The Weekend Murders

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 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.

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 film with annoying characters, the most annoying being the Scotland Yard inspector who comes to solve the mystery of the murders. Then, annoying is the young man who stages murders before the actual murders. Then, annoying is the mother of the young man who stages murders. Then, the rest of the characters. Seeing the names of Michele Lupo and Gastone Moschin, who worked together to make the excellent "Seven Times Seven" Original title: Sette volte sette (1969), I hoped that I would see a comedy at least as successful. I was sorely mistaken, this production is a total cretinous nonsense. The glaring mistake: after the Scotland Yard inspector together with the policeman played by Gastone Moschin completely demolish the door behind which one of the victims had just "committed suicide", the door is intact. With the exception of Gastone Moschin, an excellent actor in many other films, here having a stupid, ridiculous role, Michele Lupo used 14th-rate actors. It's not a comedy, it's a poorly written drama around an inheritance. Another mistake, at the beginning of the film, the policeman played by Gastone Moschin, an Italian actor, says "Good Morning Padre" to the priest, instead of "Good Morning Father", the action is somewhere in England, with English characters (padre means priest in Italian, it also means father), but the director and almost all the other actors are Italian... The only one who has written another real, honest, sincere review is "wmschoell". Zero stars from me, exactly as it deserves.

"Weekend Murders" perfectly summarizes all the reasons why Italian gialli-movies made between 1970 and 1980 are my absolute favorite type of horror flicks! Surely this little flick steals ideas of several other classics, surely it's incredibly absurd and far- fetched, and surely it isn't that well-made… But, come on, you just have to discover how much fun and exhilaration this crazy little whodunit thriller provides! "Weekend Murders" is basically a spoof of an Agatha Christie story, particularly "Ten Little Indians/And Then There Were None", and thus definitely not your standard type of giallo, however the highly imaginative murder methods and bizarrely eccentric characters are maintained. And then there's something else that usually never features in gialli, namely lots and lots of humor! Director Michele Lupo – mostly known for his numerous Terence Hill & Bud Spencer action/comedy vehicles – marvelously succeeds in narrating the tale of jealousy, family hatred and murder in a very light-headed fashion, with special thanks to a handful of delightfully funny dialogs and a cast full of respectable names with (hidden) comedy talents. Gastone Moschin, for example, whom I only knew from the raw and violent crime thriller "Milano Calibro .9", here demonstrates his comedy skills together with the textbook British Lance Percival. Speaking of textbook British, "Weekend Murders" is probably the only Italian film that successfully manages to look authentically British (aside from the dubbing) with gloomy land houses, stereotypically well-mannered characters and oppressed humor. The film creatively opens somewhere halfway in the plot, in fact. When a lifeless body is discovered in the sandpit of a golf course, local police sergeant Aloisius Thorpe reminds his Scotland Yard colleague that this is already the third vicious murder in three days. So we go back in time and get acquainted with the remaining members of the Carter family and their partners. They have gathered in the old family home for the reading of the will of their deceased patriarch. Like often the case with inheritances and greedy relatives, most of them aren't too happy with the outcome. Soon after the first murder takes place and this indirectly leads to what I personally find the most hilarious part of the movie. For you see, the first victim is Peter butler, so one of the characters makes the incredibly dry and witty remark: "Well, at least this time nobody can say that the butler did it". Anyways, more murders follow, but Sergeant Thorpe certainly isn't as dim-witted as he looks and impressively gets closer and closer to capturing the killer. For my liking, the body count easily could (and should) have been a bit higher, but I was pleasantly surprised by the ingenious unfolding of the mystery and by the revelation of the killer's identity + modus operandi. If all this isn't persuasive enough just yet, "Weekend Murders" also has an awesome score, with a fantastic reworking of the catchy classical music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and stars a few couple of really ravishing actresses (Ida Gallo, Anna Mofo, Beryl Cunningham, Orchidea de Santis). It exists on DVD, what are you waiting for?