Welcome back to another review here at B-Movie Enema. It’s great to have you here. For real. I mean it. I am glad you’re here.

Anyway, let’s talk about murder!

Italian giallo is what’s on tap for this week’s movie. What exactly the first giallo is is somewhat debatable. Though I think most critics would name 1963’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much by Mario Bava as the first. That film starred John Saxon. Bava followed that up with 1964’s Blood and Black Lace starring none other than Cameron motherfuckin’ Mitchell! Throughout the 60s, gialli remained a little under the radar until the 70s when the genre would kick into hyperdrive. A few weeks back, I talked about Umberto Lenzi a little bit as he co-wrote Primal Rage. This week, we have another key Italian filmmaker to talk about.

1974’s Puzzle, the movie we’ll be figuring out this week, is directed by Duccio Tessari. Tessari’s career began as a writer. Starting around 1958, Tessari worked quite a bit as a writer for several years. He wrote some Hercules films, other peplum, and, of course, spaghetti westerns. In fact, it was one of his 1964 scripts that would kick off the massive popularity of those Italian western films. Yeah, Tessari wrote A Fistful of Dollars.

Even before that seminal Sergio Leone film, Tessari began directing a couple of years before. After A Fistful of Dollars, Tessari would do a lot of directing. After Dollars, Tessari created Ringo for A Pistol for Ringo and The Return of Ringo. Westerns would be something Tessari would make well into the 80s. Even with Puzzle being fairly well-regarded, Tessari would really not make any other giallo films. Aside from westerns, Tessari’s bread and butter were comedies or crime dramas. He was fairly versatile throughout his career. Before passing away in 1994, Tessari’s final film he directed, was Beyond Justice. I recognize that Rutger Hauer movie being on video store shelves. That was co-written by George Eastman, a name I definitely recognize in my adult years. That reminds me… I really do need to cover Anthropophagous.

Anyway, let’s try to solve this Puzzle, shall we?

My first note happens before I even click “Watch Now” on Amazon Prime Video. You gotta love a movie that is a suspenseful drama that frightens you, but makes you think about stuff too. I feel like I’m going to be on the edge of my seat, while also spooked, but maybe even tearing up while I have some thoughts. Now, that’s what I call cinema.

The movie opens with an Italian song that I have to assume is about the mafia and spaghetti. I… I may not know too much about Italy. Anyway, the original focus of the opening credits is a couple of guys who are walking and talking before one gets into his car and drives off. However, he’s unaware that he’s being followed. The credits end with our main guy, Ted, arriving at his psychiatrist’s office. Ted is amnesic. He had a bad car accident about eight months ago and woke up in a clinic with no memory of who he was.

One of the guys following Ted during the credits comes into the doctor’s office and claims he knows who Ted is. This guy, Phillip, knows Ted is a British man, 30 years of age, and is married to an American woman. Also, the moment the two of them are alone in Ted’s apartment, Phillip puts a beatin’ on Ted, calling him a no-good double-crossing con man. Ted claims he is “Peter Smith” and not the fella that Phillip says he is. That’s what his Passport says, “Peter Smith.” So that’s gotta be who he is.

Ted asks Phillip where this wife he supposedly has is, and, apparently, she’s still in Portofina, where Ted left her. I’m not sure if Phillip is there to collect Ted, but I know he has a gun, and he wants this no-good con man to come with him. That’s when someone shoots Phillip in the back through the window in Ted’s apartment.

Ted’s a peculiar guy. For one, when Phillip got shot, he didn’t quite react like his life was in danger. He even goes to the window to see who might have shot this guy. He also immediately got a telegram from his “wife,” Sara. Sara is apparently looking forward to seeing him. He seems more frustrated with being kind of in a fog about who all these damn people are than he is that there’s a dead guy in his apartment who held him at gunpoint.

In Italy, we see who we are told is “Sara” coaching a boys’ swim team. She tells one boy in particular, Luca, that his pushing another boy underwater to win a race was disgraceful. She and Luca get picked up by a man named Reinhardt. This guy seems sweet on Sara. They kiss each other when he first arrives to pick them up and again when she tells him that she’s got work to do around the house and can’t invite him in for a drink.

