If you don't get Klaus Kinski, why not simply name the bad guy ... Klaus! After such a cunning production move – Klaus being played by German 60s scoundrel regular Horst Frank, flown in directly from the set of one of Jürgen Roland's stuffy St. Pauli whores-&-pimps flicks –, there's few directions to go but down, and neither pallid Frenchman J-L Trintignant nor "Baby Doll" Carroll Baker can provide the slightest bit of uplift. And in fact, it's not Klaus who's coming between them, but a) Riz Ortolani's annoying soundtrack, especially the ear-cancer inducing theme canzone, and b) the convoluted mess of the script by hackmeister Ernesto Gastaldi, a pseudo-clever double-crossing murder scheme stolen shamelessly from Les Diaboliques (for his version of Strangers on a Train, see the stunning densefest Lo strano vizio della Signora Wardh). As for Horst Frank, he's almost as smug as Tarantino favorite Christoph Waltz. Almost, and if legend is true, he also suggested a much more fitting title for this Euro stinker: Klaustrophobia.
Review of So Sweet... So Perverse
