Following the mysterious disappearance of her friend Sally Reece – and, as we soon learn lover – Greta Franklin (Barbara Bouchet) takes a job as a typist for decadent author Richard Stuart (Farley Granger) and takes up residence in his Venetian mansion.
After being drugged and seduced by Richard's partner Eleonora (Rosalba Neri) Greta is invited to one of the couples swinging parties where a porn film featuring Sally as Little Red Riding Hood is but one of the entertainments for the jaded bourgeois party…
But soon it seems that the Stuarts are getting wise to Greta's investigations: The plot of Richard's latest novel presents a covert warning to the girl who would know too much, while an invitation to go duck hunting in the marshes around the mansion almost sees Greta accidentally shot and then nearly sucked under the swamp…
Known by the suggestive titles Hot Bed of Sex in the UK and Leather and Whips in the USA, this 1971 giallo is nothing if not sleazy and exploitative.
But if one can look beyond the pulchritude on display – difficult, I know, especially when both the female leads look to have nearly missed when throwing on those outfits, which they also seem to change and/or remove at every available opportunity – there are other reasons to like the film.
Director Silvio Amadio creates a good sense of suspense and mystery and smartly exploits the ambiguities of the image, while the very presence of Farley Granger from Rope and Strangers on a Train adds a nice intertextual element to his remarks about "the perfect crime"
Unfortunately a pan and scan presentation and less than stellar source materials mean that this Region 0 release from Eurovista is hard to recommend, despite some nice supplemental materials in the form of short interviews with the two female stars and a photo gallery and a budget price.
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
Rating:
3.0 / 5
(1 vote)
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