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Reviews115
manchester_england2004's rating
Last year, I was thinking of purchasing a Blu-Ray copy of this film via a well-known auction site. For some reason, my instincts said not to - and I always follow my instincts. As luck would have it, I managed to see the film through another means.
The plot, such as it is, starts off simple. A newlywed couple return to the husband's home in Geneva. Soon after, the husband hears that his ex-girlfriend has died and is accused of murder. Later, the wife receives a phone call in which the mysterious caller tells her she will die to pay for her husband's apparent crime.
The plot becomes a lot more convoluted as is customary with gialli. The twists are admittedly good. I saw some of them coming, but not all. Unfortunately, however, there is no dramatic unveiling of these twists like you see in Lenzi's films or Argento's films. Expect no flashbacks to clues to the mystery or anything like that. The twists are just unveiled in a "here you are" fashion.
The central problem with this film is that, while it looks like a classic old-fashioned giallo of the Umberto Lenzi kind, it is incredibly slow and boring. Lenzi's gialli were generally slow, but he generally kept you engaged with bits of sleaze, character conflict, sudden turns in the plot or just a plain good mystery.
The director of this film doesn't follow the Lenzi approach. Instead, he produces what is for at least the first hour a boring melodrama with endless scenes of the couple kissing, rolling about on the lawn, driving around places in their car, sitting in bars doing not very much. Sound boring? It is. Even the sex scenes are boring.
I look upon Carroll Baker as a good contender for the title of "Queen of Gialli", even though I believe Edwige Fenech and Dagmar Lassander to have starred in better entries in the genre. Unfortunately, she is given little to do here except look glamorous and flash her breasts in seemingly every alternate scene. She was very beautiful and is a delight to look at. But this film totally wastes her talent. In the far superior, KNIFE OF ICE, a Lenzi-directed Giallo, she is given an opportunity to show what we can do acting-wise - and it's great. Again, this is because Lenzi knows how to make a film.
Jean Sorel walks through the film with the same expression on his face in every scene. I don't blame him. His character is boring too - nothing like the part he played in IN THE EYES OF THE HURRICANE (aka LUSTY LOVERS), a far better film.
The only positives I can say about THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH are that it is technically well-made, and the last 25 minutes or so make for reasonably good viewing.
If you want a good old-fashioned giallo of the non-gloved killer variety then I recommend KNIFE OF ICE, which Baker also stars in. Or maybe even THE FOURTH VICTIM, again starring Baker, opposite great British actor Michael Craig.
If you want one with both Baker and Sorel in it, watch A QUIET PLACE TO KILL (aka PARANOIA).
There are lots of other good "gloveless" gialli such as THE FORBIDDEN PHOTOS OF A LADY ABOVE SUSPICION, NO ONE HEARD THE SCREAM, CROSS CURRENT, HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON, TOP SENSATION, THE PSYCHIC (aka SEVEN NOTES IN BLACK, MURDER TO THE TUNE OF SEVEN BLACK NOTES) and THE STUDENT CONNECTION, to name just a few. They are all better than THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH, even though they are all quite slow-paced.
The bottom line - THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH is a boring entry into the giallo genre. It should have been directed by Umberto Lenzi. He would have breathed some life into it, instead of us being left with the dead corpse of a film we got.
The plot, such as it is, starts off simple. A newlywed couple return to the husband's home in Geneva. Soon after, the husband hears that his ex-girlfriend has died and is accused of murder. Later, the wife receives a phone call in which the mysterious caller tells her she will die to pay for her husband's apparent crime.
The plot becomes a lot more convoluted as is customary with gialli. The twists are admittedly good. I saw some of them coming, but not all. Unfortunately, however, there is no dramatic unveiling of these twists like you see in Lenzi's films or Argento's films. Expect no flashbacks to clues to the mystery or anything like that. The twists are just unveiled in a "here you are" fashion.
The central problem with this film is that, while it looks like a classic old-fashioned giallo of the Umberto Lenzi kind, it is incredibly slow and boring. Lenzi's gialli were generally slow, but he generally kept you engaged with bits of sleaze, character conflict, sudden turns in the plot or just a plain good mystery.
The director of this film doesn't follow the Lenzi approach. Instead, he produces what is for at least the first hour a boring melodrama with endless scenes of the couple kissing, rolling about on the lawn, driving around places in their car, sitting in bars doing not very much. Sound boring? It is. Even the sex scenes are boring.
