The Flower with the Deadly Sting

There exist two types of Italian gialli. The coolest type of giallo handles about masked psycho-killers with black gloves butchering people - preferably pretty young models - with sharp objects. The slightly duller but usually more stylish type of giallo handles about convoluted murder conspiracies complete with sexual intrigues, betrayal and triangular relationships. "The Flower with Petals of Steel", belongs in the second category. Even though the plot is wild and wickedly far-fetched, the film contains too many dull moments. The story revolves around Dr. Valenti. Although a busy surgeon, Dr. Valenti still has time to entertain several mistresses. He accidentally murders one in his apartment, with a hideous type of plant-statue, but is cold-blooded enough to professionally dissect her corpse and make it disappear. The girl's sister (played by giallo-regular Carroll Baker) and a sly homicide inspector are on the doctor's tail, and then he's also getting blackmailed. The film has one or two unforgettable sequences (most notably a lesbian scuba-diving highlight) and the bizarre plot is intriguing enough to keep you gazing at the screen until the finish, but overall it's disappointing and not at all recommended to anyone (except giallo-completists)

You don't often get to see a scuba diving lesbian love scene in a film, but that situation is less likely in the crazy world of the gialli, it seems...

Gianno Garko plays a jerk doctor who has just dumped his lover Daniela, perhaps for his assistant who's been making kissy faces at him. Daniela's sister is angry Carol Baker, who seems to also be Daniela's lover and is enraged at Daniela's continuous relationship with Gianni. Things come to a head one night when Gianni comes home to find a strangely silent Daniela there, and accidentally kills her by impaling her head with one of his strange object d'art required by all characters in gialli.

Panicking, Gianni uses his super surgeon skills to dismember the body and get rid of it, not knowing he's being watched all the time. Also, he's not as smart as he thinks as he didn't notice Daniela's car is outside of the building. When Carol Baker turns up looking for her sister, Gianni tells her, rather unconvincingly, that she hasn't been around in some time, and then a cop, who is falling for Carol, turns up looking for the dead girl too...and he's becoming increasingly biased.

Although this is very much a typical 'Carol Baker' giallo with seventies nudity, it is still watchable for Gianni Garko's increasingly unhinged performance and the twists all thrown in at the end (try not to think about them too hard though or you'll get a nose bleed). There are no good characters to root for in the film so it's a case of seeing who'se going to win the mind games that are being played out. Not the most manically paced, however, and I was kind of yearning for that - until the underwater love scene (bizarre

Gianni Garko and the deadly pitfalls of modern interior design

This giallo by Gianfranco Piccioli is about the psychogram of a middle-aged man who finds himself in a very special, exceptional situation.

The wealthy doctor Andrea (Gianni Garko) can be a real prick, but perhaps that's why he's so successful. One day he gets into an argument with his beautiful girlfriend Daniela (Paola Senatore). A scuffle ensues in which Daniela accidentally bumps into a plant sculpture with steel leaves that decorates the doctor's apartment. Yes, modern art can have its pitfalls. Especially when it comes with a seventies design. A short time later, the astonished Andrea realizes that his girlfriend is dead. What to do? Give up everything? For an unfortunate accident? Andrea, who has strong nerves, disposes of the body. Everything goes well, but the difficulties are yet to come. Andrea's ex-lover Evelyn (Carroll Baker), who is also Daniela's half-sister (of all people!!!), is worried and calls in the police (Ivano Staccioli as an inspector). As if that wasn't unpleasant enough, Andrea is suddenly being blackmailed anonymously. How could anyone have found out about the fateful accident? Andrea is at a loss, and then things get more and more serious...

This Giallo is primarily the introduction of the main actor Gianni Garko (*1935), who is otherwise better known from various spaghetti westerns. But he also cuts a good figure as a successful doctor and an unscrupulous bon vivant. Carroll Baker, actually the uncrowned queen of the giallo, is not quite as central here, but is convincing as in all of her Italian films. Umberto Raho and the attractive Pilar Velazquez can be seen in other roles.

You shouldn't necessarily expect logic and a stringent plot from a giallo. The world of giallo is always free of morals and full of tricky twists. The special thing about this film, which is worth seeing, is that the focus is on the psychogram of a successful man who is all too sure of himself.

