The Suspicious Death of a Minor

The Suspicious Death of a Minor

Genre: Giallo / Poliziottesco

Original Title: Morte sospetta di una minorenne

AKA: Suspected Death of a Minor

Director: Sergio Martino

Year: 1975

Police detective Paolo Germi and the mysterious Marisa meet each other at a dance hall. Germi is unsuspecting of the secret Marisa is carrying with her: adverse conditions forced her into prostitution. As Germi finds the young girl brutally murdered, he decides to go after her killers. During his investigation, he enters a world of intrigue and obfuscation that leave an endless trail of blood.

By 1975 the Gialli craze in Italy was dwindling down with less & less being made. This might explain why The Suspicious Death of a Minor blends into so many genres. It starts off in typical Gialli territory with a killer in sunglasses stalking and murdering a young girl but then soon quickly turns into a Poliziotteschi where the pieces of the puzzle are being slowly unwrapped. There's also some really over the top slapstick comedy thrown in which I'm not entirely sure tonally fit the picture, after all it is a film about child trafficking & underage prostitutes, yet somehow it just about gets away with it. 

Sergio Martino directed this picture & it feels completely different to any of his other Gialli but then Martino directed everything from Gialli to sci-fi to comedy to Spaghetti Western's & always managed to pull of whatever genre he dealt with convincingly. He remains under appreciated & often overlooked when people think of Italian genre directors. Martino pictures for better or for worse never fail to entertain me & for me he deserves to be up there with the very best. Also, look out for Martino's Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key playing in a scene shot in a cinema.

The score is by Luciano Michelini who I've never heard of but is really memorable. It's a kind of driving prog-rock which is reminiscent of something Goblin would do. Definitely one which will work as a great soundtrack even without the film.

The star of this film though is Claudio Cassinelli, we spend quite some time with his character wondering why he cares so much before it all becomes clear, I really dug how they drop that bombshell onto the viewer, I cottoned onto what he might be but still I felt it was really well done. There's some great scenes like a shootout on a rollercoaster & an over the top car chase which provide the thrills. There is a bit of downtime around the hour mark where the picture loses a tiny bit of pace but this is one hell of an enjoyable ride.

It's an odd film which you could easily argue isn't a gialli but I guess it was inevitable that the genre would eventually evolve & try to branch out into different territories. This is a fine example of one of the later entries before the American influence really took over these pictures.

Rating: ★★★★

Claudio Cassinelli: like Dirty Harry, with specs.