George Dumurrier (Jean Sorel) is a supposedly wealthy doctor
with his own medical clinic in San
Francisco . His brother Henry (Alberto de Mendoza)
helps run the private clinic but the siblings often clash over George's
sometimes crass publicity attempts to get the facility better recognition. At
home things are not great either, as George's rich wife Susan (Marisa Mell) is
a virtual shut-in suffering from asthma and requiring almost constant care. The
couple's relationship is in bad shape and he has been denied access to the
areas of the house Susan occupies. On top of this is the poor man's newly
strained relationship with his long time mistress Jane (Elsa Martinelli), who
is close to deciding to leave him and the city. He loves Jane but knows that
without his wife's money his debts would destroy him. Has this guy got problems
or what?
Only by making a grand romantic gesture does George
manage to change Jane's mind and convince her to stay in Frisco. He makes vague
promises of divorce and hints that his rich wife can't life forever in her
condition. No sooner does this conversation take place than he receives word
that Susan has died! Completely shocked by her death he is even more surprised
when he learns that she'd taken out a life insurance policy naming him as the
sole beneficiary. While this unexpected windfall will allow him to clear the
clinic's debts and put him comfortably in the black, he can't understand why
she would've done this. The marriage had been on shaky ground for years and
Susan had made her displeasure with his financial dealings known. The police
show some interest at first but nothing suspicious is evident, so they
leave things alone.
Then a few weeks later George receives an anonymous
call telling him to go to a particular nightclub. He does, accompanied by the
suspicious Jane, and witnesses the striptease act of Monica Weston (also Marisa
Mell). Stunned by the uncanny resemblance to his dead wife, he can only see two
minor differences —hair and eye color. Monica is a blonde, green-eyed
beauty while Susan was dark haired with brown eyes. After her stage act the
sexy woman makes it plain that she's available for sex with George and Jane or
the both of them if the price is right; he begs off but is far too intrigued to
let it go. He contacts Monica on his own and meets her at her apartment. After
a scare when he notices a drug Miss Weston uses that Susan needed as well,
George becomes convinced it's just a bizarre coincidence but is it, really?
This is a crackerjack of a film! Lifting both the
setting and the central conceit of a dead beautiful woman's doppelganger from
Hitchcock's Vertigo, Lucio Fulci (Zombie)
doesn't simply make a copy of that portrait of obsession. He comes at the story
sideways, like some kind of sex-crazed loon hell-bent on one-upping Hitch while
playing, tricking and mesmerizing his audience. Unlike Vertigo's nice guy
protagonist we're presented with a main character we can't sympathize with very
much. He's a bit of a con artist, willing to lie to advance his business
prospects. He's clearly no longer in love with his wife — if he ever
was — and as we see her gasping for air during an asthma attack the
look of hurt accusation in her eyes invites our hostility toward him. But then
during a stylishly filmed lovemaking scene, as he gently holds his mistress, we
see someone we could possibly like. And after his mad race to Jane's train
destination we see him as a flawed man certainly, but not the monster he might
have been. And, of course, the fact remains that we know he didn't kill his
wife. So when the finger of guilt points to George we're with him because we
understand his confusion. And what a lot of confusion he has to contend with!
Of course, one of the things confusing poor George so
is also one of the big reasons cult film fans have been drawn to this movie for
decades — the beautiful Marisa Mell. Playing both Susan and Monica,
she is very good here, showing more range than she was usually allowed. When
first we see her as the pale, dark haired woman at death's door it's a bit of a
shock to viewers familiar with her from Danger:
Diabolik. In that Bava comic book classic she's the epitome of sexiness; as
the sickly wife she is a haggard mess. But don't despair if you picked this
film out to ogle bare flesh, because as Monica we're given the chance to stare
at her gorgeous body in scene after scene and in many fetching poses. The sequence
in which Jane photographs the stripper in her private studio has enough imagery
to jumpstart puberty in an 8 year old! I think that even if the film's story
stank it'd be worth seeing for a lot of people simply because of Marisa Mell's
many nude scenes. She was certainly one of the most beautiful women to grace
European films in the '60s and '70s, and if there's a film that shows more of
her physical charms I'm unaware. And if there is one, please contact me
immediately!
Be aware that the version of this film released several years ago on domestic DVD under the alternate title PERVERSION STORY is the shorter 97 minutes cut. I much prefer the 107 minute version of the film as that time adds depth and character to this excellent mystery. With luck this Fulci classic will show up on Blu-Ray soon.
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