Il segreto del vestito rosso

Cyd Charisse is Shelley, whose husband has gone missing in Rome, so she goes to the embassy to report it. And at the same time, a dead body has turned up near the Trevi Fountain. The dashing Hugh OBrian from the embassy goes to speak with the wife to see what he can find. And a sub plot where we follow two bumbling burglars around. The english dubbing of what the foreign actors are saying is pretty over-done and just silly. When the thieves steal a pair of shoes, they find "something" hidden in the heel, so they go about trying to fence it. Although they're not even sure what it is. One of the dubbed voices sure sounds like Jim Backus (Thurston Howell III !) This one moves pretty slowly around the middle, but then it picks up! We go all over italy chasing clues. Some similar-ities to Charade. Turns into a spy thriller. Kind of. I caught this one on AMC channel. And that ending is pretty blah. Shelley just freezes up, bad stuff happens, and no-one seems too upset. The cast list is incomplete on imdb, so it must not be shown very often. Directed by Silvio Amadio.. he directed 24 films. Oh, and the Italian title of this film is "The secret of the red dress." and there actually is a red dress. It's not bad. Dubbing is kind of silly.

Cyd Charisse and her husband are in Rome doing the tourist thing, when her husband is kidnapped. She turns to old lover Hugh O'Brien, who's a newspaperman. As he investigates o he behalf, he uncovers a tangled web of drug dealing.

O'Brien was a capable and affordable leading man for Italian movies, and Miss Charisse was vlearly glad to be working again, even if this was a period when American stars went to Europe to try to revive sagging careers. This one is watchable, although the dubbing of the Italian actors in this one -- and even that of O'Brien -- seems typically off a bit.

Only so-so, this rather pedestrian thriller is from the director of a couple of decent giallo, Amuck and So Young, So Lovely, So Young. They are not great examples of the genre and this is somewhat less appealing. Hugh O'Brian at least tries and is never as wooden as Cyd Charisse who seems to barely understand what she is to do and unprepared every time she has to speak. Just watchable, this film is in fact saved by its fascinating location shooting in Rome, where we even get to go inside the famous Cinecitta film studios and the excellent and surprisingly natural sequences in Venice. The only other thing going for this is that it is available at a very decent price in a rather attractive DVD package.

I admit, Cyd Charisse was the main reason why I wanted to see this movie. Being the year 1965, when the film was made, she is no longer the super-sexy young woman she was 10-15 years before, when she showed off her glamorous legs in films like "Singin' in the Rain" (1952), "The Band Wagon" (1953), "It's Always Fair Weather" (1955), "Viva Las Vegas!" (1956), "Silk Stockings" (1957), "Party Girl" (1958), "Black Tights" (1960). Here she is still beautiful, but looks, at only 43 years old, more like an old woman. The film is what I would call a romantic thriller, neither very much, nor too much. In two secondary roles, two more beauties appear, the Italian Eleonora Rossi Drago and the French Juliette Mayniel. Watch it if you love them!

Cyd's husband has disappeared while on holiday in Rome and she enlists the help of the American Embassy to locate him. A drunk stumbles upon a dead man at Trevi Fountain. The dead man's apartment is robbed by a couple of inept thieves. Hugh is a newspaper editor in search of a story and learns of former lover Cyd's dilemma and decides to get involved. Enjoyable Italian made thriller with lovely on location photography. Hugh with the help of the inspector eventually ties these pieces together. But not before having to sift through a number of red herrings to get to the motivation behind Cyd's missing husband and the murder. The story is a bit difficult to follow but it moves along at a good pace and will keep your attention.