Maison de rendez-vous

Wahey! I didn't expect this one to be as delightfully bonkers as it turned out, but then why did I expect it to be normal, knowing fine well that the police inspector in charge is played by a Humphrey Bogart impersonator, complete with mac and the constant presence of a cigarette?

Ol' fake Bogey is out to catch the killer of hooker Barbara Bouchet, beaten to death in a classy French brothel run by Anita Ekberg. At first it looks like her boyfriend did it, which would make sense as he was seemingly the last person with her, and was badly beating her up last time we saw Babs alive. Her boyfriend gets captured and sentenced to death during a court scene shown mostly in negative (?), curses all the witnesses to a violent death, escapes from prison, then accidentally decapitates himself while speeding on a motorbike. Saves wear and tear on the guillotine I guess!

Those relieved witnesses are not so relieved as someone starts bumping them off, starting with the beating to death of Anita Ekberg (in a weird, multi-coloured scene), but who would want these people dead? Is it singer Rosalba Neri? Her husband, Pepe? Pepe's lover, (I can't be bothered looking up her name)? What about the author who lives in the brothel, 'researching a book'? The judge seems to be involved too, as does his doctor mate who wants to operate on the boyfriend decapitated head. Gordon Mitchell also shows up for a quick cameo which has nothing to do with anything and is totally pointless. I think he was drunk and just wandered on set.

Upping the madness factor is your usual sleaze and some gore thrown in for good measure, and the killer's motivation for killing is remarkably tasteless, even for a film that's shown up two decapitations and a doctor cutting up what looks like a lamb's eyeball. I like my gialli short, daft, with plenty of sauce, so full marks to Bogey!

Wait – didn't the doctor's assistant say he saw the boyfriend's eyes move while examining his severed head? What was that all about? He was just told to shut up and not mention it again.

Despite the fact that this Giallo is often lambasted, I actually had rather high hopes for it; just due to the sheer number of cult names on the cast list and the fact that the more convoluted Giallo's are often the best. However, while this film does have a vast array of ideas on display, director Ferdinando Merighi isn't able to round everything up into one coherent plot line. Furthermore, not many of the genre trademarks have made it into the film; as it's not very colourful, the mystery is obvious from the beginning and despite the fact that the plot focuses on a brothel; there isn't a great deal of nudity. The film gets off to a good start, and after the first half hour I was really expecting a more than decent Giallo. We are introduced to Antoine Gottvalles; a customer at the aforementioned brothel. He's in love with prostitute Francine (the gorgeous Barbara Bouchet, whom I'm in love with) and after her murder, he becomes the prime suspect while the real killer manages to escape. It's not long before the murders continue and police inspector/Humphrey Bogart look-alike Inspector Pontaine gets on the case.

The cast list is among the most impressive of any Giallo. The most exciting element for me was the fact that Amuck co-stars Rosalba Neri and Barbara Bouchet were reunited, even if the latter does only last a few minutes. 'Killer Nun' Anita Ekberg gets a supporting role alongside 'Dr Orloff' Howard Vernon, while the film introduces the lovely Evelyn Kraft. The film is rounded off by a bizarre performance from professional Humphrey Bogart look-alike Robert Sacchi. Quite why the Inspector looks like Bogey is never actually explained; my theory is that it either has something to do with the alternate title (Bogeyman and the French Murders), or director Ferdinando Merighi really wanted Bogart in his movie, but couldn't get him...for obvious reasons. The problem with Sacci in the lead is that, unfortunately, he can't act...and he doesn't look that much like Bogart anyway. The plot manages to move along without getting too dry despite being highly derivative, and the film does have a number of standout death scenes; even if they are extremely unprofessional in their handling. The Parisian setting is good and provides a little beauty to offset the mundane plot. The ending is a little obvious...but it's fun enough to watch and overall, I won't say that The French Sex Murders is a great example of the Giallo...but it just about qualifies as a decent one.

THE FRENCH SEX MURDERS (Ferdinando Merighi - Italy 1972).

Formerly, the usual UK title was THE BOGEY MAN AND THE FRENCH MURDERS. There's also a Greek video with the sleeve title, CALL GIRLS FOR INSPECTOR BOGART. The inspector is not named Bogart, nor does he get any call girls, but who cares? It's a title that sells.

There's a killer in Paris, a suicide from the Eiffel Tower, a brothel as the main setting, insane professors, an eye-ball thief, an inspector who looks like Humphrey Bogart (for no apparent reason), a truly creepy Anita Ekberg, and an impressive line-up of Euro-stars. How Dick Randall assembled this cast is beyond me, but he did it. Besides Anita Ekberg, there's Rosalba Neri (who even sings a song in a nightclub), Barbara Bouchet, Evelyn Kraft, Howard Vernon, and Robert Sacchi as inspector Pontaine or Humphrey Bogart. The title is pretty accurate. The murders take place during, before or after sex in a brothel in Paris. In between, the Bogey-man snoops around trying to track down the killer, but he is not too bright. You'll probably have figured it out long before he does.

