User Reviews

**MAJOR SPOILERS** Traveling to Naples Italy to appraise Count Paolo Barbarnelli's, Rossano Brazzi, vast and very expensive art collection the appraiser world renowned museum curator Raymond Fontaine's, George Sanders, secretary Karen Williams, Shirley Jones, is taken under the spell of the dashing and handsome, as well as a bit mysterious, Italian nobleman.

In fact the first meeting between Karen and Paolo wasn't exactly that romantic with him having to call off his German Shepard guard and attack dog Gallo from tearing a terrified Karen to pieces. It later turned that the vicious Gallo wasn't the only one who was a bit overprotective of his master Count Paolo. Paolo's somewhat mentally unstable 19 year-old daughter Cora, Giorgia Moll, also had a strange and unnatural attraction towards him. So strange that she was capable of murdering anyone, like Karen, who tried to take Paolo away from her.

Were, as well as Karen, are later informed by Paolo that Cora has suffered a serious head injury while skying in Switzerland two years ago. That accident, skiing head first into a tree, has caused Cora to lose her memory of everything that happened in her life up to that time!

Paolo for his part wasn't really interested in starting up a love affair with Karen who was young enough to be his, like Cora, daughter. He was already involved with local boutique owner Monique Bouier, Micheline Presle,who in fact he set up, by financing, in the clothing business. It soon turns out that Karen whom the Count fell heads over heels for has two, not one, persons in his life who are out to get her for trying to take Paolo away from them: His daughter Cora and lover Monique.

***SPOILER*** We first get an inkling of just what Paolo is really up to when he's spotted at a swanky Naples restaurant, that he took Karen out to dinner, by American tourists Midge and Marvin Thompson, Matailda Calnan & Charles Fawcett.

Even though Paolo told Keren that his wife died on him some fifteen years ago Midge insisted that she, together with Marvin, had met him and his old lady just two years ago While they were vacationing at St. Moritz! In fact the two couples, the Thompsons and Barbrelli's, spent the entire time at St. Moritz dancing dinning and conversing with each other! So it just couldn't have been a case of mistaken identity on Midge's part in her and Marvin knowing Paolo and his late wife some 13 years after she supposedly died!

Very upset Paolo, in an uncontrollable rage in his secret being discovered, rushed out of the restaurant with Karen, who's now a bit confused about his intentions with her, tagging along. It's later when, with the help of Cora, Karen discovers the Count's deep and deadly secret that he then plans to do her in! This before the truth about Paolo's secret life becomes public with him ending up being arrested for grand larceny and murder! And with his secret being exposed everything that Paolo worked connived and killed for, like his multi-million dollar art collection, is in danger of going together with him down in flames or up the river.

Alone and locked in Paolo's villa with nowhere to go in order to get away from the crazed Count Karen is now not only under attack by her former lover but his vicious attack dog Gallo as well. ****ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT**** It turns out that Gallo in trying to get to Karen, as she and Count Paolo were struggling at the foot of of a water fountain, miscalculated and missed his mark! This mistake on Gallo's part turned out to be a very very lucky break for Karen but not for his master the the maniacal Count Paolo Barbarelli.

How do I dislike thee, Dark Purpose? Let me count the ways. Start with the horrible print utilized by TCM for the film's recent airing. It's horribly pan and scanned, with scratches and splotches throughout, and really ugly faded colour that looks more like Eastmancolor than Technicolor. Move on to the wretched sound recording, with the dialogue seemingly recorded by having the cast post-synch their lines whilst enclosed within a burlap sack. Then there's the deeply disappointing music from normally reliable composer Angelo Francesco Lavagnino, a florid and overly dramatic score that does the thin and unoriginal plot line no favours. I'd also love to know exactly how co-directors George Marshall and Vittorio Sala collaborated on this film: Dark Purpose displays absolutely nothing in the way of artistry; surprising considering Marshall was a Hollywood pro and that Sala's next film was the far superior Spy In Your Eye (1965). Of course it's cause for celebration when obscure films like this pop up on TCM--more, please!--but sometimes they're obscure for a reason. At least George Sanders is good.

