Meurtre par accident

Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting this bizarrely loopy international production as "Dark Purpose." It is full of secret passages, loonies in the attic, marital deceptions, fits of hysteria and mysterious deaths -- plus some slavering dogs. The TCM print is gorgeous-looking, but, alas, the soundtrack is horrendous, rendering a good half of the film unintelligible. Wonderful locales and interiors, but abysmally ham-fisted direction by George Marshall and Vittorio Sala. Doris Hume Kilburn wrote the novel that has lifted elements of women in domestic peril from most of the genre from "Jane Eyre" through "Midnight Lace." A very nice performance by Shirley Jones is sadly undone by an over-the-top George Sanders, a poorly scripted Giorgia Moll and a lazy Rossano Brazzi.

This is one of those Gialli that doesn't have a masked killer slaughtering the cast, but still has plenty of the other elements still intact. It's similar to later films like The Designated Victim and Umberto Lenzi's Oasis of Fear as we're introduced to a limited amount of characters, and are left to figure stuff out as we know for sure something sinister is going on.

Even though this is a mid-sixties Italian film the setting is not an old castle in Scotland or wherever, but an old mansion on the Amalfi Coast! An English archivist and his young assistant arrive at the mansion of Count Paolo Barbarelli to archive his stuff (I guess). Next you know Paolo is giving Karen the assistant the glad eye and making his guard dog eat her shoes so he can buy her a new pair.

Karen wonders who the young lady wandering around the mansion is and Paolo explains that this is just his mentally ill daughter Cora, whom the archivist starts calling 'Lady MacBeth' (he's quite funny this guy). Next up Paolo dumps his more mature mistress and starts putting the moves on Karen. If she thinks that being a stepmother to a girl on meds is going to be tough, she's underestimating the circumstances.

I won't go much further with the plot but the whole film starts out like a romantic comedy, starts developing a bit of mystery, and by the last third is wearing it's giallo influence on it's sleeve, what with the pictures that hold clues and the twists and possibly even murder maybe. It's one of those films that gets better as it goes on, so if you stick around a bit it might pay off for you.

Or not. How am I supposed to know? Jesus.

Art expert Ray Fontaine (George Sanders) and his assistant Karen Williams (Shirley Jones) travel to the Amalfi villa of Count Paolo Barbarelli (Rossano Brazzi) to appraise his collection and the unworldly Karen soon begins to fall for the suave Count's Continental charm. Unfortunately for their budding romance, Paolo's got a jealous mistress who doesn't want to be discarded and a crazy daughter who insists she's his wife. Obviously someone's lying about something but for what dark purpose?

Troy Haworth's new book on the Italian giallo, SO DEADLY SO PERVERSE, contains an entry for this film but Adrian Luther Smith's "giallo bible", BLOOD & BLACK LACE: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO Italian SEX AND HORROR MOVIES, doesn't so is it or isn't it? Well, like Mario Bava's THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, it's got an American abroad free-falling into a vortex of mystery, intrigue, and murder but that alone shouldn't be its only qualification. If it were, then why isn't Doris Day's MIDNIGHT LACE or Jean Seberg's MOMENT TO MOMENT considered gialli as well since they also use European locations as a scenic backdrop for a "Hitchcock Lite" mystery from an American director using actors just past the cusp of their Hollywood stardom. As entertainment, DARK PURPOSE is the weakest of the three and capitalizes on Rossano Brazzi's SUMMERTIME romancing of tourist Katharine Hepburn but with completely different results this time out.

Despite an Oscar, Shirley Jones isn't much of an actress but handles her "lady in peril" role as well as can be expected and George Sanders has little to do besides wander around the villa dispensing caustic comments. Sophisticated Micheline Presle is also on hand but doesn't have a whole heck of a lot of screen time, either. 6/10 ...and giallo geeks beware.

George Sanders ' and Micheline Presles's parts are almost pointless,the former introducing his assistant (Shirley Jones ) and the latter is used as a deus ex machina who reveals the truth in fine.

A bizarre story of amnesia in a baroque mansion where a count (Brazzi) lives with his daughter(Georgia Moll); who since her accident , is mentally -ill and mistakes her father for her husband ; when the aristocrat falls for the young assistant, the story turns Freudian ,as the girl got jealous and is not prepared to share her would be husband .

Brazzi is ideally cast as the Italian noble ( like in "the barefoot comtessa" ) with a darker side to him (present in "legend of the lost" ); not a giallo ,but an entertaining little thriller .

International mishmash from a novel by Doris Hume Kilburn involving American secretary Shirley Jones with handsome, mysterious count Rossano Brazzi in Naples. Shirley's abroad doing research with her boss, an urbane art curator; Brazzi is their host who resides in a cliffside Italian villa. Their rocky first meeting quickly turns to romance, despite an ex-lady friend hanging about, as well as Rossano's unstable daughter, a shut-in who insists to Jones that she's Mrs. Brazzi. French-Italian co-production, distributed Stateside by Universal under the title "Dark Purpose", has enough red herrings and suspenseful clinches to make it mildly enjoyable. Jones gets to be a bit sexier here than in previous films (with the exception of a matronly hairdo); matching up well with Brazzi, Shirley has some sass at the beginning, though her character's declaration of love comes too soon, after which she becomes a simp heroine. Brazzi, who must have been tired of playing Euro-cads by this time, is alternately fatherly and patronizing--to everyone!--but the dark streak in his character suits him well this time. George Sanders is typically pithy as Shirley's boss, and the editing and music score are both up to par. **1/2 from ****