So Sweet... So Perverse

Caroll Baker :from Elia Kazan and John Ford to Umberto Lanzi:what a fall!to be fair,you must underline she played opposite Nicholson -quite well- in the overlooked "ironweed" ;this is not the kind of movie Jean Louis Trintignant must be very proud of !two years after Claude Chabrol's "Les Biches " in which he slept with two bisexual women too.

The first part recalls a poor man's Chabrol,depicting the luxury world of the bourgeoisie .Trintignant ,a very earnest thespian,seems ill at ease ,but the women often strip bare ,to the viewer's great enjoyment.

The second part is Lenzi trying to make his own "Diaboliques" :the heroine 's first name is Nicole ,like in Clouzot's classic ;it's almost absolute plagiarism -except for the mediocre ending- ,including the "clues" Baker scatters to frighten her mate and to make her believe that her dear husband might possibly be still alive .

Take Dario Argento's movies instead:their screenplays ,though influenced by Hitchcock ,are much more exciting and original.

Great title and if not particularly appropriate for the film, no matter, for this is a fine film. Carroll Baker, excellent as ever, although she does keep herself fairly well covered here and not always in the most stunning of outfits, Jean-Louis Trintignant does pretty much what he always does, well and Erika Blanc puts in a very strong performance. Solid directing by Lenzi, might have been stylish but pan and scan print ensures it does not appear so, and for the first half we have a rather fun, colourful and bright story of an extramarital affair. Things change, however, just as we begin to wonder if all is as it seems things change very much indeed. Hardly any blood or bare skin for that matter but a most involving tale, exceedingly well told, that certainly starts to flip about towards the end. Indeed until the very end!

Wikipedia calls this a giallo film, which I don't entirely see. I guess giallo doesn't have to be horror, but still. I guess the closer it leans into giallo stuff, the better So Sweet...So Perverse. There are some really feverish and bizarre scenes that play out in a zone that's somewhere between dream and nightmare. When things get more focused on the drama (all around a scheme that involves murder and infidelity), it's appropriately silly and heightened. It doesn't push those things too far, to the point where the film starts becoming an accidental parody of itself, but it comes fairly close in any event.

I came away from it not feeling hugely enthusiastic, but for some of its offbeat energy, a few sequences, and an undeniable sense of style, I also can't call it bad.

A zillionaire (Jean-Louis Trintignant) strays from his frigid wife Danielle (Erika Blanc), winding up in an affair with a woman named Nicole (Carroll Baker). All goes well until Nicole's ex-lover Klaus (Horst Frank) starts creeping around.

SO SWEET... SO PERVERSE is a twisty giallo from Director Umberto Lenzi. The story seems to take its cues from DIABOLIQUE. While not quite as masterful as that film this movie does have its memorable moments, especially during the finale.

Ms.' Baker and Blanc are as beautifully beguiling as ever, and Frank is extraordinarily sinister! He's always been a good heavy, and uses his skills well here...

Umberto Lenzi Giallo's range in quality from sublime to trash, but his earlier genre entries tended to be the best; and So Sweet...So Perverse is certainly at the higher end of Lenzi's Giallo achievements. One of the trademarks of Giallo is a high dosage of sex scenes; but despite the fact that this film has the word 'perverse' in it's title; So Sweet...So Perverse is actually not all that perverse at all, especially not by Giallo standards. Rather, the film focuses more on the plot details than perversity, and it just about serves it well. Italian directors were famous for ripping of successful films from other countries, and the plot here is clearly lifted from the French classic 'Les Diaboliques'. We focus on a couple with marital problems; Jean and Danielle. When Jean hears a woman screaming in the upstairs apartment one day, he immediately decides to investigate. There he finds Nicole; a woman frightened of her boyfriend Klaus. The pair soon begin to fall in love, but it later transpires that this was just a trap set to snare Jean...

So Sweet...So Perverse is a classy little thriller and much unlike later Lenzi Giallo's such as Eyeball, almost everything about the film is well done. The film benefits from a good cast, which feature early Lenzi muse Carroll Baker in the central female. Baker's role here initially appears to be a lot like her role in the earlier 'Orgasmo', but she soon gets to switch to a more interesting character. Baker is joined by the sexy Erika Blanc, and like most Giallo's with two sexy leading women; the pair do get to get it on, although you shouldn't go in expecting a full blown lesbian sex scene. Jean-Louis Trintignant rounds off the cast, but isn't given as much to do as the ladies. The plot does get a bit slow at times, but the film never slows down to the point of becoming boring. The second half is much more exciting than the first as that is when the plot gets into full flow. When the twists start to come into play, So Sweet...So Perverse really is an intriguing thriller and unlike many Giallo's, this one also features an ending that wraps most of the plot up nicely. This film is highly recommended to Giallo fans!