Chassés-croisés sur une lame de rasoir

This movie has all the elements of a good giallo, but it somehow manages to fumble every one of them. All gialli have ridiculously convoluted plots, but the plot of this movie could best be described as random and meandering, and it never succeeds in developing any real tension. While looking through a viewfinder in a park the heroine (Nieves Navarro) accidentally spots a woman being killed by a man with a cane and a straight razor. Suspicion falls on the heroine's boyfriend (the incredibly bland Robert Hoffman)even though his girlfriend is the only witness or potential witness(including a street vendor, a blackmailer, and a prostitute)who is NOT immediately murdered as well. Meanwhile, as the boyfriend is forced to investigate the murders to clear his own name, the killer also continues going after his main targets--pretty young women associated with a mysterious dance academy.

There are way too many characters in this story (even a minor female journalist character has an identical twin sister for no good reason)and almost all of them carry a cane. (Be careful though because this is the kind of movie where even the cane itself might be a red herring). The final revelation of the motivation of the killer is always enjoyably ridiculous in gialli, but here it is just plain dumb. The only thing that might recommend this movie is the gratuitous nudity. EVERY woman that appears on the screen in this movie finds a reason to get naked (including a memorable scene where a ballerina suddenly decides to go topless during her routine). Even this becomes a liability, however--Nieves Navarro is actually a pretty good actress and I'm sure no one will complain about her two gratuitous sex scenes, but does she really need to stand out around bare-ass naked when all she's doing is discussing the case with her boyfriend?

In its favor this movie DOES have some amount of visual style, and it will probably be looked on more favorably when it is released on legitimate DVD (which shouldn't be too long--THREE Nieves Navaro gialli have been released in the last six months). OK, not great.