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Fragmented narrative seems totally random for a good deal of the running time, if this is intended or a mistake is never really clear. The feel of the photography is so uneven, lots of hand held camera in some scenes where it just seems they didn't have time to set up a tripod interspersed with better shot material. This is probably due to perhaps a rushed on location shoot in Australia (which is certainly unique for the time) and the more carefully done footage shot in Italy. Then there is the totally god awful music from Riz Ortalani. The underscore is bad enough, but then there are these songs each of which should be on Dr. Demento with lousy pseudo disco beats and off key lyrics and some of these songs play under, or at the same level of, dialog! These are hurdles the film has to overcome.Main, high jumper award goes to Ray Milland, this is one of the meatier roles of his later career. He's quite funny and loose getting to play a hero rather than the collection of grumpy quasi villains that filled up most of the back half of his career. All his material shines and his performance has energy and direction that film lacks in other ways.The story, based on sort of a true life Black Dalhia type case in Australia in the 1930's is interesting in spurts, but some of the elements do seem out of step with a 1977 era film.The uneven photography is a real distraction, there are some beautiful moments but other and more frequently it has a haphazard feel and there is little real effective style to the direction and the occasional super cheapo looking FX, be it makeup or a bad looking fake rain storm.True crime fans may find it the most interesting and again Milland fans should check it out, though you have to put up with the Colombo style raincoat he wears.Not really a Giallo, perhaps ultimately not very well done, but a worthy script that probably deserves better. Milland does do his own dubbing just FYI. Too bad you can't turn off the music score, the rating would go up sharply. Script does have some surprises if you stick though the long periods of rather pot boilerish melodrama to get back to the police story, Milland is really the only engaging character though there is one engaging pervo character as well.
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