Libramedi Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Joanna Mccarty Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Bezenby The chirpy, Euro-Barbara Windsor squeaking soundtrack that introduces this film would perhaps fool you into think you're about to watch some "Whoopsy-Boing!" sex comedy, but you'd be wrong. Except for the sex bit.A horrible rich lady who has an open marriage with her Roman noble husband (Silvano Tranquili) is found dead within a locked room, her throat cut. Everyone thinks it was suicide...well, the police think it was suicide, but no one else does, especially housekeeper Magda, who now tends to the needs of Silvano and his mistress, photographer and professional moody looking smoker Rosalba Neri. A spanner is thrown into the works when the rich lady's daughter from a previous marriage turns up after quitting boarding school (or something like that). Her wide eyed innocence certainly catches the eyes of Rosalba, who quickly bonds with the girl by taking loads of pictures of her and conveying the idea that she may bat for both sides, as it were. Silvano's eyebrows are certainly raised when comes home to find his step-daughter bare-arsed in front of a mirror, but if this newcomer has a legit stake in the money left by the rich jerk lady, what are out scheming twosome going to do about it?This is more of your old-school giallo set in a big house with rich people being duplicitous and trying to out-do each other, with the usual plot twists thrown in for good measure, and a whole heap of photographer sessions between the young girl and a drooling Rosalba Neri. Obviously the girl gets it on with both the lead actors but you don't get a slow motion lesbian sex scene like you did with Silvio Amadio's previous Amuck. That said, those looking for nudity won't be let down as the stepdaughter seemingly spends half the film naked.I've got to admit that I found the soundtrack really irritating. "A-chi-chi-chi-di-di-dididida-chi...aaaaaaaah!" indeed.

Darkling_Zeist The classy 'Smile Before Death' is an extremely rare and unjustly obscure giallo from cult Italian film-maker, Silvio Amadio. This violent, sexy thriller stars the delightful, Rosalba Neri and Hiram Keller as a villainous duo plotting to do in the stepdaughter of Hiram's character. Director, Silvio Amadio's stylish and sexy follow-up to "Amuck!", is full of giddy plot twists, lurid stalk an' slash, and the ubiquitous "shock" ending; 'Smile before Death' is guaranteed to amuse and confound in equal measure, and is a worthy entry to this most histrionic idiom. Its current rarity is wholly undeserved and one hopes that eventually it will get a pristine DVD release that it so deserves.

udar55 16-year-old boarding school student Nancy (Jenny Tamburi) arrives in town after her mother commits suicide. She is taken in by her stepfather Marco (Silvano Tranquilli), who has already moved in his mistress Gianna (Rosalba Neri). Things get a bit strange when Nancy begins to suspect her mother didn't commit suicide and puts the moves on both of her hosts. This is a nifty little thriller from Silvio (AMUCK!) Amadio with enough twists and turns to keep you interested. The main mystery isn't too hard to guess, but there is a nice extra twist at the end and, of course, another one for good measure. Tamburi and the gorgeous Neri spend a lot of their screen time nude and that certainly helps too. Quite possibly the best thing about the film is a theme that is so catchy with Amadio using it at every opportunity. You will definitely be humming it for days after watching this one.

lazarillo This obscure giallo was made after director Silvio Amado's excellent "Amuck" (his only work to get a decent DVD release so far), but before his tepid melodrama "So Young, So Lovely, So Vicious". It actually shares elements with both, but I'm pleased to report it is much closer in quality to "Amuck". Visually it is not as stylish (although that might just be due to the crappy available prints), but it has the same interesting plot twists and excellent acting.After a her mother's suspicious suicide, a pretty teenage girl (Lucia Della Robbins)shows up at her Italian villa where she quickly discovers that her new and recently widowed stepfather (Hiram Keller) is having an affair with her mother's sexy photographer friend (Rosalba Neri, also in "Amuck"). The villainous pair plot to do in the precocious youngster, but it turns out she has her own sinister agenda as she has sexually insinuates herself between the two of them (bedding the stepfather and doing nude photo sessions with Neri). The ending is genuinely a surprise.Neri is good as always (although she isn't quite as exciting shooting photographs as she is shooting a shotgun in a bikini). I initially thought the teenage girl should have been played by Gloria Guida (who was later in "So Young, So Lovely, So Vicious"). Robbins wasn't a sex bomb like Guida perhaps, but she turns out to be a much better actress going from wholesome innocence to sexual precociousness to scheming malevolence, where Guida could really only have pulled off the middle one very convincingly. Special mention should also be made of the catchy, cooing score, which somehow later made its way into a 1990's American car commercial (go figure). It's even more memorable than the "Sexual!" song from "Amuck". It's not a perfect movie perhaps--it suffers from having only one brief scene of Neri getting naked (made up somewhat by frequent scenes of Della Robbins getting naked)and, of course, it looks pretty crappy. Still with a restored print and a legitimate DVD release it could be a minor classic of the genre.