Just saw this tonight uncut on the big screen here in Hollywood. Visually very nice. But not really a giallo, I don't know why people keep calling it that. There is a murder which basically occurs off-screen and has almost nothing to do with the "story." Virtually no violence, some eyebrow-raising sex, obviously inspired by Antonioni, et al. Little story, lots of avant garde/graphic style, references to Pop-Art/Lichtenstein, comics, "Blow-Up" and other movies/the Viet Nam War/other issues of the day. Nice visuals/editing/soundtrack (which was remarkably clear in the print I just saw, supposedly soon to be out on DVD). At times notably innovative and fresh. A bit of a surprise ending. Wandering narrative, quick cuts, lots of color and gritty flair. Swinging London backdrop. In b/w and color.
16 Reviews
AKA ... Deadly Sweet
nuclear_division25 February 2011
This film is very stylized, liked a lot of the editing effects, the split images in-particular, also how it cuts to war images of Vietnam and changes to black and white in parts. The sets, costumes/wardrobe are elaborate and detailed, the lighting is very good also. Interesting to see London in the 60's, notice how the trains are still powered by steam in the scene behind the graveyard. The casting is quite strong especially Jean-Louis Trintignant who plays the lead role, he is supported by the beautiful Ewa Aulin, the cast of nefarious mob type figures is also a standout. The storyline although a little weak leaves you guessing until the end. It is quite enjoyable overall, but seems a little experimental and doesn't really mesh, but I liked the fact it had a sad ending.
a somewhat cheaper copy of Antonioni's 'Blow Up'
wvisser-leusden4 April 2013
Although not bad, 'Col guore in gola' is clearly inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni's 'Blow Up' -- the famous film from 1966, capturing London's young & fashionable mid-Sixties spirit with unparalleled quality. This Italian copy even goes as far as mentioning Antonioni.
'Col guore in gola's somewhat hazy plot clearly does not make this film's main attraction. It's the visuals that are prominent here, and they surely are great and inspiring. And very, yes very, mid-Sixties -- as well as a little too extended to our 21st century-taste.
Male lead Jean Louis Trintignant does not need any introduction. His performance is as usual: most competent. Female lead Ewa Aulin, reminding me of Goldie Hawn, does well, too. Together they take you through 'Col guore in gola', making you a nice watch.
'Col guore in gola's somewhat hazy plot clearly does not make this film's main attraction. It's the visuals that are prominent here, and they surely are great and inspiring. And very, yes very, mid-Sixties -- as well as a little too extended to our 21st century-taste.
Male lead Jean Louis Trintignant does not need any introduction. His performance is as usual: most competent. Female lead Ewa Aulin, reminding me of Goldie Hawn, does well, too. Together they take you through 'Col guore in gola', making you a nice watch.
nice giallo
mariorakocevic5 January 2002
A rather unusual agenda from tinto brass who obviously found later his niche in "t&a" movies. Col cuore in Gola is a psychedelic, pop art giallo that can just come from the great era of the late 60´s/70´s. Starting from the nice credits and music you immediately like this film and this is just the beginning! Trintignant founds in a nightclub a corpse beside the lovely aulin who just says "i wasnt it" Convinced that she is innocent he wants to help her and want to find out the murderer, Aulins brother should solve this case and both are searching for him. Though not quite without problems..a dwarf in raincoat is following them in companion with some gangsters who kidnap Aulin. Jean is now searching for aulin, aulins brother and (of course) the murderer. The Story itself is not that convincing (rather unimportant) but what here is really of interest is the unconvential style of brass : splitscreen(even tripple split screens!) some scenes in black and dark yellow filter and more.., and in the "middle" of course the presence of two very convincing leads: cool Trintignant and hot Ewa Aulin. (somehow priceless here in white fishnet stockings) the result is a quite good giallo with (obviously) strong references to pop art. In the same year Aulin and Trintignant appeared in the avantgarde giallo masterpiece "Death laid an egg", Col Cuore in Gola is not great as Giulio Questis film but is definitely entertaining.
