Director: Ferdinando Merighi
Year: 1972
Country: Italy/West Germany/France
Alternate Titles: Casa d'appuntamento; Murder on 17th Avenue; The Bogeyman and the French Murders; Call Girls for Inspector Bogart
Genre: Giallo
Plot:
Investigating a strange death in Paris, a police inspector finds that the main suspect's accidental death doesn't stop the body count from stopping when more suspects are found dead and races to find the motive behind the strange deaths in finally find the true killer responsible.
Review:
This one here may have been a prototypical giallo but does have some minor flaws. The fact that this one does manage to play so close to the vest in the tropes of the giallo is where this one scores the most, as that keeps this one into the most watchable realms. This one does have a pretty intriguing story here about the use of the brothel and its clients working throughout here which manages to offer up the kind of suspect list that makes true giallo fans envious of the sordid sleazy characters at play within the confines of the clientele, the fun of the slow revelation with all of their secrets and different connections to each other and the ensuing rampage across the different groups which really sets this going down more pronounced giallo tropes.
Putting the familiar black-gloved killer to good use, these stalking scenes are the film's absolute best parts overall with the rather fun stalking scenes in play here with the thrilling stalking of the cheating boyfriend in the house with his lover, some fine stalking around the house where the killer strikes from behind in a great kill as well as a truly brutal triple-victim attack where the killer strikes in a house wiping out three different victims in different methods which is a rather enjoyable encounter overall. There's a lot of fun here with this series of stalking scenes which makes for a rather enjoyable time leading into the big chase at the end into the Eiffel Tower which is a rather thrilling ending helping along with the film's strong body count. Along with a rather fun motorcycle chase and a copious amount of nudity, there's plenty to like here.
Still, there are some rather problematic areas here that do hold this back somewhat. The biggest problem here is the fact that there's just so little about the killer's motivations even with it being a convention of the genre but here it doesn't really come up at all. There's a lot to like here about the revenge-from-beyond-the-grave plot, but there's little about the actual reason for the killer, and is absolutely lazy about giving one.
Another problem here is the film's rather stumbling pace that doesn't really get any kind of momentum going in the middle segments after the fake-out death of the suspected killer, keeping it going on numerous bland tangents without featuring any kind of real investigations into the main plot. Though that makes for a big final half, there's a rather bland set-up to get there. The last problem here is the film's gimmick-filled scenes that don't really do much of anything for the film, using the film-negative set-up for the scenes of the kills or the victims in the different scenes throughout here, and it somewhat hinders this with some cheesy, low-budget feel. Beyond these, there's some rather good stuff to like here.
Overview: ***/5
A really enjoyable if flawed giallo, it's conventional output manages to be the main series of detriments against this one which leaves it in the middle tier in the genre. Those who are fine with its issues, are hardcore giallo aficionadoes, or appreciate this era of the genre will have the most to like here while most others out there should heed caution with this one.
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