La controfigura

As a fan of gialli, I had high hopes for this one. It has a solid cast. Jean Sorel is in some of the better ones, including 'The Short Night of Glass Dolls' and 'Lizard in a Woman's Skin.' It's got an intriguing Hitchcock-esque title. Who is 'The Double'? Sadly, 'La Controfigura' just lacks the smart twists and turns of a great mystery thriller. It's not enough about who killed whom and is too much about who's doing whom.

The film starts strong, with a man being shot in a carpark. Why did it happen? Who shot him? Will he survive? Unfortunately, the next hour and a half won't shed much light on that subject. Instead, you'll spend a holiday in a really weird setting with our protagonist, who manages to make every situation weird and awkward. He's constantly jealous of his new wife while simultaneously trying to get it on with other women, and in the wrongest, most cringey ways possible.

So about three quarters of the way through the soap opera, you're probably wondering, 'what happened to our great mystery'? Well, eventually all is revealed, of course, but what did it have to do with anything else in the film? God knows. The story includes diplomats and physicists and bad guys asking, 'Where is it?', yet they're all tossed aside as useful plot points, not even used as red herrings.

'La Controfigura' is not a totally unwatchable film. The actors are decent and good looking, the locations are nice, there's some drama and intrigue. It's just that the soap opera is pretty disconnected from the actual mystery. The puzzle is missing some pieces that could have at least formed a picture.

I can only be honest and make it absolutely clear: I find Ewa Aulin completely cute and stunning to look at. Even the voice dubbed on top of hers doesn't compromise that. Jean Sorel as Giovanni, whose recollections make up the bulk of this film, is a classically good looking gentleman. As a couple, however, Giovanni and Lucia share a tempestuous, jealous relationship. And that is what takes up most of the plot.

Despite the appealing quality of these two performers, their various dalliances aren't quite as interesting to watch as the writers seem to think, although Romolo Guerrieri's direction lifts it into a somewhat dream-like state. But the various liaisons are virtually all that happens. The main thrust of interest involves how Giovanni ends up in the predicament he's enduring when we first encounter him at the beginning of the film.

Despite the wafer-thin plot, this is as breezy, if undemanding, entry into the giallo genre - mainly because of the appeal of the two main players. My score is 5 out of 10.

Like Luigi Cozzi's The Killer Must Kill Again, and Aldo Lado's Short Night of the Glass Dolls, Romolo Guerrieri's The Double has tried to do something a little different with the common Giallo formula, and like the latter film; this one isn't entirely successful, although it's certainly an intriguing take on Italy's finest style of film-making. The plot is narrated via a series of flashbacks, and while this gives the film a rather disjointed feel, the talented director ensures that every scene flows well and is relevant to the plot. The focus of this movie isn't on murder, despite someone being shot in the opening scene and it's always clear that the characters are the star of this show. The film revolves around Frank; the man shot at the beginning, as he lies in a pool of blood, he thinks back to how he got into that position - a story that centres on the mother of his nineteen year old girlfriend. Frank is an architect living off his father's allowance and he's also a jealous lover. He doesn't like his girlfriend seeing an American holidaymaker, also staying in Morocco - but he also can't resist the lure of his girlfriend's sexy mother...

The Moroccan locale that makes up the first part of the movie is beautifully shot, and director Guerrieri delights in overlapping his beautiful scenes with a catchy score from Armando Trovajoli. The film doesn't include a lot of tension or suspense, but The Double does manage to retain the viewer's interest by way of the characters' motivations. The film bathes in the glow of the people in the story, and this is one of the movie' strongest elements. The Double is brought to life by Jean Sorel, who takes the lead role. While his character is something of an interloper between the others in the plot, Sorel does well with what he has. Lucia Bosé and Ewa Aulin are both good as the female leads, and the director delights in capturing as much of their flesh as possible. The fact that the movie doesn't feature the stylish murders or exciting chase sequences that have made the sub-genre famous will leave some disappointed; and I've got to say that's true for me. Films such as The Forbidden Photos of a Lady above Suspicion have proved that sex and characters can carry a Giallo, but this one doesn't quite manage it. However; The Double is an interesting film and one that fans of Giallo will not want to miss.

This is all most enjoyable if insubstantial. It looks good and sounds good throughout. Jean Sorel effective, as ever, without seeming to put himself too far out. Just a raised eyebrow is often all he needs to do to convey to us his thinking. Bit bewildering at times with much flashing back and forth but the two ladies help, both Lucie Bose and Ewa Aulin as mother and daughter are easy on the eye, in and out of their clothes. Many films of this time had prolonged sequences somewhere in them where half naked lovers ran along a beach or galloped horses in the surf or ran into sunlight through cornfields but this film, at times, seems to consist of just those dreamy (but insignificant) moments.

A great admirer of Jean Sorel I watched this unworthy rubbish, and although the mystery of the opening caught my attention the rest of the film did not. Lucia Bose, a long way away from Antonioni, I also admire, but definitely not here. Seeing Sorel I tried to focus on the great actor of ' Sandra ' directed by Visconti, and his role in Bunuel's ' Belle de Jour ' and Bolognini's ' From a Roman Balcony ' and wondered why he had accepted this mess of a scenario. This example of Italian cinema of the beginning of the 1970's showed to me how cinema was beginning to slide down into puerile eroticism (concentrating on the female body and considering the male body to be a substitute for the heterosexual males in the audience), and also into the domain of violence for its own sake with again the males in the audience having fantasies of violence of their own. But to return to the film in detail it has an appalling musical score, flashy and gimmicky camera work, and as I said I watched it for Sorel and yes, there were glimpses of the man who qualified for me as being the best actor of the previous decade. Saddening.