A doppia faccia

I fell in love with this movie from its first frame. Or, at any rate, the first BOOM-BANG-CRASH-WALLOP of its fabulously over-the-top piano soundtrack - as if Liberace were stationed just off camera, with blazing gold candelabra and rhinestone-studded Steinway grand. Its visuals are, if possible, lusher than its score. Crystal vases weep rose petals over the photo of a murdered woman. Venetian glass mirrors reflect the elegantly chiselled face of Klaus Kinski - glowering at us seductively over a polka-dotted silk cravat.

If you are used to Kinski hamming it up in a Herzog epic, his role here is a revelation. As a London millionaire who may or may not have murdered his lesbian wife, he is so subtle and ambiguous, so - dare I say it? - restrained that he keeps us guessing right up until the last few seconds. Seeing her 'come back to life' in a porno film (shot after her death) Kinski's face takes on a haunted look that outdoes all his raving, eye-rolling and tooth-gnashing in more famous roles.

Proof, if proof were needed, that director Riccardo Freda was not just a great unsung visual stylist, but a maestro of mood and suspense. Imagine a Chabrol or Hitchcock with the eye of a Renaissance painter, and you come close to the splendours of this film. So exquisite in its visual detail that its minor flaws - i.e. blatantly fake model car wrecks; continuity howlers such as Kinski walking bareheaded through Soho, then sitting in a nightclub with his hat on - simply evaporate before our eyes.

Oh, and I even like the tacky Italian pop ballad that keeps recurring as a 'clue' - to oddly chilling effect. So perhaps I'm just a sucker for this type of film.

David Melville