La proie des vierges

"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.

The Weapon, the Hour & the Motive, originally titled L'arma, l'ora, il movente, is a giallo from the early seventies that mixes thriller elements with inspirations from the drama genre and a few mild softcore pornography sections. While this Italian movie isn't creative, gripping and surprising enough to have stood the test of time, it's still a very decent film that entertains from start to finish and impresses five decades later with its charming nostalgic vibe.

The story revolves around charming young priest Don Giorgio who has two secret romantic and sexual relationships. Upon celebrating his fortieth birthday, Don Giorgio has a change of heart and decides to break off his two relationships to dedicate his entire life to serving God. One gloomy night just after the witching hour, the young priest is murdered while atoning for his sins. Proactive Inspector Boito and his clumsy assistant Moriconi start very difficult investigations as they face denial, silence and superstition. The only potential eyewitness is an orphaned boy who has been traumatized by the brutal events. Things take an even more complicated turn when the dynamic inspector slowly falls in love with one of the two suspects and risks compromising his own investigation.

This giallo convinces on several levels. First of all, the locations in and around the nunnery have been chosen with care and ooze with gloomy atmosphere. Up next, the camera and light techniques increase the mystery and tension of this very good film. The characters have sufficient depth such as the tormented eye witness, the emotional investigator and the friendly but clueless assistant. The acting performances are also very decent and involve an experienced cast with great chemistry.

However, there are specific reasons why this movie has been overlooked and forgotten for such a long period of time. The idea to introduce sins such as sexual intercourse, murder and blackmail into a secluded, religious and conservative setting has been used time and again. A significant mistake is that one of the two suspects dies halfway through the movie, making it obvious who the person behind these crimes must be. The film's ending feels pulled out of thin air and asks for a complete suspension of disbelief regarding certain irrational decisions.

Despite its obvious flaws, this movie still oozes with atmosphere and is entertaining from start to finish. Anyone who likes both thrillers and the vibes of early seventies should certainly appreciate this film a great deal. Giallo fans will be pleasantly surprised by the recent releases by Arrow Films that might be rather expensive but that have been crafted with great care and attention to detail.

Eureka! What a wonderful feeling when realizing that, after having seen more 150 Italian Gialli varying from absolutely brilliant to terribly awful, there are still great gems out there for me to discover! "The Hour, The Weapon, The Motive" is not your typically textbook Giallo, because of its unusual setting and only a limited number of murders, but it contains enough highlights and ingenious twists to appeal to fans of the genre, and admirers of sleazy Euro-exploitation in general.

The plot introduces priest Don Giorgio, who obviously chose the wrong profession. He's handsome and a bit wild, and he certainly doesn't mind a bit of smooching with two gorgeous ladies that also work as volunteers in the nuns' convent/boarding school where he teaches music. But Don Giorgio gets ashamed of his sinful behavior, and after another session of self-flagellation, he decides to devote himself to God again and terminate both his affairs. Shortly after, though, is brutally stabbed to death inside the convent. Who's the killer? One of his ex-mistresses? Their husbands? A jealous nun? A young orphan boy who lives in the convent may have witnessed something, but he doesn't speak. The rebellious Commissioner Franco Boito must resolve the case, but he falls head over heals in love with a suspect with the lovely name Orchidea.

"The Hour, "The Weapon, The Motive" is a slow-paced but intriguing thriller that remains mysterious and unpredictable, and this despite the relatively low number of potential suspects. Writer/director Francesco Mazzei, who's completely unknown to me, compensates for the shortage of clues and body count by inserting a couple of bizarre gimmicks; - most notably a jaw-dropping scene in which all the nuns at the convent undress and flagellate themselves for several minutes, and this supposedly to redeem the deceased Don Giorgio of his sins. Really odd, and strangely enticing. The trick with the key and the rope (you'll see) is pure Giallo-gold, and the ending is also marvelous. The one thing I regret most is that Mazzei didn't opt for a juicier and more flamboyant title. I would suggest "Eight-hundred Lashes for a Murder" or "Death to the Sound of a Bouncing Marble".

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!

Pros: Good characters and acting. Nice small town setting. The story feels unique with a male priest being the primary victim that starts off the body count.

However, if you've seem a number of giallo, you'll be able to figure out the culprit pretty easily.

Music is good here - especially the closing theme.

Cons: The pacing is quite slow at times. It takes like a half hour to get to the first murder. It has a low body count as these films go. There are a bunch of red herrings that are clearly added just to try and distract you, and they were too obvious to the point that it felt like they were just filling space.

At the end of the day, this is a unique giallo that's worth a watch.