She lets her little dog out while she prepares for bed. It’s very obvious, in dialogue and in framing, that she left the door open for the dog, but by the time little Whiskey wanted to come back in, the door was shut. When she let the dog back in, it seems very clear she is no longer alone in the house… Well, I mean, she’s no longer the only human in the house.

Sara lets Whiskey out of the bedroom to go downstairs to get a drink. While Whiskey is making his way down those stairs, a hand cuts power to the house. When Whiskey yelps, Sara gets out of bed and goes looking for the dog once again. This time, in total darkness. Her stuff is tossed around the house, and whoever it was that entered the house kicked Whiskey before attacking her. It looks like she might be in mortal danger, but the scene cuts, and we see a police officer in her house asking her questions. This is the second time in a month she’s had her house tossed.

The next morning, Sara meets Reinhardt for a morning coffee. She receives a telegram from Ted saying he’s joining her in Italy. She is taken there by Reinhardt only for her to tell the guy she’d rather reunite with Ted alone. Reinhardt says he has a sneaking suspicion that Sara still loves the man who left her nearly a year ago. When Ted comes up the stairs from the train platform, he walks right past Sara, much to her frustration.

Sara doesn’t know Ted had an accident. All she knew was that he went to England, but he never returned. All he knew was what he was told. He had a car rented to Peter Smith, which is why he accepts that as his name. They pulled him from the wreckage, and he doesn’t have any memories. She explains that whatever he went to England for is kind of mysterious. She confirms, though, that Edward Walden (Ted to his friends) is indeed a dirty, rotten bastard.

Back at their place, Ted shows Sara the telegram he received from her. She says it was not she who sent him this, and she truly did not know where he was these past eight months. He says he needs to leave. Someone has arranged their meeting. Those people who arranged this are capable of murder. Sara says she would be scared if he left her alone. He sees a clock on the mantle that reminds him of something. Sara and Ted decide to give their relationship another try. Ted is a little suspicious of why she wants him to stay. He wonders if she wants him here so she can keep an eye on him to find out if he truly is a dirty, rotten bastard.

The very next day after arriving in Italy, Ted is metaphorically thrown into the deep end of the pool where Sara teaches swimming. There, he meets Reinhardt, the doctor at the school where she teaches, and the competition for Sara’s heart. That’s immediately followed by meeting Luca, the little boy who has a big boy crush on Sara. So with these three guys and Whiskey, I guess there are four guys in Sara’s life. She’s busy!

Also, at the school, we see someone watching all this go down. There’s a man who has a constantly running nose that he wipes with a tissue. He was also at the train station and told Ted that his wife was still at the top of the stairs after he walked right past her. Seeing him, Ted follows the guy out into the street. After punching the guy, Ted finds out this is George. George was Ted’s “real good friend” before he went and lost his memory.

George was the guy who shot Phillip. Phillip and George were part of the crew that Ted supposedly screwed over. However, George didn’t want Phillip to kill Ted, so he killed Phillip. Ted was the key to an entire operation that was worth a million bucks. The thought was that he had made off with the money, leaving the rest of his crew holding the bag. They think he either invented this whole amnesia thing or he purposely got into the accident to cover for the claim that he has forgotten everything. Before going their separate ways, Ted, who was known to be kind of violent and prone to losing his temper, tells George he will kill him if he involves Sara in any of this.

George and Sara go for a walk to reconnect or, I suppose, get to know each other all over again. Sara says that she did hang out with Reinhardt because of her loneliness, but she is not interested in him like Ted thinks she might be. So, I suppose they are just the good ol’ friend with benefits.

Things take quite a turn when Sara comes home while Ted goes out for some flowers for his wife. Earlier, Luca was walking Whiskey but lost the dog while the kid took some pictures. We discover that someone has taken Whiskey, killed him, and left him on Sara’s bed. It’s also a particularly brutal murder of the little dog with the little guy’s throat slit. This triggers some sort of a memory of Ted holding someone while another slit that guy’s throat.