The film's producer was American Dick Randall who took residence in Rome in the '60s but basically was wherever the deals where made, which meant Rome in the '60s, Bangkok and Hong Kong in the '70s and London in the '80s. Whilst residing in Italy, he payed close attention and decided to take a shot at the giallo as well, and produced this piece of cinematic soufflé. It's a perfect example of totally round the bend Euro-tosh, with a rather tame execution actually. The direction is not wildly imaginative, a workman's job at best, so don't expect outrageous Italian craftsmanship and style here, but some spicing-up in the editing by Bruno Mattei.

The special effects were done by future Oscar-winner Carlo Rambaldi of ET fame. I guess he learned a lot since this one. Of course, the presence of Robert Sacchi, among some other ingredients (mostly the cast) give this film a certain weird identity of its own. All together, it's pretty much a poor man's interpretation of an Italian Giallo.

The version on Mondo Macabro's DVD never existed in this form. From various copies, they assembled the longest version they could possibly paste together. There's an English audio-track, but a couple of scenes appear in Italian with subtitles.

Camera Obscura --- 5/10

In 1972, American producer Dick Randall, never one to let a bandwagon go by without jumping on it, turned his attention to the then extremely popular Italian 'giallo' genre, giving fans of sleazy murder thrillers French Sex Murders, a tawdry tale of sex, violence and bad 70s fashion.

The film, which is directed without panache by Ferdinando Merighi, features a great cast (many of whom will be familiar to fans of cult 'Euro-trash' cinema) who struggle with the so-so plot, which sees a detective (who inexplicably resembles Humphrey Bogart) trying to solve the mystery of who is bumping off the girls at a Parisian brothel.

But whilst it might never be considered a 'classic' of the genre, French Sex Murders does feature several factors which ensure that a fun time is still had from start to finish: plenty of welcome nudity from its gorgeous actresses (Evelyne Kraft and Barbara Bouchet are stunning); a few decent death scenes (including a couple of decapitations) with effects courtesy of Carlo 'E.T.' Rambaldi; eyeball mutilation; a groovy soundtrack; trippy editing (scenes are shown in negative and often repeated in several different colours) from Bruno Mattei; and memorable performances (not necessarily good, but certainly memorable) from creepy Franco regular Howard Vernon, bizarre Bogart-a-like Robert Sacchi, and the incredibly OTT Pietro Martellanza.

So if you've seen all of the greats of the genre, but are still hankering after a bit more giallo action, then you could do (much) worse than to give French Sex Murders a viewing.

6.5 out of 10 (rounded up to 7 for IMDb).

Investigating a strange death in Paris, a police inspector finds that the main suspect's accidental death doesn't stop the body-count from stopping when more suspects are found dead and races to find the motive behind the strange deaths in finally find the killer.

This one here may have been a prototypical giallo but does have some minor flaws. The fact that this one does manage to play so close to the vest in the tropes of the giallo is where this one scores the most, as that keeps this one into the most watchable realms. This one does have a pretty intriguing story here about the use of the brothel and it's clients working throughout here which manages to offer up the kind of suspect list that makes true giallo fans envious at the sordid sleazy characters at play within the confines of the clientele, the fun of the slow revelation with all of their secrets and different connections to each other and the ensuing rampage across the different groups which really sets this going down more pronounced giallo tropes. Putting the familiar black- gloved killer to good use, these stalking scenes are the film's absolute best parts overall with the rather fun stalking scenes in play here with the thrilling stalking of the cheating boyfriend in the house with his lover, some fine stalking around the house where the killer strikes from behind in a great kill as well as a truly brutal triple-victim attack where the killer strikes in a house wiping out three different victims in different methods which is a rather enjoyable encounter overall. There's a lot of fun here with this series of stalking scenes which makes for a rather enjoyable time leading into the big chase at the end into the Eiffel Tower which is a rather thrilling ending helping along with the film's strong body-count. Along with a rather fun motorcycle chase and a copious amount of nudity, there's plenty to like here. Still, there's some rather problematic areas here which does hold this back somewhat. The biggest problem here is the fact that there's just so little about the killer's motivations here even with it being a convention of the genre but here it doesn't really come up at all. There's a lot to like here about the revenge-from-beyond-the-grave plot, but there's little about the actual reason here for the killer and is absolutely lazy about giving one. Another problem here is the film's rather stumbling pace that doesn't really get any kind of momentum going in the middle segments after the fake-out death of the suspected killer, keeping it going on numerous bland tangents without featuring any kind of real investigations into the main plot. Though that makes for a big final half, there's a rather bland set-up to get there. The last problem here is the film's gimmick- filled scenes that don't really do much of anything for the film, using the film-negative set-up for the scenes of the kills or the victims in the different scenes throughout here, and it somewhat hinders this with some cheesy, low-budget feel. Beyond these, there's some rather good stuff to like here.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Nudity, Language, sexual scenes and drug use.