Nine Guests for a Crime

Nine Guests For a Crime

"If the killer is a lunatic, he's a very astute lunatic."

When a wealthy family takes a two-week vacation to their private island estate, it's anything but relaxing. The group includes family patriarch Ubaldo (Arthur Kennedy) his new young wife, Giulia (Caroline Laurente), Umbaldo's sister, Aunt Elizabeth (Dania Ghia), Umbaldo's sons, Michele (Massimo Foschi), Walter (Venantino Venantini), and Lorenzo (John Richardson), and their respective wives, Carla (Sofia Dionisio, credited as Flavia Fabiani), Patrizia (Loretta Persichetti), and Greta (Rita Silva). Family tensions run high as Michele carries on a secret affair with his stepmother and Walter has his own affair with his sister-in-law Greta. But things really take a turn when people start turning up dead and there is no way off the island. Could gold-digger Giulia be killing off the competition for Ubaldo's inheritance? And what about Aunt Elizabeth's theory that the ghost of her long-dead lover, Carlo (uncredited) has returned to avenge his death? Who will be left alive? It all leads to a bloody, explosive ending!

Like Mario Bava's Five Dolls For an August Moon, Nine Guests For a Crime is based on Agatha Christie's famous 1939 novel And Then There Were None.  But Nine Guests takes it a step further and also incorporates elements of Bava's Bay of Blood, including an astronomical body count and some unusual and highly dramatic murder scenes. 

• You may remember Arthur Kennedy as American journalist Jackson Bentley in Laurence of Arabia or as Pontius Pilate in the 1961 movie Barabbas.
• Director Fernando Baldi was one of those directors who did everything - biblical epics, comedies, Westerns, war movies, and documentaries. This is his only giallo.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

Who was the charred skeleton hanging in the closet? Was that Charlie? It's never made quite clear.

When Carla starts thrashing around in the water and shouting that she's drowning, everyone just stops and stares for a ridiculously long time. Sure, maybe she's pulled pranks in the past that looked similar to this, but wouldn't it be better to get out there and find out, rather than discuss it for five minutes?

One has to marvel at the audacity of the two couples having noisy affairs under their respective partners' noses on this tiny island in a cramped cottage. And sometimes – brazenly – in the same room as a sleeping spouse.

Fashion Moment

Psychic Carla wears this breezy multi-colored cover-up (which covers up nothing at all) in a scene where she foretells great suffering and despair.

My Dear Killer

My Dear Killer

"Nobody Ever Knows Anything"

When an insurance adjuster is decapitated with a dredger, Police Inspector Luca Peretti (George Hilton) is on the case. Peretti soon discovers that the dead man was investigating the kidnapping and murder of a girl and her father and that the killer is eliminating everyone who gets too close to the truth. The investigation leads to a post office box, the victim's drawings, a broken statue, and a house with a crooked chimney, but how do the clues add up? Someone in the victims' family might hold the answer but, while they all say they want to find the truth, everyone seems to have something to hide. 

This movie has some clever ideas and two very well-staged murder scenes (the sight of a body hanging from the claws of a dredger is both hilarious and horrifying; the circular saw murder is gruesomely realized) but try to make sense of the story and motivations and everything falls apart. Don't expect a lot of skin or gore (aside from those two aforementioned scenes) because this is a straight-up procedural. And not a very good one – it's sad that the writers couldn't give the killer any clear motivation. George Hilton does a great job as always, though, and effectively holds the movie together.

• The score was written by the "Italian John Williams," Ennio Morricone.  I just totally made up that nickname.
• When we see her at home, Paola (Patty Shepard) is watching TV. The movie is 1966's classic Western Django, starring Franco Nero of The Fifth Cord.
• The kidnapping victim, Stefania (Lara Wendell, credited as Daniela Rachele Barnes) is about eight years old but, due to a bad translation, she is repeatedly referred to as a "baby." In Italian, the word "bambina" refers to a small child – not necessarily an infant.
• Note that the total body count is seven, but the first two kills listed above occur before the action of the movie starts.
• This movie borrows something from classic mysteries that you don't usually see in gialli: a final scene where the detective gathers all the suspects into one room, runs through the clues, and reveals the identity of the murderer Nick Charles-style.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

Marilú Tolo appears in two completely superfluous scenes as Anna, Peretti's sullen, neglected  girlfriend. Perhaps these scenes were included to give Hilton's character more dimension, but they really stop the movie dead in its tracks.

One of the victim's uncles, Benjamino (Alfred Mayo) is a sculptor. As Peretti is questioning him in his studio, a naked nine-year-old girl appears suddenly in the doorway. Benjamino shoos her away and explains that the girl is a model for his sculptures. And Peretti totally accepts that as a valid explanation for being completely alone in his apartment with a naked nine-year-old girl. I know this is supposed to throw suspicion on Benjamino, but really? Not cool, movie. Not. Cool.

Fashion Moment

In his long sideburns, caterpillar mustache, and wool three-piece suits, George Hilton is serving up some serious Ron Burgundy realness in this film.