It’s generally considered that Mario Bava invented the giallo and there were some other obvious influences at work - Hitchcock’s Psycho, Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom, the West German krimis. Bava’s Blood and Black Lace established the basic giallo template in 1964 but it didn’t have too many immediate successors. It wasn’t until 1968 that the giallo really started to take off, with movies such as Romolo Guerrieri’s The Sweet Body of Deborah. So Naked You Die (the Italian title was Nude... si muore) counts as an early example of a full-blown giallo.
Margheriti doesn’t get a huge amount of respect as a director. He worked in lots of different genres and if you like to view movies through the lens of auteur theory it’s not easy to see Margheriti as a full-blooded auteur. His movies don’t have that personal signature that the movies of Bava and Argento have. I doubt that Margheriti would have greatly cared. I suspect he was just trying to make entertaining movies.
I’ve had a good time with Margheriti’s movies over the years. They may not reach great cinematic heights but they’re always enjoyable.
Naked You Die has a classic giallo setup. It’s the beginning of term at a girls’ boarding school and some new teachers have arrived. When we see the schoolgirls lounging by the pool we get the message that this is a very expensive girls’ school and these are very rich girls.
Then one of the girls, Betty Ann, disappears. We know she was murdered because we saw the murder but nobody at the school knows what happened. She just vanished.
Lucille (Eleonora Brown) will find the body but then the body disappears. She has no proof that Betty Ann is dead. Nobody is going to believe her story. They’ll think she’s just an hysterical schoolgirl.
Lucille has fallen madly in love with one of the new teachers, Richard Barrett (Mark Damon). He instructs the girls in horse-riding. He’s terribly good looking which explains why Lucille (who has never before shown the lightest interest in horses) has suddenly developed a passion for riding. Much to the amusement of the other girls.
Jill (Sally Smith) likes to fantasise that she’s a crime writer or even a spy. Jill is not the slightest bit crazy. She’s just a normal healthy schoolgirl with an overactive imagination.
One thing that’s nice is that all the girls are likeable. They’re not bratty. They’re not mean girls. They squabble occasionally and there are a few jealousies concerning handsome male teachers but on the whole they’re nice normal girls.
Another murder follows. The police (in the person of Michael Rennie as Inspector Durand) are called in. Durand is confident that normal investigative procedures will solve the case but his confidence seems misplaced when yet another corpse turns up.
This being a giallo and the victims being young women we naturally suspect that these are sex murders but Lucille isn’t so sure.
There are quite a few suspects. Richard’s behaviour is at times difficult to explain. There’s the gardener, La Foret, who likes to watch the girls while they shower. There’s Professor André, whose domain is the “bughouse” where he keeps his collection of birds and insects. He’s wildly eccentric but apparently a nice old chap. But naturally in a giallo we can’t be sure. There’s gym teacher Di Brazzi who often seems to be wandering about in a mysterious fashion. And that’s not taking into account the remote possibility that the murderer might be a woman. One or two of the female staff members are a little odd.
All we really know about the killer is that he wears black gloves when he kills.
This movie doesn’t have the wildly extravagant murder scenes that you get in later giallos but several of the murders are very effectively staged, especially the one with the murderer wearing scuba gear and the bathtub murder.
There’s no blood. This killer is a strangler. There’s very little nudity.
There is a decent story which turns out to be a very giallo-esque plot. Interestingly enough Mario Bava and Tudor Gates had a hand in the screenplay. This was originally intended to be a Bava film. There’s some effective misdirection, a wide choice of suspects and some colourful characters.
The acting is very solid. The standout performance is Sally Smith as Jill. She’s amusing and adorable and great fun when she decides to play amateur detective.
Dark Sky’s DVD is uncut and offers a very good 16:9 enhanced transfer (the movie was shot in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio). The only extra is a trailer.
Margheriti was an honest journeyman director, he builds some decent suspense and he delivers a fine ending.
Naked You Die is not a top-tier giallo but it’s a well-crafted entertaining second-tier effort. It’s definitely recommended, and worth seeing if you’re interested in the evolution of the giallo genre.
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