The IMDB summary of this movie is like something out of TV Guide‘s capsule reviews: “A woman abandons her husband, changes her name, and remarries again. Complications ensue.”

The real story is that our protagonist learns that his wife’s first husband isn’t dead. And perhaps even worse than that, he’s actively working with her to kill him off so they can take his money and run. That’s when a three-way game of cat and mouse ensues.

This is the last film of Sidney Salkow, ending a three-decade career behind the camera that saw him make movies like Twice-Told Tales, The Last Man on Earth and several pirate and cowboy films. Its writer, Harry Spaulding, also wrote Chosen Survivors, Witchery, Curse of the Fly, The Earth Dies Screaming and The Watcher in the Woods.

Plus, you can spot a young Dyan Cannon, if you look hard enough.

Giallo owes a lot to Ernesto Gastaldi, who wrote The Possessed, The Murder Clinic, So Sweet… So Perverse, All the Colors of the Dark, Torso, The Suspicious Death of a Minor, The Scorpion with Two Tails, The Killer Is Still Among Us, Puzzle, Death Walks at Midnight, The Sweet Body of Deborah, Death Walks On High Heels, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh and this movie, which he co-wrote and directed with Vittorio Salerno (No, the Case Is Happily Resolved; Savage Three).

Filmed in only 18 days on a dare, this was based on an idea by Gastaldi’s wife Mara Maryl, who also acted in the movie. Perhaps she’d seen Les Diaboliques or The Pit and the Pendulum hmm?

When he was just a boy, Christian (Giancarlo Gianni, Black Belly of the Tarantula) watched his father kill a woman and then hismelf. Now he’s come back to the house where it all happened along with his wife Helene. The only others there are Paul (Luciano Pigozzi, who we all know was Pag in Yor Hunter from the Future) and his wife Brigitte (Meryl).

As soon as the master of the house arrives, he’s seeing his father’s ghost and going mad. But is it really happening? Or is someone else trying to make him lose his sanity?

Speaking of being influenced, the beginning of the film, where Christian plays with a windup toy as he watched human lives get snuffed up, had to have been a major influence on Deep Red.

It wouldn’t be giallo if it wasn’t confusing, so please know that this is a different movie than In the Folds of the Flesh, which also had the title Libido, and yes, Spasmo is pretty much influenced by this too, down to having a main character named Christian.

The Eurospy film isn’t just the domain of the Broccolis and the Italian, Mexican and American filmmakers that attempted to make their own OSS 117, Matt Helm, Santo and Kommisar X movies to take on Bond. At times, even those of a more artistic mind got involved.

Also known as Marie-Chantal contre le docteur Kha* and based on a series of novels by Jacques Chazot, this film was written and directed by Claude Chabrol, who wrote for Cahiers du cinéma before making his own films as an originator of the French New Wave. “The Balzac of Cinema,” he was suited to making mystery films that were often indebted to Hitchcock.

His heroine is French It girl Marie-Chantal, who is played by a real-life French It girl Marie Laforêt. She was a singer who brought the folk music of America to France, including her version of “Blowin’ in the Wind” that had a B-side of “House of the Rising Sun,” along with versions of songs by Peter Paul and Mary; The Rolling Stones; Simon and Garfunkel and Marianna Faithful. Her best-known song was 1977’s “Il a neigé sur Yesterday,” which was a song about the breakup of The Beatles.

As she travels by train to spend the winter with her cousin, Marie-Chantal is given a jewel in the shape of a tiger with ruby eyes that contains a virus that can destroy mankind. Now, spies from every nation are dispatched to get the jewels from her by any means necessary.

If you’re coming to this hoping for some of high art from Chabrol, you will be disappointed. If you’d like to see a great Eurospy, though, it has its rewards.

Kino Lorber’s new release of this film — available directly from them — comes complete with trailers, a 4K restoration from the original camera negative and audio commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson.

*Even the title is a playful joke, echoing the French title of Dr. No, James Bond 007 contre Dr. No.

El Encapuchado Negro is more than just another villain for El Santo to fight. He’s a supernatural force that has been hunting Santo and his family for four centuries. That’s correct. The silver mask has been passed down from generation to generation and it has magical powers because it was created by a magician all the way back in the 17th-century.

I mean, this thing starts with monks solemnly carrying the dead body of Santo to a tomb back in 1603 and we see the black hooded man claim that he will get back at the deceased man in the silver mask no matter what it takes. That would be 1965, as the axeman shows up as Santo is wrestling Lobo Negro. Bullets don’t stop the killer and he doesn’t show up in photos, but his axe nearly kills our tecnico hero.

Santo also has a girlfriend named Alicia, but he’s certain that he has a past love that he just can’t place. He is, however, willing to pull most of his mask to show her his face and make out — but it’s definitely not Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta under the mask for this scene.

