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By Tonino
Valerii George
Hilton (Superintendant Luca Peretti), Salvo Randone (Policeman
Marò),
Marilù Tolo (Doctor Anna Borgese), William
Berger (Giorgio
Canavese), Patty
Sheppard (Paola Rossi, the school teacher), Manuel Zarzo,
credited as Manolo Zarzo (Policeman
Bozzi) , Alfredo Mayo
(Beniamino Moroni), Piero Lulli (Alessandro
Moroni),
Dana Ghia (Eleonora Moroni),
Helga
Liné (Mrs Paradisi), Tullio Valli (Oliviero Moroni), Dante
Maggio (Mattia Guardapelle), Dana Ghia, Monica Randall (Oliviero
Moroni's daughter),
Corrado Gaipa (Chef of the company of insurance), Daniela
Rachele
Barnes credited as Lara Wendel (The littel girl Stefania),
Francesco di Federico, Lola
Goas (Adele Rudigiani), Sergio Mendizabal, Luigi Antonio Guerra (A
witness), Enzo Fiermonte (Chief of the cranedriver),
Antonio Spaggatini, Irio Fantini, Sofia Dionisio
(Moroni's housemaid ),
Elisa Mainardi (Other Moroni's housemaid), Anna Maria
Chio, Guerrino Crivelli (The Barman), Andrea Sotti
(A witness), Irio Fantini,
Francesco Di Federico (Vincenzo Paradisi), Sergio Mendizábal, Annamaria
Chio (A witness), Antonio
Spaccatini, Giuseppe Marrocco/uncredited (A policeman),
Jean-Pierre Clarain/uncredited (A friend of the family Moroni), Pietro
Ceccarelli/uncredited (Giorgio
Canavese''s bordyguard
), Remo de Angelis/uncredited (Mario Ansuini) ,
Sergio Testori/uncredited (One of the kidnappers).
Producers:
B.R.C.
PRODUZIONE FILM S.r.l.
KRAMOT CINEMATOGRAFICA S.r.l. TECICA. Madrid Distribution in Spain by: EXCLUSIVAS SANCHEZ RAMADE S.A. 35 milimeters - Colour - Scope Original duration : 94 minutes Premiere in Italy: 1972/03/20 |
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| 1.- The story | ||||
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The little girl Stefania Moroni (Lara Wendel) has been kidnapped and held to ransom. Her father Alessandro Moroni (Piero Lulli) has accepted to pay a ransom but he has disappeared. And over a year later, the mystery remains in spite of the policy investigation. The family decides to work with an insurance investigator (Corrado Gaipa) but quickly he is decapitated by a bulldozer. It seems to have been a wrong manoeuvre. His corpse is found in a local quarry and the driver has run away. The superintendent Luca Peretti (George Hilton) is put in charge of the case. He is helped by the “Maresciallo” Marò (Salvo Randone) and the “brigadiere” Bozzi (Manolo Zarzo). Luca Perreti has a girl friend the doctor Anna Borghese (Marilù Tolo) but no more she can tolerate the live he has and she wants to leave him. The superintendent sees the chief (Enzo Fiermonte) but he knows nothing. He sees also the widower of the insurance investigator, (Helga Liné), and the ex-school teacher of the little Stefania (Patty Shepard). She will be assassinated with an electric fret saw the corpses of Stefania and her father are discovered in a sort of blockhaus in an unpopulated area, where they have sequestered and they died because of hunger. Peretti carries on his inquest with a king of homeless who lives near the blochaus and an old woman who helps him sometimes He sees also the members of Moroni family: Eleonora Moroni (Dana Ghia) Monica Moroni (Monica Randall), Oliviero Moroni (Tullio Valli), the brother of the dead Giorgio Canavese (William Berger), a brother in law, and Benianimo Moroni (Alfredo Mayo), another brother of the dead, a strange artist who has a penchant for pre-pubescent models and who says he loved very much his niece. Of course he seems the most suspected. |
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| After two other murders, Luca Peretti finally discovers the real guilty person thanks a drawing which has been made by the little Stefania. | ||||
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| 2.- Remarks 2.1.- The director Tonino Valerii |
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In 1971 Valerii decided to make with « My dear killer », for the first and last time, the horror and detective specific Italian kind of films named “Giallo”. We can note than when the premiere of the film, Italy was bereaved by the tragic sequestration of a child, and the horrible and real news didn’t help to make the film in spite of the fact, of course, the making of « My dear killer » had been realized without connection with this tragedy and almost one year before. Later Tonino Valerii will make again « western » films as in particular the very famous « Il mio nome è Nessuno/ Mon nom est personne/ My name is nobody/ Mi nombre es ninguno » (1973) with Terence Hill and Peter Fonda. He will direct too some war films and TV films. His last film will be realized in 1997, that is about fifteen titles in thirty years of career. |
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| 2.2.- The "giallo" "Giallo"
means yellow in Italian. It 1929 "Giallo became the synonym in Italy
of investigation novel when the publishing Italian
establishment Mondadori, diffused cheap investigation novels, often
translated from North - American or English books, in a specific collection with
yellow coverings. The success of this collection will be more important
after the Second World War and until the sixties.
