Il segreto del vestito rosso

From Silvio Amadio, director of the Gialli "Amuck" and "So Young, So Lovely, So Young", comes this passable international-intrigue thriller with an engaging cast. It attempts to be a sophisticated crime mystery in the Hitchcock vein, and is reasonably entertaining if never anything great.

Hunky American star Hugh O'Brian ('The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp') is cast here as Dick Sherman, an American reporter working in Rome. Re-entering his life is Shelley North (Cyd Charisse, "Brigadoon"), who was there on vacation with her husband Bill, an engineer. Bill has gone missing at roughly the same time as a stranger has been found murdered near a fountain. Dick works to solve the case along with the inspector (Alberto Closas) assigned to the case.

As a mystery, this is nothing special, with a resolution that falls short of real satisfaction. We're supposed to be caught off guard by the reveal of the antagonist, but it would have worked better if the whole mystery were better explained. As it is, it does feature the requisite number of red herrings, and it does have some fairly exciting scenes.

Mostly, it's an effective visual experience. Other than the fact that the ladies (also including Juliette Mayniel and Eleonora Rossi Drago) are lovely, it's well handled in an aesthetic sense, with colourful 2.35:1 photography. The film is additionally enjoyable as something of a travelogue - there are many attractive Italian location shots. We even get to see inside Italy's famed Cinecitta Studios, which is the real treat.

O'Brian may not make anybody forget Cary Grant, but he comes off pretty well as the likeable, earnest hero. In fact, he comes off better than leading lady Charisse. The supporting cast is fairly strong, with some striking character faces among the other players (including a comedy relief pair of bumbling thieves who happen upon an important plot element during their escapades).

"Assassination in Rome" is nothing one has to go out of their way to see, but lovers of crime mysteries in exotic settings are sure to get some value out of it.

Six out of 10.

A film wich stays in the mean among the Eurospy sixties wave. For Hollywood doesn't seem to seek to offer much choice for actresses above 40, Cyd Charisse makes here a very remarquable prestation as Shelley North, a wealthy American in Rome, in a production which stands far below her standards. Driven in an espionage plot around the usual microfilms of military secrets, Shelley worries about the sudden disappearing of her husband Bill (Alberto Dalbes, Paranoia/A quiet place to kill), and is helped to find him by her former lover Dick, a journalist (Hugh O'Brian), and his colleague of the fashion column Erika (Eleonora Rossi Drago, Nelle pieghe della carne).

Developments are far to be nervous and the story goes on on a rather dull pace, but false leads, around an elegant mafia boss (Mario Feliciani, Maigret a Pigalle) or a couple of suspicious friends (Philippe Lemaire and Juliette Mayniel, Solamente Nero), allows the suspense to endure, and the duet of comics Memmo Carotenuto and Franco Giacobini brings a welcome funny counterpoint. The postcard mood is for its part respected with Dolce Vita's Trevi Fountain, ruined panoramas of Rome and water trip through Venice under doves flight.

Lacking of any efficiency, Dick must recognize that he is "the biggest idiot in the whole world", the police officer Baudi (Alberto Closas) has to reduce himself to wonder "how come I didn't think of it before", while the so-called "secret of the red dress" indeed seen from time to time is to remain nebulous. But the film also looks towards the giallo issue, with a good final chase of a masked murderer bearing ambiguous identity through spiral staircase and steep roof, foretelling the later to come by the same Amadio (Il sorriso della iena and Amuck/Alla ricerca del piacere), and allowing the plot to find a resolution.

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.

This one has some Giallo elements (the title with the colour in it, a mysterious murder, loads of style) but may well be one of them spy-thriller type things too (I know nothing about that genre). I'll tell you one thing, though - it's a bit of patience-stretcher even though it's gorgeous looking.

A woman reports her husband missing while on holiday in Rome while a tramp finds a corpse propped up at the Trevi Fountain. A handsome American reporter gets involved with both cases (especially as the woman is his ex!) and starts to find links between them. Meanwhile, two burglars find they've burgled an already ransacked flat but find a strange package in the heel of a shoe. Also there's a fat guy going around spying on folks and there's a cop with a bad stomach also on the case. And the mafia too - I forgot about them. And a hooker. And another one of the reporter's ex-girlfriends. And another one of them too. And an ex-drug addict painter.

The woman lists all the people she knows in Rome: a strange couple and an even stranger old man who kept pestering her husband. After a flashback at the Coliseum, and a visit to the Cinecitta (where an extremely camp man comes onto our reporter!), everyone heads off to Venice to catch up with the mystery there.

As I said, this is a very fine looking film and not too bad a mystery, but considering the other films surrounding it chronologically it could have used a bit more bite, and probably a better explanation (more than "So THAT's who it was"). I still have no idea who the fat guy was in relation to anything else, and he tried to kill the hero about ten times! Maybe I wasn't listening. There are a few twists in here that are pretty good, and the death of the killer turns up in Argento's Cat O Nine Tails (and I'm gonna come right out and say it, a lot of stuff from these early films turns up in Argento's films, but who cares?).

I wish they wouldn't smoke so much in these films. I used to love smoking in Rome - nothing better than a 'Diana' or an 'L&M' on a veranda at night listening to all them cars beeping at each other. Best way to end a hard day's sightseeing and eating. I used to always hit my head of the shutters on the way back in because I was too stupid to lift them up high enough. Now it's caravans in Flamborough and weak lager and fresh air.

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.