THE CASE OF THE SCORPION’S TAIL – The Blu Review

Review by Roger Carpenter

If Mario Bava can be credited as the Grandfather of the Giallo, with his early The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963), and Dario Argento can be credited as the Father of the Giallo with his seminal The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), then Sergio Martino should rightly be credited as, perhaps, the finest director of gialli.  While Bava did some excellent work, including Blood and Black Lace and Twitch of the Death Nerve (AKA A Bay of Blood) and Argento also is renowned for his gialli like Profondo Rosso (AKA Deep Red), The Cat O’ Nine Tails, and Tenebrae, perhaps no director other than Martino was able to reel off a string of five—that’s right, five—expertly crafted gialli in a row.  So, while Bava and Argento have become synonymous with gialli, and rightly so, fans of the genre include Martino’s name in the same breath with these other acknowledged masters.

Martino, along with his producer brother Luciano, worked with films in many genres including documentaries (Naked and Violent; Wages of Sin), spaghetti westerns (Arizona Colt Returns; Mannaja: A Man Called Blade); comedies (Sex with a Smile); poliziotteschi (The Violent Professionals); and adventure films (The Great Alligator; Slave of the Cannibal God; 2019: After the Fall of New York).  Many of these films are acknowledged classics of their respective genre and even the worst of the lot were popular both at home and overseas, making tons of money for the brothers.  But from 1971 through 1973, Sergio Martino created an astounding series of gialli, all of which are amongst the most popular of this admittedly overexposed genre even to this day.  These include The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh and The Case of the Scorpion’s Tale (both 1971), All the Colors of the Dark and Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (both 1972), and Torso (1973).

Scorpion’s Tale was made hot on the heels of Mrs. Wardh.  As Martino states in an interview on the disc, they knew they had a hit with Mrs. Wardh even before release and were eager to replicate it as quickly as possible.  The film stars Ida Galli (under her common pseudonym Evelyn Stewart) as Lisa Baumer.  Lisa is having an affair while her husband travels to Japan when the airplane mysteriously explodes during the trip, leaving Lisa as the beneficiary of a huge life insurance policy.  She hops a plane to Greece and quickly cashes in the policy.  However, she is followed to Greece by Peter Lynch (George Hilton), a detective for the insurance company on a routine investigative assignment.  No one really thinks Lisa could have planned an air disaster but as Lynch probes deeper he finds some troubling bits of information.  Lisa arrives in Athens only to be blackmailed by her now-deceased husband’s cheating lover, Lara Florakis (Janine Reynaud), before an attempt on Lisa’s life is made.  Lynch steps up his investigation and tries to unravel the increasingly complex web of intrigue.

It doesn’t help that Lisa wasted no time cashing in the policy, taking the money out in cash, and planning a quick trip to Tokyo…the exact location where her husband was traveling when his plane exploded.  Soon, a police inspector, an Interpol agent, and a photojournalist all team up with Peter Lynch to try to uncover Lisa’s plan as well as investigate the murders that have suddenly taken place, each of which also seems to be connected with Lisa.

Part of a smaller subgenre of gialli that focused on the super-rich and international travel to exotic locales, this “jet set” giallo has all the classic markings of the genre, including not one but three gorgeous women, a mysterious killer, plenty of nudity, and several gory murders.  Galli and Hilton shine as Lisa and Peter, two people who should be at odds but are attracted to each other almost immediately.  Peter, who should be working hard to expose Lisa, becomes her defender as well as her lover almost immediately, and spends the rest of the film trying to keep her safe.  Galli came to prominence in the early 60’s with roles in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Visconti’s The Leopard. She also made sword-and-sandal films and tons of spaghetti westerns.  But genre fans know her best for her gialli which also include The Weekend Murders, The Bloodstained Butterfly, and The Psychic.  Hilton is even more well-known to genre fans for his dozens of spaghetti westerns, including his star turn in four of the five official Sartana films.  He had previously worked with Martino in Mrs. Wardh and would follow Scorpion’s Tail up with Martino’s All the Colors of the Dark. He would continue to work endlessly in European genre and B-movies, only slowing down in the 90’s.  But he continued to work sporadically and, as of this writing, has just completed a film with another in pre-production!

Tons of genre icons populate this film.  Janine Reynaud, who fans will recognize for her many sleaze roles for the likes of Jess Franco, plays Lara Florakis, the woman who claims she is the lover of Lisa’s husband and attempts to blackmail Lisa for half the insurance policy.  Argentinian actor, Alberto de Mendoza, supports as the Interpol investigator.  Limited to light comedy relief, de Mendoza doesn’t have much to do here, but his presence is always welcome and he is a true professional.  Yet another genre icon, the great Luigi Pistilli, also supports as a police inspector who is better at working jigsaw puzzles than solving crimes.  Rarely a leading man, Pistilli nonetheless supported virtually every genre film one can think of throughout the 60’s and 70’s.  His credits include Death Rides a Horse, For a Few Dollars More, Texas, Adios, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, The Sweet Body of Deborah, The Great Silence, Machine Gun McCain, The Iguana with a Tongue of Fire, A Bay of Blood, Caliber 9, Your Vice is a Locked Room…the list is simply endless.  And, of course, one can’t forget Anita Strindberg, as the photojournalist Cleo Dupont.  In a film populated by beautiful actresses, she is still a standout.

Martino keeps the action moving along and the story, by another icon, screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi, is more straightforward than many of these films tend to be, which helps the action.  Never one to shy away from special effects, Martino designs some memorable murder set pieces, including an eye-gouging which would make Lucio Fulci proud.  Yet another icon of his trade, Bruno Nicolai, contributes a very nice musical score, which is actually used rather sparingly yet still remains catchy when present.

Overall, The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail is a giallo gem, chock full of genre veterans, beautiful women, and bloody murders.  Arrow Video USA, which has released, or is planning on releasing, most of Martino’s gialli, has assembled another winning package.  The Blu-Ray presentation is of a brand new 4K restoration of the film from the original camera negative, making the film, at nearly 50 years of age, look and sound brand new.  There is a new video essay by Troy Howarth, author of the two-volume So Deadly, So Perverse, compendium of gialli films, as well as a film analysis by Michael Koven, himself a film critic and author of a book about gialli films.  There are excellent interviews with George Hilton and Sergio Martino as well but the crown jewel is the audio commentary featuring Ernesto Gastaldi himself.  It’s rare the screenwriter gets as much credit as Gastaldi receives, but he truly deserves a great deal of credit for moving this particular genre forward.  And, now in his eighties, it’s truly fantastic to hear this gifted writer on a commentary before he is lost to us forever.

Gialli fans will love this new disc and, for those who aren’t familiar with the genre, this is as good a film to start exploring as any other.  Arrow Video USA has just released this package.  You can purchase the film directly from Arrow Video at http://www.arrowfilms.co.uk/category/usa/ or from Amazon.