Une folle envie d'aimer

This is a real curio. Directed by Umberto Lenzi before he gained notoriety with cannibal movies such as 'Cannibal Ferox', and starring the lovely Carroll Baker ('Andy Warhol's Bad') and Lou Castel (from supertrash classic 'Killer Nun'). Baker plays a recently widowed American expatriate living in Italy who has a fling with young stud Castel. She invites this hipster to move in with her in her luxurious mansion, followed shortly by his free spirit sister. The two corrupt the millionairess with booze, pills and sex, and then things begin to take a sinister and unexpected turn. 'Orgasmo' holds up surprisingly well and keeps your interest until its final shock scene. It may not be perfect but I recommend it to 60s Euro buffs and thriller fans.

Yes, I was confused about this film, even though for American release they shared the title with "A Quiet Place to Kill" This flick is worth watching for the late 60's clothes and music. Anyone who knows who the group is singing in the nightclub scene please email me, as I love that song.

Carroll, looking lovely get tormented by a pair of kinky siblings, or so we think. Actually,, the sex, drugs & orgies are tame by today's standards but the editing still bugs me on this one. Still, a good roll in the mud thanks to a talented cast. I still think the actress who played the housekeeper looks like a bad drag queen, but hey, not everyone is a glamour puss like Carroll!

Carroll Baker plays a woman who falls for the wrong guy who torments her along with his demented sister so that they can drive her mad. For a giallo film, it's only a slightly more stylized classic gaslighting thriller, but there's enough sex and nudity to remind you that you're watching an Italian thriller.

This Italian/French co-production was the first of four collaborations between Hollywood star Carroll Baker (Baby Doll) and director Umberto Lenzi (Cannibal Ferox), and gave Baker a second chance at stardom after work had begun to dry up stateside. Here she plays Catherine, an American widow whose oil tycoon husband has recently died in a road accident (leaving her $200 million richer). She decides to relocate to Italy, where she meets a younger man named Peter (Lou Castel), also an American. The two soon become lovers. Their relationship is volatile but passionate and Peter moves into Catherine's luxurious villa. A short while later Catherine is surprised by the arrival of Peter's attractive sister, Eva (Colette Descombes). However, she likes having the youngsters around and Eva moves into the villa as well. But the initial fun turns into a physically and sexually abusive three-way relationship, one that sees Catherine's existing drink problem compounded by a forced addiction to drugs. Realising she is now a prisoner in her own home she tries to retake control of her life and escape.

This is often referred to as a giallo, although it doesn't really fit the term as we use it today (there's no mysterious, faceless stalker, no bloody injury, no string of people being bumped-off - in fact there are no deaths at all until well into the third act). It's better watched as a psychological thriller. The performances of the three leads (plus Tino Carraro as Catherine's lawyer) are all good, but the story is pretty unoriginal. It also paints Catherine as pretty annoying, even unpleasant at times, leaving it hard to care what happens to her. Credit though for an double-whammy ending that I never saw coming. Some topless and rear nudity and very softcore sex. 6/10.

Once again we have some disparaging IMDB user comments for a euro-or-otherwise-foreign-source film that does not conform to the user's safe, comforting criteria for narrative structure, sound (in this case the dubbing -- which is actually not bad), or subject matter.

This film is an extremely entertaining psychological thriller with Carrol Baker excellent as a rich American widow getting away from it all at a secluded Italian villa. Enter smart aleck down on his luck playboy, Lou Castel, who has some golddigging motives behind his slick hipster seduction techniques and has no qualms about how he gets what he wants. He encourages Baker's character's incipient alcoholism and dubious self-esteem, brings in his supposed 'sister' to help drag Baker even further into a maze of sick mind games, drug addiction and group sex, all culminating in a descent into near-madness and self-destructive depravity.

I won't give away anymore, suffice to say that the film delivers on its swinging sixties, Euro sleaze ambience and psychological suspense thriller credentials in spades. Director Umberto Lenzi's work has been, at best, uneven and he's churned out his share of crap. However, he made some quite good giallos and crime pictures in the sixties and seventies and this is one of them (other good films by Lenzi -- SPASMO, SEVEN BLOODSTAINED ORCHIDS, ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY WEAPON, to name only a few).

Unfortunately this film is ofen confused with another okay but not-quite-as-good Lenzi film that was also released briefly here in America under the same PARANOIA title (but is more commonly known, especially on video, as A QUIET PLACE TO KILL).