A Raposa do Rabo de Veludo

I was surprised but delighted to discover that although I had a copy of a copy of this somewhere, I have never actually ever seen it before. Doubly delighted to discover that this Blu-ray print is so wonderful and with a rather catchy song too, this is rather a fun film to watch. Nothing terribly violent or bloody and even the infamous skin shots are rather carefully shot but this certainly has a certain something and is a joy to watch. Jean Sorel is fine, much as he always is but the two girls are very effective and such is the storyline that we are genuinely surprised on more than one occasion. Very entertaining, made me gasp and smile.

Fabulously flamboyant Spanish filmmaker, José María Forqué dazzlingly conjurors up one of the more luridly louche offerings of the superbly slinky, perkily permissive 1970s, with his divinely duplicitous Giallo, 'In The Eye of the Hurricane' which eye-bogglingly remains an entrancing, diabolically devious, slaveringly salty, perkily psycho-delic, salaciously skin-drenched, tantalizingly twisted, irresistibly glamorous Giallo diorama for refined film hedonists of all ages!

The stylish, sensationally suspenseful, tremulously titillating, dreamy-delicious erotic thriller, 'In The Eye of the Hurricane' is also known as the far more mellifluous-sounding, 'La Volpe dalla coda di velluto' (1971) and is generously endowed with an abundantly sultry, appealingly sun-slathered sexiness, now all glamorously gussied up in fashionably freakadelic High Definition! This erotically charged, murderously overheated ménages à trois is a deadly-decadent descent into juicily jet-setting, 'Martini-minxes-gone-mad', aqua-netting Giallo doom! This exquisitely playful Costa-del-death' celluloid curiosity has an outrageously camp 'swans-in-the-bathtub' eccentricity that electrifies 'In The Eye of the Hurricane' with an arrestingly perverse quality, making the misbegotten machinations of these handsome protagonists all the more fascinating! Those estimable cult aficionados at 88 Films have once again lovingly restored another exotic, little-seen 70s Giallo gem to a remarkably pristine quality!

This is not a giallo. I want to get this out of the way immediately b/c it has effected some reviewers opinions of the film. There are no slashings and no body count here. There is no shadowy killer dressed in black stalking victims. There is no chase sequence. None of that.

Now for what this movie is. This is the movie Umberto Lenzi always wanted to make but never quite achieved. It's the wealthy woman in a dangerous world where a lover manipulates her, and you're not sure who to trust, but you're pretty sure everyone is motivated by money. The acting is great all around. But what makes this one stand out is a script that blessedly actually makes sense and a wonderful soundtrack by Piero Piccioni!

Go into it knowing this one is a slow burn psychological thriller, and you'll have a much better time :)

A woman leaves her husband and immediately takes up with another man . But her new beau has a strange friend that he knew from the "war", he and also seems to have some kind of relationship with the beautiful bisexual woman next door. Meanwhile her estranged husband is still lurking around, and someone seems to be trying to kill her.

This rather odd giallo came out after Dari Argento had set the template for the genre with "Bird with Crystal Plumage". Strangely though, it seems to be a throw-back to the earlier Umberto Lenzi/Carroll Baker gialli like "Paranoia" or "A Quiet Place to Kill". The beginning is almost unforgivably slow with romantic longueurs of very beautiful idle rich people frolicking on the beautiful Cote de Azure beach while 60's Europop tunes play on the soundtrack (the movie often resembles a more staid French thriller like "La Piscine" than a Spanish/Italian gialli) . The plot, when it finally kicks in, is actually pretty good, but this movie is not as deleriously stylized nor is it anywhere near as violent as your typical giallo of that era. And it's tame even compared to the earlier gialli as far as sex goes--there's a long, ridiculous scene where the lead actress goes topless but the view is always obstructed by something (which resembles a running gag in "Austin Powers" more than anything else). It's hard to believe that three years later this same Spanish director would do the uber-sleazy "Beyond Erotica".

Still, tame does not necessarily translate to bad. This film has some good twists to it and is pretty entertaining when it get's going.

The polyvalent Spanish director José Maria Forqué tries to show in this Italian coproduction that he could also make for his part a giallo. He uses the codes of the style, notably taking inspiration from Lenzi's works, and convenes great giallo actors alongside famous Argentinian actresses. The film itself opens on credits including smart drawings combining Art Nouveau and pop style, upon a mixed theme of Leda and Swan Lake.

The swan girl in question is Ruth (Analia Gadé, Murder Mansion / Quando Marta urlo dalla tomba), a very wealthy woman who wants to divorce from her husband Michel (Tony Kendall, La Jena di Londra), because she is in love with the handsome playboy Paul (Jean Sorel, Paranoia). They thus leave together for a splendid area on the sea coast to live their perfect love. Here they meet Roland (Maurizio Bonuglia, Giornata nera per l'Ariete), a Paul's friend and former comrade-in-arms, who acts to serve their idyll, and Danielle (Rosanna Yanni, Cross Current / Un Omicidio perfetto a termine di legge), a strange girl who seems to watch them. In a spleen moment Ruth reminds herself that she has always been frightened "to have to grow old alone", but Paul comforts her saying: "you won't get old". And accidents are not long to start happening.

For giallo followers, the trick is rather simple, and logically the director chooses to reveal it for the middle of his film. But the main issue thus remaining is: how our swan girl will try to react to the plot? How will she handle the inquiry of the local commissioner (Julio Peña, Tre Notti Violente)? Will she manage to be sufficiently clever to get through the knots woven all around her? Or should a "third lion" be even smarter to snatch the bet? This giallo made in the classic way won't quite shake up the standards of the style. (Viewed in Italian 1h40 version.)