Touches You

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

With the rather cumbersome title of 'The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire' the film itself actually proves to be a supremely limber and entertaining giallo-esque thriller from Riccardo Freda. Thus far the general consensus on this lurid early 70's slasher is a trifle underwhelming, but, on the contrary, I really enjoyed this brisk, Ireland-set thriller; with all its pungent red herrings; gonzoid throat slashings, and plethora of charred, vitriol burned flesh. The venerable Anton Diffring does his regular aristocratic aloof spiel with great elan, and the sublime Pistilli makes a zesty show of the violent, maverick copper; all in all 'Iguana with the tongue of fire' is a blast; and yet again, il maestro Stelvio Cipriani percolates another magnificently potent score.

After having been instrumental in introducing the Fantasy genre (which would thrive for close to 40 years) in Italy, with four classics to his name – I VAMPIRI (1956), CALTIKI, THE IMMORTAL MONSTER (1959), THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK (1962) and THE GHOST (1963) – much like James Whale in 1930s Hollywood, Freda's enthusiasm for the genre seems to have run out. Even so, towards the end of the 1960s, he dabbled in a new and flourishing branch of the horror/thriller genre, albeit with diminishing results: the pretty good (if derivative) DOUBLE FACE (1969); the film under review which, while not bad, is essentially uninspired; and the hilariously inept TRAGIC CEREMONY (1972); a measure of the director's own increasing disenchantment with his work is the fact that, in the case of the latter two, he chose to be credited not under his usual (thus recognizable) Anglicized alias of Robert Hampton but rather as the obscure Willy Pareto! For the record, after almost a decade of silence, he would return for one last fling with yet another Giallo i.e. the as-yet-unwatched MURDER OBSESSION (1981) featuring Softcore starlet Laura Gemser! To get back to the matter at hand, I have always found myself in two minds when it comes to this type of international production: while I generally lean towards the Italian dialogue because in all probability the script would have been written in that language, I know that, in most cases, the actors deliver their lines in English!; here, then, since the narrative is set in the Irish city of Dublin anyway, it would be natural to take this route. The thing is that I first laid my hands on an English-dubbed version (though, at least, both Anton Diffring and Valentina Cortese lend their voices to its audio track) but then also came across one in Italian which, however, I did not feel inclined to acquire (the irony is that, on the English-language print, the credits are still presented in their native language!); in fact, quite a number of Gialli I got hold of in English have been turning up in Italian (online or on TV) but I rarely, if ever, bother to 'upgrade' anymore! Anyway, here we get the usual flurry of vicious murders (of the throat-slitting or acid-splashing variety right from the very opening sequence – unfortunately, while the gore is plentiful, it looks ultra-fake!) countered by a Police investigation, set against stylish backdrops and accompanied by a delightful score (courtesy of Stelvio Cipriani). The other notable cast members, both genre stalwarts, are leads Luigi Pistilli and Dagmar Lassander (as the fast-living daughter of globe-trotting ambassador Diffring and drug-addled Cortese). Typically, the complex plot yields suspects galore, since most of the characters generally have something to hide (Diffring is a lecher, thus prone to blackmail, while ex-cop Pistilli's violent streak during interrogations has driven a suspect to suicide, etc.) but, as often happens, once the villain's identity is revealed, we get a motive that is all but flimsy (here, this figure had actually been so peripheral to the narrative that one's reaction to the finale is extremely muted and downright indifferent)! The surprising carelessness on the film-makers' part is evidenced in an early banal dialogue exchange relating to the use of acid as a murder weapon, which suggests that the killer may be either a woman or a colored person(!) and the fact that the music is allowed to go preposterously over-the-top when it wants to direct our attention – fruitlessly, as it turns out – to would-be vital clues like sun-glasses or razor-blades! Besides, there is additional gratuitous gore (an effectively graphic shot of a suture being applied to a gash on Pistilli's head) and nudity (apart from the obligatory love scene between Lassander and Pistilli, there is also a somewhat disturbing shot of Pistilli's underage daughter in the nude{!} being pursued by the killer inside their home – but, truly, why on earth should Pistilli's relatives be targeted?), some bizarre comic touches (provided by Pistilli's elderly amateur sleuth of a mother, who is repeatedly told that she cannot hear properly unless the woman has her glasses on – WTF, right?! – except that a colleague of mine, who I am sure is unfamiliar with the film, actually makes of that assertion a running gag!) and an unusual prevalence for foul language (especially on Diffring's part)! Although this is somewhat better than the reviews I have read of it would have you believe, the end result satisfied neither the director (who also edited the film under the afore-mentioned alias) nor prolific German co-producer Artur Brauner who decided it was not worthy of a theatrical release in his native country! Having said that, it was rather ingenious of the screenplay to have Cortese's supposed assassination attempt turn out to be a bungled suicide and that the seemingly scot-free Diffring is revealed at the film's very end as having actually murdered the first victim and that Justice will be catching up with him shortly upon making his return to Switzerland!

A beautiful woman is burned with acid, slashed to death with the razor, and stuffed in the trunk of a car belonging to the Swiss ambassador to Ireland. Sounds like the beginning of an Italian giallo, huh?. This is a pretty disappointing one, however, especially considering it comes from legendary Italian film director Riccardo Freda. The Dublin location is pretty interesting, but all the Irish and Swiss accents turn out to be a nightmare of bad dubbing. And this is one of those rare movies that actually would have benefited greatly from having the gore scenes censored out because they are tasteless, gratuitous, and worst of all, just plain laughable. The hero is an Irish rogue cop (he looks Irish anyway, but judging from the inconsistent dubbing of his voice, he must be part Italian as well). He has a teenage daughter and an elderly mother who fancies herself a latter-day Miss Marple (and I have confess, I've always wanted to see someone do to Miss Marple what the killer here does to her). He also embarks on a highly improbable affair with the ambassador's beautiful daughter (Dagmar Lassander). I haven't personally dated a lot of beautiful Swiss women, but I don't suspect too many of them would invite you upstairs for the night if you said things like: "So, luv, should we get it off on the motorbike or in the bushes?"The movie contains a lot of nasty violence moving it past the comical tastelessness of gialli like "Strip Nude for your Killer" towards the genuinely unpleasant tastelessness of Fulci's "New York Ripper". The end which manages to combine some very gratuitous teenage nudity with some VERY severe abuse of the elderly might appeal to fans of transgressive cinema, but probably no one else.

With a great title along the lines of the films comprising Dario Argento's Animal Trilogy I was expecting a much better movie but was very dissapointed. In fact, the title and its explanation are probably the best things in L'Iguana dalla lingua di fuoco. This movie is very incoherent (of course, that doesn't always detract from a giallo) and more importantly, lacks the suspense and style usually associated with the genre. There's not much in this movie to keep one's interest (I fell asleep towards the end and when I woke up about half an hour later my tape had rewound completely and, no joke, had ejected itself from the VCR. Just some sort of subtle hint I guess). However, there are some positive aspects to the film. There is a decent amount of gore and fairly interesting characters. Then there is the camp value that L'Iguana dalla lingua di fuoco boasts (One of the film's main red herrings is the pair of dark sunglasses that the killer, as well as every citizen of Dublin, wears). Overall, this is a below average giallo but if not taken seriously, it can still be a fun viewing.