I look upon Carroll Baker as a good contender for the title of "Queen of Gialli", even though I believe Edwige Fenech and Dagmar Lassander to have starred in better entries in the genre. Unfortunately, she is given little to do here except look glamorous and flash her breasts in seemingly every alternate scene. She was very beautiful and is a delight to look at. But this film totally wastes her talent. In the far superior, KNIFE OF ICE, a Lenzi-directed Giallo, she is given an opportunity to show what we can do acting-wise - and it's great. Again, this is because Lenzi knows how to make a film.
Jean Sorel walks through the film with the same expression on his face in every scene. I don't blame him. His character is boring too - nothing like the part he played in IN THE EYES OF THE HURRICANE (aka LUSTY LOVERS), a far better film.
The only positives I can say about THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH are that it is technically well-made, and the last 25 minutes or so make for reasonably good viewing.
If you want a good old-fashioned giallo of the non-gloved killer variety then I recommend KNIFE OF ICE, which Baker also stars in. Or maybe even THE FOURTH VICTIM, again starring Baker, opposite great British actor Michael Craig.
If you want one with both Baker and Sorel in it, watch A QUIET PLACE TO KILL (aka PARANOIA).
There are lots of other good "gloveless" gialli such as THE FORBIDDEN PHOTOS OF A LADY ABOVE SUSPICION, NO ONE HEARD THE SCREAM, CROSS CURRENT, HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON, TOP SENSATION, THE PSYCHIC (aka SEVEN NOTES IN BLACK, MURDER TO THE TUNE OF SEVEN BLACK NOTES) and THE STUDENT CONNECTION, to name just a few. They are all better than THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH, even though they are all quite slow-paced.
The bottom line - THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH is a boring entry into the giallo genre. It should have been directed by Umberto Lenzi. He would have breathed some life into it, instead of us being left with the dead corpse of a film we got.
Yesterday, I was reading the novel this film was based on. I am sad to say it, but I found the book very slow and boring. I only managed to get through the first 65 of the 500+ pages. Only one exciting scene was featured - and that scene sadly does not feature in the film.
I had bought the film on Blu-Ray a few months before, in the hope that both the book and the film would be enjoyable, and that seeing how closely the film followed the book would be interesting in itself.
The idea I had was simple - to read the book first and watch the film afterwards.
In the end, I watched the film without finishing the book - because it bored me. And I hoped - desperately hoped - that the film would be better, given that the basic plot outline sounded interesting enough.
Sadly, the film is just as boring as the book, if not even worse. And considering that more than 500 pages of text has been condensed into just a two-hour film, it is just incredible that the film is so slow paced. One would expect quite a fast pace, with clutter from the book removed.
The plot concerns a cop investigating a series of murders in which the perpetrator leaves a snowman as his calling card. The trail for the killer leads the protagonist to look into past cases.
Most of the film revolves around the cop, played by Michael Fassbender and his partner on the case, played by Rebecca Ferguson. In order to make this sort of set-up work, the protagonist needs to be interesting.
Sadly what we see too much of in modern crime fiction is a penchant for adding flaws to characters and hoping that these things in themselves will make them interesting, likeable even. Well it doesn't work here. Harry Hole is a completely forgettable bloke and Fassbender plays him with seemingly no interest at all. It's as though he is simply sleepwalking through the part, like others have said or alluded to. He has not got an ounce of charisma and is not in the least bit interesting to watch on the screen.
The murder scenes are interesting to watch but the rest of the film is nothing more than a tedious police procedural. Imagine for a moment a very boring Italian giallo from the 1970s, where police officers sit around talking a lot of boring nonsense. Now shift the setting from Italy to Norway and move the action from the 1970s into the mid-2000s. Finally, add in a lot of boring scenes surrounding the protagonist's life outside of work. Got it? Good. That's THE SNOWMAN in a nutshell. And it is tedious to the extreme.
Where is the suspense to be found? The murder scenes are well-filmed, but the suspense isn't there.
Where is the excitement? The killer taunts the cop with all kinds of text messages, sends him on wild goose chases and so on, and there's not a spark of excitement to be found. It's all done in a "by the numbers" way, like a poor episode of a cop show that has been running for many years too long.
Why do modern crime thrillers insist on showing us the boring lives the cops lead outside of work? I for one don't want to see any of that, unless some establishing scenes are needed in the event that someone close to the cop is to become a victim of the killer. But these scenes should be brief so that what we see in the film and read in the books is relevant to the plot. Taken together, they shouldn't take up a third or more of the book/film or feel like they are.
