NOTE IMDb
6,0/10
1,9 k
MA NOTE
Une riche veuve américaine solitaire se lie d'amitié avec deux jeunes gens aux motifs suspects.Une riche veuve américaine solitaire se lie d'amitié avec deux jeunes gens aux motifs suspects.Une riche veuve américaine solitaire se lie d'amitié avec deux jeunes gens aux motifs suspects.
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- Casting principal
Avis à la une
Yes, I was confused about this film, even though for American release they shared the title with "A Quiet Place to Kill" This flick is worth watching for the late 60's clothes and music. Anyone who knows who the group is singing in the nightclub scene please email me, as I love that song.
Carroll, looking lovely get tormented by a pair of kinky siblings, or so we think. Actually,, the sex, drugs & orgies are tame by today's standards but the editing still bugs me on this one. Still, a good roll in the mud thanks to a talented cast. I still think the actress who played the housekeeper looks like a bad drag queen, but hey, not everyone is a glamour puss like Carroll!
Carroll, looking lovely get tormented by a pair of kinky siblings, or so we think. Actually,, the sex, drugs & orgies are tame by today's standards but the editing still bugs me on this one. Still, a good roll in the mud thanks to a talented cast. I still think the actress who played the housekeeper looks like a bad drag queen, but hey, not everyone is a glamour puss like Carroll!
This Italian/French co-production was the first of four collaborations between Hollywood star Carroll Baker (Baby Doll) and director Umberto Lenzi (Cannibal Ferox), and gave Baker a second chance at stardom after work had begun to dry up stateside. Here she plays Catherine, an American widow whose oil tycoon husband has recently died in a road accident (leaving her $200 million richer). She decides to relocate to Italy, where she meets a younger man named Peter (Lou Castel), also an American. The two soon become lovers. Their relationship is volatile but passionate and Peter moves into Catherine's luxurious villa. A short while later Catherine is surprised by the arrival of Peter's attractive sister, Eva (Colette Descombes). However, she likes having the youngsters around and Eva moves into the villa as well. But the initial fun turns into a physically and sexually abusive three-way relationship, one that sees Catherine's existing drink problem compounded by a forced addiction to drugs. Realising she is now a prisoner in her own home she tries to retake control of her life and escape.
This is often referred to as a giallo, although it doesn't really fit the term as we use it today (there's no mysterious, faceless stalker, no bloody injury, no string of people being bumped-off - in fact there are no deaths at all until well into the third act). It's better watched as a psychological thriller. The performances of the three leads (plus Tino Carraro as Catherine's lawyer) are all good, but the story is pretty unoriginal. It also paints Catherine as pretty annoying, even unpleasant at times, leaving it hard to care what happens to her. Credit though for an double-whammy ending that I never saw coming. Some topless and rear nudity and very softcore sex. 6/10.
This is often referred to as a giallo, although it doesn't really fit the term as we use it today (there's no mysterious, faceless stalker, no bloody injury, no string of people being bumped-off - in fact there are no deaths at all until well into the third act). It's better watched as a psychological thriller. The performances of the three leads (plus Tino Carraro as Catherine's lawyer) are all good, but the story is pretty unoriginal. It also paints Catherine as pretty annoying, even unpleasant at times, leaving it hard to care what happens to her. Credit though for an double-whammy ending that I never saw coming. Some topless and rear nudity and very softcore sex. 6/10.
It's tempting to look at this movie and think: What on earth is Carroll Baker doing in this piece of junk? (One becomes a lot less judgmental after reading Baker's autobiography and finding out this film came along at a time when Baker was in somewhat dire financial straits.)
It's still a piece of junk. "Paranoia" is a nasty, amateurish, inept thriller that tries hard to be sexy, but is more embarrassing than erotic. I don't know how it plays in Italian, but the (partly dubbed) English dialogue is as ghastly as the direction (somebody take away Umberto Lenzi's zoom lens!). There is one intriguing, identity-blurring moment when Baker playfully dons a dark wig that makes her look so much like co-star Colette Descombes, it's spooky. (Yes, of course it's a rip-off of "L'Avventura," but in this film, you take whatever you can get.) The movie's ending is beneath "Contempt."
(Interestingly, Baker in her memoirs mistakenly identifies her character as a divorcée instead of a widow, and never mentions the movie by name, either by its American title, "Paranoia," or its oh-so-charming Italian appellation, "Orgasmo.")
It's still a piece of junk. "Paranoia" is a nasty, amateurish, inept thriller that tries hard to be sexy, but is more embarrassing than erotic. I don't know how it plays in Italian, but the (partly dubbed) English dialogue is as ghastly as the direction (somebody take away Umberto Lenzi's zoom lens!). There is one intriguing, identity-blurring moment when Baker playfully dons a dark wig that makes her look so much like co-star Colette Descombes, it's spooky. (Yes, of course it's a rip-off of "L'Avventura," but in this film, you take whatever you can get.) The movie's ending is beneath "Contempt."
(Interestingly, Baker in her memoirs mistakenly identifies her character as a divorcée instead of a widow, and never mentions the movie by name, either by its American title, "Paranoia," or its oh-so-charming Italian appellation, "Orgasmo.")
Once again we have some disparaging IMDB user comments for a euro-or-otherwise-foreign-source film that does not conform to the user's safe, comforting criteria for narrative structure, sound (in this case the dubbing -- which is actually not bad), or subject matter.
