Highly Overrated But Still Good

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Remarkably, even for a giallo, this one takes sexism to the extreme, so much so that it gives Strip Nude for Your Killer a run for its money! Cristina is a young girl who decides for some reason to become a prostitute, much to the horror of her father Hunt Powers. She puts an ad in the paper offering her services as a masseuse, and is hired by a buff body builder type, only for it to turn out that he genuinely hired her for her masseuse skills for his mother's sciatica! Her next customer gets the idea, but tells her she wasn't that good, short changes her, then gives her some French soap in compensation. Maybe she needs some help…It's around this time that Cristina meets Oscar, a man who offers to be her business partner (pimp) by hooking her up with better paying customers. First up is Franco Ressel (with that damn combover back in all its glory) but once he's done giving her a bath (?) and paying her, some black gloved killer slashes his throat with a straight razor. Who can it be this time round?There's a few good suspects kicking around – her father, who periodically tries to stop Cristina, her ex-boyfriend, who does the same, then there's the pimp, although that wouldn't be a good business model to murder your customers, and then there's Cristina's best friend's boyfriend, who introduces himself by staring at her arse then putting the moves on her. Most of the film is spent with people hitting on Cristina, watching Cristina strip, having sex with Cristina, staring at her arse, discussing her performances or customers recommending her services to one another by telephone or giving her a slap. Cristina herself is bizarrely detached from everything that's going on around her, but that might just bad acting I guess. I could also guess that there might be some social comment her about how men view women, but judging by the hilarious way the killer gets caught, I'm doubtful. Funky soundtrack too!I noticed that Demofilo Fidani also made a film called Karzan the next year – Karzan? A rip off of Tarzan? Please let there be a copy on Youtube!(Checks)Dammit! There wasn't.

The seeming clumsy title relates to the newspaper advertisement placed by the leading lady/masseuse/call girl in this entertaining giallo. Little seen but my print was fine with English subtitles and decent score. Not the most sophisticated of stories and for the first 20 minutes or so it seems as if we are simply in for a series of soft core encounters but once the killings begin and the police become involved things shape up fairly well. Good looking girls and great costumes as usual for a 1972 Italian giallo, although as there is so much emphasis on the lead being so young maybe Paola Senatore was a bit older looking than she should have been. Less hair would have helped but I guess little could be done about her generous bust and she deservedly went on to make many exploitation movies including, D'Amato's, Immagini di un Convento and also Eaten Alive. Enjoyable.

Lame giallo for hardcore fans only. Upper class girl Cristina Graziani decides to leave home and get away from her restrictive father, only to become a prostitute, albeit a high-class one thanks to the efforts of a dandy pimp named Oscar. As one might expect, soon everyone of her clients drops dead by a dark figure in trenchcoat and hat (and of course the killings are made with a razorblade - quite typical in giallo films). Demofilo Fidani is known as a hack director and he proves just that. No rhythm, no suspense, nothing spectacular about the killings and actually nobody seems to mind that much (not even Cristina). To complete the picture, no red herrings are used in this film and the disclosure of the killer's identity comes as no surprise. As I said earlier, no reason to see this flick, except for giallo-addicts.