One on Top of the Other (1969)

How sad is this?

Disturbing yet enthralling

Absolutely Fantastic

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

"Perversion Story", as it is hilariously known, is an extremely entertaining stroll through the psychedelic, kinky '60s with some negligible giallo properties.'69 must have been the height of the whole 'porno chic' thing where strippers and nude photo shoots were not considered sleazy in the least. Rather they had merged with the sex positive, flower power sixties, so when the characters visit a strip club, along with improbably beautiful models, they get girls dancing in front of psychedelic projections and multi coloured balloons everywhere. The photo shoot is weird in the stupidest way, with private parts covered with miscellaneous stickers for no reason other than it was the sixties, man.The movie is only nominally a giallo. There's barely any violence, and certainly no black gloved killer stalking the beautiful, nearly naked model. It's less of a whodunit than a "did he do it" - the movie's protagonist ends up on death row. I was surprised that I actually cared about the conclusion: the movie is a triumph of style; you don't care what it's about, you're enjoying the ride too much. This is Fulci at the height of his powers of direction. He didn't need a story when it looked this good.

Doctor George Dumurrier(Jean Sorel)is a handsome and rich man who has his own private medical clinic.He is married to Susan(Marisa Mell),but their marriage is unhappy as his wife feels neglected.George has long-time mistress named Jane but he doesn't want to leave Susan while her health is deteriorating.When Susan suddenly dies Dumurrier encounters a stripper who looks strikingly similar to his late wife.Gorgeously photographed giallo obviously inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo".There is plenty of sex and steamy eroticism plus a little bit of violence.I particularly enjoyed Marisa Mell's performance as a cunning femme fatale.San Francisco seeped in late 60's hippie psychedelia is a perfect setting.There is a brief moment of gore when rotting corpse Fulci style is shown.No black gloved killers with childhood traumas,though.8 death rows out of 10.

This may not be a horror film or even strictly a giallo but still it's a top notch sex and psychedelic dressed mystery that is a must see for fans of mid sixties to mid seventies Italian cinema. Perhaps more restrained than one might expect from Fulci and the pace a little uneven but this film looks so good! Great cinematography with splendid sweeping scenic shots of San Francisco and playful quirky close-ups that make one gasp. Full of delights such as the photo shoots, the nightclub sequences as well as the splendid use of the locations plus a super soundtrack from Riz Ortolani and not forgetting plenty of colourful nudity. The conclusion is sensational and the death row sequences suitably creepy and if there is more than a whiff of Hitchcock, whose complaining? Excellent.

This little Italian number is superficially similar to the famous Hitchcock film "Vertigo" in its basic premise and in its San Francisco location. But I don't recall "Vertigo" having the nude dancing, the psychedelic body painting, and the abundance of straight and lesbian sex. And as great an actress as Kim Novak from "Vertigo" may have been, she was no Marissa Mell. Marissa Mell was a six-foot Austrian model/actress who became infamous in the late 1960's more for her antics off-screen than on (her various paramours supposedly included everyone from Warren Beatty to the Shah of Iran). She was the archetypal Bond girl, even though she never actually got around to appearing in a Bond movie. Actually, the only big movie she was ever in was Mario Bava's pop-art, comic book adaptation "Diabolik". This obscure movie was probably her second most famous role before her career fizzled and she died at a young age from cancer. She is excellent here in the dual role of an asthmatic, dying wife and a seductive stripper. She also has copious nude scenes (if you're into that sort of thing).You might also have heard of the director of this one, guy named Lucio Fulci, made a few zombie movies or something. This is actually the first of a series of superior gialli Fuici directed early in his career (the others were "A Woman in Lizard's Skin" and "Don't Torture a Duckling"). Fulci fans will find the plot of this film to be surprisingly coherent, but will probably be disappointed at the lack of gore (aside from one grisly scene of a post, post-mortem). It also lacks much of the directorial flair Fulci would demonstrate in his later gialli and his zombie films. The last act is particularly weak with one of those tiresome innocent-man-on-death-row countdowns. The very last scene is a pleasant surprise, but by then much of the momentum has been lost. Still, it's definitely worth seeing, for Fulci and Mell if nothing else.