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.
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.