So Sweet, So Dead (1972)

So Sweet, So Dead is a 1972 giallo directed and co-written by Roberto Bianchi Montero. The original Italian title was Rivelazioni di un maniaco sessuale al capo della squadra mobile which translates as Revelations from a sex maniac to the head of the flying squad. It was also released as The Slasher is the Sex Maniac and there was a U.S. version with hardcore inserts entitled Penetration.

It begins with a very dead naked girl. Her throat has been slashed. The killer has left a clue. It’s a photograph of the dead woman having sex with her lover but the lover’s face has been obliterated from the photograph. So it’s a clue that can lead nowhere, and of course there is no reason to assume that the lover was the killer.

Inspector Capuana (Farley Granger) knows how he should proceed. He should start by questioning the woman’s husband, their friends, her parents. And of these people might provide a lead. But there’s a problem. The dead woman was married to a general. Their friends and her parents are all very important very powerful people. They are therefore above suspicion. It would be unthinkable to subject such people to the inconvenience and indignity of being questioned by the police. And there must not be a scandal.

Inspector Capuana is a good cop. He wants to find the murderer. He is not a fool however. He knows that if he doesn’t proceed with the most extreme caution he will simply have the case taken away from him and he will have his career destroyed. He intends to proceed very cautiously indeed.

Lots of murders follow. The victims are all unfaithful wives and they all belong to the rich powerful elite. This is a world in which all the wives have lovers and all the husbands have mistresses and nobody minds as long as it’s done discreetly and scandal is avoided.

In every case photographs are left behind, all showing the victims having sex with their lovers. Apart from that the killer leaves no clues.

The killer might see himself as a moral avenger but there’s an obvious hint of voyeurism as well. In fact voyeurism figures quite prominently throughout the movie, in various intriguing ways.

There is one witness but she saw the murder from a distance, he was masked and she is unlikely to be able to provide much useful evidence. She is also not inclined to come forward.

The audience knows no more about the killer’s identity than Inspector Capuana.

Capuana is a straight down the line kind of guy. He likes being a cop. He’s good at his job. He’s happily married. He’s neither rich nor powerful and has no desire to have a mistress and his wife appears to have no desire to have a lover.

In a giallo we expect a black-gloved killer but in this movie we get a killer with black gloves, a black overcoat, a black hat and a black mask.

There are giallo fans who are connoisseurs of spectacular murder set-pieces. Those fans may be disappointed by this movie. There are no spectacular visual set-pieces. The murders are straightforward and all follow the exact same pattern. They’re brutal enough but the level of gore is quite low.

There are however plenty of very beautiful women taking their clothes off. There are numerous sex scenes but they’re not overly explicit. This is a very sleazy movie, even in its original version, but it’s well-executed sleaze.

Roberto Bianchi Montero is a technically competent director but he’s no great visual stylist. He had a long career as a director and worked in the usual assortment of popular genres. He made spaghetti westerns, he made at least one peplum and he made quite a few sex comedies. The impression one gets from his filmography, and from this particular movie, is that he was more comfortable with erotic rather than violent subject matter. He does an uneven job here.

Interestingly, given that this movie is set among the decadent rich, there is (thankfully) no political messaging.

There’s moral corruption in this movie but it’s not limited to the rich and the male and female characters are equally morally compromised. I’d describe this as a movie that is cynical about people rather than cynical about women. The actresses don’t do much more than get undressed and get murdered but to be fair the only character with any depth is Inspector Capuana. He’s the real focus of the movie. Farley Granger does a good job although sadly his voice is dubbed by another actor on the English-language version.

It’s the ending that elevates this movie from a routine giallo to a must-see giallo. It packs a real punch. It makes use of a plot device that I generally dislike but in this case it’s used in a genuinely interesting way with some clever and nasty twists. So Sweet, So Dead is highly recommended.

The Code Red Blu-Ray offers a lovely transfer with no extras. The English dubbed version is the only language option.