Review by Dan Taylor
In
this German/Italian co-production (Colt
Produzioni Cinematografiche/SRL Rome, Mege
Film/SPA Rome, Rialto Film Preben Philipsne
GMBH & CO. KG Berlin), Klaus performs
a variation on the classic victim/victimizer
role that he has perfected in countless
exploitation films over the years. During
a holiday, K2 falls head over heels for
some babe, and they experience much delight
as they slide down a hill in front of a
movie screen playing winter scenes. Of course,
this kind of movie magic tomfoolery can
only lead to one thing, and soon the two
are married. However, a slight problem arises
when we discover that the wife won't sleep
with Klaus. Is it because he looks like
a creepy Michael Sarrazin clone? No, it's
because she's a lesbian! I guess this never
came up during the courtship.
Despite this character flaw,
she still names Klaus the sole heir to her
incredible fortune. Does anyone else suspect
that she won't live till the end credits?
If you answered "yes" to that
question, you deserve a hearty handshake,
a pat on the back, and our warmest congratulations.
Because faster than you can say "suspicious
circumstances," "somebody"
tampers with her car and when Helen goes
on holiday, her toy car blows up, careens
down a papier mache hill and into some cardboard
trees where it blows up...destroying the
body inside "beyond recognition."
Rest easily though folks, there's "no
doubt" whose body it is.
Klaus does what any grieving
widower would do...he visits every place
he and Helen had fun at, thus making him
a key suspect in her death. At this point,
DOUBLE FACE goes totally bonkers. Klaus
comes home from his latest trip and finds
a girl in his house. Several questions come
to mind: Who is she? Why is she in the house?
Why is she in the movie? Why does Klaus
act as if he knows her, despite the fact
that this is her first appearance in the
film? Ahhhhhh, Italian film madness begins
to take hold on my brain, and I start to
lose my grip on reality. (It should come
as no surprise that the flick was scripted
by the insane Lucio Fulci.)
Like any right-thinking German
crazoid, K2 follows the chick to a bizarre
club where he sees a film of what looks
like his wife making love to the girl...
AFTER HER DEATH!! (Insert prerequisite deafening
piano score here) And so Klaus has a mission
(and the movie has a point)... to find his
wife, if she is in fact alive. This torturous
journey (for both Klaus and the viewer)
results in our hero getting the shit beat
out of him in this incredibly cool scene
where he is shot in mis-framed ultra close-up
so that we never actually see him get hit,
yet his body is getting severely thwacked
around. Okay, okay, I know it sounds stupid,
but it really is pretty cool. He also threatens
a chick with a broken wine bottle ("Now
talk, if you want to save that face of yours"),
makes his father-in-law think he's nuts,
smokes alot of cigarettes, and has an Italian
babe with big fluttering eyelashes tell
him: "I wanted to see you, but then
I fell asleep like mischevious children
do." Do you understand this line? I've
contemplated it for weeks, and I still don't
have a clue.
The eventual end to DOUBLE
FACE is both unsatisfying and pretty transparent
early on, even though director Robert Hampton
(aka Riccardo Freda) tries his best to confuse
the viewer by throwing in a character at
the conclusion who wasn't in the prior 117
minutes. I don't know... somehow that doesn't
seem fair to me.
DOUBLE FACE isn't one of Klaus's
best works, but then again it doesn't give
him much to do other than walk around, look
bemused, smoke, and talk to Italian chicks.
Can you blame him for not giving it his
all?
