So Sweet... So Perverse (1969)

If you don't get Klaus Kinski, why not simply name the bad guy ... Klaus! After such a cunning production move – Klaus being played by German 60s scoundrel regular Horst Frank, flown in directly from the set of one of Jürgen Roland's stuffy St. Pauli whores-&-pimps flicks –, there's few directions to go but down, and neither pallid Frenchman J-L Trintignant nor "Baby Doll" Carroll Baker can provide the slightest bit of uplift. And in fact, it's not Klaus who's coming between them, but a) Riz Ortolani's annoying soundtrack, especially the ear-cancer inducing theme canzone, and b) the convoluted mess of the script by hackmeister Ernesto Gastaldi, a pseudo-clever double-crossing murder scheme stolen shamelessly from Les Diaboliques (for his version of Strangers on a Train, see the stunning densefest Lo strano vizio della Signora Wardh). As for Horst Frank, he's almost as smug as Tarantino favorite Christoph Waltz. Almost, and if legend is true, he also suggested a much more fitting title for this Euro stinker: Klaustrophobia.

Carroll Baker's second of four films with Italian director Umberto Lenzi (whose standard predilection for amusingly arty camera angles, lesbian flirtations and bare-breasted women did little to enhance his reputation as a filmmaker) is agonizingly slow and woefully overlong. A French businessman, unfaithful to the haughty wife he no longer loves, becomes infatuated with the American woman living in the apartment above his, the apparent victim of spousal abuse. The men in Lenzi's giallo productions are never required to strip below the waist, leaving his actresses looking vulnerable and used. Baker manages to stay covered most of the time, but the role doesn't require anything additional from her. Poorly-dubbed, blurry-romantic escapades among the decadent and doomed. * from ****

Umberto Lenzi Giallo's range in quality from sublime to trash, but his earlier genre entries tended to be the best; and So Sweet...So Perverse is certainly at the higher end of Lenzi's Giallo achievements. One of the trademarks of Giallo is a high dosage of sex scenes; but despite the fact that this film has the word 'perverse' in it's title; So Sweet...So Perverse is actually not all that perverse at all, especially not by Giallo standards. Rather, the film focuses more on the plot details than perversity, and it just about serves it well. Italian directors were famous for ripping of successful films from other countries, and the plot here is clearly lifted from the French classic 'Les Diaboliques'. We focus on a couple with marital problems; Jean and Danielle. When Jean hears a woman screaming in the upstairs apartment one day, he immediately decides to investigate. There he finds Nicole; a woman frightened of her boyfriend Klaus. The pair soon begin to fall in love, but it later transpires that this was just a trap set to snare Jean...So Sweet...So Perverse is a classy little thriller and much unlike later Lenzi Giallo's such as Eyeball, almost everything about the film is well done. The film benefits from a good cast, which feature early Lenzi muse Carroll Baker in the central female. Baker's role here initially appears to be a lot like her role in the earlier 'Orgasmo', but she soon gets to switch to a more interesting character. Baker is joined by the sexy Erika Blanc, and like most Giallo's with two sexy leading women; the pair do get to get it on, although you shouldn't go in expecting a full blown lesbian sex scene. Jean-Louis Trintignant rounds off the cast, but isn't given as much to do as the ladies. The plot does get a bit slow at times, but the film never slows down to the point of becoming boring. The second half is much more exciting than the first as that is when the plot gets into full flow. When the twists start to come into play, So Sweet...So Perverse really is an intriguing thriller and unlike many Giallo's, this one also features an ending that wraps most of the plot up nicely. This film is highly recommended to Giallo fans!

this movie had some interesting strangeness to it but it could have been better. --possible spoiler--some of the things i favored about the movie was the creative way it showed that the bondage woman was the person causing all the mischief. however, it doesn't really explain why. there is really no explanation why the main character photographer was possessed by a witch. some other thing that caught my eye was the symbolism in her dreams... perhaps showing her guilt for causing things to happen (in the dream for instance, she punches out her friend in a boxing rink). some of the scenes reminds me of something David lynch would put into his movie.furthermore, some things are left unexplained like the hole and the nazis. maybe the hole symbolizing PLOT holes in the movie? hah.--end spoiler--but all in all, the movie had little substance. it's basically just a movie about a pretty woman photographer that gets possessed by a witch (and we do not know why the witch is doing that) and they add some strange symbolism to explain her feelings.6/10