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| The Case of the Scorpion's Tail | |
|---|---|
 Italian theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Sergio Martino |
| Screenplay by | Eduardo Manzanos Brochero Ernesto Gastaldi Sauro Scavolini |
| Story by | Eduardo Manzanos Brochero |
| Produced by | Luciano Martino |
| Starring | George Hilton Anita Strindberg Alberto de Mendoza Janine Reynaud Evelyn Stewart Luigi Pistilli |
| Cinematography | Emilio Foriscot |
| Edited by | Eugenio Alabiso |
| Music by | Bruno Nicolai |
Production companies | Devon Film Copercines Cooperativa Cinematográfica |
| Distributed by | Titanus |
Release date |
|
Running time | 93 minutes[1] |
| Countries | Italy Spain |
| Language | Italian |
| Box office | €19,571,993(Spain) |
The Case of the Scorpion's Tail (Italian:La coda dello scorpione,lit. 'Tail of the Scorpion')[2] is a 1971giallo film directed bySergio Martino and starringGeorge Hilton andAnita Strindberg alongsideIda Galli,Janine Reynaud,Alberto de Mendoza, andLuigi Pistilli.[3] The film follows a string of murders occurring after the sudden death of a businessman with a valuablelife insurance policy.
InLondon, Lisa Baumer, who is engaged in an extramarital affair with George Barnet, is informed that her husband Kurt has died in a plane explosion en route toTokyo and that she will receive a life insurance payout of $1 million inAthens. Lisa's former lover Philip threatens to expose a possibly incriminating letter from her unless she pays him off for it. A man murders Philip in his apartment and steals the letter before Lisa arrives.
Lisa travels to Athens, followed byinsurance investigator Peter Lynch. At the hotel restaurant, Lisa tells Peter that she knows his identity and that she did not kill her husband. Lisa goes to meet Kurt's mistress Lara and her hitman Sharif, who murdered Philip and stole the letter, unbeknownst to Lisa. Lara accuses Lisa of planning the death of Kurt, who she says intended to divorce Lisa, marry Lara, and make her his beneficiary. Lara threatens to blackmail Lisa or have Sharif kill her if she refuses to sign half the payout over to Lara. Lisa escapes, aided by Peter. The next day, Lisa cashes the insurance check and plans to catch an evening flight to Tokyo for a rendezvous with Barnet. Peter is nearly run over by Sharif while investigating Kurt's villa. Lisa is later murdered in her hotel room, and the insurance money is stolen.
Police inspector Stavros, working withInterpol agent Stanley, informs Peter that he is a suspect and confiscates his passport. Peter tails Stanley to Lara's apartment. Lara insists that she did not kill Lisa. Sharif nearly kills the eavesdropping Peter before fleeing. Peter accuses Lara of having Lisa killed and trying to kill him, which she denies.
Peter meets Cléo, a journalist assigned to the case, and the two start a romantic affair and investigate together. Sharif ransacks Peter's hotel room but finds no evidence to implicate Peter in Lisa's murder. Lara and Sharif are later murdered. Stanley informs Cléo about the murders. After Peter leaves Cléo's apartment, a figure tries to murder her. Peter returns, having forgotten his car keys, and the figure flees. Afterward, Stanley discovers a scorpion-shaped cufflink on the floor.
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Lisa's lover Barnet is murdered in the Athens hotel room of his mistress; the pair are revealed to be flight attendants. Peter obtains a photograph of Kurt wearing a scorpion cufflink. Peter, Cléo, Stavros, and Stanley theorize that Kurt faked his own death, possibly with Barnet's help, then murdered Lisa, Lara, Sharif, and Barnet to claim the insurance payout and frame Peter. They arrange for Peter to take a vacation with Cléo in theSaronic Gulf, pretending that he is a fugitive in order to lull Kurt into a false sense of security.
During Peter's and Cléo's getaway, Cléo observes Peterscuba diving into a cave with a sack allegedly containing spare harpoons and other equipment, then emerging with the sack apparently empty. Later, while he sleeps on the boat, Cléo investigates the cave and discovers the sack with $1 million inside. Peter apprehends her and takes her back to the boat, where he reveals that he had Barnet plant a bomb in Kurt's plane, after which Peter stole the payout from Lisa and killed her, Lara, Sharif, and finally Barnet, who had attacked Cléo and dropped the scorpion cufflink to make the authorities suspect Kurt. Peter asks Cléo to escape with him, but she rushes to the radio to call for help, stabs Peter's shoulder, and flees ashore with Peter in pursuit. Peter attacks Cléo, but police suddenly shoot him dead. They deduced Peter's scheme from Barnet's mistress's mermaid brooch, which was of similar make to the counterfeit scorpion cufflink. After Cléo recovers in a hospital, Stavros sends her off in a taxi with Stanley, who suggests that he would like to take her on a date.
AllMovie called it a "devilishly entertaining giallo thriller".[4][failed verification]
Adrian Luther Smith wrote that the film is "....one of the best of Sergio Martino's impressive batch of thrillers. It has considerable energy, some pleasing exotic locations and is crammed with a great cast of shady characters.....The resulting gory carnage is graphically presented."[5]
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