Much more interesting than watching the cops live their lives outside work is to see the cop at work, wrestling with the dilemma that the case might not be possible to solve, and exploring all the tensions and frustration that would have on the cop and how it all affects the way he interacts with his colleagues and the suspects.
The film, like the book, simply features too many characters as well, just about all of whom are forgettable. My personal view is that thrillers work best when no more than six characters are the main focus. This is why I think books like The Girl on the Train work so well - there aren't too many people to keep track of. The only time writers should have lots of main characters is if we are being presented with a group of interesting suspects with some interesting red-herring motives raised and explored. This is not so in THE SNOWMAN.
Agatha Christie novels sometimes feature a dozen suspects or so, yet I always remember who's who and remember them long after the story is over. That's because she knew how to create people we find interesting - interesting even when they are totally unlikeable, and whom we might actually despise if they were real people. Where THE SNOWMAN is concerned, I simply couldn't keep up with who was playing what role in the story and what their motives were. It is a mess, plain and simple.
The revelation of the killer was only a mild surprise. There were two people I suspected. One was an obvious red herring. The other one was obvious in the "twist" sense. By that I mean the person was a likely candidate to be chosen as part of an intended twist.
I have to admit I was wrong. I gave the writers more credit and guessed it was the first one. Granted, the revelation of the killer would not have been a surprise, but maybe an unusual motive could have been revealed, making the ending interesting. Instead, the writers decided the second one was the killer, and it was all cliched. I won't reveal the names of the characters in question, suffice to say that many will guess all too easily and be disappointed that a potential clever ending has been replaced with one more obvious, as well as being stupid and boring at the same time.
Overall, THE SNOWMAN is a very boring film - simply one of the worst crime thrillers I have ever seen. As a result, I am unlikely to give the book a second read, in order to get through all of it.
I had bought the film on Blu-Ray a few months before, in the hope that both the book and the film would be enjoyable, and that seeing how closely the film followed the book would be interesting in itself.
The idea I had was simple - to read the book first and watch the film afterwards.
In the end, I watched the film without finishing the book - because it bored me. And I hoped - desperately hoped - that the film would be better, given that the basic plot outline sounded interesting enough.
Sadly, the film is just as boring as the book, if not even worse. And considering that more than 500 pages of text has been condensed into just a two-hour film, it is just incredible that the film is so slow paced. One would expect quite a fast pace, with clutter from the book removed.
The plot concerns a cop investigating a series of murders in which the perpetrator leaves a snowman as his calling card. The trail for the killer leads the protagonist to look into past cases.
Most of the film revolves around the cop, played by Michael Fassbender and his partner on the case, played by Rebecca Ferguson. In order to make this sort of set-up work, the protagonist needs to be interesting.
Sadly what we see too much of in modern crime fiction is a penchant for adding flaws to characters and hoping that these things in themselves will make them interesting, likeable even. Well it doesn't work here. Harry Hole is a completely forgettable bloke and Fassbender plays him with seemingly no interest at all. It's as though he is simply sleepwalking through the part, like others have said or alluded to. He has not got an ounce of charisma and is not in the least bit interesting to watch on the screen.
The murder scenes are interesting to watch but the rest of the film is nothing more than a tedious police procedural. Imagine for a moment a very boring Italian giallo from the 1970s, where police officers sit around talking a lot of boring nonsense. Now shift the setting from Italy to Norway and move the action from the 1970s into the mid-2000s. Finally, add in a lot of boring scenes surrounding the protagonist's life outside of work. Got it? Good. That's THE SNOWMAN in a nutshell. And it is tedious to the extreme.
Where is the suspense to be found? The murder scenes are well-filmed, but the suspense isn't there.
Where is the excitement? The killer taunts the cop with all kinds of text messages, sends him on wild goose chases and so on, and there's not a spark of excitement to be found. It's all done in a "by the numbers" way, like a poor episode of a cop show that has been running for many years too long.
Why do modern crime thrillers insist on showing us the boring lives the cops lead outside of work? I for one don't want to see any of that, unless some establishing scenes are needed in the event that someone close to the cop is to become a victim of the killer. But these scenes should be brief so that what we see in the film and read in the books is relevant to the plot. Taken together, they shouldn't take up a third or more of the book/film or feel like they are.
