For his third film of 1969, Umberto Lenzi goes for the full groovy sixties vibe with the trippy visuals, free living people who you just want to slap, laid back music and all that crap. It's quite good though, kind of! Caroll Baker is a young widow who is rich beyond her wildest dreams, but has ended up in one of the gigantic mansions that occur in about 95% of Italian films of this era. She's hitting the hooch, but things look up a bit when hunky young Peter Sorel turns up, offering Caroll some free loving and free thinking - just like everyone else of his age and generation. The twats.
Caroll falls in love with Peter, who manages to get himself invited to the mansion and moves in proper, as does his sister, who likes to give Caroll pills and looks like David Bowie (what's with these actresses looking like David Bowie?). Caroll feels young again, but is it all too good to be true? When Caroll catches Peter in bed with the sister, the answer is 'probably'.
Yep, it's another low-violence, high suspense giallo with all the trimmings - annoying free love, pills, booze, crap like 'jealousy is all in the mind' - all that stuff. I don't want to reveal what happens mind you but for a film where not much happen it's still quite watchable. Lenzi cranks up the 'trippy' visuals too, some of which don't make sense, but it's probably the best of the three films he made in 1969.
Except the ending is the EXACT ending of Oasis of Fear! You can't fool me Lenzi!