Ted believes George killed Whiskey to get at him through Sara. Ted is especially pissed at George when he spots him watching the couple bury the dog. Ted chases after George through the streets of Portofino. Ted runs into a woman who recognizes him and kisses him. While Ted’s confused about this woman, George goes to visit Sara. George says Ted owes him a debt, so he can pay everyone else. George tells her that Ted has seven days to give him that million bucks or Ted and Sara will both meet a grizzly end.

The woman sits with Ted at a cafe. She tells him their “mutual friend” said he’d remember two things about New York. He tries to poke around for more answers to try to help him understand what he’s supposed to be remembering, but she doesn’t give him anything else. She just tells him to think about New York.

Upon returning to Sara’s house, she does not tell Ted she was visited by George. He does not tell her about the woman he ran into on the street. Instead, she suggests they get out of there for their own safety. Someplace like London… or New York. Ted begins kissing Sara and tries to return to their marital duties, but she turns him down. They each go to different beds to go to sleep. Sara dials a number on her phone but decides to hang up the receiver before the call completes.

That night, while it storms outside, someone comes into Sara’s house. It was established earlier when the cop was there to check out the previous break-in and assault that Sara never locks her doors. Sara investigates the possible intruder, but one of the windows blows open. After she closes and locks the window, someone throws a knife, covered in blood, at the wall near her head. When Ted sees the knife, he has another flash of that memory when he was present at that guy’s throat-slashing. Whoever that guy was, his death was worth a million dollars.

Ted, Sara, Luca, and Reinhardt have lunch together one last time before Ted and Sara decide to leave for New York. Ted is told by the waiter that a man is there who wants to speak to him. He finds out that George is waiting for him in the bathroom. George tells Ted his patience is just about out. He also has a great line saying that he’ll “put a slug through your amnesia.” That’s a great line. The scene is shot really well too, with Ted in the sort of foreground and George in the mirror, and also positioned, more or less, in the background.

George says that the million dollars’ worth of heroin that Ted supposedly stole from his associates had to be here in Portofino. He also thinks it was Sara that Ted used to stash the stuff. George questions whether Ted or Sara should be the first to eat lead from his gun.

Apparently, to make the situation as crystal clear as they can make it, that woman that Ted ran into that night on the street? Well, her name is Mary. As Reinhardt and Sara walk to his car one last time at the end of the school day, Mary backs her car right into Sara. Reinhardt learns that she’s broken her tibia and dislocated her kneecap. This will delay their move to America for a couple more days.

While Ted and Luca go to the pharmacist, George sneaks into Sara’s house. He says it’s a shame that she got that car to the leg. This means she is stuck here, and there are only five days to go. He begins lighting matches and tossing them onto her while he explains that what he’s looking for is a string of sausages, as those are what Ted has stashed the smack in. He explains where he wants Ted to meet him with the stuff. He also said that when he told her they’d kill them, he really did mean it and will do so in five days if he doesn’t get what he wants.

So Luca, let’s talk about him for a moment, yes? Luca is, like, 10 years old. He’s got the major hots for Sara, right? Well, he’s kind of stoically sad that she’s leaving with Ted for America. However, he’s also adult enough to have told Reinhardt that he has to let Sara go because she seemingly loves her husband during that lunch they had with the couple. Before Sara leaves, Luca wants to share the pictures we’ve seen him take throughout the movie. There are A LOT of Sara, but the kid is really good at photography, so she is flattered by them.

Luca says that he knows he will be more upset about her leaving for America than George is. Sara asks how he knows that. Luca says that he has a picture of George with a woman. A woman, he adds, who looks… American.

Yeah, so Mary was previously established to be an American. She was the one who hit Sara with her car. She seems to be wrapped up in all of this, but is George also wrapped up in all this smack talk? The picture was taken while Sara was swimming before the accident.

This gives Sara the itch to investigate. She calls the insurance company from the card that Mary gave Reinhardt. They do not have anyone named Mary Caine as a client. Reinhardt even seemingly telephoned the insurance company and talked to them in front of Sara. Now she believes that maybe her friend has been part of this whole scheme to begin with.

Meanwhile, Ted has gone to the meeting place that George told Mary he wanted him to be at. The two tussle a bit, but ultimately George has the upper hand. He’s had enough of all this and plans to simply shoot and kill Ted. However, before pulling the trigger, George says that before their boss kills him, he’s going to kill Sara. You know, it’s the ol’ Italian version of taking everyone down with him.

