Deux mâles pour Alexa

Old school giallo with a much different premise, told mainly in flashback, so although there's a lack of gore, things still feel pretty refreshing.

What you have here is the story of Alexa, a young Rosalba Neri who has married an old Curt Jurgens, much to the annoyance of her fellow student Emma Cohen, mainly because Curt is her dad. We find out right away that Rosalba is having an affair with hunky Pietro, and both of them aren't so discreet about what they are up to (check them out on the beach at the start of the film. Rosalba's standing there in the buff when there's clearly passers-by getting on about their business. Intentionally left in? Who knows.)

At the same time we see this, we were also shown that Rosalba's husband is up to something at their little love nest, checking doors, windows and such like, so we get the drop that he knows about the affair and is planning on doing something too. What it is though I'm not revealing, as it puts a nice twist on the tired genre and sets up the story for flashback city, and of course further twist.

Usually these films have people scheming against each other and everything comes to a head, but by playing these cards early you do get caught up in the story and wonder what's going to become of the main characters. As usual, Rosalba Neri, although frequently shedding clothes, is also a good actress, so you get to feel her pain. On the other hand, Emma Cohen gets underused as Curt Jurgen's daughter.

A good film about bad decisions and regrets. And greed.

Not only is Two Masks For Alexa an unsatisfactory title for what I have as Two Men For Alexa, or this site has as, Fieras Sin Jaula but somewhere along the line the numeral 2 has become inserted on another site and made this title almost impossible to find. Mind you the film is difficult to find as well. I digress. Marginally a giallo but completely surreal, this really is an undiscovered gem. The beginning strikes as either incredibly bad or intoxicatingly good depending how you react to what seem like totally unconnected sequences crashed together without a thought and completely different colour stock seemingly being used. Then gradually as we become used to the human triangle within the story and the many, many flashbacks, some crazy sort of logic establishes itself before, way before halfway, there is a real surprise and the film appears to be at an end. But no. Everybody is great, including the lovely, Rosalba Neri and Curt Jurgens, the music is fine and the direction...let us say, unusual. If you have any interest in Italian movies of the early 70s, seek this out. Did I mention Ms Neri and her wonderful and numerous costumes!

Not sure if this film evens answers to my own personal definitions of being a Giallo, but for sure it's a typically vile and sinister early 70s exploitation product like only the Italians could make them!

The sensationally beautiful Rosalba Neri ("Lady Frankenstein", "The French Sex Murders") stars as what you'd refer to as the ultimate gold-digger gal. She, Alexa, is determined to marry a rich old man, and doesn't waste any time as she easily seduces her college friend's wealthy father Ronald Marvelling, who's a widower and a frequently traveling business tycoon. Alexa also doesn't have the decency - or the patience - to wait for him to die and collect the inheritance, but promptly begins a steaming love-affair with the hunky Pietro. Unfortunately, but not entirely unpredictably, Ronald didn't get so rich and powerful because he's a weak and pitiable victim. He finds out about his young wife's adultery and prepares for a deadly trap in their little love nest. Ronald kills himself (or dies from a heart-attack, that wasn't very clear) in front of the couple, and promptly the bedroom turns into a hermetically sealed and inescapable tomb.

The original (for 1971, at least) premise, the absorbing narrative structure (through non-chronological flashbacks), and the convincing performances of both Rosalba Neri & Curd Jürgens are enough reasons for me to label "Two Males for Alexa" as a worthwhile cult flick. I do regret not being able to find a fully uncut version, though. In the barely 80 minutes version I watched, there isn't a single nude sequence (which is simply impossible in a Rosalba Neri film) and the already limited number of action footage is missing as well. Can't say for sure if "Two Males for Alexa" formed the inspiration, but similar plots featured more recently in other (modest) cult movies like "Alexandra's Project", "Gerald's Game", and "Till Death".

The eternal return of the love triangle. Here, modern times oblige, king Mark is an old wealthy industrial, Ronald (Curd Jürgens, Et Dieu créa la femme). During the wedding in Paris of his daughter Catherine (Emma Cohen, Les Pétroleuses) with Marcel (Mario Della Vigna, Cross Current), Ronald meets one of her friends, Alexa (Rosalba Neri, Top Sensation). Despite of their age difference, he falls in love and asks her to marry him. Alexa, a poor student, sees the occasion of social success and accepts, ditching her boyfriend Philippe (Manolo Otero, Two Undercover Angels). But at a dancing she meets the young and handsome bohemian drawer Pietro (Juan Luis Galiardo, Alta Tension) and falls in love.

Pietro likewise drops his own girlfriend (Christine Laurent, Adieu Poulet) and decides to flirt with the spouse of the rich husband, and they become lovers. They spin the perfect love at Ronald's villa on the Normandy coast, but Ronald has planned a merciless revenge... This well acted thriller suffers from an extreme slowness and from digressions preventing tension to properly develop in this forced and noxious closed circuit. (Viewed in Spanish Neri-clothed 1h26 version.)

This movie is about a young woman who marries the wealthy father of a university friend, but quickly falls in love with a younger man. The jilted husband hatches an unusual plan for revenge by framing the adulterous couple with his own murder and sealing them in a room in his isolated villa with his dead body. Since most of this movie takes place in a single location,the movie quickly becomes paranoid and claustrophobic as the young couple fall apart debating about what has happened and what to do about it.

This Italian-Spanish co-production to some extent resembles the then popular Italian gialli, but it lacks a lot of the more garish and delirious elements of that genre. It stars Rosalba Neri as the unfaithful wife (who was perhaps a little long in the tooth to be playing a university student). Unfortunately, the dubbed Spanish-language copy I saw edited out all of her no doubt copious nude scenes as Spanish censors at that time was wont to do (Damn Generalisismo Franco! First, he kills hundreds of thousands of people, then he sets up a 40 year fascist dictatorship, and now this!).

This was obviously a very low-budget movie and it's very limited in its sets, but at least it doesn't last long enough for anyone to get too bored. The version I saw (on Mexican television) looked pretty decent at least, but I would have preferred an unedited version (and with some English subtitles). Worth a look though I guess.

Addendum: I recently saw the French version, which does have some brief nudity from Neri (but still might be cut). Unfortunately, this probably doesn't justify the crappy looking, full-screen presentation, but if you find the English-subtitled version the previous reviewer mentioned, well, maybe. . .