La proie des vierges

In "The Weapon,the Hour and the Motive" the murder victim is a priest.Father Giorgio is stabbed to death in his congregation church.Two police detectives Franco Boito and Moriconi investigate his murder.The main suspects are Giorgio's two lovers Giulia and Orchidea as he wanted to break up with both.There is also an orphaned boy who saw too much from his attic hideout and he will resolve the mystery.Overlooked Italian giallo stylishly made by Francesco Mazzei.There are some silly comedic moments and some effective shocks.The throat slashing scene is fairly graphic and there is a bit of nudity and sexual perversion.Mazzei is capable of building suspense pretty well too."The Weapon,the Hour and the Motive" deserves more recognition.7 out of 10.

I liked this a lot. Bit of a confusing and strange start, a young boy in a room, a nurse with a hypodermic and all within a convent of singing nuns. And who is that guy on the motorbike getting in the way of the police? Oops, he is the police! I guess this just about qualifies as a giallo for while it doesn't have the stylish look or garish details, there are the sudden kills, the child always there mysteriously in the background, not to mention the cat and the bouncing marbles. Compelling and absorbing, this is well directed and we have to gradually piece things together as best we can to keep apace. And then there is the extraordinary scene where the priest flagellates himself for his guilt over his lovers, yes two of them. Oh and that is nothing to what we are treated to once the nuns decide to do the same - en mass! Good resolution always helps and so in summary a good yarn intelligently told and peppered with enough sex and violence to keep the most jaded giallo fan happy.

It must be deliberate this the colour scheme in this film is so muted - everything's beige, brown or grey. Strange.

The story involves the murder of a Hip Priest. In fact, he's so hip he has not one but two lovers on the side. He's having a bit of a crisis about that though, judging by the way he self-flagellates in his church, of an evening. This is made even more disturbing by the unseen presence of a little kid whom the nuns have adopted.

The priest reckons that God might look down on him having it off with two ladies, so he breaks up with one of them (with the strange name of Orchidea) and tries to break it off with the other. I can't remember if he was successful because he ended up in the sack with her, before shortly getting stabbed to death by a mystery assailant. There's also a cute nun kicking about (the actress playing her is called Claudia Gravy - great second name! Looks like she's in Nun and the Devil too!)

Some rough looking copper turns up with a bumbling sidekick and they start obviously digging around to looks for clues. The copper also starts spending a lot time making goo-goo eyes at Orchidea, so quite a bit of the plot is devoted to that too. The most off-putting thing about this is that the actress who plays Orchidea is a dead-ringer for Italian actor Franco Rassell (only with hair), which makes all her upcoming nude scenes a bit disturbing.

Not quite so quirky as other Gialli, this one concentrates on the police investigation (before turning into a family drama near the end!), and if you're out for sleaze you do get to see the nuns taking a shower AND the whole bunch of them stripping to the waist and whipping themselves in honour of the dead priest.

It another well made film but will kind of get lost in the avalanche of more gory, pervier gialli released in 1972. I did have a good laugh at the punch up the copper had in a dark room, only for him to find out it was his sidekick, whom he then tells to feck off!

No pun intended - priests are people too. And nuns of course ... are not just nuns. Especially when they are .. covered in exploitation movies - and I am not talking about clothes covering them - so many puns, so little time/space. And maybe you won't care for them. I hope you do and that's the reason you are here.

That said and really putting out there, that I wouldn't call myself a particular big fan of the Giallo genre, this was quite interesting. There is a moral tone, some themes that it touches (get your mind out of the gutter - although there is quite a lot of nudity, so maybe leave it there) ... the movie is interesting is what I am trying to say. Be aware of what this is and if your sensibilites are going to be touched upon - ok I'll stop here ...

"The Weapon, The Hour and The mobile are the 3 most important things you need to know about a murder" say Renzo Montagnani. It's also the title of this classic giallo.

It's not a revolution of the genre but a classic expression of what a good suspenser must be. No crazy & wild camerawork but a genuine suspensful screenplay, with sharp dialogues & excellent, coherent and plausibles twists. Where directors such as Umberto Lenzi who rather play upon the incredible twists & turns a giallo is supposed to bring then on flashy camera angles, Francesco Mazzei choose the simple way.

Discreet yet precise camera work, less murders and actors than usual but a gloomy script revolving around a priest having two affairs at the same time with two women. When he decides to stop both, he gets killed in his church.

The cleverness of it all is in the way the script chooses to focus on the relationships between the characters than to elaborate murder after murder. The tensions between all of them are more visible than usual. At the same time, it also shows the private life of the detective investigating the case. Disenchanted but always professionnal, he gives some touch of humour which always hit the mark.

Some scenes ar quite surreal & nightmarish as when the nuns decide to expiate the crimes the priest committed before he died. They just whip their bare back with screaming preys til they faint. Just incredible. the other FX are very effective and the murders scenes look impressive : master Carlo Rambaldi (King Kong, ET) did it again.

The actors are all first rate : Renzo Montagnani proves he really can act, Eva Czemerys is always as magnetic & mysterious than in Giuseppe Bennatti's poor L'ASSASSINO HA RISERVATO NOVE POLTRONE and Bedy Moratti shows some incredible capacity to be both & strong at the same time in one single scene. Amazing actress.

L'arma, l'ora, il movente is a superior giallo in quality. Sleaze addicts & euroschlockers will be disappointed but movie buffs will certainly go for this very entertairning and chilling suspenser til the very end.