Inexpensive and dated mystery.
rmax3048232 July 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Well, Eva Aulin is certainly delicious and Jean-Louis Trintignant is sympatico as is usually the case, but the film in its entirety suffers from a poor script and from the director's misguided whimsy.
Trintignant visits his partner's office, up the stairs from a dance hall, and discovers Aulin standing over the body, holding a gun, saying she didn't do it. Trintignant takes a second look at seventeen-year-old, blond, robustly figured, ex-Swedish-beauty-contest-winner Eva Aulin and quickly decides, "Right, she couldn't have done it."
He runs off with her to search out the REAL killers, and we are treated to a tour of swinging London's most-visited sights. Here's Picadilly Circus. See all the skin shops? And, look -- here's a poster of The Beatles! There's also a kind of zoo. There are small shots of one of Trintignant's eyes. It gets confusing. I think they copulate on top of Nelson's Column but I'm not sure. I AM sure they copulate in Trintignant's apartment in a scene that is all apricot and rose and consists of unidentified hands caressing unidentified body parts. I guess Brass forgot to include the softly billowing crimson drapes and the lighted candles. When somebody hits someone else over the head, there are Pop inserts of the sounds, as in the old Batman TV series -- POW! and ZLONK!
I've only seen three or four of Tinto Brass's movie but I'm already able to discern a kind of stylistic arc through the murk. In this film, the earliest of his that I've seen, he appears to be doing everything possible to draw attention to himself as the director. (The screen splits into three separate scenes at one point.) And the relentless use of pop imagery is symptomatic. Hey, look! Mamma mia, I'm inna movies!
In a somewhat later film, I think called "L'Uolo," about a handful of people in a surrealistic hotel, the narrative is thrown out completely and we get one bizarre image after another -- no longer just pop, but a kaleidoscopic non sequitur that carries no weight at all after the first few shocking minutes.
Finally, Brass found his metier, in the no-man's land between soft-core and hard-core porn. The stories in this later genre aren't original. Usually a bourgeois wife is bored with her marriage and finds a lover who introduces her to, well, a different kind of love. It wasn't original with "Emanuelle" either, or "Lady Chatterly's Lover," for that matter. I'd guess that the theme was first introduced to a public audience somewhere back in time, past Aristophanes, into the Masques, into the mists of antiquity.
Of the three phases of Tinto Brass's career, I prefer the last one, the one with the preposterous, prodigious, prosthetic penises. At least there, the director seems to have found a comfortable and satisfying niche.
The Italian title, "Col Cuore in Gola," means "With Heart in Throat," but the English title is as much a puzzle as the movie itself. "I Am What I Am." Is it from Yahweh or Popeye? I've been told this is a "cult movie." I wonder what a cult movie is.
Trintignant visits his partner's office, up the stairs from a dance hall, and discovers Aulin standing over the body, holding a gun, saying she didn't do it. Trintignant takes a second look at seventeen-year-old, blond, robustly figured, ex-Swedish-beauty-contest-winner Eva Aulin and quickly decides, "Right, she couldn't have done it."
He runs off with her to search out the REAL killers, and we are treated to a tour of swinging London's most-visited sights. Here's Picadilly Circus. See all the skin shops? And, look -- here's a poster of The Beatles! There's also a kind of zoo. There are small shots of one of Trintignant's eyes. It gets confusing. I think they copulate on top of Nelson's Column but I'm not sure. I AM sure they copulate in Trintignant's apartment in a scene that is all apricot and rose and consists of unidentified hands caressing unidentified body parts. I guess Brass forgot to include the softly billowing crimson drapes and the lighted candles. When somebody hits someone else over the head, there are Pop inserts of the sounds, as in the old Batman TV series -- POW! and ZLONK!
I've only seen three or four of Tinto Brass's movie but I'm already able to discern a kind of stylistic arc through the murk. In this film, the earliest of his that I've seen, he appears to be doing everything possible to draw attention to himself as the director. (The screen splits into three separate scenes at one point.) And the relentless use of pop imagery is symptomatic. Hey, look! Mamma mia, I'm inna movies!
