L'intrigo

Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting this bizarrely loopy international production as "Dark Purpose." It is full of secret passages, loonies in the attic, marital deceptions, fits of hysteria and mysterious deaths -- plus some slavering dogs. The TCM print is gorgeous-looking, but, alas, the soundtrack is horrendous, rendering a good half of the film unintelligible. Wonderful locales and interiors, but abysmally ham-fisted direction by George Marshall and Vittorio Sala. Doris Hume Kilburn wrote the novel that has lifted elements of women in domestic peril from most of the genre from "Jane Eyre" through "Midnight Lace." A very nice performance by Shirley Jones is sadly undone by an over-the-top George Sanders, a poorly scripted Giorgia Moll and a lazy Rossano Brazzi.

Art expert Ray Fontaine (George Sanders) and his assistant Karen Williams (Shirley Jones) travel to the Amalfi villa of Count Paolo Barbarelli (Rossano Brazzi) to appraise his collection and the unworldly Karen soon begins to fall for the suave Count's Continental charm. Unfortunately for their budding romance, Paolo's got a jealous mistress who doesn't want to be discarded and a crazy daughter who insists she's his wife. Obviously someone's lying about something but for what dark purpose?

Troy Haworth's new book on the Italian giallo, SO DEADLY SO PERVERSE, contains an entry for this film but Adrian Luther Smith's "giallo bible", BLOOD & BLACK LACE: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO Italian SEX AND HORROR MOVIES, doesn't so is it or isn't it? Well, like Mario Bava's THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, it's got an American abroad free-falling into a vortex of mystery, intrigue, and murder but that alone shouldn't be its only qualification. If it were, then why isn't Doris Day's MIDNIGHT LACE or Jean Seberg's MOMENT TO MOMENT considered gialli as well since they also use European locations as a scenic backdrop for a "Hitchcock Lite" mystery from an American director using actors just past the cusp of their Hollywood stardom. As entertainment, DARK PURPOSE is the weakest of the three and capitalizes on Rossano Brazzi's SUMMERTIME romancing of tourist Katharine Hepburn but with completely different results this time out.

Despite an Oscar, Shirley Jones isn't much of an actress but handles her "lady in peril" role as well as can be expected and George Sanders has little to do besides wander around the villa dispensing caustic comments. Sophisticated Micheline Presle is also on hand but doesn't have a whole heck of a lot of screen time, either. 6/10 ...and giallo geeks beware.

In this American-abroad-in-peril the quite breathtakingly beautiful Shirley Jones plays a young secretary who arrives in Italy with Britton insurance agent George Sanders (noless!) to evaluate the stunning estate of Count Paolo Barbarelli (played with merit but without real imagination by Rossano Brazzi). She soon finds herself more interested in the clichéd aristocrat charms of the Count than in his art collection. However all is not as it seems, and sneaking around the house is the Counts eerie daughter, allegedly traumatized after the death of her mother in an accident a few years back. Questions mount and plot thickens as Shirley pursues a friendship with the girl, and roams around the big estate where a mystery seems hidden within the architecture it self. All in all this is an entertaining romp for those with a taste for stylish Hitchcockian thrillers of the 60's, and what it lacks in originality it makes up for in the charm of the cast, good paced direction and lavish imagery.

Way back in pre-vcr, early 1980s Florida I tried to stay up and watch this but ultimately fell asleep before the film's airing time. This was when channel 13 was ALWAYS showing little imported horror and suspense films like: Beyond The Door, Dracula A.D. 1972, Shock Waves, Welcome To Arrow Beach, Secret Of Seagull Island, The Psychic, Lady In The Car With Glasses And A Gun, Night Watch (with Billie Whitelaw), Rider On The Rain, Hands Of The Ripper, Reflections Of Murder (Tv's Diabolique remake), Rosemary's Baby, The Legend Of Lizzie Borden, etc, just to name a few from memory. Very cool time! Anyway, this missed opportunity has always haunted me and I've searched for this title for years so when Turner Classic Movies aired this I was elated! Was it worth the wait? I can honestly say yes. A great film? No, but highly watchable and everything I had expected based on the brief, old summary that TV guide gave the film. I can't add to anything that has already been posted about this film but if you dig seeing attractive ladies in peril running around an appropriately gaudy Gothic villa and sunny, Naples scenery then this fills the plate. While watching 'Dark Purpose' films like 'Hatchet For The Honeymoon' and 'Champagne Murders' immediately popped in my head. That should give a clue as to the actual feel of the movie (if one has seen these two flicks). AND of note is the always great George Sanders: brief but exceptionally bitchy with some snide lines! What a little queen! One last thing: it's been posted that the print that TCM aired was bad (with seriously spotty sound) and maybe so but that's only in comparison to their normal output of LBX & remastered films, yes then it was a low grade print. But in my opinion: shoddy 'Dark Purpose' is better than no 'Dark Purpose'

This is one of those Gialli that doesn't have a masked killer slaughtering the cast, but still has plenty of the other elements still intact. It's similar to later films like The Designated Victim and Umberto Lenzi's Oasis of Fear as we're introduced to a limited amount of characters, and are left to figure stuff out as we know for sure something sinister is going on.

Even though this is a mid-sixties Italian film the setting is not an old castle in Scotland or wherever, but an old mansion on the Amalfi Coast! An English archivist and his young assistant arrive at the mansion of Count Paolo Barbarelli to archive his stuff (I guess). Next you know Paolo is giving Karen the assistant the glad eye and making his guard dog eat her shoes so he can buy her a new pair.

Karen wonders who the young lady wandering around the mansion is and Paolo explains that this is just his mentally ill daughter Cora, whom the archivist starts calling 'Lady MacBeth' (he's quite funny this guy). Next up Paolo dumps his more mature mistress and starts putting the moves on Karen. If she thinks that being a stepmother to a girl on meds is going to be tough, she's underestimating the circumstances.

I won't go much further with the plot but the whole film starts out like a romantic comedy, starts developing a bit of mystery, and by the last third is wearing it's giallo influence on it's sleeve, what with the pictures that hold clues and the twists and possibly even murder maybe. It's one of those films that gets better as it goes on, so if you stick around a bit it might pay off for you.

Or not. How am I supposed to know? Jesus.