A Quarta Vítima

I recently watched the Italian giallo Fourth Victim (1971) on Tubi. The storyline follows a man whose third wife mysteriously dies...much like the two wives before her. The husband inherited large sums of money in each case and is the primary suspect. As the police poke around the circumstances a new blond arrives at the husbands doorstep with her own motives, but what are they? Could she want to be the fourth victim and why?

This movie is directed by Eugenio Martín (Horror Express) and stars Carroll Baker (Kindergarten Cop), Michael Craig (I Promised to Pay), Enzo Garinei (Dr. Clown) and Marina Malfatti (All the Colors of the Dark).

This picture has a tremendously unique storyline with a nice mix of murder mystery and slasher elements. The kills only take place at the very beginning and very end, and both scenes are shot in classic giallo fashion. The "who done it" elements are solid and have a classic 70s feel to them. Michael Craig delivers an excellent performance as a strong, rigid character who could care less what the police or society thinks of him and is just doing his best to get through the circumstances, no matter who is poking into his affairs. Carroll Baker is gorgeous and delivers her conniving role to perfection. The ending is rewarding with a classic giallo twist.

Overall, this is an above average addition to the giallo genre that I would score a 5.5-6/10 and recommend seeing once.

This is quite a stylish production with a fine cast and a good ending. However, it is rather slow which may cause some viewers to lose interest half way through the film. This is definitely worth seeing if you are a fan of obscure giallo's or Spanish Horror/Exploitation (like me!), otherwise it's probably not worth tracking down. (For those interested, there is only one video release of this that anybody has been able to find, which was on "Master Home Video" in Greece. It was fully uncut, but is long deleted as it was released sometime between 1984 and 1987. The cover art is very cool and totally misleading!)

A wealthy man keeps finding his wives dead under mysterious circumstances and, after standing trial and getting off, a mysterious woman enters his life and strange things start to happen.

For a giallo, The Fourth Victim is low on violence and sleaze, but the performances are better than average and the script won't make you cringe as much as many similar films. There are enough twists and turns to keep you interested without having to slice up bodies every 10 minutes. Some of the twists are silly, but silliness is to be expected with this sort of Italian thriller.

Michael Craig stars as Arthur Anderson whose blonde wife is found suspiciously drowned in their swimming pool.Because he two previous wives also died strange deaths Anderson is charged with murder and only gets off because his motherly housekeeper lies to clear his name.Soon a pretty blonde woman(Carroll Baker)shows up and starts flirting with Anderson but it's clear from the get-go that she may not be who she seems to be.She quickly becomes the fourth Mrs. Anderson."The Fourth Victim" is very rare Spanish giallo with capable cast and nice score by Piero Umiliani.There is not much gore and the pace is slow,but last 20 minutes are quite twisted.6 out of 10.

Rich type Arthur Anderson returns home to find that his third wife has drowned in his swimming pool and of course is immediately arrested due to the fact that his previous two wives have also met premature ends. *Reference to Michael Barrymore removed following legal advice*. The local police inspector is certain that Arthur has been bumping off his wives for money, but is it true?

One court case later and Arthur is a free man once again, which annoys the inspector so much that he takes to following him around everywhere, even bringing along his nagging wife while doing so! Worse still, Arthur is awoken one night to find someone swimming in his pool – Carroll Baker. Carroll seems to be very interested in Arthur and starts putting the moves on him almost right away, but is this love or is Carroll up to something?

It seems that Arthur himself is rather suspicious and is continually fighting the voice in his head that's telling him she's up to something and the voice in his trousers that's telling him to get on with it and get her into bed. For most of the duration of the plot Arthur keeps catching Carroll in places she shouldn't be (like the attic, about ten seconds after he told her not to go up there), plus he's still go that Welsh police inspector following him to make sure Carroll doesn't end up like the other Mrs Andersons…

For the first hour this film drags along, as it's one of those old school Gialli where people are up to something but we don't quite know why, what, where, or who. It's not too boring as Carroll Baker is always entertaining but the whole genre had moved on from this kind of stuff. However, director Eugenio Martin (who would shortly give us the awesome Horror Express) seems to realise this and takes the plot in a more welcome absurd direction for the remainder of the film. I won't spoil it here, but it gives the plot a bit more tension, even if it doesn't make much sense.

It probably shouldn't be too high on your list of must-see gialli, however.