Indagine su un delitto perfetto (1978)

Director:

Giuseppe Rosati

Writer:

Giuseppe Rosati (writer)

Release Date:

24 November 1978 (Italy)

Genre:

Crime

Plot Keywords:

Female Nudity | Beautiful Woman

Cast

Gloria Guida	...	Alice 'Polly' / Miss Renny
Leonard Mann	...	Paul De Revere
Joseph Cotten	...	Sir Arthur Dundee
Adolfo Celi	...	Sir Harold Boyd
Anthony Steel	...	Supt. Jeff Hawks
Janet Agren	...	Lady Gloria Boyd
Alida Valli	...	Lady Clementine De Revere
Franco Ressel	...	Sgt. Phillips
Paul Muller	...	Gibson
Mario Novelli	...	Saboteur (as Antony Freeman)
Elio Stefanizzi
Claudio Gora
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Antonio Maimone

Also Known As:

The Perfect Crime (USA) (video title)

Runtime:

Brazil:90 min | West Germany:87 min (video release)

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

CLC

Not good but fun

I can't say this is exactly a good movie, but I can't say I didn't enjoy it either. It is an Italian-produced, faux-British movie like "The Killer Wore Gloves" that has some British locations, but was obviously mostly filmed in Rome's Cinecitta.

The basic plot involves a bunch of English business types fighting over the control of a company after the chairman is killed in a (obviously model) airplane explosion. Although all the characters are supposed to be British, the actors are either washed-up American stars (Joseph Cotten), seasoned European character actors (Adolf Celi)or alluring Eurobabes (Janet Agren, Gloria Guida). Nevertheless, Cotten is adequate, and Celi and Agren are actually pretty good as a bickering couple. Celi, a James Bond villain in "Thunderball" and a regular in these kind of films, gets to bed Gloria Guida, who was young enough to be his granddaughter. (In an earlier film I saw of his he also gets to bed Erica Blanc--I wonder if he even asked to be paid for these type of roles?). Guida has a rather ridiculous part as the Celi character's mistress who he is using to give Cotten's character a heart attack by injecting him with a poison (if you've ever seen Guida naked, you know she doesn't need poison to give a guy a heart attack). The end is even more ridiculous, but it is certainly a surprise.

The movie has the absurdity but little of the visual style of an Italian giallo. It also kind of tries to be a staid English murder mystery along the lines of Agatha Christie, but it's too illogical and ridiculous (and Italian)to make it as that either. It kind of falls into a gap between genres, but that doesn't mean there is no fun to be had here.