Der schöne Körper der Deborah (1968)

Der schöne Körper der Deborah: Directed by Romolo Guerrieri. With Carroll Baker, Jean Sorel, Evelyn Stewart, Luigi Pistilli. A newlywed couple returns to Geneva to visit the husband’s home town. There he is accused of being responsible for his ex-lover’s death and the couple starts receiving threats.

“Carroll Baker made several excursions to Italy throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, notably a series of erotic gialli; this was the first of them and, though a rather inauspicious beginning, several that followed (even those made by other hands, such as Sergio Martino – actually serving on the film under review as Production Manager!) can be seen to have adhered pretty closely to the formula unveiled here. Though contributing to the low rating was the atrocious sound quality – which not only seemed to have inherent hiccups (whereby lines get repeated every so often) but the English dialogue track featured a few unaccountable u0026#39;intrusionsu0026#39; of Italian and French! – the movie itself is a mainly listless affair which contrives to wake up only during the last 20 minutes (with the expected bevy of improbable twists and turns)!! To be fair, I was drawn to this principally by the notable cast – which also includes Jean Sorel (who followed his career highpoint, Luis Bunuelu0026#39;s BELLE DE JOUR [1967], with a number of gialli: for the record, he and director Guerrieri would subsequently collaborate on the infinitely more rewarding THE DOUBLE [1971]) and, likewise all genre stalwarts, George Hilton (who eventually rose to protagonist status under Martinou0026#39;s guidance), Luigi Pistilli and Evelyn Stewart. To go back to the erotic theme at the core of these type of films (perhaps to make up for the frankly tedious plots), this first entry may have seemed pretty risqué at the time but certainly feels tame when compared to later examples (not necessarily those made by the group of people already mentioned).”