![]() Given the sheer weight of exposition during the first act and a half, though, it probably would’ve worked better to designate Sara as the audience surrogate. The push and pull between Peter and Sara’s points of view gives Puzzle its unique flavor and, when it works, it keeps the audience on their toes while they try to solve the puzzle (ha!) that is Peter’s back story. This story of an amnesiac trying to figure out if he’s a villain of the movie coincides with a sometimes separate story of the amnesiac’s wife dealing with the ramifications of his memory loss. Tessari then applies a liberal helping of Argento-esque visual motifs, most notably during sequences where Peter struggles with flashes of memory, though there are other nods made to Bird with the Crystal Plumage in particular. ![]() Tessari and co-writers Ernesto Gastaldi & Bruno Di Geronimo (working from a story by Roberto Infascelli) harken back to giallo’s roots by invoking Hitchcock and including thematic nods to Rear Window (1954) and Spellbound (1945), and the Italian title, Man without a Memory, which is meant to evoke The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934/56). ![]() The last film, Puzzle (not to be confused with Lamberto Bava’s late stage giallo, Body Puzzle ), represents Tessari fully engaging in giallo’s ( gialli's?) wild plotting conventions and increasingly violent content, meaning that it is his most entertaining entry in the giallo canon.Īfter a brisk intro, Puzzle’s settles into an almost excessive slow burn of exposition and twisty melodrama. Bloodstained Butterfly might be his best of the three, though it leans towards the police and courtroom procedural part of the genre and might not appeal to cult movie enthusiasts. It tends to be remembered for its downbeat atmosphere. A Death Occurred Last Night is the most obscure of the three and isn’t as concerned with the new genre customs set by Argento’s Bird with the Crystal Plumage (Italian: L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo, 1970). ![]() tua!, 1971), and a popular blaxploitation western called Three Tough Guys (Italian: Uomini duri, 1974) – but he also made a trilogy of eclectic and well-liked gialli consisting of A Death Occurred Last Night (Italian: La morte risale a ieri sera, 1970), The Bloodstained Butterfly (Italian: Una farfalla con le ali insanguinate, 1971), and Puzzle (Italian: L’uomo senza memoria aka: Man without a Memory, 1974). His most celebrated films tend to be westerns – including uncredited story contributions to Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars (Italian: Per un pugno di dollari, 1964), writing/directing duties on A Pistol for Ringo (Italian: Una pistola per Ringo, 1965) and The Return of Ringo (Italian: Il ritorno di Ringo, 1965), a Zapata western called Long Live Your Death (Italian: Viva la muerte. Duccio Tessari worked as screenwriter and/or director in almost every one of Italy’s genre fads from the ‘60s through the ‘80s. ![]()
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