This is somewhat of a lost gem in the eurotrash world, made in 1971, it remained unreleased in the US until after the 1974's THE STING ( which is mentioned on the US poster art for THE GREAT SWINDLE ). This is not a giallo with violent murder set pieces, but instead a well acted mystery with an ever twisting plot that even saves a revelation for the final seconds. The cast is above average here with the gorgeous Mell and Koscina in a lesbian relationship and providing plenty of nudity. Stephen Boyd and Fernado Rey are solid and while Boyd's character is central, the film is mostly about Mell's tortured Carla and her love life with men and women. This is top notch eurotrash, with sleazy characters, murder and mystery. This is a movie where no one is who they seem and motivations are suspect and then surprisingly reversed. I had no idea what to expect going in and and was pleasantly surprised with THE GREAT SWINDLE. The English language widescreen VHS on review here comes from Greece, and has burnt in Greek subtitles. The print featured is in tatters, with splices and missing frames, heavy scratching and general massive damage. The credits are missing and dialog is obliterated throughout. Still, I enjoyed it and would love to see a better looking copy. With a cast like this surely it could be considered for DVD?
6 Reviews
Unintelligible not-thrilling thriller
jameselliot-125 November 2021
Made after Marta
BandSAboutMovies13 January 2024
Warning: Spoilers
Also known as Historia de una traición (Story of a Betrayal), Nel buio del terrore (In the Darkness of Terror) and Diabolicamente sole con il delitto (Diabolically Alone with the Crime), this was sold in the U. S. as The Great Swindle and the posters hint that it's similar to The Sting. As you can imagine, outside of having characters using one another for money, it has nothing to do with that movie.
Directed by José Antonio Nieves Conde, who also made Marta a few months earlier with stars Stephen Boyd and Marisa Mell. This was the movie where they began they love affair. In the book Coverlove, Mell said of Boyd, who had avoided her attempts to seduce him the first time they worked together, "He was just so awesome in his passion, his tenderness and his masculinity that I completely lost my head. Finally I asked him the reason why he was now changed so completely after he had been so dismissive before. He was thoughtful, "In the beginning you were too aggressive. I was just at the end of a difficult and desperate love affair. Mentally I was destroyed, and I just wanted to be left alone. I also felt an incredibly dangerous woman in you. To engage with you would mean to never get away from you. That's why I had completely shut down.""
I've mentioned before in the Marta article that their love was so destructive that they needed an exorcism. Mell speaks on this, saying, "Our demon was our passion. We were, as it is in San Vicino custom, made to wear a broad iron ring around the neck. We humbly bowed and prayed. The priest blessed us that we might be "pure." He celebrated the prescribed ritual for exorcism. It was kind of a supernatural experience. Perhaps you smile today over such hocus-pocus. At that time I felt is was not ridiculous, although I see myself as a clear-headed woman. But my connection to Stephen just had something very mystical, inscrutable in itself, and he felt the same way. Sometimes love is like a deadly disease, sometimes it makes you feel that you are damned for all eternity. Trying to explain the reasons for this is impossible. There are things in our lives that are too high for our philosophy.
Stephen and I returned to Rome, but we did not feel absolved. The demon of passion was still living in us."
When you watch this movie, know that this drama was going on behind the scenes.
Mell plays Carla, a high class call girl who purrs at one point that she was never made to be anyone's servant. She finds one of the girls she used to work the street with - back in the old, tougher, darker days - Lola (Sylva Koscina) working as a maid in a hotel she's staying in. She tells her that she isn't made for this life and helps to introduce her to the world of being paid by men just for moments of their time.
Her best client is Luis (Fernando Rey), but in the time when she isn't charging for her love, she starts to develop feelings for a painter named Arturo (Stephen Boyd). In a reverse of their actual relationship, the first evening that he meets her - he's soaked for being in the rain, she lets him in and he immediately starts drinking her expensive liquor and tries to get in her bed - she rebuffs his advances. A few days later, he saves her from jumping off a cliff and they end up together.
Yet Carla and Lola are more than friends, as they have had a long-time love that is rekindled by finding each other once again. The problem comes when Carla introduces Lola to Luis, who suddenly forgets her. Weeks later, as she's surrounded by newspapers, Carla learns that Luis died in an airplane crash. And that's when Lola comes back. Arturo suggests that they frame her for Luis' death, except that while Lola loves Carla, Arturo soon falls for Lola too. Everybody wants everybody and yet their need for money outweighs everything. Not everyone is going to survive this.