In a somewhat later film, I think called "L'Uolo," about a handful of people in a surrealistic hotel, the narrative is thrown out completely and we get one bizarre image after another -- no longer just pop, but a kaleidoscopic non sequitur that carries no weight at all after the first few shocking minutes.
Finally, Brass found his metier, in the no-man's land between soft-core and hard-core porn. The stories in this later genre aren't original. Usually a bourgeois wife is bored with her marriage and finds a lover who introduces her to, well, a different kind of love. It wasn't original with "Emanuelle" either, or "Lady Chatterly's Lover," for that matter. I'd guess that the theme was first introduced to a public audience somewhere back in time, past Aristophanes, into the Masques, into the mists of antiquity.
Of the three phases of Tinto Brass's career, I prefer the last one, the one with the preposterous, prodigious, prosthetic penises. At least there, the director seems to have found a comfortable and satisfying niche.
The Italian title, "Col Cuore in Gola," means "With Heart in Throat," but the English title is as much a puzzle as the movie itself. "I Am What I Am." Is it from Yahweh or Popeye? I've been told this is a "cult movie." I wonder what a cult movie is.
Average Giallo from a T&A man.
lastliberal28 August 2009
When I see Tinto Brass, I think of Cheeky and Salon Kitty. T&A features, not traditional giallo. I am willing to be surprised.
You are going to be reminded by a current jail occupant in Orlando, Fl, who was dancing the night away after her daughter went missing. The children. Jane (Ewa Aulin) and Jerome (Charles Kohler) Burroughs, in this film are in a nightclub right after they visit their father in the morgue. Guess death can't interfere with life.
Bernard (Jean-Louis Trintignant) discovers her with his dead partner and takes her away.
They go looking for the killer. It's not as bloody as most giallo, and there is no nudity to speak of, but it is worth watching. It had an almost comic book air at times, and the music was definitely upbeat.
The cinematography was outstanding on this print and really made it worthwhile.
You are going to be reminded by a current jail occupant in Orlando, Fl, who was dancing the night away after her daughter went missing. The children. Jane (Ewa Aulin) and Jerome (Charles Kohler) Burroughs, in this film are in a nightclub right after they visit their father in the morgue. Guess death can't interfere with life.
Bernard (Jean-Louis Trintignant) discovers her with his dead partner and takes her away.
They go looking for the killer. It's not as bloody as most giallo, and there is no nudity to speak of, but it is worth watching. It had an almost comic book air at times, and the music was definitely upbeat.
The cinematography was outstanding on this print and really made it worthwhile.
Uneven mess
dopefishie28 November 2021
I love the clear inspiration from comic books. Very artistic style. The intermittent use of b&w is gorgeous. Ewa Aulin is a dream. Simply stunning.
However, the plot is a mess. The pacing is a mess. The tone is all over the place. The overall narrative has a mystery/detective/crime genre feel to it, but there are so many jarring departures into comedy(?) These tonal bungles kill the suspense and the believability.
However, the plot is a mess. The pacing is a mess. The tone is all over the place. The overall narrative has a mystery/detective/crime genre feel to it, but there are so many jarring departures into comedy(?) These tonal bungles kill the suspense and the believability.
