L'arma l'ora il movente

Pros: Good characters and acting. Nice small town setting. The story feels unique with a male priest being the primary victim that starts off the body count.

However, if you've seem a number of giallo, you'll be able to figure out the culprit pretty easily.

Music is good here - especially the closing theme.

Cons: The pacing is quite slow at times. It takes like a half hour to get to the first murder. It has a low body count as these films go. There are a bunch of red herrings that are clearly added just to try and distract you, and they were too obvious to the point that it felt like they were just filling space.

At the end of the day, this is a unique giallo that's worth a watch.

"The Weapon, The Hour and The mobile are the 3 most important things you need to know about a murder" say Renzo Montagnani. It's also the title of this classic giallo.

It's not a revolution of the genre but a classic expression of what a good suspenser must be. No crazy & wild camerawork but a genuine suspensful screenplay, with sharp dialogues & excellent, coherent and plausibles twists. Where directors such as Umberto Lenzi who rather play upon the incredible twists & turns a giallo is supposed to bring then on flashy camera angles, Francesco Mazzei choose the simple way.

Discreet yet precise camera work, less murders and actors than usual but a gloomy script revolving around a priest having two affairs at the same time with two women. When he decides to stop both, he gets killed in his church.

The cleverness of it all is in the way the script chooses to focus on the relationships between the characters than to elaborate murder after murder. The tensions between all of them are more visible than usual. At the same time, it also shows the private life of the detective investigating the case. Disenchanted but always professionnal, he gives some touch of humour which always hit the mark.

Some scenes ar quite surreal & nightmarish as when the nuns decide to expiate the crimes the priest committed before he died. They just whip their bare back with screaming preys til they faint. Just incredible. the other FX are very effective and the murders scenes look impressive : master Carlo Rambaldi (King Kong, ET) did it again.

The actors are all first rate : Renzo Montagnani proves he really can act, Eva Czemerys is always as magnetic & mysterious than in Giuseppe Bennatti's poor L'ASSASSINO HA RISERVATO NOVE POLTRONE and Bedy Moratti shows some incredible capacity to be both & strong at the same time in one single scene. Amazing actress.

L'arma, l'ora, il movente is a superior giallo in quality. Sleaze addicts & euroschlockers will be disappointed but movie buffs will certainly go for this very entertairning and chilling suspenser til the very end.

No pun intended - priests are people too. And nuns of course ... are not just nuns. Especially when they are .. covered in exploitation movies - and I am not talking about clothes covering them - so many puns, so little time/space. And maybe you won't care for them. I hope you do and that's the reason you are here.

That said and really putting out there, that I wouldn't call myself a particular big fan of the Giallo genre, this was quite interesting. There is a moral tone, some themes that it touches (get your mind out of the gutter - although there is quite a lot of nudity, so maybe leave it there) ... the movie is interesting is what I am trying to say. Be aware of what this is and if your sensibilites are going to be touched upon - ok I'll stop here ...

According Salvatore Puntillo the director Francesco Mazzei also was a producer, cutting any extra cost whenever it could boost the pre-arranged low budge, as we can state through the low-profile casting which didn't have any major star, in other hand the story is very exciting, where a trendy Priest (Maurizio Bonuglia) has been a sinful behavior on two heretic affairs with two different women, a married Orchidea Durantini (Bedi Moratti) and the fortune-teller Giulia Pisani (Eva Czemerys) ends up murdered inside the church witnessed by an orphaned boy.

Soon a Police Commissioner Franco Boito (Renzo Montagnani) starts investigate the weirdo case together with his sidekick Moriconi (Salvatore Puntillo) after several inquires at crime scene and all nuns hosted there, meanwhile Giulia appears dead with slashed throat, she was one of suspect, after an exhaustive work Commissioner Franco finally figures out that Orchidea's jealous husband ought be the main suspect, later he is found dead at your house apparently committed suicide, then closing the case, not so fast as usually a final twist comes.

The movie touches in a neuralgic matter about an unholy hidden affairs on church, exposing many auto-flagellation upon a whip, such scourge was routinely used to by Priest and Nuns to purge wicked throughs, many nudity scenes were scattered along the picture as well, fine Giallo with a modest casting, nevertheless not devoid of interest.

Thanks for reading.

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First watch: 2024 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.

Eureka! What a wonderful feeling when realizing that, after having seen more 150 Italian Gialli varying from absolutely brilliant to terribly awful, there are still great gems out there for me to discover! "The Hour, The Weapon, The Motive" is not your typically textbook Giallo, because of its unusual setting and only a limited number of murders, but it contains enough highlights and ingenious twists to appeal to fans of the genre, and admirers of sleazy Euro-exploitation in general.

The plot introduces priest Don Giorgio, who obviously chose the wrong profession. He's handsome and a bit wild, and he certainly doesn't mind a bit of smooching with two gorgeous ladies that also work as volunteers in the nuns' convent/boarding school where he teaches music. But Don Giorgio gets ashamed of his sinful behavior, and after another session of self-flagellation, he decides to devote himself to God again and terminate both his affairs. Shortly after, though, is brutally stabbed to death inside the convent. Who's the killer? One of his ex-mistresses? Their husbands? A jealous nun? A young orphan boy who lives in the convent may have witnessed something, but he doesn't speak. The rebellious Commissioner Franco Boito must resolve the case, but he falls head over heals in love with a suspect with the lovely name Orchidea.

"The Hour, "The Weapon, The Motive" is a slow-paced but intriguing thriller that remains mysterious and unpredictable, and this despite the relatively low number of potential suspects. Writer/director Francesco Mazzei, who's completely unknown to me, compensates for the shortage of clues and body count by inserting a couple of bizarre gimmicks; - most notably a jaw-dropping scene in which all the nuns at the convent undress and flagellate themselves for several minutes, and this supposedly to redeem the deceased Don Giorgio of his sins. Really odd, and strangely enticing. The trick with the key and the rope (you'll see) is pure Giallo-gold, and the ending is also marvelous. The one thing I regret most is that Mazzei didn't opt for a juicier and more flamboyant title. I would suggest "Eight-hundred Lashes for a Murder" or "Death to the Sound of a Bouncing Marble".