In the Eye of the Hurricane (1971)

In the Eye of the Hurricane is a 1971 giallo but it isn’t. It’s a proto-giallo which was a totally different genre. I’ll have more to say about that later.

This was a Spanish-Italian co-production with a Spanish director, José María Forqué. It was also released with the title The Fox with a Velvet Tail.

Ruth (Analía Gadé) has been cheating on her husband Michel (Tony Kendall). Now she wants to divorce him and shack up with her new lover, Paul (Jean Sorel). Michel is devastated. Paul is annoyed that Michel is taking it so badly - all he’s done is to steal another man’s wife. A gentleman would not make such a fuss over such a trivial matter.

Ruth and Paul set up house in Ruth’s villa. Paul’s slightly shady slightly mysterious friend Roland (Maurizio Bonuglia) keeps hanging around.

Ruth and Paul are very happy, apart from those silly accidents. But they were just accidents. It would be absurd to think that they attempts at murder. Ruth is however rather shaken up.

Then the major plot twists start to kick in. And there are some lovely plot twists in this movie.

An essential ingredient of a proto-giallo is an atmosphere of decadence and that’s present here. No-one is innocent in this movie. Ruth, the ostensible heroine, is after all cheating on her husband. This is a world of casual affairs and emotional betrayals. The pursuit of pleasure is everything. This is also a world of wealth and luxury.

I always like Jean Sorel in movies such as this. He had a low-key charm and a high likeability factor but he was always able to suggest that there just might be something beneath the surface of the characters he played. There’s a certain ambiguity. The charm might turn out to be all on the surface. His performance here is typical. Paul might turn out to be the villain, or the hero or the victim. All those possibilities seem quite plausible.

You absolutely have to watch the Italian-language version with English subtitles. The actress dubbing Analía Gadé on the English version has an atrocious shrieking voice which is entirely wrong for the character and which damages the movie severely. When you watch the Italian-language version you realise that Analía Gadé’s performance is actually rather good.

There’s plenty of sexual tension and also some potential romantic mysteries. Such as Danielle (Rosanna Yanni). Whose girlfriend is she? There’s some nudity and sex but it’s fairly mild.

I liked the swan. I’m not sure what his significance was but he adds a nice touch of visual oddness. I should also add that the swan survives the movie unscathed.

Now we get to the important matter. The Italian proto-giallos (or proto-gialli if you prefer) really did form a genre of their own, with very little in common with the full-blown giallo as it emerged in the 70s. Both genres owed quite a bit to Hitchcock but while the full-blown giallo owed a debt to the Hitchcock of Psycho the proto-giallo owed a lot more to the Hitchcock of Dial M for Murder. The proto-giallos were erotic suspense thrillers with none of the blood and gore we usually associate with the giallo, and none of the extravagant brutal murder scenes. They often include just a single murder. It’s the suspense, the erotic unease and the decadence that matter, not the violence. I personally much prefer the proto-giallo genre.

This is a gorgeous-looking film. It’s clear that a lot of thought and effort was put into the visuals. The acting performances by the four main characters are all excellent.

If you go into this movie expecting a giallo you’ll be disappointed, but if you have an appreciation for the particular charms of the proto-giallo genre you’ll find a great deal to enjoy in this movie. I enjoyed it immensely. Highly recommended.

I saw this movie on DVD (in which form it looks fine) but it’s now on Blu-Ray, as The Fox with a Velvet Tail, from Mondo Macabro. 88 Films have released in on Blu-Ray as well.

I’ve reviewed lots of these proto-giallos - Lucio Fulci’s One on Top of the Other (1969) and A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971), Romolo Guerrieri’s The Sweet Body of Deborah (1968), Umberto Lenzi’s So Sweet, So Perverse (1969), Orgasmo (1969) and A Quiet Place To Kill (1970) and Tinto Brass’s Deadly Sweet (1967).