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From the novels to the films |
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In
the sixties some Italian directors adapte titles of the Editions
Mondadori. The word "Giallo" is used to speak about a new Italian
cinema which mixes police inquests, sequences of terror and
horror, sex and blood, a very specific music, the sequence of the
murder with a black glove, a very cutting edge weapon and again a
lot of hemoglobine.
Directors as Mario Bava, Umberto Lenzi, Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento are the specialits with in particular "La Ragazza che sapeva troppo" (Mario Bava) - 1963, and "L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo" (Dario Argento)- 1970. Tonino Valerii with " My dear Killer " in 1972 joins them. But
we don't finish this "aside" about the "giallo" whithout saying that in
1925 the Frenchy Albert Pigasse founded in Paris a publishing
house named "La librairie des Champs Élysées". Two
years he created a collection of detective novels "Le masque" .
Its first numbers ha a green front cover. This front cover became
yellow in 1928...So the Mondadori giallo was o wasn't the first yellow
detective novel ?
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2.3.- The actors in "My dear Killer" |
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In "My dear Killer" (1972) by Tonino Valerii, we think he is very good in an incomunicative but tenacious and loyal police officier. In the casting, because of the coproduction, we have a lot of Spanish actors. Except for Jorge Hilton unfortunately the other and very numeros roles aren't very meatty. And in particular the very famous Italian theatre actor Salvo Randone, who plays one of the assistants of Peretti, can't show his great talent. Tge female roles are in the same level, as for exemple, this of Marilù Tolo (The doctor, girlfriend of the superintendant Peretti) who seems to be here to only show herself undressed... Alfredo Mayo, of course, is perfect as the trouble and disquieting uncle. And we have no doubt about his culpability when we see him gazing at a little girl in his painter studio. Moreover the actor will play various roles of the same tendance in the seventies. |
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| 2.4.- What we think about "My dear killer" |
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We aren't the specialists of the "gialli"
which are for us too violent and perverse. So we let our readers and
websurfers discover other web sides, more documented and verbose
sites about that kind of cinema.
But "My dear killer" is for us a "giallo" which remains moderated , so it can be seen by sensitive spectators as us! . The suspense remains until the end even if the weapons are really out of propertion but original. And once in a while does not harm, the police officer is an attractive officer, and it is a change if we compare him the Maigrets or worse the Derricks we contantly see in the conventionnal television serials ! The title "My dear Killer" direct translation of the original Italian title "Mio caro assasino" is, maybe, better than the French one "Folie meurtrière" (Deadly folly) while the Spaniards have preferred to emphazise the case of the little girl and the murders :"Sumario sangriento de la pequeña Stefania". |
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| Unfortunately we haven't seen "My dear killer" in its original Italian version or in Spanish, but only in its DVD version,
recently published in the collection
"Giallo -
Neo publishing". We have found the French dubbling was execrable
- cartoon lurid voices for the actresses. We have preferred the
English dubbing! In spite of this, the DVD proposes a very interesting interview with Roberto Leoni, who was the direction assistant for "My dear killer". |
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| File written : 2008-09-20 - Last correction : 2008-09-20 | ||||
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