(1970)
Dir - Mario Caiano
Overall: MEH
A kind-of/not-really giallo from director Mario Caiano, Shadow of Illusion, (Ombre roventi), has more of an interesting history surrounding it compared to how enticing it is as an actual movie. Partially shot in Egypt during the latter part of the War of Attrition, the cast and crew were given military escorts in order to get through their scenes. Caiano claimed to have never seen the completed project, leaving after principal photography wrapped up. Also, lead actor Daniela Giordano was a last minute replacement for a still unofficially confirmed Luciana Paluzzi dropping out, plus American William Berger decided to hop on out of convenience since he was already in Egypt shooting another movie at the time. One of several cultural reactions to the Manson Family murders, it has a "hippies from hell" premise where Giordano's largely unemotive fashion model finds herself at the manipulation and mercy of a group of drug-taking scoundrels who conduct human sacrifices, as well as an older gentleman who is either the reincarnation of Osiris or simply claims to be as an effective pick-up line. It has some trippy sequences, boobs, and wonderful location scenery, but it is mostly an underwritten and sluggish excuse for some slightly evocative sleaze.
(1972)
Dir - Leopoldo Savona
Overall: WOOF
The penultimate film from director Leopoldo Savona and released the same year as his Byleth: The Demon of Incest, La morte scende leggera, (Death Falls Lightly), is one of the most glacierly paced and moronic giallos in existence. Convoluted plots were a prerequisite for such movies, but this one pushes plausibility to a breaking point with the police themselves conducting a laughably ridiculous scenario in order to edge Georgio Darica to the point of confessing to the murder of his wife. Every minute feels like a hour as he and his mistress hold up in an empty hotel in the middle of the city, doing naked things together and eventually screaming at each other. This is all before random people start showing up and playing with Darica's mind; random people who deliver their inconsequential dialog as if they are in no hurry whatsoever. Once the ludicrous scheme is divulged, the audience will only have more questions, but the movie stops there with its brand of arbitrary nude/violent/surreal scenes that play the Scooby-Doo twist in the most unsatisfying of manners. A slow hard rock song by Mack Porter is the only highlight, but Savona's direction is unforgivingly slow and he and Luigi Russo's script, (while differentiating itself from the heard), also insults the audience while asking them to both stay awake and give a shit about something so lazily thought-out.
(1977)
Dir - Dino Risi
Overall: GOOD
As he had previously done with 1974's Scent of a Woman, Italian filmmaker Dino Risi adapts yet another literary work from author Giovanni Arpino, this time with the novel L'anima persa. The Forbidden Room, (Anima persa), stars heavyweights Vittorio Gassman and Catherine Deneuve as an aloof, wealthy couple living in Venice who as it turns out, house a disturbing secret in their sprawling abode that their nephew Danilo Mattei innocently uncovers throughout the course of events. For a thriller, the plot is uniquely void of intense set pieces. Instead, the mysterious details unfold almost nonchalantly over conversation as Mattei gradually becomes more inquisitive, both investigating and picking up on the increasingly unhinged behavior of his Aunt and Uncle, finding out where the truth lies within the details that he is given. The movie is photographed beautifully by Tonino Delli Colli, capturing a naturalistic, age-old Venice, plus the home where it is set gives off haunted mansion vibes as if they people living there have spiritually "died" long before the story starts and are merely taking up space now. There is a twist of course in the film's final moments that may not seem surprising after all things are considered, but it is nevertheless a somber and dark one that leaves a lingering impression.
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