Ted lunges for George before he can shoot and kill him. They fight once more, but this time, Ted sends George over the cliff. This leads to a wonderful shot of a wonderful dummy falling to its death.

Just after dispatching George, though, Ted gets a rock to the back of the head and finds himself tied up and at the mercy of this mystery assailant. The man who captured him said that he knows where the smack is, and Ted supposedly knows who they are selling it to, so they need to go to New York to do the final part of this transaction. Apparently, this guy and Ted originally had a side deal to betray the rest of the team and split the million bucks 50/50.

The mystery partner tells Ted that if he can remember his name, he’ll untie him. When Ted can’t, the guy leaves to let Ted figure out this mystery. Meanwhile, Luca and Mary have cut her cast off. It seems as though her leg is not as bad of a shap as everyone first thought. It was all a plot to stash the heroin-filled sausages to send to New York by hiding them in her cast. Reinhardt was the secret partner all along. The sausages were placed in the clock that triggered that memory for Ted earlier. He then swapped it over to her cast when she supposedly broke her leg.

Reinhardt arrives at Sara’s while Ted works out of the ropes tied around his arms and legs. Sara sent the smacksages home with Luca to hide. Ted rushes to Sara to stop Reinhardt from killing her. And… yeah, that’s exactly what Reinhardt plans to do. He will kill her if she doesn’t tell him what happened with the smacksages.

Luca returns with a toy truck where he’s hidden the stuff. Sara eventually relents and tells Reinhardt that the stuff is in that truck. Reinhardt is pleased, but he’s going to have to kill Sara anyway. She is a witness, and you can’t have any of those around when there’s a million bucks’ worth of smack trying to be dealt. Reinhardt slashes at Sara a few times, cutting her on the arm and back. She uses her gardener’s chainsaw to defend herself, but she eventually trips and drops the chainsaw.

Before Reinhardt can slit her throat, Ted comes in and says that he can’t kill Sara here or they won’t even be able to get to the airport before they’re caught by the coppers. While Ted talks to Reinhardt about their big plan, it distracts him long enough for Ted to suckerpunch him. They have a brief struggle before Reinhardt lands on the chainsaw and dies… gruesomely. Luca arrives with a cop, and at first, Sara tries to say it was all in self-defense and Ted had nothing to do with anything inside her house. Ted, on the other hand, says that there is far more to the story than Sara is letting on, and he needs to come clean about everything.

Puzzle is a pretty good movie. I absolutely enjoyed the concept of this amnesiac, whom we know nothing more than he does about his life and what his original plans were that led to so many calling him a good-for-nothing jerk. It’s competently written and mysterious. It doesn’t fall into many of the same Italian movie pitfalls of nonsense.

That said, I struggle to truly call Puzzle a giallo. If we think of gialli to be somewhat equivalent to the American slasher, this fails that test alone. Puzzle doesn’t have a mad stalker kind of killer. It’s more of a crime drama than anything else. While this is typically classified as a giallo, I think I figured out why we don’t see many other films of this genre in Duccio Tessari’s filmography, while he has a lot of crime dramas right here in the mid-70s. I think this is more in his general crime wheelhouse than anything associated with horror.

Suspenseful? Sure. Thriller? Sure. Giallo? Not really. Still, there’s enough here that fans of gialli will like this movie, I’m sure. Just don’t expect Argento, Lenzi, or Martino when you start this. Think more along the lines of something like Lenzi’s Almost Human, which also came out in 1974. It’s got plenty of intrigue to keep you engaged, though.

Okie dokie hokey smokey. Let’s wrap this up like a sausage casing full of heroin and look ahead to next week! Next time, we’re returning to the Jurassic world of Roger Corman’s New Horizons. Oh yes… 1993’s Carnosaur was popular enough (because everyone had the dino fever) that it necessitated a sequel. And that’s exactly what we’re going to be reviewing next week. So hold onto your butts and prepare yourself for the aptly titled Carnosaur 2!

Until then, I need to send these sausages from this movie over to Ordinary Sausage and find out if what’s inside will blow or if they really will just smack.