This movie may put some off by the way that it has flashbacks within scenes, but I truly adored every moment of it. Every single room the characters appear in is beyond incredible and I counted more than ten costume changes for Mell in less than twenty minutes. Nearly everyone is impossibly gorgeous and the twists and turns keep you wondering. This is not all that easy of a film to find but it rewards those who seek it.
Directed by José Antonio Nieves Conde, who also made Marta a few months earlier with stars Stephen Boyd and Marisa Mell. This was the movie where they began they love affair. In the book Coverlove, Mell said of Boyd, who had avoided her attempts to seduce him the first time they worked together, "He was just so awesome in his passion, his tenderness and his masculinity that I completely lost my head. Finally I asked him the reason why he was now changed so completely after he had been so dismissive before. He was thoughtful, "In the beginning you were too aggressive. I was just at the end of a difficult and desperate love affair. Mentally I was destroyed, and I just wanted to be left alone. I also felt an incredibly dangerous woman in you. To engage with you would mean to never get away from you. That's why I had completely shut down.""
I've mentioned before in the Marta article that their love was so destructive that they needed an exorcism. Mell speaks on this, saying, "Our demon was our passion. We were, as it is in San Vicino custom, made to wear a broad iron ring around the neck. We humbly bowed and prayed. The priest blessed us that we might be "pure." He celebrated the prescribed ritual for exorcism. It was kind of a supernatural experience. Perhaps you smile today over such hocus-pocus. At that time I felt is was not ridiculous, although I see myself as a clear-headed woman. But my connection to Stephen just had something very mystical, inscrutable in itself, and he felt the same way. Sometimes love is like a deadly disease, sometimes it makes you feel that you are damned for all eternity. Trying to explain the reasons for this is impossible. There are things in our lives that are too high for our philosophy.
Stephen and I returned to Rome, but we did not feel absolved. The demon of passion was still living in us."
When you watch this movie, know that this drama was going on behind the scenes.
Mell plays Carla, a high class call girl who purrs at one point that she was never made to be anyone's servant. She finds one of the girls she used to work the street with - back in the old, tougher, darker days - Lola (Sylva Koscina) working as a maid in a hotel she's staying in. She tells her that she isn't made for this life and helps to introduce her to the world of being paid by men just for moments of their time.
Her best client is Luis (Fernando Rey), but in the time when she isn't charging for her love, she starts to develop feelings for a painter named Arturo (Stephen Boyd). In a reverse of their actual relationship, the first evening that he meets her - he's soaked for being in the rain, she lets him in and he immediately starts drinking her expensive liquor and tries to get in her bed - she rebuffs his advances. A few days later, he saves her from jumping off a cliff and they end up together.
Yet Carla and Lola are more than friends, as they have had a long-time love that is rekindled by finding each other once again. The problem comes when Carla introduces Lola to Luis, who suddenly forgets her. Weeks later, as she's surrounded by newspapers, Carla learns that Luis died in an airplane crash. And that's when Lola comes back. Arturo suggests that they frame her for Luis' death, except that while Lola loves Carla, Arturo soon falls for Lola too. Everybody wants everybody and yet their need for money outweighs everything. Not everyone is going to survive this.
This movie may put some off by the way that it has flashbacks within scenes, but I truly adored every moment of it. Every single room the characters appear in is beyond incredible and I counted more than ten costume changes for Mell in less than twenty minutes. Nearly everyone is impossibly gorgeous and the twists and turns keep you wondering. This is not all that easy of a film to find but it rewards those who seek it.
So-So Crime Drama Appeals to Lovers of 60s Euro Trash
jfrentzen-942-2042113 February 2024
Inaccurately listed in some film books as a thriller, this movie is more accurately a melodramatic soap opera with occasional violence and a few memorable nude scenes from stars Marisa Mell and Sylva Koscina.
Carla walks along a high cliff overlooking the sea, contemplating suicide, when artist Anton (Stephen Boyd) drives by in his Jeep. His appearance dissuades Carla from jumping, and the two of them begin an affair.
In and around their dates and lovemaking, Carla thinks about her wealthy ex-lover, Luis (Fernando Rey), who was stolen from her by her sometimes-lesbian lover, Lola (Sylva Koscina). The film's flashback structure makes for occasionally fun watching, as both Marisa and Sylva get to be seen in a multitude of 1970s fashions, lots of heavy eye makeup, and strange hairdos. Sometimes, their wardrobe changes drastically from one minute to the next.
The movie's Spanish-language title, HISTORIA DE UNA TRAICÎON (or, HISTORY OF A BETRAYAL), is more appropriate, as Carla is turned out in the cold by Luis and later discovers Anton has been working her for a scam. In the end, Carla and Lola turn to murder to get even with the men that hurt them, and settle down to the good life (care of Luis' vast estate).
