Autopsy

Rome is in the grip of spate of heatwave-induced suicides. Overworked and over-stressed, Dr Simona Sena (Mimsy Farmer of Four Flies on Grey Velvet) is starting to crack up, as corpses get up from their gurneys and leer at her.

Trying to work on her thesis into the difference between authentic and staged suicides (otherwise known as murders) Simona is disturbed by a new neighbour Betty Lennox, who wants to borrow an envelope.

The two women get talking, Simona realising that Betty is the latest in a long line of American girlfriends of her father, a wealthy antiques dealer/playboy type.

Then, startled, Betty dashes off.

Next day at the morgue, Simona is confronted with a corpse with a nasty gunshot wound to the face. After a spot of reconstructive surgery and messing about with a wig, she realises that it's Betty.

Worse is to follow when the dead woman's priest brother shows up. Father Paul Lennox (Barry Primus) pronounces his sister's death was murder rather than suicide.

Has Simona's father disappeared because he is the murderer? Or is he another victim?

Armando Crispino's 1973 giallo has one big problem: The brilliance of the first ten minutes is soon overshadowed by the banality of 90 that follow.

A montage of suicides intercut with solar flares, followed by the surrealistic horrors of the pathology lab tantalise with the prospect of a giallo in which death is represented not by the clichéd black gloved killer but as a metaphysical force.

Alas, it soon turns out that the idea of the sun exerting a malefic influence is nothing but a red herring as an all too conventional story of blackmail emerges, replete with the usual levels of coincidence and contrivance, typically dodgy sexual politics and the requisite Ennio Morricone score which, while undeniably effective at unsettling, is also utterly generic.

Here and there isolated moments hint at what might have been, as when Simona visits the Rome police's museum of crime after being lured there by an anoymous phone call, to almost then find herself becoming a future exhibit, but it's not enough to lift the film out of the pack.

The mixed American and Italian cast give decent performances, though the need for Farmer to be cold and distant and Primus to convey an element of danger and mystery also mean that the viewer doesn't have an strong lead to identify with. Perhaps Ray Lovelock who plays Simona's dilettante boyfriend might have provided one were he better integrated into the story – much of the time his presence seems tangential and inconsequential – and not such a fine example of what feminists of the time were complaining about…

A decent giallo, then, but one which briefly seemed to promise much, much more.

Anchor Bay's Region 1 DVD presents Autopsy "uncut for the first time ever in America" though, assuming the never before seen sequences are presented in Italian only with English subs, they don't amount to much and focus on story rather than the more usual sex and violence.

The A/V is of middling quality. The film is presented in its 1.85:1 OAR and is enhanced for 16:9 televisions. There's little in the way of damage evident, though the transfer has a light grain throughout. Colours also seem somewhat muted, failing to convey the sense of oppressive heat that the film really needs. The English and Italian mono soundtracks are clear and free from noise and distortion and do the job, if nothing more.

Extras are limited to the usual Anchor Bay poster card insert and the US and international trailers for the film, the latter under the The Victim name.

While Autopsy is not the best DVD Anchor Bay have released, it's hard to criticise the company when they are at least committed to making obscurities like it available in an uncut and uncropped form.