The Two Faces of Fear

"The Two Faces of Fear" (I still can't quite figure out how the title is relevant, by the way) is an obscure Giallo that is mixing up my thoughts and opinions! It's a slow-paced, uneventful, and often borderline tedious whodunit, but at the same time it kept me intrigued and curiously guessing until the final plot-twist. It's admirable for a Giallo with so few characters (and thus suspects) to remain tense and challenging until the end.

The set-up is typically Italian and even more typically early 70s. All the protagonists are beautiful, rich, and decadent surgeons working in the private clinic owned by a lady who inherited it from her father. They're all married or engaged, but secretly desire for someone else's partner. When one of them hesitates to accept an offer from another clinic, he gets murdered and it's up to the skeptical homicide detective Nardi to break through their solid alibis. "The Two Faces of Fear" is remarkable for featuring a stellar contemporary cast. Fernando Rey, George Hilton, Luciana Paluzzi, Anita Strindberg, and Eduardo Fajardo were all prolific names at the time, and their acting is flawless. There's hardly any blood or gore in this Giallo, apart from extended (and real) footage of an open-heart surgery, but that doesn't count in my book. Instead, the film thrives on performances, mystery, and also some effective bits of subtle humor; - like the detective's assistant trying to interrogate a parrot or the detective himself being grumpy because everybody smokes while he was forced to quit on doctor's orders.

Fernando Rey, George Hilton and Anita Strinberg- that trio alone gives you an eight star base with two stars added on just because it's a pretty good movie. The year 1972 certainly doesn't hurt as that was an outstanding year for movies in my opinion.... Great scenery just don't know what cities they were in it's not mentioned IMDB... saw it three times....

Doctor Carli (George Hilton) is a heart surgeon at a clinic owned by his wife Elena (Luciana Paluzzi). Now imagine: if she should die an untimely death, her husband would inherit the clinic and become very rich. Inspector Nardi (Fernando Rey), while initially investigating a different case, realizes that Mrs Carli may be in great danger and starts to watch over her.

The movie boasts with footage from an actual heart surgery (not that I ever wanted to see that so closely), but doesn't manage to provide as many surprising twists and turns as other classic giallo movies. Thus it becomes only an average contribution to the genre, although with a great cast also including Eduardo Fajardo and Anita Strindberg.

It's exactly the kind of movie you forget as soon as you've seen it, it's so "memorable". Being a writer and filmmaker myself, I know how difficult it is to produce a valuable script, a masterpiece. This film is far from that, it is just a boring string of dialogues between the same characters, four in number, minus one who is eliminated at the beginning, plus a policeman who appears after the elimination. The policeman is none other than the legendary Fernando Rey, my main reason for wanting to see this movie. Very prolific and brilliant in Luis Buñuel's films, "Viridiana", "Tristana", "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" Original title: Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie, "That Obscure Object of Desire" Original title: Cet obscur objet du désir, plus the excellent "The French Connection", Fernando Rey, having a beautiful wife, Mabel Karr, actress and not very well paid, and having to eat as well as support two children with the actress, he agreed to play in many 14th-rate films, for money, as the case of this "The Two Faces of Fear" Original title: Coartada en disco rojo, and many others. He is also the best actor in the film, the others trying hard to seem believable and convincing in an embarrassing story.

If you had to rate the Gialli in terms of curry strength then this one would be a chicken korma. It has all the right ingredients, but lacks the additional spice that would elevate it to the level of a more 'spicier' giallo, like Red Queen Kills Seven Times. That would be a madras. With a peshwari naan. And fried rice. And a pint of Lal Toofan.

Now let me try and get this one straight, as I knew it was mild and tried to watch it while two kids rolled about the house screaming about Harvest Moon and Star Wars Battlefront 2. There's a clinic in Rome run by several surgeons. One of them has a heart condition, and she's married to renowned surgeon George Hilton, who may or may not be having an affair with surgeon Anita Strinberg, who is engaged to marry Dr First Victim, who is planning to move to Milan and set up his own practise.There's also another guy who is in love with Anita Stringberg. We first see someone break into Dr First Victim's office and steal something, and shortly afterwards Dr Victim is gunned down in his office, and the only witness is a parrot.

Cop Fernando Rey appears and his main problem is that he can't smoke and everyone else in the film can! This irritable cop knows that one of the other doctors killed this guy, but then he finds a scrap book that features every suspect holding the gun used in the crime. Not only that, he also finds a film that features the cast using the same gun. Plus, forensics tell him the killer had talc on their hands but guess what - they are all surgeons, and they all have talc on their hands. Fernando shortly makes his comedy sidekick assistant (who he forces to interrogate the parrot) to drive through Rome at full speed, which I thought was the stupidest part of the film, until I got to the end and realised that the stupidest part of the film was me.

This is a mild Giallo with a full body count of two, but then if you get a chicken korma, sure it is mild, but then if it is cooked well it stills pleases, and this film does. You can't go wrong with a bit of George Hilton, as well as a bit of Fernando Rey (who makes a comment about the chain smoking doctors hypocritical ways). There's plenty of daftness to go with this one, including a heavy breasted window washer, Rey's constant battle with smokers, and his assistant's drooling over Hilton's home movies. You've got a film here that really doesn't come close to ticking all your giallo boxes, but is still worth watching because the mystery elements are all in place. I liked all the bits about Star Wars Battlefront 2. And of course I forgot to mention all the open heart surgery footage. That wasn't so good.

I really thought I'd have watched more films by this point in my holidays.