This was the second of two movies featuring Mell and Boyd, and directed by J. A. Nieves Conde. The first film, MARTA (1971), was an authentic Italian thriller and at least benefited from Boyd playing an insane killer. The director previously made a bizarre monster movie, SOUND OF HORROR (1964), which was about invisible dinosaurs.
Carla walks along a high cliff overlooking the sea, contemplating suicide, when artist Anton (Stephen Boyd) drives by in his Jeep. His appearance dissuades Carla from jumping, and the two of them begin an affair.
In and around their dates and lovemaking, Carla thinks about her wealthy ex-lover, Luis (Fernando Rey), who was stolen from her by her sometimes-lesbian lover, Lola (Sylva Koscina). The film's flashback structure makes for occasionally fun watching, as both Marisa and Sylva get to be seen in a multitude of 1970s fashions, lots of heavy eye makeup, and strange hairdos. Sometimes, their wardrobe changes drastically from one minute to the next.
The movie's Spanish-language title, HISTORIA DE UNA TRAICÎON (or, HISTORY OF A BETRAYAL), is more appropriate, as Carla is turned out in the cold by Luis and later discovers Anton has been working her for a scam. In the end, Carla and Lola turn to murder to get even with the men that hurt them, and settle down to the good life (care of Luis' vast estate).
This was the second of two movies featuring Mell and Boyd, and directed by J. A. Nieves Conde. The first film, MARTA (1971), was an authentic Italian thriller and at least benefited from Boyd playing an insane killer. The director previously made a bizarre monster movie, SOUND OF HORROR (1964), which was about invisible dinosaurs.
Little happening
Leofwine_draca24 January 2022
A giallo-esque mystery with a decent cast but a severely limited plot in which very little happens for the entire duration, except for some characters trying to trick and cheat other characters. Marisa Mell and Sylva Koscina get the brunt of the screen time as befitting their glamorous images, while Stephen Boyd, Fernando Rey and Massimo Serato are the men in their clutches. I found this a patience-tester of a film, with very little going on of note, just snippets of lesbianism and the usual nudity you find in Italian cinema.
A cool and sexy hidden gem
Red-Barracuda17 September 2012
The Great Swindle is something of a hidden cult item. It's criminally unavailable on DVD and seemingly can only be sourced currently on a scratchy and battered VHS transfer. The condition of the print renders the film a little incomprehensible in parts but it doesn't prevent it from being enjoyable. Its story revolves around several dishonest characters that appear to be playing dangerous games on each other. The film's undoubted trump card is its lead actress, the ridiculously gorgeous Marisa Mell (most famous for her memorable role in Mario Bava's Danger: Diabolik). She is accompanied by Sylvia Koscina (also recognisable from another Bava film Lisa and the Devil). In this film Mell seems to possibly be a very high class escort girl who ends up in the middle of a complicated set of relationships with several people including – oh yes – a lesbian affair with Koscina. Things basically get complex with characters playing off one and other.
This is certainly a very cool and chic thriller. It has beautiful women, shady guys and sun drenched locations. As is extremely typical in Euro flicks from the early 70's almost every character is at least little bit bad. So there is a fair bit of melodrama surrounding this rich and decadent jet set. It's not a film with a great deal of thrills; it's much more sexy and stylish. With Marisa Mell on board the erotica is very much of the high class kind as well. What adds to the overall feel is a very fun soundtrack from Carlo Savina consisting of various styles from lounge, Euro pop, female vocals of the 'la la la' variety and even some tense dramatic sounds towards the end.
This one is crying out for a proper DVD release. Any movie with Marisa Mell in a starring role is well worth seeing as a rule, as she is simply one of the very best cult Euro actresses. Not only that but this movie in general just needs to be available for more folks to appreciate as it's a very nice flick overall.
This is certainly a very cool and chic thriller. It has beautiful women, shady guys and sun drenched locations. As is extremely typical in Euro flicks from the early 70's almost every character is at least little bit bad. So there is a fair bit of melodrama surrounding this rich and decadent jet set. It's not a film with a great deal of thrills; it's much more sexy and stylish. With Marisa Mell on board the erotica is very much of the high class kind as well. What adds to the overall feel is a very fun soundtrack from Carlo Savina consisting of various styles from lounge, Euro pop, female vocals of the 'la la la' variety and even some tense dramatic sounds towards the end.
This one is crying out for a proper DVD release. Any movie with Marisa Mell in a starring role is well worth seeing as a rule, as she is simply one of the very best cult Euro actresses. Not only that but this movie in general just needs to be available for more folks to appreciate as it's a very nice flick overall.
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