Silvio Amadio Double Feature DVD Review
Silvio Amadio Double Feature DVD Review
Amuck! & Smile Before Death
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Smile Before Death
Of Italian auteur Amadio's scintillating 70s oeuvres, Amuck! is the one most-prized by giallo-loving pervs. I guess it's a male thing, what with all the gratuitous female nudity, but personally I by far preferred Smile Before Death (aka: Il Sorriso della iena, which translates to "The Smile of the Hyena"). It is the story of winsome Nancy (Luciana Della Robbia), the estranged teenage daughter of murdered socialite Dorothy (Zora Gheorgieva) and who is determined to get to the bottom of her universally disliked mum's premature demise.
At first the violent, bloody rampage — which opens the film — is considered a suicide because the door to Dorothy's deathtrap bedroom was locked from the inside. But using a little Sherlock Holmes style ingenuity, it's quickly determined that the self-center rich bitch was offed in a crime of passion. Who hated her that much? Or maybe loved her that much? Could it be her compliant boy-toy Sandro (angular model Hiram "The Face" Keller), her selfish spouse Marco (Silvano Tranquillli), Dorothy's lesbian friend Gianna (Rosalba Neri), or even Nancy herself? After all, a huge inheritance is at stake. It could be anyone. Or maybe it was a self-inflicted death after all.
Fraught with tension (sexual and otherwise… nobody's smiling in this movie), Smile Before Death is one of the better, lesser-known, gialli films I've seen — which isn't to say it's perfect… a random modeling photo shoot, for instance, takes up way too much time — in some time, especially thanks to its zinger of an ending. Although it's not filmed as such, there are hints of noir nestled within the jigsaw giallo elements. There are impressive subtle moments in the film's voyeuristic crafting, but the mood is somewhat muddled by too many red herring deviations and the obligatory girl-on-girl bed-play (an Amadio go-to).
The DVD presentation is dubbed and presented in pan-and-scan (hopefully that shortcoming will the rectified in the future).
Amuck!
Starring the beyond beautiful Barbara Bouchet and the ever-watchable Farley Granger, Amuck! is less a giallo than it is a soft-core porn film with elements of mystery thrown in. Personally, I got fed up with it about halfway through when I saw that story and suspense were running a distant second to the sexual elements, but the movie does get off to a strong start.
Bouchet stars as Greta Franklin, a nubile and fashionable New Yorker who's taken a job as the assistant (then: secretary) to Richard Stuart (Granger), an eccentric and randy American writer and art collector residing in luxury in Italy. Greta soon discovers that Richard's Italian wife Elenora (Rosalba Neri) is an insatiable nympho who swings both ways. Then there is the "village idiot" Rocco (Petar Martinovitch), who'd also like very much to have a piece of Greta… well, you get the idea. After Greta is drugged at a party which turns into an orgy I pretty much signed off, but the mystery elements were just enough of a dangling carrot to keep me peeping till the bitter end.
You see, one of Richard's gorgeous young secretaries has gone missing… and what's more, Greta went to college with her. Coincidence? I think not. The conclusion is pat, but along the way there are a few decent moments of scripting and suspense. What's more, it's very well-acted (you may recall Granger from the amazing Hitchcock film Strangers on a Train, and Bouchet from Fulci's Don't Torture a Duckling). It is not altogether bad, but this double-disk set is worth the price really only for the second-billed Smile Before Death.
Amuck! special featurettes include two poorly-produced and amateurishly shot interviews (each separate) with Bouchet and Neri, both of whom are as beautiful as ever even years after the film was shot in '72 (but not released until '78). There is also a nude photo gallery, and talent bios on the DVD.
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson