THE FOURTH VICTIM (1971) Blu-ray
Director: Eugenio Martín
Severin Films

Carroll Baker is about to be the next Mrs. Anderson, but will she also be THE FOURTH VICTIM in Severin's Blu-ray of this twisty Italian/Spanish giallo.

When his wife is found floating in their swimming pool, widower Arthur Anderson (Michael Craig, TURKEY SHOOT) is arrested at her funeral when his life insurance company prompts Scotland Yard to exhume the body on the basis of the mysterious deaths of his previous two wives on which he also collected life insurance. Things look bad for Arthur at trial since he admits to not being in love with his wives at the times of their deaths, but the presence of enough barbiturates in his wife's system for her to have been dead before her drowning is explained away by his housekeeper Felicity (Miranda Campa, I VAMPIRI) who reveals that the late Mrs. Anderson had already attempted suicide the night before.

Although Arthur is found innocent, bumbling Inspector Dunphy (José Luis López Vázquez, AN IMPERFECT CRIME) continues to dog him, noting that he may not be able to be tried for the same crime twice but that there are plenty of other women in the world. Arthur resolves not to marry again, but his new neighbor who lives in "the Dracula castle" next door (Oakley Court), American heiress Julie Spencer (Carroll Baker, ORGASMO) proves aggressive in her courtship of him in spite of knowing about his past. She even takes out a life insurance policy on herself with him as the beneficiary as proof of her trust in him. The honeymoon is over when Arthur starts to suspect that Julie may not be who she says she is, and possibly in cahoots with Dunphy; however, both are under threat from a mysterious woman (Marina Malfatti, THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE) who is acquainted with the ghosts in Julie's closet.

Although made around the same time Dario Argento turned the giallo genre towards the more violent and stylish body count direction of THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, the Italian/Spanish co-production THE FOURTH VICTIM from jobbing director Eugenio Martín (HORROR EXPRESS) is in the breezier vein of Baker's Umberto Lenzi jet set gialli of the late sixties with some additional comic interjections in the form of Dunphy's bumblings and the continental interpretation of the British stiff upper lip. Fortunately, Martín and company seem to be well-versed in the genre up to that point, subverting expectations not by sharp twists away from what seems to be going on but by compounding the scheme with complications. The lighter tone of the first half gives way to a darker second half with some hallucinatory passages in which we realize that the real source of danger comes from somewhere else while still not being quite sure of the guilt or innocence of either Arthur or Julie.

The cinematography of Guglielmo Mancori (WEB OF THE SPIDER) – with seasoned DP Fernando Arribas (TEN LITTLE INDIANS) possibly being a quota credit – is more functional than elegant, and the scoring of Piero Umiliani (BABA YAGA) is rather bombastic, but neither distract from the interesting and at times absurd plot. Martín followed this film up with his teaming with American producers Bernard Gordon and Philip Yordan that netted the Lee Van Cleef westerns BAD MAN'S RIVER and CAPTAIN APACHE, as well as the Telly Savalas duo PANCHO VILLA and HORROR EXPRESS. His only other subsequent genre pictures were A CANDLE FOR THE DEVIL and SUPERNATURAL.

Unreleased in the United States theatrically or on home video, the only way to see THE FOURTH VICTIM in English-friendly form were from dupes of a Greek-subtitled cassette. The cropped tape was further compromised by the fact that whoever did the transfer elected not to overlay the credits on the image, so the credits overlay unfolded on black while the sound effects of the action under the credits could be heard. A poor quality, semi-letterboxed Spanish release revealed that the credits unfolded over a sequence that establishes the drowning death of Arthur's third wife as indeed very suspicious. Although Severin's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.39:1 widescreen Blu-ray comes from a 2K scan of the original camera negative, the results are not quite the equal of Severin's other Baker giallo Blu-ray, but this may be both indicative of the production and the care for the negative. Colors are rather restrained with even a few reds and some gels not quite popping, and the brightness of the image flickers throughout. Detail is fair to good but depth is satisfying, not flattening out in the film's more suspenseful moments of figures darting in and out of the darkest of blacks. The credits may have been digitally recreated. English and Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono tracks are offered with clear post-synched dialogue and only the high ends of Umiliani's theme coming close to distortion. Unfortunately, the disc only includes English SDH subtitles for the English dub.

Extras start off with "Eugenio Martín: An Auteur for All Genres" (15:36), in which biographer Carlos Aguilar – who collaborated on a project with the director that never came to fruition – tries to make the case that Martín was an auteur due to the diligence with which he approached all of the genres in which he worked and his stylistic versatility to adapt to them. The disc also includes a deleted scene from the Spanish version (2:43) in which Arthur meets with the embarrassed insurance adjuster after he has been found innocent – although this scene is exclusive to the Spanish version along with an additional final shot at the end, the Spanish version actually ran four minutes shorter than the Italian and export versions – as well as the international theatrical trailer (2:56). (Eric Cotenas)

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