BY TIM GREAVES
The Suspicious Death of a Minor
(o.t. Morte sospetta di una minorenne)
(1975) is a bit of a queer fish. It's widely regarded as the last – and
arguably the least – of director Sergio Martino's giallos, though in fact it
only barely qualifies as such, spanning as it does several genres. It's a
curious hybrid wherein the giallo element is fairly low-key, playing second
fiddle to poliziotteschi tropes with an ill-judged sprinkling of comedy.
Having
been rudely propositioned by a guy at a dance, a young girl is chased from the
place by an impeccably dressed, unspeaking assassin. He corners her in a room
at an insalubrious Milan hotel where he savagely slays her. The guy whose unwanted
attentions the girl drew prior to her murder is later revealed to be Inspector
Paolo Germi (Claudio Cassinelli), working undercover to expose a drugs and
underage prostitution racket in which she was embroiled. Every time Germi gets
close to the next link in the chain that person dies, each falling victim to
the silent assassin who's keeping one step ahead of him and eradicating anyone
whose evidence could lead to the identification of the top banana and bust the
trafficking operation wide open.
Writer-director
Sergio Martino was the man behind such excellent giallos as Torso, All the Colours of the Dark and the gloriously titled Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have
the Key, whilst co-scripter Ernesto Gastaldi (as well as collaborating with
Martino on the aforementioned trio) penned such renowned works as The Case of the Bloody Iris and Death Walks on High Heels. And yet,
although purely in terms of its subject matter there's a dark underbelly festering
away in The Suspicious Death of a Minor,
it never quite plumbs the anticipated depths of sleaziness that its title and
credentials might imply. As is standard for Italian films of this period the
female cast is typically gorgeous, notably Patrizia Castaldi (as the story's
first victim), Barbara Magnolfi and Jenny Tamburi. But none of them actually
look like minors, nudity is employed with uncommon restraint for this sort of
movie and, a couple of graphic attacks aside, the production is not nearly as
brutal as it might have been either. None of which is to suggest it's not worth
dipping in to; there's some great stuff going on here.
Against
all odds Claudio Cassinelli is eminently likeable as Germi, the cop who get
suspects to talk at gunpoint, drives like a maniac, recklessly fires off his
weapon in the midst of civilians, sleeps with prostitutes and hooks up with a
petty thief (Gianfranco Barra) as an accomplice. "It was self defence,
right?", Germi’s boss (Mel Ferrer) encouragingly prompts when he’s being
raked across the coals by a superior officer for his aberrant technique;
"No, sir, it was self offence,"
Germi replies bluntly. Indeed, his Dirty Harry-esque modus operandi may be unorthodox but it sure gets results. (As an
aside, Cassinelli was tragically killed in a helicopter crash in 1985 whilst
working on Martino's sci-fi actioner Hands
of Steel.)
Nicely
photographed by Giancarlo Ferrando, highlights include a chase which begins
with a shootout on a fairground Crazy Mouse ride and ends messily on an
underground rail track, and a tense confrontation atop the retractable roof of
a cinema. The first half of the film unfolds reasonably unpredictably – it's
some time before we learn that Germi is actually one of the good guys – but
once our man has established the identity of the first victim it's not too much
of a strain for the viewer to see where the plot is going and who the brains
behind the prostitution ring is likely to be. That said, there are still a few twists
en route to the slightly abrupt
finale, one of them particularly cruel and involving Barra and Tamburi. All
this is offset, as indicated earlier, by some mostly unwelcome humour. There's
a running gag in which Germi is constantly breaking his spectacles that isn’t
too intrusive. But the front door of his beat up jalopy keeps falling off too, adding
a slapstick dimension to the proceedings; during an extended car chase, which is
played purely for chuckles, his passenger leans out and with much amusement pulls
off the back door too, hurling at the pursuing vehicle.
With a terrific
score from Luciano Michelini – which sandwiches traditional 70s cop movie
sounds between between piano-driven melodies evocative of the Confessions films (no, really!) and
Goblin's superlative work on the Argento classics – The Suspicious Death of a Minor will never be cited as one of the
greats, but it's enjoyable enough and unlikely to leave anyone with an
appreciation for the golden period of Italian filmmaking feeling disappointed.
The Suspicious Death of a Minor
hits DVD and Blu-Ray as a dual format Arrow Video release bearing the on-screen
title Too Young to Die. A brand-new
2K restoration from the original camera negative, the transfer is faultless,
with sound options available in English mono and Italian mono (with English
subtitling). Supplements are sparse, at least by Arrow standards; there's a
feature commentary from author Troy Howarth, a generous 43-minute interview
with Martino (in Italian with English subtitling) and a trailer (again in
Italian with English subs). A collector's booklet and the usual Arrow reversible
sleeve are dropped in to round off the deal.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER (This is a Region 2/Pal format release)