Slow Down. A beast of a giallo
AlanBryan211228 March 2020
Warning: Spoilers
What a beast of a giallo. Good? That depends. I "Liked" it. Yes. I liked the music. The actors. I wasn't even sure what Bernard did for a living until he said he was an actor and that wasn't confirmed until later from a comment by his friend David. He got involved in a murder mystery because He fell hard after seeing this girl, Jane (Ewa Aulin) in a club he frequented. She was with her step-mom, brother Jerome and and man. After an exposition dump by a club patron, Jane vanished. Bernard goes to see the club's owner because his credit is cut off. He finds the club owner dead. Jane is hiding in the shadows of the office. She says she is innocent. Then there is some nonsense about her recently run down Dad being blackmailed by the dead club owner.... and we're off. Kidnapping, car chases, running chases, chases in subway stations, a little man, a big man. guns. photography studios. a little sex. a little nudity. very brief Batman '66 sound effects when someone is punched. (no kidding). the director lingers on a Lobby Card for Blow Up. Yeah. One thing I liked was done twice. Bernard and Jane RACE! down metal staircases and it sounds like a drum solo. Neat. Then Bernard tries to play a drum solo. Silly. There's a "Me Tarzan" gag when she says her name is Jane. There there is a callback to the same gag later in the film. Yes, there are brief "comedy bits" in this giallo along with beatings and murders. It's so weird. But I was engrossed by it. I actually like this film. It's swinging London when London was swinging. There's a long scene near the end of Bernard and Jane looking for "step mom" at a "happening" or I guess a very large club. The place was huge. The whole film happens over 36 hours or so? That seems wrong, but you kinda get that impression. Nobody takes time to eat. It's one set piece to the next. That's a minor flaw. It's so fast. Almost too fast and when it is over you still think there is MORE TO ALL THIS. A very generous 6.5 out of 10. 8 out of 10 for the song "Love Girl" It sounds great on DVD, but bad on YouTube. Bummer.
Oh, and Ewa Aulin reminds me constantly of Goldie Hawn during her Laugh-In days. That's Another thing. This character was 17 and very sexually active. You feel creepy finding this out and seeing her have sex with Bernard (often) and finding out that she has other lovers.. Dang. I know it's "Swinging London", but geez girl. Slow Down.
I didn't do it
nogodnomasters3 December 2017
Warning: Spoilers
The film centers around Bernard (Jean-Louis Trintignant) an actor who gets involved with 17 year old Jane (Ewa Aulin). Jane's dad was recently killed in an auto accident. She thinks it was blackmail and murder. Prescott, the club owner shows up dead, Jane claims she didn't do it. She gets kidnapped by a "midget" and ransomed to her brother Jerome (Charles Kohler). The plot was a bit confusing and the actions taken by the characters stopped making any sense long ago.
The film has English subtitles and comments by Tinto Brass options.
Guide: No f-words. Brief nudity. Sex scenes were blurred with Vaseline on the lens, a popular effect that passes for art and overused by Penthouse Magazine.
The film has English subtitles and comments by Tinto Brass options.
Guide: No f-words. Brief nudity. Sex scenes were blurred with Vaseline on the lens, a popular effect that passes for art and overused by Penthouse Magazine.
Tinto Brass' only giallo -- kinda
BandSAboutMovies17 September 2021
Warning: Spoilers
The original title of this movie translates as With Heart in Mouth, but it was also released under several alternative titles, including I Am What I Am, Deadly Sweet, En cinquième vitesse (In Fifth Gear), Dead stop - Le coeur aux lèvres (Dead Stop - The Heart to the Lips), Con el corazón en la garganta (With My Heart in My Throat), Heart Beat and Ich bin wie ich bin - Das Mädchen aus der Carnaby Street (I Am What I Am - The Girl from Carnaby Street.
Bernard (Jean-Louis Trintignant) discovers Janes (Ewa Aulin, Candy) standing over a dead body in a London nightclub and instantly believes that she has to be innocent. Her father has recently been killed in a car accident, but Jane thinks that he was killed because of a blackmail scam gone wrong. And that body? The blackmailer.
He protects her from a series of shadowy men - including a dwarf - and the police that are following them both as they go deeper and deeper into the darkness that is her life. So does the control that he thinks he has over her life, but Jane is the kind of hurricane that has seemingly destroyed many a man before.
Man, this movie is something else. Tinto Brass directed it and it looks part comic book, part documentary, shot with hidden camera and wild zooms. It's as 1967 as it gets and I mean that in the best of ways, with loud fuzzed-out music, pop art sensibility, switches from black and white to color and moments where Aulin's beauty threatens to shatter whatever reality exists on film. Guido Crepax, whose comic Valentina was the basis of Baba Yaga, drew the storyboards and his art appears throughout the movie.
