The Devil with Seven Faces

"The Devil has Seven Faces" isn't a giallo, but admittedly it looks and sounds more like a giallo than most genuine gialli do. Now that was a weird sentence! Allow me to elaborate. The enticing title, the starring of George Hilton and Carroll Baker and the Stelvio Cipriani musical score have got written "GIALLO" all over it. Without even knowing what the plot is about, these elements are enough to convince all avid fans of Italian cult cinema that we're dealing with a bona fide giallo here. The plot, however, is that of a crime-thriller/mystery movie. There are no heavily breathing perverts with black gloves massacring scantily dressed fashion models here. Instead, "The Devil has Seven Faces" is an overly convoluted diamond heist thriller full of double-crossing and untrustworthy characters. Beautiful businesswoman Julie Harrison's life gets turned upside down when she suddenly receives threats, harassments and unwelcome visitors. It seems like her twin sister Mary stole a valuable diamond in London and vanished. Now the fellow jewel thieves that her sister double-crossed are mistaken Julie for Mary and terrorize her. She seeks help with a befriended lawyer Dave Barton and his hunky friend Tony Shane. Even though the men do everything to protect her, Julie's life is increasing danger. "The Devil has Seven Faces" is a fairly adequate Italian thriller, but like so often the case with these films, the screenplay tries to be overly clever and misleading, resulting in one too many convoluted plot twists. The film is also too talkative, especially during the first hour, and contains only a handful memorable moments of action, including a shoddy car chase and a tense confrontation inside a windmill. Speaking of windmills, for some reason the majority of the film (or at least all the exterior sequences) are shot in The Netherlands. I have no idea what the added value of that was, because it's weird to see all the road signs and newspaper clippings in Dutch. There are quite a number of shootouts and suggestive killings, but this definitely isn't a gory film. It's not even at all sleazy even though the cover image illustrates Carroll Baker in lingerie. Cipiriani's music is sensual and very lounge-like as usual.

If you are expecting a good giallo from the title (Il diavolo a sette facce), especially with George Hilton (The Case of the Scorpion's Tail), and Umberto Lenzi's favorite, Carroll Baker (So Sweet... So Perverse, Silent Horror, Paranoia, A Quiet Place to Kill), you will be disappointed.

There is no blood and gore as most of the killing take place with a gun. It is a straight-up crime thriller.

It also stars Golden Globe winner Stephen Boyd (Ben-Hur).

Lots chasing around and some torture as everyone is trying to find a million dollar diamond. Some real excitement towards the end in a windmill. Not a lot of thrillers use windmills. There is Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, as well as The Black Windmill. which also involves diamonds.

Enjoyable action flick.

Carroll Baker stars as a woman targeted by a group of international jewel thieves who mistake her for her twin sister. It would seem that her twin made off with a serious rock of some other families jewels. Two men help the desperate woman to run from the pursuing thieves but are they what they seem.

'Seven Faces' starts out with the feel of a 'Giallo' (even the name seems to indicate it) but you soon find out that it's a fairly standard crime thriller with the prerequisite twist. The production is pretty standard. It's not overly visually interesting and the script isn't much better. For fans of the genre only.

This is one of those "slick" Italian movies where the world is populated with easy-to-bed don't ever wed women, well-heeled "where is my next lay"? wheeler-dealer men who are all connected to each other trying to pull off the big "heist", a dialogue that is fleshed out with the serving of drinks and the lighting of cigarettes, cinematography that looks like it was captured from an assortment from the airport post-card stand and music that is meant for the tourists.

The acting is uninspired, the action scenes do keep your interest and the scene at the windmill is a hoot since all of the nefarious parties become conglomerated like a row of pins that get knocked over in succession. Then? Ta-taaaaa...the police arrive to tell the still non-sleeping members of the audience that they knew what was going on all the time. As usual.

What is an endless fascination to me is these movies are usually starring some actors who had at one time some momentum in their careers but then fell flat. Two of these such performers are Caroll Baker in The Carpetbaggers & Stephen Boyd as the baddie in The Ten Commandments who tried to slice Chuck Heston's chariot in the Coliseum. Stephen Boyd went on to bigger and better things but never made it big on a consistent basis but his career lasted much longer that Baker's, who had a kind of unbuxsome Mae West/Jean Harlowe kind of thing going on.

This film is for the videohounds only, since you never know what you are going to find.

F.Y.I Never select an old movie title with two recognizable actors in it on the basis of the title since it RARELY has a connection with the film but is usually a loose translation of the original title name that is stylized to entice the American audience!

Despite the title, which suggests that this will be a horror film, The Devil with Seven Faces is actually a straight crime thriller. The film features several of the Giallo trademarks; but gory murder isn't one of them, and instead the plot focuses on a missing diamond worth one million pounds. The style of the film is very much Italian, with all the characters being of the slick and cool variety and the plot taking a backseat to some odd decisions and unlikely happenings. It's safe to say that this isn't the usual Giallo and some fans may be disappointed; but in its own right, The Devil with Seven Faces is a fun little thriller with lots to enjoy. The plot focuses on Julie Harrison, a woman who finds herself being chased by criminals after it emerges that her twin sister Mary stole an expensive diamond and then double crossed her partner. She meets Tony; a suave racing car driver who saves her from the criminals and gives her a place to hide. But the plot thickens when a diamond dealer turns up and mistakes Julie for her sister...

The film features two of the major Giallo stars; George Hilton and Umberto Lenzi's favourite leading lady, Carroll Baker - who are reunited after 1968's The Sweet Body of Deborah. I'm not Carroll Baker's biggest fan, but she has a lot of experience playing the terrified woman and she does well with the central role. George Hilton also plays to his strengths as the charming, but strangely sinister leading man and the pair have a good on-screen chemistry. The plot flows well throughout and there's usually enough going on to ensure that the film never becomes boring. Director Osvaldo Civirani populates the film with enough car chases and shootouts to make sure that it remains entertaining even when the plot isn't doing much. It soon becomes obvious where it's going, but the ending is well handled and the twist is logical even if it isn't exactly difficult to guess. Overall, the fact that this film doesn't follow the Giallo formula may make it disappointing for people expecting a gory, murder-fuelled thrill ride - but in it's own right, this is a decent film and I recommend it.