Notable actors: Carroll Baker! Jean Sorel!I'm required by law to explain that the alternative title for this film is Paranoia, but that is the real title of Lenzi's other Giallo, Orgazmo, and that there's another Umberto Lenzi film called An Ideal Place to Kill too. Also, at least four Umberto Lenzi gialli star Carroll Baker, and additionally they are all generally of the 'bunch of people scheming against each other' plots rather than 'someone carving up Euro-babes' variety. Got that?*Absolute silence from the rest of the Universe*Right. This one starts off with Carroll Baker as a racing car driver who has some sort of brain fart while driving and ends up in hospital. Once discharged, she finds that she's been invited to the big fancy house of ex-husband/complete jerk playboy shag machine Jean Sorel, who previously mooched all of her money. Being a character in a film, she doesn't just throw the invite in the bin, but instead immediately packs her bags and drives off there.Once there, Carroll realises that Jean has remarried an extremely rich lady who owns oil fields. It also turns out that this lady is the one who sent the invite - but for what reason? To play footsie with her under the table while Jean is doing the same thing? This lady, Constance, wants to be Carroll's new special friend, but is it for the usual giallo reasons (i.e slow motion lesbian sex scene)? Much discussion of how men are bastards ensues. It's hard to write about these films without revealing the entire plot, and the twists are the highlights of the film, so let's be as vague as possible. There may or may not be a murder halfway through the film but a tremendous amount of obstacles suddenly present themselves that the killer (or killers) that they have to surmount to avoid being caught (that's if they murdered anyone, which they might have). Someone with a film camera may or may not have unwittingly filmed the murder which possibly leads to a hypothetical scene where everyone involved has to watch the film, plus there might even be the sudden appearance of someone else later in the film to throw a spanner in the works. Or perhaps not. What I will reveal is that Umberto Lenzi further cements his position as the top animal killer of Italian cinema by having a scene set at a pigeon shooting club. It isn't enough that the guy would go out of his way to kill animals in his cannibal films, but here's a giallo that racks up a few pigeon deaths for the sake of a film. LEEENNNNZZZIIIII!!!!!Just like his other late sixties Gialli, Lenzi has the whole film look amazing, keeps the camera angles fresh, but reigns in the psychedelics. He does include the old 'dancing in the club' scene that's a favourite from this particular era, including a band who wouldn't have looked out of place in the early nineties! Slow to start, but as usual Lenzi proves he can tell the same story, with the same actors, a different way, and have everything and everyone look like an ad for a holiday villa.And that's it - that's all the Carroll Baker gialli watched too, with the exception of some obscure psuedo-giallo called The Body from 1974. Carroll would later go on to star as the pushy mother of the bad guy in Big Arnie's Kindergarten Cop!

Both Carroll Baker and Jean Sorel began their career with great directors: the former was Lucky enough to be directed by George Stevens ,Elia Kazan (who gave her her lifetime role "baby doll" ),John Ford.The latter was best remembered for his movies with such luminaries as Duvivier,Bunuel and Visconti:but even in these works ,his good looks went against him and his male co-stars easily outclassed him.Besides,he resembled Alain Delon and there was no room for both of them.More than Clouzot's "LES Diaboliques" which anyway inspired hundreds of thrillers ,it's Clement's classic "Plein Soleil" (aka "purple noon" ) ,which put Delon on the map ,that provides the movie with two of its more important scenes:the murder on the boat ,and even more the final shot which is a complete ripoff.That said ," paranoia " is probably the most satisfying of all Baker's soft porn extravaganzas :unlike "Cosi Dolce Cosi Perversa","or "Il Diavolo A Sette Facce" ,this one has a relatively firm screenplay ,with several unexpected twists ,and a few good scenes of its own:Constance's lesbian side ,the flash forwards (Maurice killed by the harpoon) and chiefly the film which scares the criminals (a great moment of suspense).The cinematography is more painstaking than in your average B movie and there's a good use of the wide screen which takes advantage of the location.Maurice utters a few words in his first language ("Charmante N'Est-Ce-Pas?"),and there are soft erotic scenes .Miss Baker is not very credible as a racing driver(!) but she's really a babe.NB:in the eighties,CB made a Volte face and went back ,for a while ,to great cinema: in "ironweed" ,she was convincing as Jack Nicholson's wife.

Welcome to Umberto Lenzi's early 70's giallo/crime thriller "Paranoia" starring the unearthly beautiful Carroll Baker… Hey, wait a minute, haven't I watched and reviewed this movie a couple of days ago already? Oh right, that was the OTHER Umberto Lenzi early 70's giallo/crime thriller "Paranoia" starring the unearthly beautiful Carroll Baker, more commonly known as "Orgasmo". Confusing? Well, maybe a little, but rest assured these are two entirely different movies of which the stories & characters aren't linked to each other at all. The other "Paranoia" is also far superior to this one. That particular movie had tons of suspense, likable characters and convoluted plot-twists whereas this one is painfully boring. This film features TWO worthwhile scenes, both involving wild car accidents, one at the beginning and one at the end and everything in between is one gigantically uninteresting, predictable and overlong love-triangle between three characters. It all starts with Mrs. Baker stars as a rather free-spirited race car pilot who crash-parks her car on the circuit and ends up slightly wounded in a hospital. During her period of recovery, she accepts to stay at her ex-husband and his new wife's mansion. Two attractive women and one incomprehensibly handsome guy (really, Jean Sorel is way too good-looking!) in one house can only result in extended sequences of sexual intrigue, double-crossing and conspiracies to murder. It's all a lot less exciting than it sounds and only the good acting performances keep it endurable. The filming locations and music are stylish, but that's not enough in this case. Easily the most disappointing Lenzi-film I've seen thus far.

One of the other posters (Babycarrot67) has summed up quite nicely the film and the confusion between this film and another Lenzi title.I recently saw this on a Japanese DVD (Italian language only) and it's a good if unremarkable entry to the genre. I personally think that the other gialli Lenzi made around the same time ('Knife Of Ice', 'So Sweet...So Perverse') were better films. If you are looking for some of the trimmings that occur in some of the more outrageous films in the giallo genre (like 'Torso' or even Lenzi's own 'Eyeball') you might be disappointed. This is very much a talky and plot driven film and relies less on murder set-pieces and gratuitous nudity than many films in the genre. It's always good to see Carroll Baker in the lead role- she gives a solid performance as do the other cast. The plot is not bad throwing in some interesting twists along the way.So a solid but unremarkable entry to the genre. I would only suggest this one to people who have seen the better entries to the genre (like from Argento or Martino) only but I do hope it gets an English DVD edition some time in the future. If you are interested in Lenzi gialli the Region 1 versions of 'Spasmo' and 'Seven Blood-Stained Orchids' would be a better place to start.