Much more interesting than watching the cops live their lives outside work is to see the cop at work, wrestling with the dilemma that the case might not be possible to solve, and exploring all the tensions and frustration that would have on the cop and how it all affects the way he interacts with his colleagues and the suspects.
The film, like the book, simply features too many characters as well, just about all of whom are forgettable. My personal view is that thrillers work best when no more than six characters are the main focus. This is why I think books like The Girl on the Train work so well - there aren't too many people to keep track of. The only time writers should have lots of main characters is if we are being presented with a group of interesting suspects with some interesting red-herring motives raised and explored. This is not so in THE SNOWMAN.
Agatha Christie novels sometimes feature a dozen suspects or so, yet I always remember who's who and remember them long after the story is over. That's because she knew how to create people we find interesting - interesting even when they are totally unlikeable, and whom we might actually despise if they were real people. Where THE SNOWMAN is concerned, I simply couldn't keep up with who was playing what role in the story and what their motives were. It is a mess, plain and simple.
The revelation of the killer was only a mild surprise. There were two people I suspected. One was an obvious red herring. The other one was obvious in the "twist" sense. By that I mean the person was a likely candidate to be chosen as part of an intended twist.
I have to admit I was wrong. I gave the writers more credit and guessed it was the first one. Granted, the revelation of the killer would not have been a surprise, but maybe an unusual motive could have been revealed, making the ending interesting. Instead, the writers decided the second one was the killer, and it was all cliched. I won't reveal the names of the characters in question, suffice to say that many will guess all too easily and be disappointed that a potential clever ending has been replaced with one more obvious, as well as being stupid and boring at the same time.
Overall, THE SNOWMAN is a very boring film - simply one of the worst crime thrillers I have ever seen. As a result, I am unlikely to give the book a second read, in order to get through all of it.
This is a film adaptation of a play by Kevin Laffan - the creator of the popular UK soap opera - EMMERDALE (originally EMMERDALE FARM).
I am not a fan of the soap opera in question, and with Reg Varney appearing in this film in a non-comedy role, I was unsure of what to expect.
The story is simple. A caravan park entertainer, whose act is very much in the music hall tradition, has delusions of grandeur. He has grand ambitions but doesn't succeed. His world is shaken when he comes to the realisation that things are not going well in his life, and that he seems to be losing everything he has got - the popularity of his act, the love from his wife, security of employment, among other things. I won't say more about the plot since to do so would ruin the experience of watching this excellent film.
The first time I saw THE BEST PAIR OF LEGS IN THE BUSINESS about 20 years back, I didn't like it. I think at the time I was not ready to see Reg Varney playing anything other than a comedy role, preferably his Stan Butler character from ON THE BUSES. Also, it felt to me that the comedy and drama didn't really mix all that well. And I think I actually fell asleep watching it.
Having seen it for a second time earlier this week, my view has totally changed.
I have also seen the TV version from 1968. Enjoyable though that version is, I can say without any doubt that this film version is superior in every way. There is more comedy and the film seems to revolve much more around Varney, which is really the point of the original story. The TV version seems to spend more time focusing on the other characters, and feels a bit too much like an extended episode of a soap opera, albeit a good one.
The comedy routines in this film version are far more enjoyable and memorable. I can't get the "everybody here loves Sherry" ditty out of my head. Reg Varney clearly enjoys playing the camp comedian role and is a delight to watch. The delivery of his lines is spot-on. Reg Varney became typecast as Stan Butler. This film proved he was so much more, given the opportunity.
Just because the film has more comedy than the TV version, don't assume that there is less effective drama because you couldn't be more wrong. Varney is actually less restrained in the concluding scenes than in the TV version.
The film version overall also feels much more energetic. It's longer than the TV version by more than 40 minutes. Yet it doesn't feel padded out at all. The extra scenes are all great, and the meeting between Varney and the parents of the girl his son wants to marry is not to be missed. It's a classic scene that mixes comedy and drama so brilliantly.
The film version also has better stars playing the supporting roles, with excellent performances from Diana Coupland and Jean Harvey especially. The former gives what I consider to be her best career performance in this film. The latter is someone I wish had appeared in more films, rather than being confined to TV.
The camerawork is better and the presence of musical cues heightens the impact where appropriate, making the acting performances even more effective. There is not one poor performance anywhere in this film. Even a young Johnny Briggs is delightful to watch, playing a barman.
