As far as I'm concerned, Marisa Mell can be in every giallo. She can be in every movie, actually.
In this one, originally called La encadenada, she plays the live-in psychologist of millionaire widower Alexander's (Richard Conte, wow what a get!) slightly - well, perhaps completely - insane silent son. Within a few moments of plot time, she's marrying the father, disposing of him and then moving on to his son. But then, of course, her evil ex (Anthony Steffen, who somehow played Django more than Franco Nero) shows up to ruin everything.
There are some wild ideas here - Alexander owns the Holy Grail, the real cup and it's treated with all of the excitement that another Alexander gets when he shows off his magic window - but the film suffers from a lack of style. It needs the sex, the sizzle, the score, the everything that makes a giallo a giallo.
But man, the ending is slam bang great and Mell is awesome in this, an actress in search of a movie. And it's got a really great supporting cast. Manuel Mur Oti never really directed that I've seen before, but his style here seems very point and shoot. That could be the result of the horrible print that is out there. But hey, let's be honest: you could do worse than to watch Marissa Mell ruin men for 87 minutes.
In this one, originally called La encadenada, she plays the live-in psychologist of millionaire widower Alexander's (Richard Conte, wow what a get!) slightly - well, perhaps completely - insane silent son. Within a few moments of plot time, she's marrying the father, disposing of him and then moving on to his son. But then, of course, her evil ex (Anthony Steffen, who somehow played Django more than Franco Nero) shows up to ruin everything.
There are some wild ideas here - Alexander owns the Holy Grail, the real cup and it's treated with all of the excitement that another Alexander gets when he shows off his magic window - but the film suffers from a lack of style. It needs the sex, the sizzle, the score, the everything that makes a giallo a giallo.
But man, the ending is slam bang great and Mell is awesome in this, an actress in search of a movie. And it's got a really great supporting cast. Manuel Mur Oti never really directed that I've seen before, but his style here seems very point and shoot. That could be the result of the horrible print that is out there. But hey, let's be honest: you could do worse than to watch Marissa Mell ruin men for 87 minutes.