Deathly hollows… Strip Nude for Your Killer (1975)

This thing called giallo: attractive women under threat, knives in the darkness, a killer amongst us and
men behaving weirdly… some kind of sexy style always with a mean sense of humour as eager to add to
the unease as the fake blood. It’s not dreary that’s for sure and Edwige Fenech is in it too – those huge
brown eyes accentuated by short-cropped hair proving far more alluring than the acres of more obvious
on display.

Directed by Andrea Bianchi from a story co-written with frequent collaborator Massimo Felisatti, Strip
Nude for Your Killer is a knowing take on the by now well-established genre. It’s a bit like an Agatha
Christie who dunnit only with nudity and far more leather-clad killers on motorcycles. The cast are less
gentile as well with the exception of Edwige’s photographer’s assistant Magda.

Everything is in service to the art of shock and in this the giallo is no different from similar sexy-murder
films from the US and UK from the mid-sixties to the seventies, film makers giving a more enlightened
audience a thrill previously less clearly stated in screen. The age of visually-specific sensation as the
ratings system relaxed… But I’ve never really got the relationship between sex and death: Strip Nude for
Your Killer? Really?

But, in this case, I don’t think the title fits the film as, mild spoiler, it’s not really about consensual sex
before murder…

The film begins in tinted queasiness as an illicit abortion goes wrong a girl dies and her body is dumped
in the bathroom of her flat by two men. Not quite the sexy opening you were expecting perhaps – an
early marker of Bianchi and Felisatti’s humour as they puncture the mood from the get-go.

Soon after the doctor responsible for the death is murdered on the steps of his practice by an assailant
in motor biker gear – two down and we’re only just started.

Next we switch to a public swimming pool where a curvy redhead Lucia (Femi Benussi) parades in
revealing bikini and attracts the attention of priapic photographer, Carlo (Nino Castelnuovo), who
follows her back to the steam room for a bit more steam. He tells her she could be a model and invites
her to his studio.

The action shifts to the Albatross Modelling Studio where Carlo works with his girlfriend Magda (I know -
he’s cheating on Edwige Fenech!) and a host of lovely models including long-cool blonde Patrizia
(Swedish star Solvi Stubing) and the equally long hot platinum-flicked Doris (Erna Schurer – one of the
films best actors).

The show is run by the rotund Maurizio (Franco Diogene) or more exactly his dominatrix wife Gisella
(Giuliana Cecchini here listed as Amanda…)who takes a special interest in the girls and marks Lucia at
first sight as requiring further attention… (there are lesbians, of course there are lesbians…) even has her
corpulent husband looks on in emasculated frustration. Not that this doesn’t stop him trying it on with
all the girls as well… he more pitiful than she who is masterful.

Carlo and Magda make out after everyone has gone and we do a double-take as he’s already cheated on
her once today: is this our sympathetic leading couple? As for their sex-play… it seems, to put it
delicately, that it’s all for Carlo.

After they have gone the leather-clad killer breaks into the studio and pulls out a shot of a group of
people from the files… a hit list?

So it may prove, as a leathered hand knocks on the door of one of the studio’s photographers, Mario
(Claudio Pellegrini) who, recognising the person, lets them in. After identifying the photograph the
hapless snapper gets stabbed for his thanks and is discovered later soaked in blood and mutilated.

Time for the police to get involved and the next day the Commissioner (Lucio Como) interrupts a photo
shoot to interview the main players. They’re all taken to the station where he attempts to get some
answers whilst, creepily, one of the middle-aged cops stares at every inch of Lucia – a comment on the
watching audience perhaps?

Next we’re at Gisella’s apartment as she and Lucia are seemingly enjoying a quiet moment… suddenly
Gisella leaps up and slaps her new acquisition, boy she seems very hard to please. She dresses and
storms out leaving Lucia all alone, in the nude, wandering around the very large flat. Noises, there are
noises… surely not here? But as the vulnerable model quivers in the kitchen the killer moves in once
again.

Now things are getting messy but cometh the hour cometh the wannabe detective couple – Magda and
Carlo try to piece the evidence together after they learn of the murder in the following day’s papers:
something familiar about the earring found in Lucia’s hand…

But it won’t stop the killings… nor those strange moments of humour.

Maurizio tries to seduce Doris by playing the economic and sympathy card even after she expresses a
preference for his missus and the dangers such a transgression might involve. But Maurizio can’t deliver
and ends up carrying through his inflatable doll after Doris has left – OK we get the point.

Maurizio gets killed and is soon followed by Doris and her model lover Stefan – another who seems to
care little for his lover - who are brutalized at the cost of even more red paint.

The Commissioner sees a pattern as do we… clearly almost no one gets out of this film alive but the
question remains as to whom?

Dusty verdict: There’s still enough alive to not “spoil” the ending but really this is more about the style
than the mystery. The narrative flies past with character-building effort only really directed at Magda
who is the film’s only sympathetic character.

Not that Doris, Lucia and their fellow victims deserve to die but… we don’t really get to know them. Nor
do we really get to know the killer who even after they are revealed, remains a mystery.

Franco Delli Colli deserves a mention for his effective cinematography whilst Berto Pisano’s groovy score
adds to the period charm.

The conventions of the giallo feature were originally set out by director Bava in the early sixties with
titles such as The Girl Who Knew too Much (1963) and Blood and Black Lace (1964) which added more
sex and specific violence to the Italian thriller genre.

Darlo Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) took things to a new level and set the tone for
a decade of even greater suspense, sex and violence.

Strip Nude for Your Killer plays with these themes without entirely convincing and perhaps its sense of
humour is the downfall as if it is laughing too hard at its self-awareness and trying to shock too hard
right up to the – literal – end joke.

Available from Amazon, parental guidance advised…