The case of the scorpion´s tail
Italy, 1971
Director: Sergio Martino
Script: Eduardo Manzanos, Ernesto Gastaldi, Sauro Scavolini
Cast: George Hilton (Peter Lynch), Anita Strindberg (Cléo), Alberto de Mendoza (John Stanley), Ida Galli/Evelyn Stewart (Lisa Baumer), Luigi Pistilli (Inspector Stavros)
Music: Bruno Nicolai
Genre: Giallo
Plot
Lisa Baumer loses her husband Kurt in the explosion in the middle of the flight of a plane to Tokyo. The young widow resides in London (where she has a lover), while her husband, for business reasons, used to be in Athens.
An old friend of Lisa’s, now a drug addict, seeks to blackmail her. He has in his possession a letter in which she expressed the desire to get rid of her husband.
Lisa goes to the Greek capital to get the money for the life insurance that Kurt had taken out there. For its part, the insurance agency commissions Detective Peter Lynch to investigate whether the good woman might not have had something to do with the timely death of her beloved husband…
An anonymous letter draws Lisa to a theater, where a mysterious woman named Lara and her “lawyer”, the sinister Sharif, are waiting for her. They believe she planned her husband’s death to get the money. Lara was in turn the lover of the late Kurt. They want to blackmail her, and when Lisa runs away, Peter intervenes to help her.
The attractive widow collects the million dollars in cash and flies to Tokyo. But she is brutally murdered in the Athenian hotel and all her money stolen.
Things become increasingly entangled with new crimes. But the bold Peter, initially considered a suspect by the Greek commissary Stavros, seems willing to get to the bottom of this murky affair.
Also entering the scene will be Interpol agent John Stanley, and French reporter Cléo, with whom Peter is starting an affair.
Soon, several of the characters will realize that not everything is what it seems…
Commentary
In this convoluted giallo (Spanish/Italian co-production) one has to be very attentive to what is happening on screen, because the story is sometimes quite complex and difficult to follow. Appearances can be deceiving. Nevertheless, the plot flows without being boring or tiresome, since it is very well put together. The details fit to the millimeter. The suspense keeps the spectator’s interest, in spite of the fact that it is sometimes half hidden under some layer of melodramatic romance. The sharp-eyed spectator will begin to glimpse the reality of the story, before the great surprise of the climax.
The investigation is carried out on three sides (which sometimes converge and sometimes diverge), on the one hand the Greek police, and on the other the insurance investigator Peter (with the reporter Cléo) and the Interpol agent John. The latter initially thinks that the killer is a sex maniac, but there seem to be other even darker (though no less psychopathic) motivations.
Martino succeeds with great skill in creating tension at the moments of the crimes (as he would also do in his highly recommended “I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale” (“Torso”), from 1973.
We will see several of the typical signs of identity of the giallo, namely mysterious killers with black leather gloves, sharp knives with shiny blades, false clues, stylized violence with artificial blood à go-go, and beautiful women in danger.
The film’s title refers to scorpion-shaped cufflinks that the killer loses in one of his raids. It could be a clue… or an element destined to mislead. The investigators will have to find out.
The cast includes the beauties Ida Galli as Lisa, and Anita Strindberg as the reporter Cléo. Also the Argentinians George Hilton (as Peter) and Alberto de Mendoza ( this last one we saw in “Human cobras” by Bitto Albertini, also shot in 1971). Luigi Pistilli, the usual face of spaghetti-westerns, gialli and polizzieschi plays here inspector Stavros.
One of the screenwriters was the skillful Ernesto Gastaldi (who directed the wonderful “Libido”, 1965). Also worthy of mention is the soundtrack by Bruno Nicolai, a collaborator of the great Ennio Morricone.
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