Secret of the Sphinx

Egypt-based old-school giallo with a jerk hero and many a twist, all delivered with Duccio Tessari usual style. That's the short version.

Long version involves a case of missing gold in Cairo, and a jerk hero from an insurance company trying to track it down by hooking up with the estranged wife of the prime suspect as she comes to Cairo as part of an archaeological dig by pretending to be her husband so they can locate the gold. This involves drugging the actual husband as the jerk hero doesn't want to harm anybody, so imagine his surprise when then wife then pulls out a gun and shoots the guy several times just to make sure! This causes all sorts of problems when they have to hide the body and the local hired hands lose the crate the body was in while sailing down the Nile! Things go from bad to worse when a body is fished out the river…and it's one of the archaeologists, not the husband's body. Someone's blah blah blah killings etc.

Although overlong and dry for a giallo, there are plenty of twists and turns that almost make sense if you don't think about them too much, especially the relationships between people. More action around the Sphinx would have been good though, although Duccio does fit it in near the start. It's okay. It was great. I hated it. I loved it. I had it on in the background while making Polenta. I was glued to the screen the entire time. It bored, excited, massaged, worried, harassed, frightened, repulsed, straddled, neglected and overfed me. The price of admission was free, therefore I can spout the old cliché that the price of admission was worth the price of admission.