La polizia brancola nel buio

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.

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!

The opening of "The Police Are Blundering in the Dark" features a brutal stabbing of a semi-naked young woman in the countryside.A journalist Giorgio D'Amato agrees to meet his friend Enrichetta at Parisi's villa,but when he arrives the model has been killed with a pair of scissors.Her presence at the villa was requested by the crippled owner of the villa who has invented a device which supposedly photographs thoughts.Helia Colombo's first and only movie is arguably the worst giallo of early 70's.It's cheaply made and deadly dull.There is some sleaze and nudity as all three victims are flashing their breasts during kill scenes.There is even a revolutionary camera that can photograph people's thoughts.My beat-up Super 8-sourced copy looks awful,the score by Aldo Saitto is annoying and the action often drags."La Polizia Brancola Nel Buio" is the last film of Polish-born actress Halina Zalewska,who died tragically in a fire in her Roman apartment in 1976.5 out of 10.

(1975) The Police Are Blundering In The Dark/ La polizia brancola nel buio (In Italian with English subtitles) CRIME THRILLER/ MYSTERY/ HORROR

Written and directed by Helia Colombo that has a young lady driver stuck in the middle of the gravel road asking someone to help her change a tire. He pulls out a knife and manages to rip off her clothes before he kills her so that her bare breasts can be seen for the world to see, and of course viewers do not know who the killer is until the very end. The next scene has the servant/ chauffeur, we find out later his name is Alberto (Francisco Cortéz) as he is reading the daily newspaper that indicates about a fourth missing model from the same area with it also reads "The Police are blundering in the dark" hence the title. Alberto then puts the newspaper down as the bus pulls up a lady gets off by the name of Lucia (Gabriella Giorgelli) has accepted the job as housekeeper for the Parissi family household. And while Lucia is settling in, it looks as if Alberto may have had to do something and as he was coming in to the Parissi resident, Enrichetta Blond (Margaret-Rose Keil). And while Enrichetta was driving home, she was driving in the middle of the night while raining and storming real hard, except that her car goes out and she stops by a hotel/ inn to use the phone. Upon calling her boyfriend, Georgio D'Amato (Joseph Arkim) he is sleeping around with another lady, and promises to pick her up the following morning. Forcing her to rent the room and stay the night. She suddenly becomes the second victim and on the following morning when Georgio arrives she is missing. And at this point, he becomes the main star as we find out he is not just a player, but he also happens to be a journalist as well. And her body is nowhere to be found, it would eventually lead him to the other last place she was seen with was the Parissi family household. It is there he is introduced to Edmondo Parissi (Danny P. Gerzog) who is wheelchair bound and is impotent; his wife, Eleonora (Halina Zalewska) and their niece, Sara (Elena Veronese) who lost her parents from a plane crash and sometimes the family doctor, D. Dalla (Richard Fielding) who grows lettuce.

One of the downsides of jotting down set ups and plots of many Eruo slasher movies is that they are forgettable and sometimes hard to describe. The only reason anyone would watch them are the voluptuous nude scenes if the violence itself does not do anything for anyone, the reason why I am giving this one 5 out of 10. Viewers get to see four of the young actresses that count the most to be nude of breasts and sometimes their rear end. Anyways, the movie does not make a ton of sense as the only appearance the police made throughout the entire run is towards the end too little too late. The killer is already dead explaining the why that does not make a ton of sense either.