUB is one of the weakest gialli I've watched this far, a completely tame and tiresome effort about a university professor having an affair with one of his students. A minor blackmail plot plays out and there's a requisite death too, but no tension at all, just mildly sleazy characters and the usual late '60s backdrop of hippies, sex and nudity.

Although it's sometimes listed as a giallo, this film is probably better describes as a Shakespearean Thriller.

It's all about the characters, their interactions, and their relationships. It's a drama. And sometimes, a melodrama.

Within the first few minutes of the film, we learn that Angela McDonald, Roberto Bisacco, and Anna Gaël are plotting something against Chris Avram. There are political elements of the bourgeoisie and proletariat. There is also some Freudian stuff thrown in for good measure. Of note, there is little violence to speak of.

I loved the 1960's rock soundtrack! It was surprisingly memorable.

It's a different kind of a film, and it may stick with you for that reason. However, it's hard to imagine the audience who would love this movie. It's too sleazy to appeal to fans of drama, and it's too talky to appeal to fans of thrillers/slashers.

Well, I guess in any race someone's got to come last. This giallo starts off promising enough, and you can tell even in the full frame presentation I watched that major thought was put into the set design, but it quickly becomes apparent to the viewer (me in this case, might be other people in other cases) that nothing remotely interesting is going to happen.

Rich businessman Riccardo is having it off with the daughter of his best friend, not knowing that his own daughter and her boyfriend are taking pictures of what's going on, and his girlfriend is in on the act! This lot I guess are a late sixties revolutionary lot who want to break the system and have picked Riccardo as the first victim of their revolution.

The first half hour of this film is gorgeous, with Riccardo's missus showing slides of her making love with Riccardo projected onto his daughter and her boyfriend also doing the nasty, but you begin to sense that this is a film where nothing is going to happen as people start doing the old stare and mope.

This happens rather a lot throughout the film. First Riccardo catches Sandro (his daughter's boyfriend) planting a letter in his jacket, then Sandro leads him on about some third party giving him the letter and they stare at each other. Then Riccardo meets his daughter and they stare at each other. Repeat and rinse.

Things goes from neutral into first gear going up a hill when Riccardo's girlfriend seemingly dies from a drug overdose, which leads to more staring and soul searching. Nothing of note happens but at least the ending was different for a semi-giallo.

I'd never heard of this one and now I've watched it I understand why. All talk and no tackle as they say. Pfft.

The tennis club in this film reminded me of the indoor-football club I was part of 20 years ago. My friends and I would meet on Fridays to play half an hour of football and then we would sit in the cafeteria and drink for five or six hours. My sports' club was an excuse to drink and meet friends, whereas the tennis club in this movie seems like an excuse to indulge in love-affairs and blackmail the other members...

Many late 60s gialli revolve around adultery and blackmail, but "Crime at the Tennis Club" differs from all of those in two very important departments. #1: there is always at least some murdering to accompany the blackmailing, and #2: the blackmailers usually have a good reason or a kind of motivation to extort others. In this film, a trio of people blackmails a fancy businessman for no apparent reason! Even when they ask each other why they even do what they're doing, they can't answer.

Ricardo has an affair with Benedetta, the daughter of his best friend, but Benedetta also forms an alliance with Ricardo's own daughter and her boyfriend (who's also Ricardo's tennis instructor). They blackmail Ricardo with his affair and even fake Benedetta's death from a drug overdose. Why? No reason. Absolutely no reason! Needless to say, "Crime at the Tennis Court" (I refuse to use totally irrelevant international title "The Rage Within") is one of the dullest and most pointless gialli ever made. The only reasons why I kept watching are the beautiful lead actresses (Anna Gaël and especially Angela McDonald) and the surprisingly good soundtrack.

A college professor who's having an affair with his best friend's daughter becomes a target for a trio of revolutionary students out to bring down the Establishment...

The kicker here is that the three teenagers are the professor's daughter, his girlfriend, and a young man who helps him dispose of his mistress' body after she apparently overdoses at his place. One of the nice things about Italian gialli are the distrust they have for hippies and young people in general and what began as a rather nasty piece of work slowly wended its way to a happy ending without a body count and despite the attractive cast (especially Angela McDonald and Chris Avram as father & daughter), that kills it. THE RAGE WITHIN coulda been good, dammit.