Naked You Die (1968)

A pre-Argento giallo from Antonio Maghreti (directing under his 'Anthony Dawson' alias), Naked You Die (1968) prefigures many of the tropes that would come to characterise the genre as it became more 'formalised' in the seventies.  Before Dario Argento started making his giallos, where the motivation for a series of stylised and bizarre murders is usually rooted in some deeply buried and terrible past crime, the most influential director of the emerging genre was probably Mario Bava, with The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) and Blood and Black Lace (1964).  Magrheti's film certainly has something of the feel of these films, but also comes over as a sort of Italian version of one of the contemporary Edgar Wallace inspired Krimi films from West Germany.  Whereas these tended to be in monochrome, with their action unfolding against a dank, grimy and darkly lit, somewhat Gothic, version of London - usually recreated in the studios and streets of West Germany - Naked You Die takes place in the sunny and colourful South of France and its colour photography displays the sort of bright and lush colour palette typical of Italian movies of the era.  While its mysterious killer preying on young women and its plot hinging on inheritances and the like seem very Edgar Wallace, the enclosed setting of an out-of-term girls' boarding school, with its limited cast of suspects, seems suggestive of the influence of Agatha Christie.

While the film's trailer is clearly trying to persuade us that Naked You Die is some kind of salacious sex thriller full of semi-naked teenage temptresses, in reality there is no nudity or explicit sex.  There are plenty of scenes of twenty five year old teenage 'schoolgirls' in their underwear, or seen from behind, from the waist up, in the shower, but that's as far as it goes.  None of the murders are sexually motivated  - it is all about money, as it turns out -indeed, one murder and another attempted murder are actually cases of mistaken identity (the killer apparently can't tell the difference between the various teenage students at the school).  Despite the relatively standard plot and criminal motivations, Magrheti's execution includes various giallo-style touches: the murders committed from the killer's perspective, who is represented by a pair of black leather glove clad hands, for instance, a body seen by a major character which then vanishes, calling into question her mental state and the murderer hiding in plain sight are all present.  The film also features the usual giallo quota of misdirection, with suspiciously acting characters all paraded before the audience as suspects, including a Peeping Tom caretaker who sees too much, (voyeurism was to become a significant recurring theme in the genre).  

While Magrheti never had the same level of visual flair as Bava or Argento, his direction was never less than professional and in Naked You Die he delivers a well shot, good looking and quite pacy film, neatly contrasting the sunny, almost idyllic, setting of the exclusive school with the bizarre and terrible events that take place against its background.  He gets the film off to an intriguing and memorable start, with an unseen assailant choking to death a woman in her bath, loading her body into a trunk, the travels of which, strapped to the roof rack of a taxi, in the guards van of a train, in a minibus meeting the train, then to the school, which sets the tone of the film - not mention establishing the scenario and some main characters via a conversation on the bus - stylishly and efficiently.  The various misdirections and plot twists are well handled, never becoming too confusing or difficult to follow.  He also gets some decent performances out of a cast that includes Mark Damon as a teacher knocking off one of his students (another common genre theme) and Michael Rennie as the investigating police inspector and Luciano Pigozzi (billed under his usual English language alias of 'Allan Collins') as the pervy caretaker.  While not exactly a classic of the genre, Naked You Die is an enjoyable late sixties giallo made with an agreeable degree of verve and style.