So Sweet So Perverse

Cosi Dolce, Cosi Perversa

So Sweet, So Perverse

Italy  1971

D: Umberto Lenzi

P: Sergio Martino, Mino Loy & Luciano Martino//St & Sc: Massimo D'Avack, Luciano Martino & Ernesto Gastaldi//DP: Memmo Mancori//E: Eugenio Alabiso (Asst: Amedeo Moriani)//M: Riz Ortolani//Art D: Franco Bottari//Costumes: Giovanni Noitana//Makeup: Oretta Melaranci//Color

Cast: Carroll Baker, Jean Louis Trintignant, Erika Blanc, Horst Frank, Helga Liné, Armelinda De Felice, Gianni Benedetto, Irio Fantini, Dario Michaelis, Renato Pinciroli, Gianni Pulane, Lucio Rama, Paola Scalizi, Luigi Sportelli, Beryl Cunningham.

Jean and Danielle Renault are involved in a loveless marriage. They are a couple who truly can't stand one another. One night Jean hears a scuffle in the apartment above him and he rushes to discover Nicole being beaten up by Klaus, a rather psychotic looking German. After running Klaus off, he discovers Nicole has been under his complete physical and emotional control. Jean feels sorry for her and vows to protect her. After spending time together (including a week long holiday), Nicole reveals that she and Klaus were hired to kill Jean for $20,000. Now that she's in love with Jean, she can't go through with it and the two plot Klaus' death. Their plan backfires when during a scuffle, Klaus manages to kill Jean with a knife. It is then revealed that they were hired by Danielle to kill Jean and that Nicole is really Danielle's lover. Danielle is very fragile and based on the strange occurences around her, she's convinced Jean isn't really dead. Is she going crazy or is Jean really alive?

This thriller falls into the DIABOLIQUE-type film plot where you have dissatisfied lovers plotting to kill off the spouse. It usually means a definite lack of gore but a much more richly plotted viewing experience. This film, typical of the Lenzi-Baker collaborations, really highlights its cast with Erika Blanc scoring high as the distraught wife. She plays a woman who was obviously sexually repressed until she became involved with a woman. Carroll Baker's performance is excellent as she first gains the audience's sympathy with her portrayal of a woman trying to escape an abusive relationship, only to crush it as she reveals her true colors once Trintignant's character is killed. And let’s not forget Horst Frank, who has saved many a film with his villainous character parts. This excellent German character actor (who dubs his own voice here) is actually the most sympathetic of the three. Black actress Beryl Cunningham gets to perform an impromptu strip act at a house party which livens things up considerably at one point. For Lenzi, this film switches around his usual cinematic obsessions involving the corruption of an innocent woman, here it's the female of the species who are already beyond redemption. Both art direction (which takes advantage of Paris' architecture) and Riz Ortolani's kitschy score help round out a rather classy package.