Bezenby You don't often get to see a scuba diving lesbian love scene in a film, but that situation is less likely in the crazy world of the gialli, it seems...Gianno Garko plays a jerk doctor who has just dumped his lover Daniela, perhaps for his assistant who's been making kissy faces at him. Daniela's sister is angry Carol Baker, who seems to also be Daniela's lover and is enraged at Daniela's continuous relationship with Gianni. Things come to a head one night when Gianni comes home to find a strangely silent Daniela there, and accidentally kills her by impaling her head with one of his strange object d'art required by all characters in gialli.Panicking, Gianni uses his super surgeon skills to dismember the body and get rid of it, not knowing he's being watched all the time. Also, he's not as smart as he thinks as he didn't notice Daniela's car is outside of the building. When Carol Baker turns up looking for her sister, Gianni tells her, rather unconvincingly, that she hasn't been around in some time, and then a cop, who is falling for Carol, turns up looking for the dead girl too...and he's becoming increasingly biased.Although this is very much a typical 'Carol Baker' giallo with seventies nudity, it is still watchable for Gianni Garko's increasingly unhinged performance and the twists all thrown in at the end (try not to think about them too hard though or you'll get a nose bleed). There are no good characters to root for in the film so it's a case of seeing who'se going to win the mind games that are being played out. Not the most manically paced, however, and I was kind of yearning for that - until the underwater love scene (bizarre

HumanoidOfFlesh Andreas Valenti(Gianni Garko)is a respected surgeon with misogynistic tendencies.When his girlfriend Daniella(Paola Senatore)is accidentally killed by titular metal sculpture of flower he becomes the main suspect.In fact he surgically dismembers her body and disposes remains.Daniella's half-sister Evelyn(Carrol Baker)becomes suspicious and informs Inspector Garrano about possible Andreas guilt.The intrigue of blackmail and backstabbing begins...Sadly overlooked Italian giallo with fantastic underwater lesbian scene.The pace is deliberate and there are several very interesting twists and turns.The performances are splendid and there are some similarities to Luigi Cozzi's memorable "The Killer Must Kill Again".Overall,"The Flower with the Petals of Steel" is a must-see for Euro horror enthusiasts.

lazarillo Gianni Garko plays an amoral, social-climbing surgeon who has had his wealthy wife committed to a mental institution. After he accidentally kills his mistress(Paola Senatore) in a bizarre accident involving the titular "flower with petals of steel" (actually a sculpture),he manages to dispose of the body, but finds himself being pursued by the woman's sister, who is also his vengeful former (Carrol Baker), and a dogged police inspector. Then he begins to be blackmailed by a strange voice on the phone. He also has ANOTHER lover, a nurse (Pilar Velasquez) who may not be what she appears.This obscure, long unavailable(at least in English) Italian giallo has a central twist that even by the standards of the genre is pretty far-fetched. It generally works though. It is very well-filmed. Piccolo is not one of the acknowledged masters of the genre like Argento or Bava (or Martino, Fulci, or Lenzi), but he definitely does a good job. The movie begins with a beautifully shot, seemingly gratuitous underwater diving scene that doesn't make sense until the end where it turns out to be a (definitely gratuitous) underwater lesbian scene (which gives new meaning to the term "muff diving"), but I would think also the first such scene in cinema history. The rest of the cinematography and editing is impressive too (if sometimes a little dark in the print I saw), but with one rather awkward murder scene.The acting is very good, the Italian cast much more so than Carroll Baker (who I imagine was getting tired of the genre by this time). Garko manages to make his character a sympathetic Hitchcockian innocent, who only towards the end is revealed to be real cad getting his comeuppance. Paola Senatore doesn't have much screen time, but is very effective (it helps that she's naked in almost every scene). The beautiful Velasquez also provides some sumptuous nudity, but also some good acting as she goes from a seemingly throw-away character to a very important one by the end. The print I saw was a Spanish language fan-sub, but I imagine this would only get better with a more legitimate, re-mastered release.

MARIO GAUCI Being a latter-day entry in Carroll Baker's Italian giallo tenure, coupled with its essential lack of reputation (probably ascribed to the involvement of an obscure director – one of only three he helmed), I was surprised to learn that the title under review was held in higher esteem by the "Cult Filmz" website than the American star's renowned collaborations with Umberto Lenzi; in hindsight, I agree with this estimation, since I had always found that series of movies average at best (though, in all fairness, I still have one more to check out i.e. SO SWEET…SO PERVERSE [1969] and which I will do presently). Incidentally, despite her top billing, Baker is not the protagonist of the film – in fact, she is just one among a bevy of fetching females with whom leading man Gianni Garko interacts (in more ways than one) throughout. This suggests a reasonably convoluted plot line and, in fact, the revelation offered here is among the wildest (as the whole resolves itself with a bit of lesbian underwater sex!) I have seen within this genre…though I felt the added ironic twist (which sees the culprits not getting away with it after all) unwarranted and a miscalculation! For the record, two other unexpected elements here are the sheer fact that a surgeon would allow himself such an impossibly intricate love life, which would surely prevent him from functioning properly within his chosen – and ultra-delicate – profession, and also that the (hardly handsome) cop on the trail of the assassin would fall for one of the suspects, the not-so-young-anymore Baker (whose drop in stature in this case eventually numbers her among the murder victims themselves)! While the film maintains a frustratingly unhurried pace – albeit offset by a good Marcello Giombini score – along the way, like I said earlier, the premise is woolly enough to keep one engrossed trying to unravel it!; by the way, the subject of the Argento-like title is the weapon that unwittingly brings about the original killing (which party's face is cleverly concealed until the climax).