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A lavishly appointed Gothic melodrama in which the wife of a twisted scientist and her lover, a corrupt doctor, conspire to murder the husband and collect his supposed large fortune. The plot is an old one, almost in the Edgar Wallace mode. But the visually detailed, sumptuous direction of Riccardo Freda, and the slowly boiling presence of Barbara Steele, who really lets loose in the final scenes, make this one of the more memorable Italian horror films of the early 1960s. The fact that there was a lot of competition, from the likes of Mario Bava (BLACK SUNDAY) and Antonio Margheriti (CASTLE OF BLOOD), both also featuring Steele, make it all the more impressive.

Freda really focuses and plays up on his favorite theme of the deceptive, seductive surfaces of beauty, which hide a corrupt interior. The performances of Elio Jotta and Steele are over-the-top and totally hypnotic. The film plays as both grand opera and grand guignol, a powerful, layered mystery-melodrama which is all the more powerful because the evil proceeds from human weakness rather than the supernatural. The events are displayed as sinister, gorgeous horror tableau which overwhelm the familiar plot elements. Freda conducts the hell out of it. The charming, Romantic music score is used as ironic commentary. This was to be director Freda's last great film and he was operating at his peak as visual artist.

This is an episodic erotic film mostly directed by Producer Erwin C. Dietrich. Jess Franco may have directed some brief footage, such as one scene which involves a sadistic cult and has some similarities to scenes in Franco's own EXORCISM (1974). A few of the episodes are the kind of crude, silly comedy familiar from 1960s and 70s German sex films. After a while it just gets rather tiresome. The film is very lightweight and lacks Franco's overall thematic vision and singular style.

The episodes are mostly played for comedy but they're not very amusing and not very erotic. This was shot in 1976-1977, a very busy year for Jess Franco in which he made several of his better films (JACK THE RIPPER, LOVE LETTERS OF A PORTUGUESE NUN, DORIANA GRAY). It appears he just helped out producer Dietrich with a few scenes in this one. If you're a hardcore Jess Franco completest you might want to check it out, but I can't recommend it.

Eva (Eva Henger) arrives in Las Vegas to work as an exotic dancer (right, stripper!) in a cavernous club. Most of the film is taken up with her erotic (hardcore) encounters with various customers, employees and men hanging out at the club. There are a few artful shots, reminding us that the director was once a superb, sought after cinematographer on many 1970s Italian genre films (WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE?, THE COUNSELOR, THE ANTICHRIST). There's also a music score which tries to sound funky, and an Italian dialogue track. In some versions there is overdubbed English language dialogue, mostly narration about Eva delivered by an actress in heavily accented English. Ms. Henger cuts an imposing figure but doesn't have the acting presence of such famous D'Amato performers as Valentine Demy or Laura Gemser.

This looks a bit more upscale and glossy than a lot of hardcore porn but there are no other generic elements, like sci-fi, horror or mystery elements which might make it more intriguing. One wonders if the director, who made over 20 films in the last year of his life, was tiring of the "erotic" genre. He certainly wasn't having any banking problems. I've seen a lot worse than this hardcore time killer. But anyone knowing of his past career as an ace DoP and his impressive directorial work on films like DEATH SMILES ON A MURDERER (1973) will encounter, at this late juncture in his life, a busy commercial artist hard at work staging by-the-numbers hardcore action.

There is also an 82 minute softcore version of this title listed here. This review is based on the 90m hardcore version.l

Robert Monell-2018