Review of The Flower with the Deadly Sting

Being a latter-day entry in Carroll Baker's Italian giallo tenure, coupled with its essential lack of reputation (probably ascribed to the involvement of an obscure director – one of only three he helmed), I was surprised to learn that the title under review was held in higher esteem by the "Cult Filmz" website than the American star's renowned collaborations with Umberto Lenzi; in hindsight, I agree with this estimation, since I had always found that series of movies average at best (though, in all fairness, I still have one more to check out i.e. SO SWEET…SO PERVERSE [1969] and which I will do presently). Incidentally, despite her top billing, Baker is not the protagonist of the film – in fact, she is just one among a bevy of fetching females with whom leading man Gianni Garko interacts (in more ways than one) throughout. This suggests a reasonably convoluted plot line and, in fact, the revelation offered here is among the wildest (as the whole resolves itself with a bit of lesbian underwater sex!) I have seen within this genre…though I felt the added ironic twist (which sees the culprits not getting away with it after all) unwarranted and a miscalculation! For the record, two other unexpected elements here are the sheer fact that a surgeon would allow himself such an impossibly intricate love life, which would surely prevent him from functioning properly within his chosen – and ultra-delicate – profession, and also that the (hardly handsome) cop on the trail of the assassin would fall for one of the suspects, the not-so-young-anymore Baker (whose drop in stature in this case eventually numbers her among the murder victims themselves)! While the film maintains a frustratingly unhurried pace – albeit offset by a good Marcello Giombini score – along the way, like I said earlier, the premise is woolly enough to keep one engrossed trying to unravel it!; by the way, the subject of the Argento-like title is the weapon that unwittingly brings about the original killing (which party's face is cleverly concealed until the climax).