Delitto d'autore

A wealthy Countess is warned that if she gives a valuable painting away as first prize in a music competition, the only thing handed out will be death. In rapid succession, the painting is stolen, the Countess murdered, her niece (Sylva Koscina) kidnapped, and the police baffled as the killings continue...

This uninspired villa-set murder mystery has a decent body count and plenty of red herrings but still manages to fall short of being a bona fide Giallo. There's a brief Sylva Koscina nude scena and genre star Luigi Pistilli is on hand as a suspicious priest but the absence of even a semblance of style or set-piece slaying help the movie miss the mark.

Young love, eh? Sylva has had to sneak off and marry her fiancé, theatre...guy Pier, because her really wealthy Aunt doesn't approve of such goings on and thinks Pier is a moocher. She might be right too, as Pier has money issues, but seems like an alright guy to Sylva.

What's more important to her Aunt is the upcoming competition in which an invaluable painting from her collection will be submitted. Her expensive Villa/Mansion is full of all sorts of hangers-on, from rich German artist Hermann, to shady priest Luigi Pistilli, to a few suitors that Sylva really doesn't want to meet. It's obvious that we are having all our suspects paraded in front of us, especially during a clay shooting day out. You hear that Umberto Lenzi? CLAY pigeons.

Someone very strange is going around with a tape recorded, recording everyone's conversations and also playing recordings over the phone to Sylva's Aunt warning her not to go ahead with the competition. Then Sylva gets kidnapped at an ancient Roman bath house and not one, but two people separately break into the Aunt's villa one night, resulting in stolen painting and one dead rich lady. What's happening this time, for Christ's sake?

The police get involved which bogs the film down and bit, but the director seems to realise this and throws in a couple of random nudie bits to keep you awake, from the 'here, let me rub sun cream on your chest' bit, to the totally random orgy that the police raid that has nothing to do with the plot. That's keep you going until the suspects start turning up dead.

No slashing here, but a few people still get whacked. There's also a car chase at the end. Not sure why this one is so obscure. It's alright.