What this film manages to do most effectively, though, is combine comedy of the Carry on films variety, with some very poigant drama. Kudos to writer Kevin Laffan and director Christopher Hodson for achieving this, because it is not easy to do. I remember for example when I watched Norman Wisdom in the film, WHAT'S GOOD FOR THE GOOSE?. He was playing a role that was a combination of half comic and half serious, as Varney does in this film, and the drama just didn't mix well with the comedy. One scene in that film is very depressing too much, and I wish it had not been included. THE BEST PAIR OF LEGS IN THE BUSINESS avoids this pitfall, and there is not one scene I would take out of it.
The only real flaw in the film is that the conclusion does get a bit too depressing, not least because the acting performances are so brilliant. I would have preferred a happier ending. But this is a minor gripe about an otherwise superb film.
On a final note, THE BEST PAIR OF LEGS IN THE BUSINESS is a great film that combines comedy and drama very effectively indeed, and makes full use of the talents of its main star - the late, great Reg Varney. It is a film I intend to watch many more times in the future.
I am not a fan of the soap opera in question, and with Reg Varney appearing in this film in a non-comedy role, I was unsure of what to expect.
The story is simple. A caravan park entertainer, whose act is very much in the music hall tradition, has delusions of grandeur. He has grand ambitions but doesn't succeed. His world is shaken when he comes to the realisation that things are not going well in his life, and that he seems to be losing everything he has got - the popularity of his act, the love from his wife, security of employment, among other things. I won't say more about the plot since to do so would ruin the experience of watching this excellent film.
The first time I saw THE BEST PAIR OF LEGS IN THE BUSINESS about 20 years back, I didn't like it. I think at the time I was not ready to see Reg Varney playing anything other than a comedy role, preferably his Stan Butler character from ON THE BUSES. Also, it felt to me that the comedy and drama didn't really mix all that well. And I think I actually fell asleep watching it.
Having seen it for a second time earlier this week, my view has totally changed.
I have also seen the TV version from 1968. Enjoyable though that version is, I can say without any doubt that this film version is superior in every way. There is more comedy and the film seems to revolve much more around Varney, which is really the point of the original story. The TV version seems to spend more time focusing on the other characters, and feels a bit too much like an extended episode of a soap opera, albeit a good one.
The comedy routines in this film version are far more enjoyable and memorable. I can't get the "everybody here loves Sherry" ditty out of my head. Reg Varney clearly enjoys playing the camp comedian role and is a delight to watch. The delivery of his lines is spot-on. Reg Varney became typecast as Stan Butler. This film proved he was so much more, given the opportunity.
Just because the film has more comedy than the TV version, don't assume that there is less effective drama because you couldn't be more wrong. Varney is actually less restrained in the concluding scenes than in the TV version.
The film version overall also feels much more energetic. It's longer than the TV version by more than 40 minutes. Yet it doesn't feel padded out at all. The extra scenes are all great, and the meeting between Varney and the parents of the girl his son wants to marry is not to be missed. It's a classic scene that mixes comedy and drama so brilliantly.
The film version also has better stars playing the supporting roles, with excellent performances from Diana Coupland and Jean Harvey especially. The former gives what I consider to be her best career performance in this film. The latter is someone I wish had appeared in more films, rather than being confined to TV.
The camerawork is better and the presence of musical cues heightens the impact where appropriate, making the acting performances even more effective. There is not one poor performance anywhere in this film. Even a young Johnny Briggs is delightful to watch, playing a barman.
What this film manages to do most effectively, though, is combine comedy of the Carry on films variety, with some very poigant drama. Kudos to writer Kevin Laffan and director Christopher Hodson for achieving this, because it is not easy to do. I remember for example when I watched Norman Wisdom in the film, WHAT'S GOOD FOR THE GOOSE?. He was playing a role that was a combination of half comic and half serious, as Varney does in this film, and the drama just didn't mix well with the comedy. One scene in that film is very depressing too much, and I wish it had not been included. THE BEST PAIR OF LEGS IN THE BUSINESS avoids this pitfall, and there is not one scene I would take out of it.
The only real flaw in the film is that the conclusion does get a bit too depressing, not least because the acting performances are so brilliant. I would have preferred a happier ending. But this is a minor gripe about an otherwise superb film.
On a final note, THE BEST PAIR OF LEGS IN THE BUSINESS is a great film that combines comedy and drama very effectively indeed, and makes full use of the talents of its main star - the late, great Reg Varney. It is a film I intend to watch many more times in the future.