"Suspected Death..." is not my favorite Martino, but I believe it's his most efficiently directed movie. It is beautifully constructed: dynamic, clever, twisted... There's not a dull moment. Martino shows all his talents in what seem to be a synthesis of all his previous films.
The "Profondo Rosso" influence is obvious, but it didn't bother me. Argento and Martino speak a different langage. They are world appart thematically and artistically. This influence is just superficial. "Suspected Death..." would be as effective without it.
Unfortunately, Martino went a bit too far with the humour... Some sequences belong to a Laurel & Hardy film not a crime movie. It's a shame and I wouldn't mind getting an edited version without all these silly sequences.
There's something profoundly immoral in injecting funny (silly) moments after a dramatic scene. It's truly disturbing. But this is something Italian horror, thriller and crime movies are plagued with. I often feel that many italian directors were not willing to really embrace the dark theme of their movies (or worse, that they didn't even care about violence, that it was just an ingredient among others). Luckily there are exceptions: Dallamano, Barilli, Avati,...
Anyway it was a different era, less conservative then ours. Anything was possible. "Suspected Death..." is still a fascinating movie, and I don't understand why it is not more popular...