Gianni Garko plays an amoral, social-climbing surgeon who has had his wealthy wife committed to a mental institution. After he accidentally kills his mistress(Paola Senatore) in a bizarre accident involving the titular "flower with petals of steel" (actually a sculpture),he manages to dispose of the body, but finds himself being pursued by the woman's sister, who is also his vengeful former (Carrol Baker), and a dogged police inspector. Then he begins to be blackmailed by a strange voice on the phone. He also has ANOTHER lover, a nurse (Pilar Velasquez) who may not be what she appears.

This obscure, long unavailable(at least in English) Italian giallo has a central twist that even by the standards of the genre is pretty far-fetched. It generally works though. It is very well-filmed. Piccolo is not one of the acknowledged masters of the genre like Argento or Bava (or Martino, Fulci, or Lenzi), but he definitely does a good job. The movie begins with a beautifully shot, seemingly gratuitous underwater diving scene that doesn't make sense until the end where it turns out to be a (definitely gratuitous) underwater lesbian scene (which gives new meaning to the term "muff diving"), but I would think also the first such scene in cinema history. The rest of the cinematography and editing is impressive too (if sometimes a little dark in the print I saw), but with one rather awkward murder scene.

The acting is very good, the Italian cast much more so than Carroll Baker (who I imagine was getting tired of the genre by this time). Garko manages to make his character a sympathetic Hitchcockian innocent, who only towards the end is revealed to be real cad getting his comeuppance. Paola Senatore doesn't have much screen time, but is very effective (it helps that she's naked in almost every scene). The beautiful Velasquez also provides some sumptuous nudity, but also some good acting as she goes from a seemingly throw-away character to a very important one by the end. The print I saw was a Spanish language fan-sub, but I imagine this would only get better with a more legitimate, re-mastered release.

Following a usual day at the office, a surgeon finds his life thrown into turmoil when the suicide of his mistress at his home launches a wave of people attempting to blackmail him for the crime they believe he committed and he must try to clear his name before they get to him.

This here was quite a decent if entirely uneventful giallo. One of the main problems with this one is the fact that just not a whole lot actually happens worth caring about in here as very little of this is worth the investment. Considering the mystery/thriller aspect is so prominent in this one, the fact that there's just not a whole lot of interesting elements present here makes for quite the bland effort when it features such uninteresting material to work with. Going from the bland and plodding investigation scenes of the police inspector who is just such a bland figure that his scenes are not that interesting while the scenes of him going around trying to find out who's attempting to blackmail him doesn't make for a good or even enjoyable time. That he's not all that interesting a person to spend time with, openly treating women like prostitutes there to serve his needs only and is completely uninterested in them for any other means, berates and beats them constantly and acts with such an air of superiority to everyone else around him that it's hard to assume anyone would even want to be around him so this makes for quite a troubling set of circumstances required to get into the film. Also problematic is the fact that there's so many needless twist and plot-turns throughout here as he attempts to find the source of his mysterious blackmailer and how he goes about attempting to cover up what he did that there's just so little about what's going on in here that makes any kind of sense. Going from the investigation of the doctor to his lovers' spats with his different mistresses and finally ending up at the insane asylum looking for the repressed nymphomaniac is such a series of leaps and jumps that it makes no sense why the story goes off in such a wild series of tangents to get there, further hindering the film's overall stance. Given that all these factors contribute to a bland, sluggish entry without a whole lot of enjoyable points, it's really a disposable effort with only a few noteworthy elements here. One of the film's early highlights is the actual scene of him dismembering the deceased lovers' body utilizing his surgical skills to great effect, keeping everything involved mainly through suggestion and on-screen reading of his thoughts rather than any kind of graphic, explicit disposal of the body. The grisly outcome of the whole affair is certainly memorable, as well as the forthcoming grinding up the body that occurs here which is quite a fine moment within here. It does have a decent stalking moment in the apartment late in the film where the killer bumps off a witness, but beyond these elements the only other worthwhile part here is the solid nudity from those well- equipped to provide it that was usually the case for these films and is all that really holds it up.

Rated Unrated/R: Language, Full Nudity, Violence and a sex scene.