Bezenby After a lovely animated credits sequence, we are plunged into the unhappy married life of Ruth and Miguel. I thought at first that they were unhappy because their mansion on the coast with a private beach, butler and cook wasn't big and expensive enough, or maybe their open top sports car weren't up to date, but I was wrong. Ruth just doesn't love Miguel no more, and she tells him so, also saying "Oh, by the way, my new lover is moving in, he's played by Jean Sorel as well." So Jean moves in and we get a fairly long sequence of these two in love – rolling about the beach, water skiing, painting ceramic dishes, snogging while Jean hangs upside down from a tree. Jean even buys Ruth a pet swan which makes for some ridiculous visuals. It should be noted here that this film is lush looking even by the usual high standards of this genre – Jean takes Ruth to this nightclub and we get dazzled by the garish colour schemes, and an early shot of a disco ball! Around this point Jean's friend Roland also shows up and starts making eyes at Ruth, some lady (whom I initially thought was Miguel in drag, which means I've been watching too many of these films), moves in next door and keeps spying on everyone, and someone starts trying to kill Ruth! First her brakes don't work on her car, then someone drains all the fuel out of her SCUBA diving gear.She's naturally inclined to think that Miguel is responsible for this, and it doesn't help when he turns up shortly after this, but when she accidentally overhears a couple of characters discussing the rest of the plot in great detail, your left wondering what direction the plot is going to take, seeing this happens only forty minutes into the film.Did you get any onya? This film is very much in the style of those late sixties gialli starring Jean Sorel and/or Carroll Baker, but with a total overdose of visual style and weird camera angles. Plus, when have you ever seen Jean Sorel chase a swan around while wearing a daft mask. Please not however there is scarcely a drop of blood in this one but if you're a sleaze fan you might want to hang about to the last fifteen minutes.Didn't need to see a guy harpoon an octopus though.

hwg1957-102-265704 Saw this under the title of 'The Fox With A Velvet Tail' which in the context of the film doesn't make any sense. There is a dog and a swan but not a fox. A woman leaves her husband to go frolicking at a seaside villa with her current lover. Then after a while things start to happen of a sinister nature. After a while indeed as the first part is very slow until things start to liven up in the middle promisingly. But the promise is unfulfilled and the last part gets a bit silly until the unsatisfactory ending.It all looks beautiful on the screen and the acting is decent but the script doesn't know where it is going. When one ignores the story and looks at the scenery then one isn't that engaged with the film, which I wasn't a lot of the time. The swan is lovely though.

The_Void Any Giallo fan will quickly be able to pin down where the inspiration for this film comes from, as it's essentially an amalgamation of the central plots used in Umberto Lenzi's Giallo's Orgasmo and A Quiet Place to Kill. The film even stars Analía Gadé - who looks and acts a lot like Carroll Baker, the star of the Lenzi films. Personally, I am a fan of Lenzi's A Quiet Place to Kill; but not of Orgasmo, and I'm not a big fan of this movie either as aside from a big rip off of the earlier films, it's also a trifle dull and that's not good considering the only reason I watch Giallo is for the entertainment value. The plot focuses on Ruth. Ruth has split from a husband and taken a man named Paul as her lover. The pair retreats to her villa for a bit of fun, and shortly thereafter; Paul's friend Michel turns up. It's not long before Ruth is unfortunate enough to be involved in a couple of accidents; her brakes fail while driving and her oxygen tank runs out while diving. Ruth starts to become paranoid and believes that Paul may be trying to kill her.In The Eye of the Hurricane benefits from some very good production values and a more than capable cast. Analía Gadé is good in the lead role, and credit must be given to her because the script gives the viewer no reason to get behind her moping character. She stars alongside Jean Sorel, who is suave and just a bit sinister. The film is billed as an erotic thriller, and this really couldn't be further from the truth. Analía Gadé is not particularly sexy anyway, and the plot doesn't allow for much eroticism. Obviously this description was put in place to help sell the film; but it gives the viewer the wrong impression. Director José María Forqué does well with the location shots; the sun baked central setting provides just the right sort of atmosphere for a film like this. The paranoia stemming from the central situation is the film's strongest element and it's fairly well done; the central character's handling of finding out about her lover's plot is interesting and pretty original. Overall, I wouldn't rate this film too highly in the grand scheme of the Giallo genre; it's worth a look for hardcore fans but otherwise it's better to stick to Lenzi's similar and more freely available pair.

lazarillo A woman leaves her husband and immediately takes up with another man . But her new beau has a strange friend that he knew from the "war", he and also seems to have some kind of relationship with the beautiful bisexual woman next door. Meanwhile her estranged husband is still lurking around, and someone seems to be trying to kill her.This rather odd giallo came out after Dari Argento had set the template for the genre with "Bird with Crystal Plumage". Strangely though, it seems to be a throw-back to the earlier Umberto Lenzi/Carroll Baker gialli like "Paranoia" or "A Quiet Place to Kill". The beginning is almost unforgivably slow with romantic longueurs of very beautiful idle rich people frolicking on the beautiful Cote de Azure beach while 60's Europop tunes play on the soundtrack (the movie often resembles a more staid French thriller like "La Piscine" than a Spanish/Italian gialli) . The plot, when it finally kicks in, is actually pretty good, but this movie is not as deleriously stylized nor is it anywhere near as violent as your typical giallo of that era. And it's tame even compared to the earlier gialli as far as sex goes--there's a long, ridiculous scene where the lead actress goes topless but the view is always obstructed by something (which resembles a running gag in "Austin Powers" more than anything else). It's hard to believe that three years later this same Spanish director would do the uber-sleazy "Beyond Erotica".Still, tame does not necessarily translate to bad. This film has some good twists to it and is pretty entertaining when it get's going.