Brass' only giallo, this feels more Antonioni than Bava. And yeah, it may go on a bit too long, but when it's on, it's on.
Now, to be up front, Aulin was all of sixteen when she made this and she has some semi-nude scenes. If that offends you, you can choose not to watch this.
Bernard (Jean-Louis Trintignant) discovers Janes (Ewa Aulin, Candy) standing over a dead body in a London nightclub and instantly believes that she has to be innocent. Her father has recently been killed in a car accident, but Jane thinks that he was killed because of a blackmail scam gone wrong. And that body? The blackmailer.
He protects her from a series of shadowy men - including a dwarf - and the police that are following them both as they go deeper and deeper into the darkness that is her life. So does the control that he thinks he has over her life, but Jane is the kind of hurricane that has seemingly destroyed many a man before.
Man, this movie is something else. Tinto Brass directed it and it looks part comic book, part documentary, shot with hidden camera and wild zooms. It's as 1967 as it gets and I mean that in the best of ways, with loud fuzzed-out music, pop art sensibility, switches from black and white to color and moments where Aulin's beauty threatens to shatter whatever reality exists on film. Guido Crepax, whose comic Valentina was the basis of Baba Yaga, drew the storyboards and his art appears throughout the movie.
Brass' only giallo, this feels more Antonioni than Bava. And yeah, it may go on a bit too long, but when it's on, it's on.
Now, to be up front, Aulin was all of sixteen when she made this and she has some semi-nude scenes. If that offends you, you can choose not to watch this.
"The Sixties - What a shrill, pointless decade"
Bezenby26 May 2017
Tinto Brass is one of the more critically applauded Italian directors, what with the films Salon Kitty and the one called Caligula that had Malcolm McDowell as Caligula bumming some unwilling guy. That's how I felt watching this uneasy mash-up of Giallo and sixties groovy crapfest. This was truly a struggle from start to finish.
French Guy gets involved with Jane, a groovy chick whom he finds in a room with a dead nightclub owner. French Guy thinks she didn't do nothing, and the two embark on a journey to find out who really killed the nightclub owner. Sadly for them and us a relentless barrage of sixties references assault them and the viewer until you don't care what happens, as long as the film ends some time soon.
Jane has a brother who has gone missing and there's a load of bad guys following the two around everywhere trying to kill French Guy and kidnap Jane, including a dwarf who gives French guy a kicking. Jane gets herself kidnapped and French Guy hooks up with her brother to rescue her. Other stuff happens but you'll have killed yourself long before then.
The problem with this film is that it's crap. Brass has the bones of a giallo film but for some reason feels the need to constantly refer to the 'swinging' sixties, with constant references to pop art, the Beatles, freak-outs, all that stuff. It's like a film being made these days with constant references to fidget spinners, fake news, and people voluntarily micro-chipping themselves so that they can programme their heating from their hands (what's wrong with those morons?) A lot of the time I was suffering from a very large Jess Franco vibe from this film, and by that I mean there was a lot of messing around on nothing that seriously disrupted the flow of the film and making me not care at all about anything that happened at all.
French Guy gets involved with Jane, a groovy chick whom he finds in a room with a dead nightclub owner. French Guy thinks she didn't do nothing, and the two embark on a journey to find out who really killed the nightclub owner. Sadly for them and us a relentless barrage of sixties references assault them and the viewer until you don't care what happens, as long as the film ends some time soon.
Jane has a brother who has gone missing and there's a load of bad guys following the two around everywhere trying to kill French Guy and kidnap Jane, including a dwarf who gives French guy a kicking. Jane gets herself kidnapped and French Guy hooks up with her brother to rescue her. Other stuff happens but you'll have killed yourself long before then.
The problem with this film is that it's crap. Brass has the bones of a giallo film but for some reason feels the need to constantly refer to the 'swinging' sixties, with constant references to pop art, the Beatles, freak-outs, all that stuff. It's like a film being made these days with constant references to fidget spinners, fake news, and people voluntarily micro-chipping themselves so that they can programme their heating from their hands (what's wrong with those morons?) A lot of the time I was suffering from a very large Jess Franco vibe from this film, and by that I mean there was a lot of messing around on nothing that seriously disrupted the flow of the film and making me not care at all about anything that happened at all.
