Gli Amici di Nick Hezard / Nick the Sting

Here's an interesting one: crime auteur Fernando Di Leo directing a script by Alberto Silvestri that seems less written for him than as an obvious imitation of The Sting for whomever happened to be available to take on the project.

The closest point of comparison amongst Di Leo's own films as a writer-director – and sometimes producer– is probably probably Colpo in canna, as another relatively light-hearted entry where the cat and mouse games are more for fun than keeps.

The story is simple: Nick Hezard, played with winning charm by Luc Merenda, wants to avenge the dead of one of his friends at the hands of Robert Clark, played by Lee J. Cobb, and plans an elaborate con to achieve this end.

While Clark is a more or less direct stand in for the Robert Shaw character in The Sting, there is perhaps also a Di Leo element in that he has clearly transgressed against the kind of rogue's code often found in the director's work. Killing someone because they successfully conned you and thereby demonstrated themselves to be a better player of the game than you is fundamentally 'against the rules' that these men (and occasionally women) live by.


Umberto Raho and Tom Felleghy


Lassander and Merenda, in exaggerated form

The most pronounced departure from The Sting is that the film is less a buddy movie than a buddies movie, as highlighted by the alternative The Friends of Nick Hezard title. There is no figure comparable to Paul Newman's character in George Roy Hill's film, but rather a host of endearing supporting characters ranging from Valentina Cortese's eccentric mother to Luciana Paluzzi's jealous girlfriend to Gabrielle Ferzetti's fellow professional.

Besides the already formidable array of talent already mentioned, the cast also includes the likes of Dagmar Lassander, William Berger, Umberto Raho and Fulvio Mingozzi to make for arguably the best ensemble Di Leo would ever work with and a virtual who's who of Italian popular cinema around this time.

Di Leo's regular composer Bacalov contributes a score that is by turns suspenseful and whimsical, demonstrating his versatility by avoiding more contemporary instrumentation and stylings – this despite the film's present day setting – in favour of jazzy clarinet, oboe and so on.






Split screens

Di Leo's own work is replete with gimmicks both old and new, such as irising, wipes, split screens and multiple images. If this proves a combination that at times feels a touch schizophrenic as a mix of 1920s and 1960s idioms, it also helps further distance the film from its sepia-toned period inspiration and, with the split screens recalling the original version of The Thomas Crowne Affair and thereby highlighting another possible caper film inspiration.

Importantly, however, sometimes this technology amount to more than a gimmick, as when the fragmentation of the characters' spatial relations during a car journey hints of Nick's closeness to his mother in one frame within the frame and his relative distance from girlfriend in another in a way a conventional two or three shot perhaps couldn't.


Nick and his friends

Likewise these constant reminders that we are watching a film – as another carefully orchestrated performance – neatly c(l)ue us in to the film-within-the-film finale, where Nick plays a role comparable to Di Leo's own.

A welcome further demonstration of Di Leo's talents and versatility.

Coartada en disco rojo / I Due volti della paura / The Two Faces of Fear

Suppose it's 1972 and you're making a giallo. Sure, you've managed to secure the services of George Hilton, Fernando Rey, Luciana Paluzzi, Edouardo Fajardo and Fernando Rey; a formidable cast that should appeal to audiences in your target co-production markets of Spain and Italy. But is it enough – how many times have your audience seen Hilton do that same shifty suspect schtick or Strindberg play the ice-maiden already? What can you do to try to stand out in a crowded marketplace?

Well, if you're Tulio Demicheli the answer seemed to be to bring in some open heart surgery footage...


Would make for a good double bill with Night of the Bloody Apes?

It's a mondo-style attraction-repulsion device that makes or breaks what is otherwise be a pretty average giallo where all the right ingredients are present, but not quite mixed in the proper proportions.




It's like this officer: I was just cleaning it and it went off...

We open with a classic subjective-cameras scene. The crime is theft rather than murder, however – that comes later, with the weapon of choice unusually a pistol.

