The Perfect Crime
(aka: INDAGINE SU UN DELITTO PERFETTO)
(1979)
review by Monkeyman

Perfect Crime wins the award for the craziest use of a pseudonym of any Italian film I've seen. What on earth were the producers smoking when they came up with the name Aaron Leviathan (and to be honest I'm also suspicious that the art director's real name isn't Robert Frogs as well!!)

Sir Ronald Selmer is the president of a large international company. We see his plane being tampered with by a shifty looking airport worker, and then it explodes in mid-air killing Selmer and everyone else aboard. The special effects on display for the explosion are truly awful-I could have achieved a better result with a Zippo lighter, a cherry bomb and an air fix model kit!!

This leaves the three vice presidents of the company to fight it out amongst themselves who is going to succeed Sir Ronald and gain control of the company, and this is were the fun begins.
The three of them conspire against each other, eventually stooping to all kinds of murder and mayhem. Joseph Cottens death is a stand out-we discover early on that he has a pacemaker, and one night when he is lying in bed a masked assailant enters the room with a large electrical magnet, and runs it over his chest in an attempt to disrupt the regular beat of the pacemaker. Joseph "Cottens" on quickly to what is happening (groan), and immediately begins to hack at his own chest with a knife in a vain attempt to remove the haywire pacemaker.

The second vice president, Sir Paul Revere is then killed in a motoring "accident", leaving the finger of suspicion pointing firmly at Sir Harold Boyd(Adolfo Celi).One of Paul's relatives, a police inspector, decides to investigate the case as a favour to Paul's mother.

The film is set in England, and every English cliché in the book appears on screen. Everyone owns antique classic cars, the rich characters all have stately homes with butlers,and at one stage Adolfi Celi goes fox hunting. When the detective comes up against a brick wall in his investigation, he comes up with the line "Oh well, things will look better after a nice cup of tea!!" .One suspects that the novels of Agatha Christie were a role model for the film, but it is none the worse for that, containing much in the way of double crosses and nasty murders.

A special mention should go out to Gloria Guida, the catalyst of the story who is involved with all three men, and is drop dead gorgeous to boot as well as being a conniving minx!!
Perfect Crime is far from perfect-the story is totally unbelievable for one thing, but when have we ever held that against an Italian giallo.

It is, however, great fun, and while the ending is somewhat signposted it is still an entertaining ride getting there in the first place.