Trintignant, Ewa Aulin, Swinging London, eroticism, hilarious moments... Definitely not bad.
mehobulls21 September 2020
This is so bad actually.... i love tinto but what a mess. i literally........dont care about anything going on in this movie even the formal experiments are like....redundant. the tarzan scene killed the movie for me tho the ending was slightly redemptive but like...hardly lmao.
QUITE BORING ! UNSOLVED...
faalfi8 July 2023
This film is a dull "dejà vu" (Antonioni & Co.): better the originals.
Anything new but the inexpressive Ewa also in her nudity...!
Trintignant is there: maybe ?!.
I don't know why and for what reasons...And he seems too.
The fee was so interesting ?
Not to mention the chasing of Bernard by the bad guys and the ending of the story, both laughable...
The result is that the leading actor and the most attractive is the "Swinging London" and its people: better than nothing !
I recommend you not to waste your time as I did yesterday. Tinto Brass has to go softly "erotic" as usual, the way he was and still is (in his 90th), with Sandrelli and Grandi among the others: that's his plus.
Anything new but the inexpressive Ewa also in her nudity...!
Trintignant is there: maybe ?!.
I don't know why and for what reasons...And he seems too.
The fee was so interesting ?
Not to mention the chasing of Bernard by the bad guys and the ending of the story, both laughable...
The result is that the leading actor and the most attractive is the "Swinging London" and its people: better than nothing !
I recommend you not to waste your time as I did yesterday. Tinto Brass has to go softly "erotic" as usual, the way he was and still is (in his 90th), with Sandrelli and Grandi among the others: that's his plus.
Has a kind of "let's make a movie" glee that you seldom see now
philosopherjack1 January 2021
Warning: Spoilers
The most obvious reference point for Tinto Brass' Deadly Sweet (or I Am What I Am) is Antonioni's Blow-Up, made a year earlier (the poster is visible in one scene) - it's another mysterious odyssey through "swinging London," prominently featuring another fashion photographer, and with a heavy emphasis on style. Brass might be able to match Antonioni for incidental documentary interest - there's a sense that he or his cohorts went out and amassed a large stockpile of random documentary footage (people reacting in the street or on public transport, old women looking out of windows and so forth) and then cut it in here and there to evoke incident and authenticity. Otherwise though, this is a scattershot exercise by comparison, replacing Antonioni's spatial precision with a rapacious appetite for stimulation and diversion - the film alternates between black and white, breaks into split screens, flashes compulsively on items such as Underground signs or light bulbs, and drenches almost every available wall in movie posters or pop art prints; the staging of chases and fights and other action is notably imprecise and unconvincing. But the greatest lag on the movie is the plot - a wan and unproductively confusing affair that kicks off when Bernard (Jean-Louis Trintignant) discovers a nightclub owner murdered in his office, along with Jane (Ewa Aulin) who claims she doesn't do it: pursued by various heavies, the two take off to solve the mystery, while occasionally pausing to indulge their erotic attraction. But the two never register as more than stock figures in a dubbed landscape, the Godardian device of having Trintignant spout quotes from the likes of Mao or (yes) Antonioni counting for absolutely nothing. Still, it has a kind of "let's make a movie" glee that you seldom see now - a sense of the city and the culture as resources to be pilfered as one chooses, of a joy in movement and titillation and connection.
Weird, surreal, experimental
gridoon202420 December 2021
Also frantic, rambling and hyper-stylized. Tinto Brass is like a kid in a candy story in this movie, trying out every little trick in the book he can think of (split screen, black & white / color, fast cuts, fast motion, comic book inserts, etc.). Ewa Aulin is wonderful (an alternate title of the movie, I Am What I Am, sums her up perfectly), and there is also some terrific London location shooting. Plot-wise it doesn't make much sense, but I don't think it was supposed to; it is more about capturing a spur-of-the-moment spontaneity, and at that it succeeds. **1/2 out of 4.