John Houseman called director George Marshall, "one of the old maestros of Hollywood ... he had never become one of the giants but he held a solid and honorable position in the industry." He started as an extra and made his first short in 1915 with And the Best Man Won. His career was nearly six decades long and he worked the whole way to an episode of The Odd Couple in 1972, as well as acting in episodes of Police Woman and the Playboy movie The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder. Some of the more recognizable movies in his career include The Ghost Breakers, Papa's Delicate Condition, Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! And The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz.

Marshall is obviously not an Italian director, but L'Intrigo (AKA Dark Purpose) - co-directed by Vittorio Sala - feels like a giallo.

Art historian Raymond Fontaine (George Sanders) and his assistant Karen Williams (yes, that's Sandy Jones in a giallo) have been brought to Italy by gallery owner Monique (Micheline Presle) to appraise the collection of Count Paolo Barbarelli (Rossano Brazzi). What they don't know is that the count also has a deranged daughter named Cora (Giorgia Moll) who just might be dangerous to be around. Blame the skiing accident she just had for making her an amnesiac and quite angry that her daddy has found a new American love interest. Good thing - or bad for Karen - that she has a dog who can't wait to eat a young lady.

Thanks to Suburban Pagans, I learned that costume designer Tina Grani (Blood and Black Lace) worked on this movie, which makes sense, as Jones is constantly the most fashionable young American in Rome. Cora also claims to be Count Paolo's wife, and not his daughter, then she finds her way to the bottom of a cliff. That's because Paolo caused her skiing accident and has felt guilt ever since, so he was killing her slowly. Once he met a new and interesting - and outspoken - new love, he got rid of the old one. She's half his age and he has all the money, so men have never changed. They just get a new model every few years. Not as many outright kill the ex-wife.

This is a giallo as much as The Girl Who Knew Too Much is. By that, I mean that the genre had not found its strangeness yet and was still inspired by Hitchcock. It's a good movie, but don't go in expecting neon, black gloves and psychosexual murder.

Fresh from her run as America's sweetheart in a string of successful musicals and light comedies (and an Academy Award winning turn as a prostitute), Shirley Jones turned herself into Joan Fontaine for this physically colorful but emotionally empty melodrama, combining elements of both "Rebecca" and "Jane Eyre" as the employee of George Sanders who assists another one of his employees (Rossano Brazzi) on a project, and falls in love with him, but is perplexed by his mysterious past which includes a young woman living in the attic whom he claims is his daughter while she insists that he is her husband.

Brazzi claims that her mother is dead and that she inherits a monthly bequest which is signed over to him. There's also a beautiful but severe looking woman who hangs around and is obviously in love with him, but after becoming engaged to Jones, he unceremoniously drops her. There's an alleged suicide which makes Jones fear that she's in jeopardy, as well as hints of other secrets through the family jewelry and artwork.

Completely perplexing in a fascinating way, this is one of those melodramas that one can enjoy in spite of its many flaws. Of course, the location footage in Italy is gorgeous, but the music is strangely distracting and often irritating. An American couple from Buffalo walks up to Jones and Brazzi while they are out dining, and the wife bears an uncanny similarity to Mrs. Van Hopper from "Rebecca" in her obvious social climbing. There is an older housekeeper too who resembles Mrs. Danvers, but the machinations of that character go to the mistress that Brazzi dumps.

The similarities makes it ironic that George Sanders is there, basically playing an older version of his character, Jack Favell. The direction by George Marshall (perhaps not the right director for a film like this) has the film's structure as curvy as the location shoot's curvy roads. Jones' character isn't as interesting as the two gothic heroines played by Fontaine, but she's certainly lovely and watchable. Brazzi doesn't seem really interested in the character, just determined to get through the shooting. An interesting misfire that can be enjoyed in spite of many weird flaws.