Here's a weird one - an Italian comedy/giallo crossbreed, filmed in Britain with a mainly Italian cast. However, the gambit pays off, and despite the predictable reading-of-the-will-followed-by-rash-of-murders premise, the film remains fresh and engaging up until the final unmasking. Surprisingly, the comic aspects of the script are in fact more entertaining than the more typical gloved killer antics, and in particular Gastone Moschin's portrayal of the bumbling but not altogether dense bobby Sergeant Thorpe is a delight. Moschin's cache of puzzled expressions, bizarre mannerisms, and awkward words is a delight, and his role is a pivotal one. Moschin never fails to be funny and his performance alone makes the film worthwhile.The rest of the Italian cast are all fine in their respective roles, and there's time for appearances from Beryl Cunningham - a hot black Euro-starlet at the time - and the British Lance Percival, who also excels as Scotland Yard's Superintendent Grey, and frequently gets to engage in amusing banter with Moschin. The characters are varied and interesting, with a fair assortment of weirdos (especially "Georgie", with his mother fixation) and icy Italian beauties - namely Ida Galli. The script mixes in red herrings and practical jokes involving staged murders with the real deaths to further muddy the plot, and while the film is neither gory nor violent - and, let's face it, there's not a lot of action either - it doesn't need to be. The comedy, for a change, is what helps the film stay watchable.The film is as stylish as usual for an Italian giallo, with lots of neat directorial flourishes, and you don't get much more classy than the opening discover of a murder when a hand is unearthed in a golf course much to the assembled's consternation. However, I could have done without the occasional moments that director Michele Lupo decides to use his camera like a trombone and make the audience feel giddy into the bargain! My favourite scene comes when the seemingly incompetent Thorpe displays his genius by explaining a particularly elaborate suicide set-up involving a gunshot recording, a dumb waiter, and resin from a silencer. This is a thoroughly enjoyable and often hilarious experience, although to give fair warning those expecting anything like a "serious" Italian genre film will be severely disappointed - the film-makers here know their premise is clichéd, so have all the fun they can at the story's expense.

When a friend showed me the trailer to this film,I was surprised at how different this looked to any of the other films in the Giallo genre that I had seen.One of the things that I noticed from the trailer was,that the film seemed to have been inspired by the works of novelist Agatha Christie and with having enjoyed watching the Margaret Rutherford Miss Marple films with my dad over the years,I felt that this was defiantly a film that was worth watching.The Plot:At a family gathering to hear the will of a recently deceased wealthy relative,the local police officer (sgt . Aloisius Thorpe) at the village near by the deceases mansion, (where all his family are gathered to hear the will) decides to pay a visit to make sure that the reading of the will goes as smoothly as possible.After the reading (which has angered most of the family,due to almost all of them hardly getting anything at all,apart from the one who looked after him for the last three years of his life,who has inherited most of his huge estate.)As Thorpe starts to leave the family and the mansion behind,he is shocked to discover the dead body of the mansions butler!.Realiseing something foul may be afoot Thorpe gets some detectives from Scotland Yard to come down to help him investigate this strange death.With everyone being told to stay at the mansion for the next few days,due to the investigation of the murder,the police are almost stunned into silence,when they find another dead body,which is this time one of the family members (Ted Collins).As more dead bodies start to pile up,and the police begin to suspect that a killer may be loose in the mansion,Aloisius Thorpe decides that he has had enough of trying to follow loose ends,and that he is instead going to do a complete search of the mansion and its surroundings.When Thorpe finds out that before he died the wealthy relative had become obsessed with star gazing from the tallest plier in the mansion.This leads Thorpe to thinking that along with looking up in the sky to gaze at the stars,he may also be able to look down,to gaze at the murderer... View on the film: The first people who I feel should be massively praised for the film are the DVD company Code Red who,instead of letting this extremely strong Giallo fade away into complete obscurity,have into brought the film right back to the present,with a DVD that is filled with fantastic special features.With the screenplay,writers Fabio Pittorru,Massimo Felisatti and Sergio Donati surprisingly stay away from most of the ingredients that Giallo films are famous for,with no sign of any black gloves at all!,they instead go for a much more "traditional" English mystery plot,that feels as if this is a film that could have an adaptation of a long lost Agatha Christie novel.This Giallo also has the unique distinction of perhaps,being the only Giallo that would be perfectly suitable for the whole family to watch (from age 8 to 80!),due to its fun light breezy feel,that has something for everyone.For the music,composer Francesco De Masi has written a very enjoyable score,which has a main theme that will be stuck in your head for days!.Although the screenplay mostly stays away from the style,the fantastic directing from Michele Lupo injects an excellent Giallo feel into the film,with a very good use of jump cuts and whip-pans,that help to show the uneasiness that all of the family have for each other.Final view on the film: A fantastic,very different Giallo, that the whole family can enjoy!

Weekend Murders is one of the more hard to find Giallo films, and I find that rather surprising as the English countryside setting as well as the mystery plot that spoofs Agatha Christie stories means that it's actually one of the more accessible films of the genre. Despite the fact that Weekend Murders is an Italian production, director Michele Lupo has done a great job of creating a distinctly British atmosphere, and this could easily have been a British film were it not for the poor dubbing. Michele Lupo has a great sense of humour and he succeeds several times in lampooning the tradition that the film is spoofing, and Weekend Murders is a very funny film throughout. We open on a golf course where a leisurely game is interrupted by the discovery of a hand sticking out of a sandpit. It soon becomes obvious that the butler didn't do it because, contrary to the norm, he is the first to go! We soon move on to the first real plot building scene, which takes form in a will reading to the members of a wealthy estate. Aside from getting a few laughs, we are also given the knowledge that the owner of the estate's favourite daughter is to inherit everything, much to the dismay of the rest of the house.Most of the humour in the film comes from the seemingly inept local policeman played by Gastone Moschin. His character soon hooks up with the self proclaimed ace Scotland Yard Superintendent Grey (Lance Percival), and their double act forms the backbone of the movie. The two pair up well actually, and their exchanges work because the two characters are so different. Unfortunately, the rest of the support cast isn't so memorable; and while none of them put in particularly bad performances - there isn't a real standout either. The film also has a few plot problems, as the focus isn't always on the mystery and the exchanges between the members of the house are often redundant and not relevant to the central theme. The mystery itself is rather bare, and although clever at the conclusion - the plot is not the labyrinth that I have come to expect from Giallo's. After spoofing just about every mystery cliché in existence, it is fitting that the common revealing scene at the end is also lampooned by Lupo, and while the identity of the murderer is actually rather obvious; at least the reasons behind it make some sort of sense. Worth tracking down!

This is a take off of the agatha christie type films done in the italian style and set in a statley home in britian.It is great fun and should be seen.Great use of classical music,zoom shots,red herrings and a little bit of the naughty..i mean a little bit,it was early 70s. great apperance by ballard barclay,the major in fawlty towers.It will not set the world on fire but you could do worse. Out of ten,say seven