Una farfalla con le ali insanguinate

While walking through a park in a rainy day, the young Françoise Pigaut (Carole André) is stabbed to death by man wearing raincoat and hat. Inspector Berardi (Silvano Tranquilli) is assigned to investigate the case and soon the TV anchor Alessandro Marchi (Giancarlo Sbragia) becomes the prime suspect. His daughter Sarah Marchi (Wendi D'Olive) was Françoise's best friend and their common friend Giorgio (Helmut Berger) had a crush on Françoise. Alessandro's friend and attorney Giulio Cordaro (Günther Stoll) defends him in the court but Alessandro is found guilty and sent to prison. When two other women are murdered and it is found that Alessandro's wife Maria Marchi (Evelyn Stewart) is the lover of Giulio, the defense asks for mistrial and Alessandro has another trial. Who might be the killer?

"Una farfalla con le ali insanguinate", a.k.a. "The Bloodstained Butterfly", is a crime story with a great twist in the end. The suspenseful screenplay begins with the presentation of several characters and is confused, and the slow pace is tiresome. But the story is good, and the unexpected conclusion surprises the viewer. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Uma Borboleta com as Asas Ensanguentadas" ("A Butterfly with the Bloodstained Wings")

A young woman is stabbed to death in a park, and the killer gets away. Soon, a suspect is apprehended and, after a lengthy trial, imprisoned for the crime.

However, the case is hardly open-and-shut, as we are introduced to characters with mixed motives, and made privy to certain facts that toss everything into confusion! Then, another murder is committed in a similar fashion, and someone begins taunting the police. This isn't the last homicide, either!

THE BLOODSTAINED BUTTERFLY is an excellent giallo, packed with suspense, mystery, red herrings, some unexpected twists, and a unique denouement!

Co-stars Helmut Berger as Giorgio, the rather strange son of a millionaire...

A girl is murdered in a park. A suspect is tried and convicted but the killings continue.

The Bloodstained Butterfly is a giallo that occupies the more restrained side of the genre. Despite having a plot revolving around a series of knife murders, it doesn't really focus on these killings. One is shown briefly in flash-back, while the others are essentially committed off-screen. Instead, the narrative concentrates more on the mystery. For this reason it is on the more sober and intelligent side of the giallo genre. Quite a bit of the story is taken up with the police procedural angle and court-room scenes. And similar to many others in the sub-genre, an intense melodrama underpins the murder mystery; and, as is often the case, it's populated by a group of quite unsympathetic people. These are made up with the usual concoction of the psychologically troubled and the sleazily untrustworthy.

While the emphasis on melodrama and detective/courtroom dynamics might not be to everyone's taste, it works here. The mystery is compelling and you are kept guessing all the way. I can't say I predicted the outcome either, which is always a bonus. But in amongst all of this are some great typical giallo moments such as the opening scenes in the park with the killer making a get away shot from a number of nice angles. In general, as you might expect from this type of film it is photographed well throughout and has a good soundtrack too. It also has a somewhat unusual opening credit sequence where we are introduced to all of the main characters where they are shown with their moniker displayed on screen. This is quite good, as these films almost always have convoluted plot-lines and this helps ease us into proceedings with a quick look at whose who in the film about to start.

The Bloodstained Butterfly is overall a pretty involving mystery. It isn't a horror-orientated thriller at all though, so if that's what you're after you'd be best looking elsewhere. But it has the specific mood and essence that early 70's gialli have. If you're a fan of the sub-genre you should check this one out.

Behind a typically abstruse giallo title (the plot's link to a butterfly of any kind is extremely tenuous) lies a film that rarely feels like a typical giallo, with more police procedure and courtroom drama than usual. Director Duccio Tessari's film opens in familiar territory with the murder of a young woman in a park, the killer, in raincoat and hat, making his escape, but witnessed by several people. The police investigate the crime scene, forensics gathering numerous pieces of evidence, all of which points to TV reporter Alessandro Marchi (Giancarlo Sbragia) as the guilty party. The rest of the first half of the film is dedicated to the trial of Allesandro, with dreary flashbacks and cross-examination making the film something of a chore to sit through.

Found guilty of murder, Allesandro is sentenced to life, but while he is in prison, the killings continue, the modus operandi the same as before, the culprit contacting the police with a whispered phone call. When Allesandro's mistress comes forward with vital information that seems to prove his innocence, Allesandro is freed (much to the annoyance of his wife, who also has a lover). After much intrigue, Tessari eventually pulls together all the plot threads for an unexpected twist ending that goes some way to make the duller moments seem a bit more worthwhile. As far as the death scenes go, they are extremely tame and likely to disappoint fans of Argento or Fulci, and despite a fair few attractive women, the level of nudity is also fairly low.

Perhaps the most notable things about the film are its police inspector's strange obsession with coffee, and the cop who falls over running down some stairs during a chase on foot through the streets of Milan (it looks unintentional and is never spoken of).

5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

Duccio Tessari is probably best known as the director of several Spaghetti Westerns, most prominently the "Ringo" films with Giuliano Gemma, as well as the well-known Italian Crime flick "Tony Arzenta". The man also served as an (uncredited) co-writer of Sergio Leone's Italian Western milestone "Fistful of Dollars", and as a writer of several sword and sandal films in the early 60s. As a director, Tessari's doubtlessly best films are his two intelligent and plot-driven Gialli, "L'Uomo Senza Memoria" (aka. "The Man Without Memory", 1974) and this gem. "Una Farfalla Con Le Ali Insanguiante" aka. "Bloodstained Butterfly" of 1971 is a terrific, beauty- and suspenseful example for a purely plot-based Giallo that profits from an excellent cast, a great score, wonderful settings and a sublime cinematography. As it is the case with Tessari's other Giallo, "The Man Without Memory", "Bloodstained Butterfly" is a Giallo that focuses on the Mystery more than the Horror-elements of the genre. And the film is indeed a perfectly constructed puzzle of a mystery that is (though convoluted) always easy to follow.

When a French exchange student (Carole André) is murdered by multiple stabbing in a park in Bergamo, the police arrest TV anchor Marchi (Giancarlo Sbragia). Marchi's daughter Sarah (Wendy D'Olive), who was friends with the murdered girl, does not believe in her father's guilt... As said above, this is a purely story-driven Giallo. For genre-standards, there are only very few murders and very little gore. The film is very suspenseful, however, and delivers mystery and innovative twists from the beginning to the end, as a good Giallo should. The beautiful Bergamo locations are a wonderful setting for the film, which is furthermore (in good Giallo-tradition) brilliantly photographed. The beautiful score intensifies the atmosphere, and the film profits from a very good ensemble cast. The characters are all complex and elaborate. The always-sinister Helmut Berger and Italian Grenre-cinema regulars such as Ida Galli ("The Case Of The Scorpion's Tail"), Günter Stoll ("What Have They Done To Solange"), Silvano Tranquilli ("The Black Belly of The Tarantula"), and Giancarlo Sbragia ("Tony Arzenta") all deliver very good performances. As said, for a Giallo this features little violence and gore and also little sleaze, but the magnificently elaborate plot should be more than pleasant to Genre-fans. "Bloodstained Butterfly" is beautifully filmed with a lot of style, and highly recommended to my fellow Giallo-fans.