Le diable à sept visages

"The Devil has Seven Faces" isn't a giallo, but admittedly it looks and sounds more like a giallo than most genuine gialli do. Now that was a weird sentence! Allow me to elaborate. The enticing title, the starring of George Hilton and Carroll Baker and the Stelvio Cipriani musical score have got written "GIALLO" all over it. Without even knowing what the plot is about, these elements are enough to convince all avid fans of Italian cult cinema that we're dealing with a bona fide giallo here. The plot, however, is that of a crime-thriller/mystery movie. There are no heavily breathing perverts with black gloves massacring scantily dressed fashion models here. Instead, "The Devil has Seven Faces" is an overly convoluted diamond heist thriller full of double-crossing and untrustworthy characters. Beautiful businesswoman Julie Harrison's life gets turned upside down when she suddenly receives threats, harassments and unwelcome visitors. It seems like her twin sister Mary stole a valuable diamond in London and vanished. Now the fellow jewel thieves that her sister double-crossed are mistaken Julie for Mary and terrorize her. She seeks help with a befriended lawyer Dave Barton and his hunky friend Tony Shane. Even though the men do everything to protect her, Julie's life is increasing danger. "The Devil has Seven Faces" is a fairly adequate Italian thriller, but like so often the case with these films, the screenplay tries to be overly clever and misleading, resulting in one too many convoluted plot twists. The film is also too talkative, especially during the first hour, and contains only a handful memorable moments of action, including a shoddy car chase and a tense confrontation inside a windmill. Speaking of windmills, for some reason the majority of the film (or at least all the exterior sequences) are shot in The Netherlands. I have no idea what the added value of that was, because it's weird to see all the road signs and newspaper clippings in Dutch. There are quite a number of shootouts and suggestive killings, but this definitely isn't a gory film. It's not even at all sleazy even though the cover image illustrates Carroll Baker in lingerie. Cipiriani's music is sensual and very lounge-like as usual.

This is one of those "slick" Italian movies where the world is populated with easy-to-bed don't ever wed women, well-heeled "where is my next lay"? wheeler-dealer men who are all connected to each other trying to pull off the big "heist", a dialogue that is fleshed out with the serving of drinks and the lighting of cigarettes, cinematography that looks like it was captured from an assortment from the airport post-card stand and music that is meant for the tourists.

The acting is uninspired, the action scenes do keep your interest and the scene at the windmill is a hoot since all of the nefarious parties become conglomerated like a row of pins that get knocked over in succession. Then? Ta-taaaaa...the police arrive to tell the still non-sleeping members of the audience that they knew what was going on all the time. As usual.

What is an endless fascination to me is these movies are usually starring some actors who had at one time some momentum in their careers but then fell flat. Two of these such performers are Caroll Baker in The Carpetbaggers & Stephen Boyd as the baddie in The Ten Commandments who tried to slice Chuck Heston's chariot in the Coliseum. Stephen Boyd went on to bigger and better things but never made it big on a consistent basis but his career lasted much longer that Baker's, who had a kind of unbuxsome Mae West/Jean Harlowe kind of thing going on.

This film is for the videohounds only, since you never know what you are going to find.

F.Y.I Never select an old movie title with two recognizable actors in it on the basis of the title since it RARELY has a connection with the film but is usually a loose translation of the original title name that is stylized to entice the American audience!

Carroll Baker stars as a woman targeted by a group of international jewel thieves who mistake her for her twin sister. It would seem that her twin made off with a serious rock of some other families jewels. Two men help the desperate woman to run from the pursuing thieves but are they what they seem.

'Seven Faces' starts out with the feel of a 'Giallo' (even the name seems to indicate it) but you soon find out that it's a fairly standard crime thriller with the prerequisite twist. The production is pretty standard. It's not overly visually interesting and the script isn't much better. For fans of the genre only.

If you are expecting a good giallo from the title (Il diavolo a sette facce), especially with George Hilton (The Case of the Scorpion's Tail), and Umberto Lenzi's favorite, Carroll Baker (So Sweet... So Perverse, Silent Horror, Paranoia, A Quiet Place to Kill), you will be disappointed.

There is no blood and gore as most of the killing take place with a gun. It is a straight-up crime thriller.

It also stars Golden Globe winner Stephen Boyd (Ben-Hur).

Lots chasing around and some torture as everyone is trying to find a million dollar diamond. Some real excitement towards the end in a windmill. Not a lot of thrillers use windmills. There is Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, as well as The Black Windmill. which also involves diamonds.

Enjoyable action flick.

Mary and Julie Harrison (both played by Carroll Baker) are in trouble with knife-wielding thugs. Julie turns to attorney Dave Barton and his detective friend Tony. A love triangle develops while the body count begins to rise.

The film was written by Tito Carpi (who also wrote Ruggero Deodato's "Last Cannibal World") and directed by Osvaldo Civirani. The film is Italian, filmed and set in the Netherlands, and dubbed by British actors. There is a lot of sexual nonsense going on, with Barton openly trying to get with Julie and a secretary with a boyfriend simultaneously. And succeeding wonderfully.

Luca Palmerini says the film "is rather short on thrills and lacking in action." Which, I suppose, is pretty accurate. I can say, though, the product placement is well done, with prominently displayed PEER brand cigarettes (made in Germany, but also available in the Netherlands).

The Alpha Video DVD is decent for a bare bones disc (all it has are some interesting and humorous exploitation trailers). Its biggest flaw is crediting Carroll Baker as "Carol", Dave Barton as "Steve" and titling the film "The Devil has 7 Faces" rather than "The Devil with 7 Faces", contrary to the opening credits.