Review of Shadows in an Empty Room (1976) by Dingleberry P — 26 Jun 2016
A relic from Canada's "Tax Shelter" film days, this movie was filmed in Montreal, directed by an Italian director with a lot of Americans in the cast and Canadian, Italian, and Panamanian money invested and then it was distributed by AIP.
Stuart Whitman stars as a tough Ottawa police Captain Tony Saitta who comes to Montreal to search for search for the murder who poisoned his sister Louise (Carole Laure). We can tell that Whitman's character is tough when he dispatches a gang of submachinegun-toting Ottawa bank robbers with his S&W .
44 magnum revolver. Hey, it was the 1970s and the spectre of Dirty Harry loomed over police procedurals. The film is sometimes called Blazing Magnums but that title is misleading, as Whitman's character in a heavy-handed and sometimes brutal fashion carries out a search for his kid sister's killer in a plot that seems to combine elements of the popular Italian Polizziottesco Eurocrime genre with the Giallo Horror/Thriller genre.
The killer's identity is unknown, there are a lot of red herrings, Tisa Farrow's character Julie, a blind college instructor, is often imperiled. All that is missing in the black gloves and you would have a great Giallo.
But Whitman (sometimes aided by John Saxon who always seemed to play cops in these movies) plunges through the sleazy side of Montreal in search of clues regarding a necklace stolen in Toronto and encounters sex shop owners, tough transvestites, and all manner of seedy lowlife fences that seem to belong in a Polizziottesco thriller.
Along the way he discovers things about his sister that are troubling. Martin Landau plays Dr. George Tracer, who is one of the many suspects in this film. I like sleazy low-budget 1970s genre films so I enjoyed this one.
This review of Shadows in an Empty Room (1976) was written by Dingleberry P on 26 Jun 2016.
Shadows in an Empty Room has generally received mixed reviews.
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