The Italian Giallo is my absolute favorite sub-genre in the whole wide world of cult/horror cinema, and "The Sweet Body of Deborah" is one of the last titles I had yet to see. With its year of release being 1968, this can still be considered as a very early giallo. Even though the almighty Mario Bava had already unleashed two of the greatest classics that formed the genre, namely "The girl who knew too much" and "Blood and black Lace", the glorious heyday of the giallo would only start in 1970 and last until approximately 1974. Based on all the gialli I've seen, I pretty much conclude there are two main plots. Either a giallo handles about a masked psycho-killer who savagely butchers people – preferably pretty young models – with sharp objects, or it handles about a convoluted murder conspiracy complete with sexual intrigues, betrayal and triangular relationships. The first category obviously contains the goriest and most wickedly entertaining films, while the second category often has the most intelligent screenplays and unique stylish trademarks. "The Sweet Body of Deborah" belongs in the convoluted conspiracy category, but sadly I have to admit that I expected a whole lot more from this film. The cast is great, but the script is rather dull and routine and the pacing is intolerably slow. The story starts out good enough, but gradually gets less and less compelling and by the time the few ingenious and unpredictable twists near the end approach, I practically didn't care no more. Deborah and Marcel are two joyous newlyweds who visit Geneva together. Via Philip, an old acquaintance, they find out that Marcel's beautiful former fiancée Susan committed suicide. Philip behaves very aggressively and claims that her death was Marcel's fault. Soon after, when they are in the mansion where Marcel and Susan lived together, Deborah begins to receive menacing phone calls. While Marcel gets sucked into his own private investigation, Susan takes more tranquilizers than is good for her and gets friendly with the flamboyant painter next door. What follows are a series of far-fetched and unbelievable plot twists, but they are typical for prolific writer Ernesto Gastaldi and typical for the giallo overall. Director Romolo Guerrieri, on the other hand, inserts very few personal trademarks or stylish aspects and I mainly blame him for "The Sweet Body of Deborah" being boring to look at. The cast is excellent with stellar names like Jean Sorel, Carroll Baker, Luigi Pistilli and Georges Hilton. For them alone, and obviously for the luscious curves of Baker and Ida Galli (in flashbacks), the film is worth checking out but it certainly isn't a highlight of the genre.
Review of The Sweet Body of Deborah
