A Game of Crime comes from the time before Argento and at the nascent time of giallo on film, following The Girl Who Knew Too Much by just a year. Directed by Romano Ferrara, who also wrote and directed Planets Around Us, Intrigo a Los Angeles and Gungala the Virgin of the Jungle, as well as writing Spy In Your Eye, Paolo e Francesca and Gungala the Black Panther. This was written Ferrara and Marcello Coscia, who also wrote forty films including Yeti Giant of the 20th Century and Red Rings of Fear, and Sandro Continenza (School of Death).

Paolo Morandi (John Drew Barrymore, Death On the Fourposter, War of the Zombies) is a gambler in the middle of a run of the worst luck, which means he owes big money to an organized crime boss at the same time that his girlfriend Christine (Ombretta Colli, Snow Devils) has gotten pregnant. He’s also sleeping with Anna (Luisa Rivelli), the wife of his boss Davide (Jean Claudio), who he plans to rip off to pay for an abortion and get ahead of his debts.

Just when Davide suspects that his lover is cheating him and Paolo has taken his cash, he has a heart attack, which places him in the care of Elisabeth Buckner (Lisa Gastoni, War of the Planets). It’s simple for Paolo to kill the man now and all the money goes to Anna, who now has to take care of her husband’s brother Cario, who has been left an invalid after an accident. None of this adds up to Commissario Perrotti (Umberto D’Orsi), who is on the case.

At one point, the characters discuss books and one says that they like anything but giallo, as they are too far fetched. How meta!

You can watch this on YouTube.