The very Italian giallo meets burgeoning blaxsploitation in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in the 1972 crime mystery Tropic of Cancer (sometimes also referred to as Death in Haiti or Peacock’s Palace), directed by Giampaolo Lomi and Edoardo Mulargia (both also co-write along with star Anthony Steffen). A couple on the rocks, Fred and Grace Wright (Gabriele Tinti and Anita Strindberg), make their way to the island paradise to seemingly rekindle their relationship... yet the husband also plans on meeting up with long unseen friend Doctor Williams (Anthony Steffen). Unbeknownst to them (or is it), the M.D. and veterinarian by day and scientist by night (this guy can do everything) has discovered a rather desirable aphrodisiacal hallucinogenic drug formula that everyone is out to get – some legitimately, others not so much.
Sometimes the heat makes us go a little crazy. Likewise, alcohol can have a similar effect... pair them both together, and all bets are off. Transporting us into the dog days of summer in the City That Never Sleeps, Deadline at Dawn (1946), directed by Harold Clurman (the only feature made by the legendary stage director), is full of drunken danger. With perspiration dripping from every pore, baby-face Navy sailor Alex Winkler (Bill Williams) finds himself waking from a nasty bender at a New York City newsstand. . . if that wasn’t bad enough, he discovers a wad of cash that isn’t his and a faint memory of stealing it from loose femme Edna Bartelli (Lola Lane), a slinky blackmailer who’s definitely on the fatale side.
A musical murder mystery? Yes, you read that right. . . and that was the type of film you often saw during the Pre-Code era. If 1934's Murder at the Vanities was made just six months later, it never would have passed code and been released – fortuitous for the film makers and us. Directed by Mitchell Leisen, this on stage/backstage premise finds Jack Ellery (Jack Oakie – The Great Dictator) putting on a sumptuous musical revue, featuring his two stars, an Austrian making his American debut, Eric Lander (Carl Brisson), and up and coming Ann Ware (Kitty Carlisle). Unbeknownst to everyone, a whirlwind romance has swooped up between the two stars. . . and they plan to marry after the opening show (they make the announcement upon their arrival at the theatre).
Perhaps the most wild and audacious opening ever seen in a giallo, 1975's Autopsy, co-written and directed by Armando Crispino, starts with a rotisserie of people committing suicide in both shocking and outlandish ways. . . only for the camera to then take us into one of the last taboo places in film, the morgue, to show us the bodies piling up in the life of half American/half Italian Simona Sanna (Mimsy Farmer) – this is clearly not the Rome we normally see in movies. Now, you may be wondering what all these bodies have to do with her. . . well, she is a young doctor working on a research project revolving around the difference between suicides and well hidden murders made to look like the former. As you might imagine, it is grave subject matter. . . so much so that she is struggling in her romantic relationship with photographer Riccardo (Ray Lovelock) and is even hallucinating that those dead bodies are coming back to life.
Walking a narrow tightrope between giallo and horror, 1972's Murder Mansion, by then first time director Francisco Lara Polop, pulls from films like The Cat and the Canary (either the 1927 or 1939 edition) and House on Haunted Hill (1959), as well as sources like Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” and maybe even Scooby-Doo, to create a bizarre concoction that mostly works. Opening in a most unexpected way for either a giallo or horror feature, motorcycle meets sports car in a blistering country road race, the former driven by calm, cool, and collected Fred (Andrés Resino), while the latter is floored by cocksure Mr. Porter (Franco Fantasia – talk about a name). Only fueling the fire, sultry fashionista Laura (Lisa Leonardi) is spotted hitchhiking. . . the motorist winning the pick-up over the biker, the chase continuing as they weave in and out of sporadic traffic. . . only for the biker to convince her to join him at their next gas station stop (as Mr. Porter is a tad too handsy).
Introducing us to what would normally be our main protagonist in a gialli, Umberto Paradisi (Francesco Di Federico) – an insurance investigator turned amateur sleuth who has hired a two bucketed backhoe to dredge up some unknown clue from a murky quarry pond, is unceremoniously nabbed by the two pronged machine, hoisted up, legs dangling, before his neck finally gives way and he is no more – talk about an introduction! The movie title, which is a rare near perfect translation of its original Italian, is My Dear Killer (1972), directed by Tonino Valerii, a slightly lesser known giallo with some influential moments.
If you’ve stumbled into the world of producer Dick Randall, then congratulations on being a part of a most bizarre level of film watching that most regular cinephiles will never reach. A fly by night producer (with a number of aliases – for example, Claudio Rainis in Italy) who knew how to talk the talk, he found money in the least expected places. . . in fact, it has long been rumoured that the reason he did not return to the United States was because he borrowed from the wrong people (some mobsters) when trying to get a couple Broadway plays up and running. A master (and I use that term lightly) of exploiting the most recent trend (think sexploitation, mondo, giallo, karate, even James Bond), this globetrotter jumped from one place to the next, spending some time in Italy, only to then make his way to the Philippines for another low budget project.