The axeman tries to kill Santo again while he sleeps — in his clothes, no less — and he leaves his axe behind. It has the date 1603 and a small occult symbol on it, but so does Santo’s mask! Oh man, as if I couldn’t get into these movies any more. Santo was saved by a woman’s scream and that woman ends up being the ghost of Isabel de Arango. If Santo can stop El Encapuchado Negro, they can fall in love again. Santo, for his part, is dumbfounded by what is happening.

That’s when we learn the truth, as Santo uses a time machine to send his brain back in time. Back then, a man was in love with Isabel, but she only loved Santo. He tried to kill our hero yet Santo beat him in a swordfight before that rudo sold his soul to Satan and got all the power — and gold and gems — he would need to gain her love. Instead, he chains her up in a dungeon and the man who would be the first Santo goes to a magician named Abraca to gain the powers of Santo.

Santo and the Inquisition capture the Black Hood who is burned at the stake — keep this same storyline in mind for El Mundo del los Muertos — but becomes a bat and flies away. Santo decides to live in a monastary as the loss of his love has destroyed his life.

Oh man. It also turns out that Santo’s scientist friend Dr. Zanoni — the one who made the time machine — was really Abraca and he jumps in front of an axe made for our silver masked superhero.  Santo even tries to break up with Alicia for her own safety after the axe murderer possesses one of his opponent, but she dies that same night.

Santo finally tracks down the killer and finds the skeleton of his lost love — well, the first one, not the blonde who was just axe murdered — chained to a wall. Santo goes off and hits the madman with a torch, then impales him when he transforms into a bat. Isabel becomes human and goes to Heaven while Santo is left all alone as even the room transforms from a gothic tableau to an empty room. Man, what a nihilistic ending for our friend.

You could do worse than watching a man who can disappear and then show up ready to chop off Santo’s head at any moment. I kinda love this movie and would probably be even more into it if El Mundo del los Muertos wasn’t an improved remake.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Seriously, of all the Disney live action I’ve watched over two weeks, this is my favorite. It’s a solid mystery story that has a cat to keep kids interested, but never panders or plays down to its audience. Dean Jones is pretty solid as FBI Agent Zeke Kelso, Hayley Mills is wonderful as Patricia “Patti” Randall and Dorothy Provine as her sister Ingrid and Roddy McDowall as would-be suitor Gregory Benson are both perfect. Put them up against Neville Brand and Frank Gorshin as the duo who have kidnapped a woman* yet who are outwitted by a feline and you have a great movie.

Its writing crew was recognized for their work. Mildred Gordon, Gordon Gordon (the Gordons wrote the original book, Undercover Cat) and Bill Walsh, were nominated by the Writers Guild of America for Best Written American Comedy and the movie was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Motion Picture.

The real star is DC** — Darn Cat — a rare movie cat who acts exactly like a real cat. He’s pretty much rude and even dangerous to everyone outside his owners Patti and Ingrid. Plus, William Demarest made me laugh out loud every single moment he was on screen, which is the hallmark of a comedic actor.

One of the Seal Point Siamese cats in this film also appears in The Incredible Journey. Let’s hear it for movie animals who appeared in more than one role!

Also — I have a weakness for fake beatniks in kid movies. Witness Canoe, played here by Tom Lowell. He’s everything plus!

*Grayson Hall, Dr. Julia Hoffman from Dark Shadows!

**In France, he is known as P.V., which comes from the French translation Petit Voyou, or little delinquent.

Tallulah Bankhead — in her last movie — absolutely owns every scene she’s in here, playing Mrs. Trefoile,the mother of Patricia Carroll’s (Stefanie Powers) deceased fiance. As she comes to London, Patricia decides to get closure by visiting the old woman. Yet within a few scenes, she’s now a captive of the hysterically religious woman and is due to be exorcised.

Trefoile also has three servants — Harry (Peter Vaughan), Anna (Yootha Joyce) and Joseph (Donald Sutherland) — who are keeping our heroine away from the rest of the world, hiding her from her fiancee Alan Glentower (Maurice Kaufmann).

Also known as Fanatic**, this is a strong entry in the psychobiddy genre that has Richard Matheson adapting Anne Blaisdell’s novel Nightmare*. It was directed by Silvio Narizzano, who also made the Dennis Hopper and Carroll Baker movie Bloodbath and Georgy Girl.

Nearly fifty years after making this movie, Stefanie Powers acted in Looped, a play based on a true story about Bankhead being inebriated and unable to loop the line, “Die! Die my darling!” for this film. The role was originated by Valerie Harper, who was nominated for a Tony Award for her performancem despite the play closing after 33 performances. Harper played the role on the road until become sick with brain cancer.

*One of the many names of Elizabeth Linington, who also wrote under her real name and the alter egos Lesley Egan, Egan O’Neill and Dell Shannon.

**Bankhead sued Columbia Pictures when they retitled this for U.S. theaters.