User Reviews

Salvare la faccia (Saving Face) is a giallo directed by Rossano Brazzi, who was once the actor who played Emile De Becque in South Pacific. His career started all the way back in the late 30s and saw him work back and forth between America and Italy. He was also in Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks, Omen III: The Final Conflict and there's even a moment where his adoring female fans tear his shirt off in Mondo Cane. He only directed two other movies - using the name Edward Ross - The Christmas That Almost Wasn't and Criminal Affair, which he also starred in opposite Ann-Margaret and she tries everything to get in bed with him. It's good work if you can get it, even if you need to direct and write it yourself.

He was also one of the writers for this movie, alongside Piero Regnoli (Voices from Beyond, Burial Ground), Diana Crispo and Renato Polselli.

Brazzi plays a well-respected and quite wealthy manufacturer named Marco Brignoli (Rossano Brazzi). He's having issues keeping his daughter Licia (Adrienne Larussa, who was the star of Fulci's Beatrice Cenci) from acting up. Like how when he gives a major speech, she and a photographer named Mario (Nino Castelnuovo) sneak off to a house of ill repute where he takes some scandalous photos of her to blackmail her father. The cops then come in on a tip he called in, just as he guides her into the flashes of the paparazzi.

Completely upset about the scandalous activities of his unruly little daughter, father Brignoli sees only one way to clean up the publicly scratched appearance of his family to some extent: Licia must be publicly portrayed as mentally ill and for treatment of her "alleged" ailment be forcibly committed to a closed mental hospital. No sooner said than done, and only a few days later, the horrified nest defiler finds herself against her will in the closed ward of a psychiatric clinic, where she is then immediately given her currently registered place of residence for a longer period of time.

There's only one way to do what the Italian title states. Licia must be seen as mentally ill and sent to a mental asylum. We see bursts of fast cuts, of her twirling around, the press conference, a car she was given and finally her in white trapped inside the asylum. Larussa is incredible in the role, at once a little girl and at others a calculating mad woman transformed - maybe, maybe not - by her time unjustly locked away.

A side note: Larussa was on Days of Our Lives for three years as well as the Bowie movie The Man Who Fell to Earth. And in the mid 80s, she was quickly both married and had an annulment from Steven Seagal when she found out that he was still married to his first wife.

Her character decides to find and unleash all the scandals of her family, like her father's affair with Laura (Idelma Carlo), the wife of a politician (Nestor Garay) in the pocket of the industrialist. Or trying to steal Francesco (Alberto de Mendoza) away from her sister Giovanna (Paola Pitagora). She also uses Mario as part of her schemes, trailing a gun on him and informing him that because she's insane, she can kill him at any time and get away with it. They use the Monsignor (Marcello Bonini Olas) that her father pays kickbacks to as the next part of the scheme. As the entire family prepares to watch a home movie of Marco leading his workers on a pilgrimage to Lordes, they instead watch him make love to Laura.

In order to keep everything quiet, Marco must agree to let Mario marry his daughter. But Licia is ahead of him as well, setting up his death to look like her father did it, seducing her brother in law - which sends her sister to her doom but not before screaming, "What's your game? Don't you realize you're trying to destroy people who're already dead? They're all dead, Licia, only they don't know it." - and even learning about all of her dad's biggest deals.

The family all pays for the way they treated Licia, as they have taken someone they only claimed was mentally ill and made her into the kind of black widow that populates the giallo, a woman driven by revenge and willing to do absolutely anything and destroy anyone.

So, when I say giallo, I don't mean that this has black-gloved hands holding a straight razor. But the way it's shot, the quick edits, every woman in long hair and mini-skirts, well, it's definitely worth your time. I'm shocked that no one has taken this movie, cleaned it up and gotten a new cult intrigued by it. Larussa is also hypnotically captivating in it, owning every frame despite her young age and relative acting experience. It's a shame she didn't make more films in the genre (or more films at all, although she did a lot of TV work).

I'd be pleasantly surprised if this ends up on a future Vinegar Syndrome Forgotten Gialli set.