Not a great film, but worth seeing
lazarillo17 April 2009
This pop psychedelic giallo is an early film by the Italian "master of eroticism" (he's definitely "master" of something), Tinto Brass. Unfortunately, it's VERY derivative of Michaelangelo Antonioni's "Blow-up" from the previous year, and while some find that movie borderline pretentious, this movie is well over the borderline. It also compares pretty unfavorably to the OTHER pop psychedelic giallo released in 1967, "Death Laid an Egg", which also features French actor Jean Trintigant and Swedish nymphet Ewe Aulin. But just because it isn't as good as two excellent movies like "Blow-up" and "Death Laid an Egg" doesn't necessarily make it bad. It's well filmed, and it has good acting and good music. I actually liked it better than "Salon Kitty", "Caligula" or any of Brass' other later, more erotic, but much more tedious ventures.
The story is pretty insubstantial. A man spots a a young girl at a disco and is immediately drawn to her. Later he finds the disco owner dead and the young woman standing over his body. Since the disco owner was apparently blackmailing her recently deceased father, the girl suspects that the killer might be a member of her own oddball family--her androgynous twin brother, her grasping mother, or her sinister gangster stepfather. As the couple are chased all over Swinging late 60's London by all kinds of colorful characters, including a hulking black man and a dwarf, they try to piece together the bizarro plot (while the viewers try even less successfully to do the same thing). Brass also throws in a lot of black and white footage--perhaps in an homage to American film noir--however, this style really clashes with the colorful psychedelic pop art and the principal story, which far from being downbeat and noirish, is often as light and airy as a soufflé.
Trintigant was one of the most famous French actors of the period. He was kind of in the same mold as Jean-Paul Belomondo, Jean Sorel, and Alain Delon. But he didn't seem to rely as much on his good looks as some of his fellow French leading men, and he was often in more interesting, offbeat films like Robbe-Grillet's "TransEuropean Express", "The Angry Sheep", and, of course, "Death Laid an Egg". Ewe Aulin, who was only seventeen at the time, did this film as part of a 1967 trifecta which also included "Death Laid an Egg" and the big-budget celebrity-train-wreck sex comedy "Candy". Only one of these was really a good movie, but SHE is definitely very memorable in all three of them. If nothing else, this is certainly a prime example of a European co-production of the era--an Italian film shot in London with a French leading man and a Swedish leading lady.
This is by no means a great film, but it is worth seeing.
The story is pretty insubstantial. A man spots a a young girl at a disco and is immediately drawn to her. Later he finds the disco owner dead and the young woman standing over his body. Since the disco owner was apparently blackmailing her recently deceased father, the girl suspects that the killer might be a member of her own oddball family--her androgynous twin brother, her grasping mother, or her sinister gangster stepfather. As the couple are chased all over Swinging late 60's London by all kinds of colorful characters, including a hulking black man and a dwarf, they try to piece together the bizarro plot (while the viewers try even less successfully to do the same thing). Brass also throws in a lot of black and white footage--perhaps in an homage to American film noir--however, this style really clashes with the colorful psychedelic pop art and the principal story, which far from being downbeat and noirish, is often as light and airy as a soufflé.
Trintigant was one of the most famous French actors of the period. He was kind of in the same mold as Jean-Paul Belomondo, Jean Sorel, and Alain Delon. But he didn't seem to rely as much on his good looks as some of his fellow French leading men, and he was often in more interesting, offbeat films like Robbe-Grillet's "TransEuropean Express", "The Angry Sheep", and, of course, "Death Laid an Egg". Ewe Aulin, who was only seventeen at the time, did this film as part of a 1967 trifecta which also included "Death Laid an Egg" and the big-budget celebrity-train-wreck sex comedy "Candy". Only one of these was really a good movie, but SHE is definitely very memorable in all three of them. If nothing else, this is certainly a prime example of a European co-production of the era--an Italian film shot in London with a French leading man and a Swedish leading lady.
This is by no means a great film, but it is worth seeing.
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