We're already getting ahead of ourselves, however, inasmuch as there is a considerable chunk of exposition to get through beforehand. Pay attention now:

The thing stolen was Dr Michele Azzini's letter accepting a job at a clinic in Milan. This clinic is the rival to the one where he and his fiancee Paola Lombardi (Strindberg) work. Paola was – and perhaps still is – in a relationship with another colleague, Dr Roberto Carli (Hilton). His wife Elena (Paluzzi) owns the clinic, which she inherited from her father and has built up with the assistance of her loyal manager – and, as we later learn, former lover – Luisi (Fajardo).




Reading too much into a tense exchange of gazes?

Elena also has a serious heart condition which needs operated on. While Roberto could perform the operation, it offers a way of exerting emotional pressure on Michele to stay at the clinic for the time being lest the offer of a 25 per cent share in the clinic not sway him...

The relative weight of these factors proves somewhat moot when Michele is murdered.

Inspector Nardi (Rey) is called in to investigate and while soon identifying the weapon – a Remington 9mm pistol, exactly like the one Elena owns, but which has now suspiciously gone missing – has considerably more trouble with motive and opportunity, with a surfeit of the former and a paucity of the latter. Everyone, it seems, has an alibi...



“I even massaged his prostate”
“Massages his prostate. Don't you know that's against the rules!” – Nardi's assistant tries to coax information out of a parrot which witnessed the crime.

Unfortunately his confusions are shared by the audience alike until late in the day, with the general sense of a narrative and character relationships that are too convoluted for their own good and of a failure to satisfactorily establish whether or not we have another point of identification with the narrative until decidedly late in the proceedings.

It is Elena who emerges as the woman in peril through an extended stalking sequence. The thing is that Elena's stalker turns out to have been one of Nardi's own men...










All the Colours of the Dark...

If, that is, it was a way of determining whether her condition was for real – it seems to be, since she's the one who then goes under the surgeon's rather than the slasher's blade, though the outcome may be the same – and/or of forcing the others to show their true colours, it was a decidedly risky one that doesn't quite convince, especially as things then play out...

While The Strange Vice of Signora Wardh used a similar device, it worked because we were with Edwige Fenech's character and had also been let in on enough of the conspiracy against her to know broadly where our loyalties lay; Strange Vice achieved a better balance between suspense and surprise where The Two Faces of Fear too often piles on one surprise after another.

Demichelli just over-eggs it: almost every little gesture and detail, every exchange of dialogue or looks amongst the central quartet is equally replete with potential meaning and thus equally meaningless, leading to too many things which go nowhere – a letter that may incriminate one suspect, an insurance policy that suggests a further motive for another – and a failure to satisfactorily engage the viewer in the process of playing detective for him or herself.

There are some gialli where you can watch them a second or third time and really appreciate the director's craft, the way he subtly directs or misdirects your attentions and presumptions – Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is perhaps the most obvious example, though Amadeo's Smile Before Death also comes to mind – but this is not one of them. Just as the those who take a psychoanalytic approach to each and every case need to be reminded a cigar is sometimes only a cigar, here Demicheli needs to be reminded that sometimes a closeup of a detail is only a close up of a detail.




Yet more stairwells to die for, even with the compositions somewhat off in the non-OAR presentation

It's more of a shame because when Dimicheli goes for the self-consciously stylish image – a defamiliarising shots of a stairwell here; some expressive use of colour there; a recurring theme of the need to read the signs – he gets it. Likewise, his failure is that of trying too hard rather than not hard enough.








It's all about reading the signs

On the plus side Rey's good-humoured, world-weary detective, who quit smoking six months previously and finds his and others' nicotine cravings to be a constant distraction, is an endearing creation. The other performances are effective, but never quite rise about the level of doing the same thing as we've seen elsewhere. Indeed, in the case of Hilton in particular this is to Two Faces of Fear's detriment because one tends to thereby recall other more consistently trashy yet engaging gialli like The Case of the Bloody Iris.

