L'iguana dalla lingua di fuoco (1971)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

Riccardo Freda

Writers:

Sandro Continenza (screenplay)
Riccardo Freda (screenplay)

Release Date:

24 August 1971 (Italy)

Genre:

Thriller | Horror

Plot:

In Dublin, a young woman is brutally murdered in her home by a maniac that throws acid in her face and then slits her throat with a razor...

Plot Keywords:

Police | Dead Woman | Maniac | Acid | Serial Murder

Cast

Luigi Pistilli	...	Detective John Norton
Dagmar Lassander	...	Helen Sobiesky
Anton Diffring	...	Ambassador Sobiesky
Arthur O'Sullivan	...	Inspector Lawrence
Werner Pochath	...	Mark Sobiesky
Dominique Boschero	...	Juanita - Ambassador's lover
Renato Romano	...	Mandel
Sergio Doria
Ruth Durley
Valentina Cortese	...	Mrs. Sobiesky

Also Known As:

Die Bestie mit dem feurigen Atem (Germany) (DVD title)
The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

Italy | France | West Germany

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Les Films Corona

Trivia:

When the German Co-Producer Artur Brauner saw the finished film, he decided to skip a theatrical release in Germany, just due to the quality of the film which he wasn't satisfied with.

Disappointing effort from Riccardo Freda

A beautiful woman is burned with acid, slashed to death with the razor, and stuffed in the trunk of a car belonging to the Swiss ambassador to Ireland. Sounds like the beginning of an Italian giallo, huh?. This is a pretty disappointing one, however, especially considering it comes from legendary Italian film director Riccardo Freda. The Dublin location is pretty interesting, but all the Irish and Swiss accents turn out to be a nightmare of bad dubbing. And this is one of those rare movies that actually would have benefited greatly from having the gore scenes censored out because they are tasteless, gratuitous, and worst of all, just plain laughable. The hero is an Irish rogue cop (he looks Irish anyway, but judging from the inconsistent dubbing of his voice, he must be part Italian as well). He has a teenage daughter and an elderly mother who fancies herself a latter-day Miss Marple (and I have confess, I've always wanted to see someone do to Miss Marple what the killer here does to her). He also embarks on a highly improbable affair with the ambassador's beautiful daughter (Dagmar Lassander). I haven't personally dated a lot of beautiful Swiss women, but I don't suspect too many of them would invite you upstairs for the night if you said things like: "So, luv, should we get it off on the motorbike or in the bushes?"

The movie contains a lot of nasty violence moving it past the comical tastelessness of gialli like "Strip Nude for your Killer" towards the genuinely unpleasant tastelessness of Fulci's "New York Ripper". The end which manages to combine some very gratuitous teenage nudity with some VERY severe abuse of the elderly might appeal to fans of transgressive cinema, but probably no one else.