The Weekend Murders

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.

Weekend Murders is one of the more hard to find Giallo films, and I find that rather surprising as the English countryside setting as well as the mystery plot that spoofs Agatha Christie stories means that it's actually one of the more accessible films of the genre. Despite the fact that Weekend Murders is an Italian production, director Michele Lupo has done a great job of creating a distinctly British atmosphere, and this could easily have been a British film were it not for the poor dubbing. Michele Lupo has a great sense of humour and he succeeds several times in lampooning the tradition that the film is spoofing, and Weekend Murders is a very funny film throughout. We open on a golf course where a leisurely game is interrupted by the discovery of a hand sticking out of a sandpit. It soon becomes obvious that the butler didn't do it because, contrary to the norm, he is the first to go! We soon move on to the first real plot building scene, which takes form in a will reading to the members of a wealthy estate. Aside from getting a few laughs, we are also given the knowledge that the owner of the estate's favourite daughter is to inherit everything, much to the dismay of the rest of the house.

Most of the humour in the film comes from the seemingly inept local policeman played by Gastone Moschin. His character soon hooks up with the self proclaimed ace Scotland Yard Superintendent Grey (Lance Percival), and their double act forms the backbone of the movie. The two pair up well actually, and their exchanges work because the two characters are so different. Unfortunately, the rest of the support cast isn't so memorable; and while none of them put in particularly bad performances - there isn't a real standout either. The film also has a few plot problems, as the focus isn't always on the mystery and the exchanges between the members of the house are often redundant and not relevant to the central theme. The mystery itself is rather bare, and although clever at the conclusion - the plot is not the labyrinth that I have come to expect from Giallo's. After spoofing just about every mystery cliché in existence, it is fitting that the common revealing scene at the end is also lampooned by Lupo, and while the identity of the murderer is actually rather obvious; at least the reasons behind it make some sort of sense. Worth tracking down!

Agatha Christie mysteries and Italian gialli may have some things in common, but they're also very different. First off, gialli are really "mass-murder mysteries", whereas only a few Agatha Christie mysteries really fit that description(the most famous being her seminal "Ten Little Indians"). Moreover, Agatha Christie mysteries are very mannered and British while Italian gialli are very over-the-top and usually chock-full of lurid sex and violence. This movie is impressive, therefore, because it manages to successfully combine the two styles (much like Mario Bava's "Five Dolls for an August Moon"). It has a typical Agatha Christie set-up with various grasping relatives gathered at a remote country estate to hear a will, but like a giallo, it's also full of ridiculously shifty characters, sexual perversity, OTT crash-zooms, and overly dramatic music.

Perhaps, even more impressive, it's one of the few gialli to successfully incorporate (completely intentional) black comedy. It really plays with the conventions of the mystery genre--the first person killed is the butler (so he didn't do it), and the Scotland Yard detective (Lance Percival) turns out to be an inept bumbler while the thick-looking local bobby (Gaston Moschin) turns out to be quite clever. Being a giallo though, it also has certain stock "giallo-esque" characters like an impotent, virginal mama's boy (Chris Chittel) who likes fake bloody suicides and a black woman(Beryl Cunningham)who is married to one of the family members and (naturally) is the most sexually predatory of the characters--with the possible exception of the saucy maid (Orchidea DeSantis).

This has a great cast including Eveline Stewart, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, and American Peter Baldwin who were in any number of 60's and 70's Italian films. Gaston Moschin (who is GREAT here) was usually in Italian crime thrillers, but also had an important part in the "The Godfather 2". The sexy Beryl Cunningham was in "Crimes of the Black Cat", and the even sexier Orchidea DeSantis played all kinds of sexy roles in all kinds of sexy Italian movies. Even the English actors are familiar--Lance Percival was a big comedy actor in Britain at the time and Christopher Chittel was in another movie very much like this called "Erotic Inferno", except that it was a softcore porn movie with Mary Millington! (VERY few actors have ever appeared in both Italian giallo thrillers AND Mary Millington sex comedies). This has just received a superior release by Code Red. I would definitely check it out.

If anyone out there has this on DVD give it a close look from the start. Why? Well, my Dad is in it!!!!! The stately home scenes were part shot at Somerleyton Hall, not far from where we live. Anyway, when my Dad and his brother, simply riding by and puzzled by a crowd, stopped the car to see what all the commotion was about, a back-combed sycophant suddenly appeared, carrying a clipboard and asked if they could spare a few moments to fill a couple of subsidiary roles.

Hey presto, the old man became the young dark haired stretcher bearing ambulance man and his brother became a taxi driver (although his scene was cut). They were given exceptional 24 hour equity memberships (the actors union) and were dismissively paid about £10 each for their trouble - not bad for 1970!!! They were also told that the working title of the film was "Weekend Murders" but it might have some kind of Italian title upon release.

Their abiding memory was of Lance Percival (English comedian & actor on the fringe of the "carry on" team, popular 1960's/1970's) being locked in the portable toilet by one of the sound crew.

There you go - a bit of movie trivia for you.