The Weapon, the Hour, the Motive
The Weapon, the Hour, the Motive
| 23 November 1972 (USA)
The Weapon, the Hour, the Motive Trailers

Don Giorgio, a handsome young priest and teacher in a convent, is involved with two lovers: Orchidea and Giulia. When he repents and vows to return to the Church, he is savagely beaten to death. Not long after, Giulia has her throat slashed. Inspector Boito falls in love with and prepared to marry Orchidea, who is also the main suspect. The key to solving the case seems to lie with an inquisitive boy called Ferruccio, who is kept locked up and drugged. He witnessed one of the murders, but will anyone believe his story?

Reviews
Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!
Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.
PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.
Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
dipdatta I will hesitate to call it a Giallo - there was only 2 murders, those two too were not that gory by Giallo standards. It's more of a investigation/polizia movie where a detective investigates murder of a church priest. While the direction is pretty good & acting quite decent, plot could contain more twists & surprises. I guessed the murderer before half of movie was over. Neverthless, its a worth watch - if nothing else than for the creepy gothic church set-up.
Bezenby It must be deliberate this the colour scheme in this film is so muted - everything's beige, brown or grey. Strange.The story involves the murder of a Hip Priest. In fact, he's so hip he has not one but two lovers on the side. He's having a bit of a crisis about that though, judging by the way he self-flagellates in his church, of an evening. This is made even more disturbing by the unseen presence of a little kid whom the nuns have adopted. The priest reckons that God might look down on him having it off with two ladies, so he breaks up with one of them (with the strange name of Orchidea) and tries to break it off with the other. I can't remember if he was successful because he ended up in the sack with her, before shortly getting stabbed to death by a mystery assailant. There's also a cute nun kicking about (the actress playing her is called Claudia Gravy - great second name! Looks like she's in Nun and the Devil too!)Some rough looking copper turns up with a bumbling sidekick and they start obviously digging around to looks for clues. The copper also starts spending a lot time making goo-goo eyes at Orchidea, so quite a bit of the plot is devoted to that too. The most off-putting thing about this is that the actress who plays Orchidea is a dead-ringer for Italian actor Franco Rassell (only with hair), which makes all her upcoming nude scenes a bit disturbing. Not quite so quirky as other Gialli, this one concentrates on the police investigation (before turning into a family drama near the end!), and if you're out for sleaze you do get to see the nuns taking a shower AND the whole bunch of them stripping to the waist and whipping themselves in honour of the dead priest. It another well made film but will kind of get lost in the avalanche of more gory, pervier gialli released in 1972. I did have a good laugh at the punch up the copper had in a dark room, only for him to find out it was his sidekick, whom he then tells to feck off!
christopher-underwood I liked this a lot. Bit of a confusing and strange start, a young boy in a room, a nurse with a hypodermic and all within a convent of singing nuns. And who is that guy on the motorbike getting in the way of the police? Oops, he is the police! I guess this just about qualifies as a giallo for while it doesn't have the stylish look or garish details, there are the sudden kills, the child always there mysteriously in the background, not to mention the cat and the bouncing marbles. Compelling and absorbing, this is well directed and we have to gradually piece things together as best we can to keep apace. And then there is the extraordinary scene where the priest flagellates himself for his guilt over his lovers, yes two of them. Oh and that is nothing to what we are treated to once the nuns decide to do the same - en mass! Good resolution always helps and so in summary a good yarn intelligently told and peppered with enough sex and violence to keep the most jaded giallo fan happy.
HumanoidOfFlesh In "The Weapon,the Hour and the Motive" the murder victim is a priest.Father Giorgio is stabbed to death in his congregation church.Two police detectives Franco Boito and Moriconi investigate his murder.The main suspects are Giorgio's two lovers Giulia and Orchidea as he wanted to break up with both.There is also an orphaned boy who saw too much from his attic hideout and he will resolve the mystery.Overlooked Italian giallo stylishly made by Francesco Mazzei.There are some silly comedic moments and some effective shocks.The throat slashing scene is fairly graphic and there is a bit of nudity and sexual perversion.Mazzei is capable of building suspense pretty well too."The Weapon,the Hour and the Motive" deserves more recognition.7 out of 10.
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