Fünf Rätsel zum Tod

A story rooted in the pulsing heart of the seventies, but with a peculiar mood of an old way giallo. Here the famous riviera dei fiori is nothing less than glamour, with a gloomy plashing sea fit for all kinds of trafics. Sweet getaways under the sun long just to fall more in sleazy plots.

Two universes seem to live apart before rejoining in the middle of the film for a dramatic development: a corrupted upper class (Philippe Leroy and Eva Czemerys) wanting to "buy a life" and desperately seeking for thrill, and a poor but straight working class (Mino Reitano and Ewa Aulin) struggling for a peaceful life.

What about driving our hero in a deadly game where he should survive under amused peeps of the wealthy? A nasty henchman shows him in a kind of real life Cluedo small-sized weapons which shall threaten him as a modern gladiator during a whole day before he could deserve his prize. Regarding this point Italian and English titles seem as reversed, the original one meaning A life long as a day...

Traditional elements are properly present, like for example the suit for thriller pension, the shower scene and a cable car honoring Bava's Ragazza. This is a very good and quite underrated movie with unpredictable turns and a pleasant collection of these friendly faces acting in the giallo movement.