NAKED GIRL KILLED IN THE PARK

Chris Bayer, a young insurance agent, is tasked with investigating the murder of Johannes Wanterburger, a German billionaire assassinated in an amusement park who had just taken out a rich life insurance policy. Chris falls in love with Katherine, the victim's daughter, and is invited to the Wanterburger villa where, one by one, the victim's family members begin to die under mysterious circumstances. Who is the author of the murders? Certainly, in the past, movie titles were unbeatable; long, very long, appetizing, improbable, and sensationalist. It didn't matter if the film didn't keep the promises expressed in the title, as the viewer had already made their own long movie in their head even before proceeding to watch it. "A Girl Completely Naked Murdered in the Park" is one of these anthology titles, which obviously does not fully reflect what the film will have to offer. The title would say it all; it could perfectly be the beginning of the film: a completely naked girl is found dead in a park, and the police begin to investigate the identity of the victim and the people around her to discover who would have had a motive to kill her. It sounds good, doesn't it? The title already suggests a plot. Too bad that it is not the plot of Alfonso Brescia's film, and that the kilometer-long and explanatory title is nothing more than a mirage to sell a product much less exploitative than one could imagine. "A Girl Completely Naked Murdered in the Park" is a giallo of the very classic kind, almost out of time for the period in which it was produced, i.e., the early 1970s, when between violence and eroticism, a type of film that enriched the genre was looked upon. "A Girl Completely Naked..." goes almost against the current and offers a couple of gratuitous nudity scenes (by Patrizia Adiutori), blood and violence are totally banned. Let's make things clear. "A Girl Completely Naked..." does not represent the best that the Italian thriller of the 1970s could offer, on the contrary, it is a small monocorde giallo that elicits more yawns from the viewer than points of real interest. Brescia, who has explored almost all genres with only one other foray into the giallo with "Your Sweet Body to Kill," seems to aim more at the narrative plot than the action with the side effect of completing a well-made film and also credible in terms of plot but inevitably boring. The screenplay, written by no less than eight hands, mixes family intrigues and war crimes with a certain skill, arriving at a resolution of the mystery that does not seem obvious at all, although in the end, it recalls too evidently another film of the same genre produced just a year before. Good also some scattered intuitions here and there, such as the black-and-white prologue set during World War II, the murder in the amusement park (in the horror tunnel, to be exact) and the mocking ending. Unfortunately, as anticipated, the good does not find the right placement due to a bland rhythm and uninteresting characters. In this regard, one can also reflect on the questionable choice of relegating excellent actors like Adolfo Celi and Philippe Leroy to entirely marginal roles, entrusting instead the role of the protagonist to a not very convincing Robert Hoffmann ("Spasmo"; "Eyes from the Stars"). To balance things, there is Pilar Velázquez ("The Flower with Steel Petals"; "A White Dress for Marilé"), a good and beautiful Spanish actress very active in that period in genre cinema. "A Girl Completely Naked..." therefore has some aces up its sleeve, but for the most part, it is a negligible title, suitable for completists of the Italian thriller of the 1970s, but absolutely not recommended for others. Curiosity. If "A Girl Completely Naked Murdered in the Park" may seem an unusual title, so was the working title: "That Cursed House Near the Mushroom Patch"! Watch a clip of RAGAZZA TUTTA NUDA ASSASSINATA NEL PARCO