Franco Micalizzi's score is another asset and, being more in the giallo than the poliziotto vein, serves as a useful reminder of his versatility.

Femmine insaziabili / The Insatiables / Beverly Hills / Mord im schwarzen Cadillac / Excess

Italian journalist Paolo Vittori (Robert Hoffmann) arrives in Los Angeles at the behest of his old friend. Now known to millions as the public face of International Chemicals (clearly not Incorporated) after winning a competition which took him far away from his old life, Giulio Lamberti, who now goes by the anglicised name Julius Lambert, is in big trouble.

Paolo does what he can, beginning with taking a beating and having his face shoved in his own vomit by a couple of thugs by way of demonstrating that he doesn’t know where his friend is, but proves unable to prevent Giulio from being murdered shortly afterwards.

Paolo resolves to find out who was responsible and bring them to justice. The list of suspects is long, including an ex-wife, ex-mistresses and about half the board of International Chemical.

But as the investigation proceeds, with each new contact revealing further unpleasant aspects of Giulio’s personality and how it had changed with wealth and fame, we may begin to wonder if his murder wasn’t entirely justified…

Given the succession of flashbacks deployed here, it is tempting to read The Insatiables /Femmine insaziabili as a somewhat Wellesian film, Citizen Kane meets The Lady from Shanghai (with a key exchange in both films occurring in an aquarium) all’ italiana.

The subtle shift in meaning between the English and Italian titles is significant: the Italian suggests insatiable women threatening the male with their desires, the English probably more accurate in making it clear that near everyone, man and woman alike, wants more and according with the cynical resolution to the whole affair. (According to the IMDB, Le Insaziabili was also the working title for the film in Italian.)

One of the film’s flaws is the unconvincing way in which the Italian characters are inserted into the Los Angeles environment. It’s understandable in light of the film’s primary audiences, as a means of providing extra exoticism, glamour and distance, but never quite convinces, insofar as the same basic country mouse / town mouse type theme might have worked more naturally with two provincial Italians in Rome or two Americans from some Midwest Hicksville.

Another is perhaps the way the film doesn’t deal with all the suspects in Giulio’s murder. Though we’re informed that the probabilities of each of International Chemicals’ major shareholders being involved in the affair are directly proportional to their stakes in the company some of them, including John Karlsen’s 25 per cent man, hardly feature at all.

Then again, if the choice is between scenes foregrounding Karlsen’s grey eminence and Romina Power’s hippie chick looking for kicks wherever she can find them, the filmmakers’ choice again makes sense. (Having watched Power play almost the exact same role in Perversion Story, it's doubtful how far she could act, but she certainly had look and attitude down pat.)

Like Bruno Nicolai’s brash big band score, Alberto De Martino’s direction is rarely subtle but all the better for it in terms of conveying the alternately glamorous and sleazy world of the film’s characters.

De Martino handles the violence well, not least when Paolo avenges himself on the two men who beat him up and their paymaster, but is less convincing when it comes to the sex, with one of those lobster-like ‘one on top of the other’ orgy scenes where the women remove their clothes and the men keep theirs on where it matters throughout. Nevertheless, the very inclusion of some full frontal female nudity suggests that the director was keen to push the envelope here as well.

The performances are variable. Robert Hoffman is somewhat impassive as per usual, good for conveying a determination to get to the bottom of the whole affair but less adequate when required to suggest how this demi monde is actually getting to him.

The female leads – Luciana Paluzzi, Dorothy Malone and Nicoletta Machiavelli – are better, bringing glamour and complexity to their roles.

Best of all, however, is the always impressive Frank Wolff as Frank Donovan, here playing an effete gay sophisticate far removed from the likes of his bluff sheriff in Corbucci’s The Great Silence and Irish settler in Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West.

In sum, an enjoyable thriller that, if not doing anything particularly new or envelope stretching – 1967’s Omicidio per appuntamento has a somewhat similar set-up, albeit with the action occurring in Italy – is nevertheless a pleasing way to spend 100 or so minutes and another useful reminder of the diversity of the post-Bava, pre-Argento giallo.

