The Weekend Murders

This is a take off of the agatha christie type films done in the italian style and set in a statley home in britian.It is great fun and should be seen.Great use of classical music,zoom shots,red herrings and a little bit of the naughty..i mean a little bit,it was early 70s. great apperance by ballard barclay,the major in fawlty towers.It will not set the world on fire but you could do worse. Out of ten,say seven

THE WEEKEND MURDERS gets underway as a body is discovered buried in a sand trap at a posh, private golf club. The police reveal that it is the latest in a series of murders.

A flashback introduces us to the Carter family, gathered at the vast Carter estate for the reading of their dearly departed relative, Sir Henry Carter's will. Of course, the inheritance isn't distributed in a manner that pleases everyone. Well, okay, it pleases no one, except for an inept, flower-loving policeman, Sergeant Aloisius Thorpe (Gastone Moschin), and Sir Henry's Niece, Barbara Worth (Anna Moffo). The rest of the family is bitter to say the least, and it's not long before the bodies start popping up all over the grounds!

With greed, jealousy, and treachery in the air, a mansion full of suspects, and a pair of bungling coppers on the case, this movie is enjoyable on several levels. Part "old dark house" mystery, part giallo, and all comedy, this movie manages to parody its subject matter while still respecting it.

Co-stars Ida Galli as Isabelle Carter, and Giacomo Rossi Stuart as Ted Collins.

On a personal note: I didn't figure it all out until the very end. I like that in a movie!...

The Weekend Murders is disconcertingly British. It's not just that this Italian giallo is in UK English but that the setting, style and even the lame quaint humor are all indicative of a mid-century cozy English mystery-comedy.

I must say that i was completely taken by surprise by who the murderer is and what method they used. However, this isn't unusual in Agatha Christie mysteries which totally cheat and throw so many red herrings at the reader that the end is usually a nice surprise. Either you get it or you don't, no review on Earth will talk someone into the sheer relaxing enjoyment of watching a formulaic mystery set on a European estate where you'll never be able to figure out the murderer by discerning the clues.

This effort is solid, the cinematography and musical score are lovely, but in a very mainstream MGM sort of way.

A success in just about every aspect, The Weekend Murders is a good old Giallo with a healthy does of humour thrown for good measure. Nice!

It's one of those 'reading of the will' type set-ups too, with a family converging on an English manor to find out if they are going to get any of the loot. Relatives of the deceased Earl are daughter Ida Galli, niece Barbara (or something), Nephew Giacomo Rossi-Stuart and a few other that I'll stop naming because I got bored. Of note is the crazed Georgie, who keeps pranking the group by pretending to be murdered, dresses up in full Giallo uniform (black gloves etc), and keeps hallucinating his mother.

Gastone Moschin is the local seemingly bungling policeman who, in attendance at the reading of the will, learns that all the money has been left to the Earl's niece. This leaves the rest of the family furious, and when the fake killings stop and the real ones start, it's up to Gastone to get to the bottom of the problem. Only thing is, he's got a detective from Scotland Yard with him who doesn't think Gastone is up to the job. Oh, and when the butler is found dead, someone quips "At least they can't say the butler did it!"

It's mostly played for laughs, so don't expect gore and sex, but everything else is so well done and presented the whole thing was a delight to watch. Gastone Moschin, most famous for being The Black Hand in the Godfather Two, is brilliant here as the cop who comes across as harmless and clumsy, but who turns out to be smarter than all those supposedly in the Upper Classes who look down on him. The expression he wears on his face the entire time is priceless. The whole look of the film is a stand-out too, with inventive camera angles and a slightly psychedelic vibe to everything.

It also has a bit of social commentary thrown in too - Just see the scene where Giacomo Rossi Stuart reveals his new wife is black. Michele Lupo was a talented man, no doubt.

A group of relatives gather at the family estate for the reading of the will of the late Sir Henry. When the entire fortune is left to niece Barbara (Anna Moffo), one of the occupants of the house turns to murder. It is up to local bobby Aloisius Thorpe (Gastone Moschin) and Scotland Yard Superintendent Grey (Lance Percival) to crack the case.

Italian murder mystery The Weekend Murders is often classed as a giallo, but I don't think it really qualifies as such: its English setting and typical Agatha Christie style 'whodunnit' plot make it far too British in tone for it to be a part of the giallo genre. Admittedly, director Michele Lupo throws in a few typically Italian flourishes - most notably, rapid zooms and jump cuts (to the strains of Tchaikovsky and the sound of gun shots!)- but there is little else to link it to the ultra violent, style-over-substance world of shadowy leather-gloved maniacs stalking sexy female victims.

The films 'Ten Little Indians'-style structure holds very few surprises, but the excellent cast make this fun to watch despite the predictability, with the amusing dynamic between the pompous detective Grey and the actually-cleverer-than-he-seems Thorpe making for a whole lot of fun. Chris Chittell, as emotionally disturbed Georgie, is also worth a mention, his deranged character a prime suspect, while the ravishing Orchidea de Santis, as Evelyn, the maid, is worth keeping an eye on for very different reasons.

6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.