This film is an extremely entertaining psychological thriller with Carrol Baker excellent as a rich American widow getting away from it all at a secluded Italian villa. Enter smart aleck down on his luck playboy, Lou Castel, who has some golddigging motives behind his slick hipster seduction techniques and has no qualms about how he gets what he wants. He encourages Baker's character's incipient alcoholism and dubious self-esteem, brings in his supposed 'sister' to help drag Baker even further into a maze of sick mind games, drug addiction and group sex, all culminating in a descent into near-madness and self-destructive depravity.
I won't give away anymore, suffice to say that the film delivers on its swinging sixties, Euro sleaze ambience and psychological suspense thriller credentials in spades. Director Umberto Lenzi's work has been, at best, uneven and he's churned out his share of crap. However, he made some quite good giallos and crime pictures in the sixties and seventies and this is one of them (other good films by Lenzi -- SPASMO, SEVEN BLOODSTAINED ORCHIDS, ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY WEAPON, to name only a few).
Unfortunately this film is ofen confused with another okay but not-quite-as-good Lenzi film that was also released briefly here in America under the same PARANOIA title (but is more commonly known, especially on video, as A QUIET PLACE TO KILL).
This film is an extremely entertaining psychological thriller with Carrol Baker excellent as a rich American widow getting away from it all at a secluded Italian villa. Enter smart aleck down on his luck playboy, Lou Castel, who has some golddigging motives behind his slick hipster seduction techniques and has no qualms about how he gets what he wants. He encourages Baker's character's incipient alcoholism and dubious self-esteem, brings in his supposed 'sister' to help drag Baker even further into a maze of sick mind games, drug addiction and group sex, all culminating in a descent into near-madness and self-destructive depravity.
I won't give away anymore, suffice to say that the film delivers on its swinging sixties, Euro sleaze ambience and psychological suspense thriller credentials in spades. Director Umberto Lenzi's work has been, at best, uneven and he's churned out his share of crap. However, he made some quite good giallos and crime pictures in the sixties and seventies and this is one of them (other good films by Lenzi -- SPASMO, SEVEN BLOODSTAINED ORCHIDS, ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY WEAPON, to name only a few).
Unfortunately this film is ofen confused with another okay but not-quite-as-good Lenzi film that was also released briefly here in America under the same PARANOIA title (but is more commonly known, especially on video, as A QUIET PLACE TO KILL).
For his third film of 1969, Umberto Lenzi goes for the full groovy sixties vibe with the trippy visuals, free living people who you just want to slap, laid back music and all that crap. It's quite good though, kind of! Caroll Baker is a young widow who is rich beyond her wildest dreams, but has ended up in one of the gigantic mansions that occur in about 95% of Italian films of this era. She's hitting the hooch, but things look up a bit when hunky young Peter Sorel turns up, offering Caroll some free loving and free thinking - just like everyone else of his age and generation. The twats.
Caroll falls in love with Peter, who manages to get himself invited to the mansion and moves in proper, as does his sister, who likes to give Caroll pills and looks like David Bowie (what's with these actresses looking like David Bowie?). Caroll feels young again, but is it all too good to be true? When Caroll catches Peter in bed with the sister, the answer is 'probably'.
Yep, it's another low-violence, high suspense giallo with all the trimmings - annoying free love, pills, booze, crap like 'jealousy is all in the mind' - all that stuff. I don't want to reveal what happens mind you but for a film where not much happen it's still quite watchable. Lenzi cranks up the 'trippy' visuals too, some of which don't make sense, but it's probably the best of the three films he made in 1969.
Except the ending is the EXACT ending of Oasis of Fear! You can't fool me Lenzi!
Caroll falls in love with Peter, who manages to get himself invited to the mansion and moves in proper, as does his sister, who likes to give Caroll pills and looks like David Bowie (what's with these actresses looking like David Bowie?). Caroll feels young again, but is it all too good to be true? When Caroll catches Peter in bed with the sister, the answer is 'probably'.
Yep, it's another low-violence, high suspense giallo with all the trimmings - annoying free love, pills, booze, crap like 'jealousy is all in the mind' - all that stuff. I don't want to reveal what happens mind you but for a film where not much happen it's still quite watchable. Lenzi cranks up the 'trippy' visuals too, some of which don't make sense, but it's probably the best of the three films he made in 1969.
Except the ending is the EXACT ending of Oasis of Fear! You can't fool me Lenzi!
Le saviez-vous
- AnecdotesThis film is the first part of a trilogy that also includes Si douces, si perverses (1969) and Formule un (1970).
- GaffesThe two times Eva plays the Wess & The Airedales song "Just Tell Me", they are two different records with two very different labels.
- Citations
Wess and the Airedales: I'll be there to turn your sadness into fun!
- Versions alternativesOriginal Italian version titled "Orgasmo" runs 97 minutes; American version is cut to 91 min. and re-titled "Paranoia".
- ConnexionsEdited into Dusk to Dawn Drive-In Trash-o-Rama Show Vol. 10 (2007)
- Bandes originalesFate Had Planned It So
Written by Lydia MacDonald (as Mac Donald) and Piero Umiliani (as Umiliani)
Sung by Lydia MacDonald (as Lydia Mac Donald)
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- How long is Paranoia?Alimenté par Alexa
Détails
- Date de sortie
- Pays d’origine
- Langue
- Aussi connu sous le nom de
- Paranoia
- Lieux de tournage
- Carlos Place, Mayfair, Londres, Angleterre, Royaume-Uni(Eva and Peter borrow Brian's car)
- Sociétés de production
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