Sur le fil du rasoir

Another entry in the was-it-all-a-dream subgenre, this flatly directed mystery-melodrama is all talk and little style, with routine action sequences and a melodramatic denouement. As opposed to most giallo scenarios, this one seems to respect the Catholic church rather than make it the villain. The French-language video in Canada can be found under the title "Sur le fil du rasoir".

Peter Lee Lawrence, son of rich businessman, is visiting a local Cardinal in Venice when he locks eyes with Erika Blanc. Following her out into the street, he woos her with flowers and soon enough they are in love. The kind of love that has them running through a busy Piazzo, laughing. The kind of love where they spin round in circles, laughing. What I was wondering is, when Erika leaves the Cardinal's house, she walks by a cat sitting on the ground, licking its own arse. Was that left in on purpose?

Peter and Erika secretly plan to get married, so Peter's just a little bit completely devastated when his father shows him a newspaper article saying that Erika died in a car crash. Crushed, Peter tries to get on with life, hooking up with Ivana Novak in a pairing that his father seems to favour more than Erika.

You know how it is with these films - death is just a mild irritant when it comes to Italian Gothic horror and the Giallo. After Peter visits Erika's grave, he's out and about when he spots someone who rather looks a lot like Erika out taking pictures on a building site. Before you know it Erika doesn't have a grave, there's no news about a car crash, and Peter can't even find Erika's family. The explanation for this makes absolutely no sense if you try thinking about it too much, but I'm still not going to reveal it here.

Peter's investigations into Erika lead to the best part of the film - Gianni Marsana! Gianni Marsana is a mob boss, but the best thing about Gianni Marsana is that Gianni Marsana always talks about himself in the third person. "Gianni Marsana loves Greggs' Steak Bakes!" "Gianni Marsana intends on taking a short cut by Rotherham to avoid roadworks near the Humber Bridge." "Gianni Marsana likes that - do it faster!" Gianni is a mob boss and he's up to something and using possibly fake Erika for his nefarious plans. This leads to Peter trying to get to fake Erika via Gianni Marsana, with girlfriend Ivana Novak following Peter and talking to Gianni Marsana while stranger Silvano Tranquillo spies on everyone. Gianni Marsana doesn't like spies! There's also a sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub plot with one of Gianni Marsana's henchmen.

None of this any good, mind you. It goes from cheeseball romance to giallo to Eurocrime, seems to wrap everything up early and stills drags on, trying to explain stuff you don't care about. At least they don't forget about Gianni Marsana - Gianni Marsana hates films with loose ends!

I generally love gialli, and the co-star of this one, Italian actress Erika Blanc ("The Devil's Nightmare", "Kill,Baby, Kill"), was probably one of the sexiest actresses of her era. It is amazing therefore just how bad this movie is. A young business executive (Peter Lee Lawrence) falls in love with a young woman (Erica Blanc) with whom he has a "meet-cute" encounter and whirlwind romance that I think even an ardent fan of "rom-com" "chick flicks" would find nauseating and implausible. After he returns from a trip, his shady father, who owns the company, shows him a news article reporting that his true love has apparently died in an accident. His terrible grieving is only interrupted by him bedding and subsequently wedding his father's sexy secretary (Ivana Novak). Then he sees a girl who looks just like his dead love and the movie basically turns into "Vertigo"--that is if "Vertigo" made no sense whatsoever and pretty much sucked.

Peter Lee Lawrence, an ill-fated German actor (who was romantically linked to Blanc in real-life, as well as to Spanish beauty Cristina Galbo, but ended up taking his own life) appeared mostly in spaghetti Westerns and crime thrillers where he was always best as a villain or anti-hero. He is pretty good, for instance, in "Long Arm of the Godfather" (also with Blanc) as a vicious gangster taking on his mob bosses. He's not nearly as good as a sappy hero (but then who is?). Blanc is wasted as an actress (and is absent half the movie). She also has only one shadowy nude scene (along with several cliché shots of Lawrence picking her up and spinning her around in her impossibly short mini-skirts while horrible romantic "music" swells). Most of the nudity quotient is left to Novak, who also appeared with Blanc in "The Devil's Nightmare" (she is the other girl in the lesbian scene with Shirley Corrigan).

I know nothing about the director Pelligrini, but if this boring nonsense is any indication of his work, I hope he didn't go on to direct too many more movies. I do actually really like the title, but too bad about the movie they made to go along with it.