[ An AVI of the film is available from Cinemageddon; there's a link to the OST here should you want to try before you buy ]

La morte non ha sesso / A Black Veil for Lisa

Inspector Franz Bulov (John Mills) of Interpol is a man beset by problems. Hamburg has become a centre for the narcotics trafficking and he is under pressure to crack the case. Bulov is one-hundred percent certain than Schurmann is at the centre of the operation – although less so whether Shurmann is acting alone or represents a larger syndicate – but has not managed to get any actual evidence to this effect. Whenever an would-be informant comes forth with the offer of such, they invariably meet a swift end at the hands of a hitman. To make matters worse, Bulov is increasingly suspicious that his considerably younger wife Lisa (Luciana Paluzzi) is having an affair, as she often fails to return his calls or is unexpectedly absent from their home, and this finding it harder to concentrate on official business.









Touches of giallo

It is not, however, that the assassin, Max Lindt (Robert Hoffmann) is having things any easier. Having successfully undertaken three jobs he feels he has already stretched his luck and just wants to take his money and get out of the city. But his contact indicates that it would be bad for his health not to postpone his flight and do a fourth:

“How often do you think a man can get away with murder? I've been lucky. I want to stay lucky”

“You don't understand Max – there isn't much choice.”

“What do you mean?”

“You want to go away? Not tomorrow. Go away the day after tomorrow. Take my advice – if you want to be around and catch that plane, well then do what I tell you.”




Yet more classic iconography

Sure enough, Max's luck runs out this time round. While the hit again goes off without any difficulties, he drops his distinctive lucky silver dollar (complete with mark caused by stopping a bullet) by the body. Bulov finds its and thus the clue he needs for a break in the case, as he recalls that not too long ago he had rounded up a with a compulsive habit of tossing a similar coin: Max Lindt.

But by the time Bulov had managed to track down and apprehend Max his balance of priorities has once more shifted towards Lisa. Unsatisfied by her explanation that the red Porsche she was in belonged to a purported friend he had never previously heard her mention – a small detail of the sort it it worth paying attention to in this carefully constructed film – he is now convinced she is unfaithful. In his quiet, calm, controlled rage he thus makes Max an offer / deal, the exact details of which are however left deliberately vague for us, the filmmakers glossing over the rest of the exchange: Max is to kill Lisa.




Bulov – a divided self?

Posing as an insurance salesman – a nicely ironic occupation if one considers intertexts such as Double Indemnity and The Killers – Max pays Lisa a visit. Whether on account of his inherent reluctance to carry out such a bad luck job, immediate physical attraction or Lisa's handling of the situation, Max does not go through with the deed the first time round and begins to hatch a plan of his own...

Released in 1968, La morte no ha sesso / A Black Veil for Lisa presents an intriguing post-Bava, pre-Argento take on the giallo for those who are interested in charting the development of the filone and an engaging noir-styled crime story for those less concerned with such details.

One area where the former aspect is apparent is the way Max is presented. We are first introduced to him as the metonymic black-gloved hand, invariably tossing a coin George Raft style when it not wielding a knife. His attire – a black raincoat completes the ensemble – has some of the qualities of a disguise as per Blood and Black Lace (we're even told that the clothes and weapon are “mass produced [...] cheap stuff that anyone can pick up in a chain-store”) but Max's superstitious nature (“I've lost my lucky dollar!” “Is that the end of the world?” “Yes, for me it is!”) coupled with ritualistic way he leaves the weapon, gloves and coat by the body of each victim suggest a fetish element more akin to the post-Bird with the Crystal Plumage giallo.








Some of the many faces of Lisa

Another important element here is the fact that A Black Veil for Lisa is not particulary concerned with the conventional whodunnit aspect of most gialli, with Max's second appearance – i.e. qua Max, the professional assassin – momentarily throwing one's genre expectations for a loop given the his more generically conventional introduction.

Equally, however, the films position as one with more in common with the earlier noir than later poliziotto-giallo hybrids such as director Massimo Dallamano's own What Have You Done to Your Daughters? is signalled by the way in which Bulov is from the outset a decidedly compromised figure, frequently shot by the director in profile or with half his face in shadow to suggest a divided and / or duplicitous nature. While a poliziotto type cop would certainly bend the rules, filmmakers invariably made it clear that this was an ends justifying the means strategy and that the division between police protagonist and gangster antagonist was ultimately an absolute one. Here, by contrast, we have two compromised male figures with far more in common than they would perhaps care to admit. (Significantly Max also uses the alias Hans Schmidt, his forename sounding too like Franz for Lisa's liking.)

Both are, after all, defined in terms of their unhealthy obsessions, Bulov with Lisa, Max with his lucky coin, which then become symbols of exchange between them (i.e. Bulov takes possession of the coin, Max of Lisa). Both also seek to manipulate time to their advantage, Bulov extracting the information he needs from a young junkie / hooker type by lying to her about the time one of Max's victims died to make her think she is suspected of murder and Max winding the next victims' watch forward before smashing it to suggest a later time of death.




Examples of compositions that tell you almost all you need to know

Oddly, however, nothing further then comes of this detail. What makes it odd is that the filmmakers otherwise reward the attentive viewer by judiciously avoiding over-emphasising significant details. Thus, for example, while tulips are mentioned early on as being somehow mixed up in the whole affair, Bulov doesn't immediately pay the (yellow) flowers on the dining table of his house very much attention, being more interested in the note that Lisa has left besides them. Thus by the time he does notice them he's also too wrapped up in his personal business to consider whether there might be some wider connection. Yet the joke is also on us: while the flowers appear in the and closing sequences, the end doesn't quite answer the beginning in that we never learn exactly what their significance is, besides being the McGuffin.


Is this the real Lisa, or just her as she appears in Franz's insanely jealous mind?

A sense of mystery also applies as far as Franz and Lisa's relationship is concerned. We know that she was in trouble with the law and that whilst nothing was ever proven, a sense of no smoke without fire hangs over her and the relationship as far as her husband's superiors are concerned, but little else as to what brought them together:

“I'm not a criminal and I refuse to be treated like one – I've had enough”

“So what are you going to do? Leave?”

“What do you expect me to do? Keep paying all my life for one mistake?”

“What mistake was that? Making friends with Reinhardt?”

“I knew you'd drag that up again!”

This said, anyone familiar with noir is likely to quickly draw their own picture as to what is really going on, how far the marriage was one of love and of convience and for whom; while it is difficult to say much more without running the risk of spoiling the viewer's enjoyment, I did feel that the filmmakers' made a lapse in judgement here by ultimately lifting the veil a bit too much towards the end.

Make no mistake, however: A Black Veil for Lisa is the kind of giallo that can be enjoyed by fan and non-fan alike and on a number of levels, with filmmaking, writing and performances each of a higher than usual standard for the genre.

Dallamano strives to tell his story as visually as possible and to avoid doing the most obvious thing if he can. Thus, for example, when Bulov excuses himself to make a quick telephone call home whilst in conference with his colleagues, Dallamano does not simply cut in on a close up of Bulov's face, but rather dollies in, then reverse this movement when Lisa fails to answer and Bulov tries to returns to the business at hand, after imagining Lisa in the arms of another conveyed through a series of rapid-fire inserts: if his mind is understandably somewhat distracted thereby, there is no doubt that Dalllamano's is not.

The director's background as cinematographer also comes through, making good use of location – excepting some iffy back-projection – and screen space through compositions that reveal almost all we need to know – or as much as they are willing to let us know - about the shifting constellation of Franz, Max and Lisa through their respective position within the frame, screen depth and selectivity of focus and attention.

Finally a question: who does Jimmy il fenomeno play? Is he the newspaper vendor who gives Bulov tips?