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http://www.spoilerfreemoviesleuth.com - Courtesy of VCI Entertainment Just four years after making his ornate and still shocking giallo The Bloodstained Butterfly, Duccio Tessari dabbled in and out of the spaghetti western subgenre and the noir genre again before once more returning to giallo in 1974 with Puzzle, an ensemble thriller involving amnesia, drug trade, double crossing and brutal murder.  Co-written by Tessari, the film prominently features Luc Merenda from Sergio Martino’s giallo classic Torso as an Italian man trapped in London stricken with amnesia.  But after a mystery man in black named Philip (Manfred Freyberger) starts following him, it becomes clear he and his wife Sara (Senta Berger) are in danger due to missing drugs and longstanding overdue debts. Courtesy of VCI Entertainment Like most giallo fare, the film is partially a travelogue of Portofino, Italy with Tessari’s cinematographer Giulio Albonico’s lovely imagery of the city scape including but not limited to tourism, swanky bars with lots of whiskey, yacht rides and a glimpse of Italian lifestyle.  Luc Merenda and Senta Berger both exude strong screen presence, with Merenda being a regular of giallo fare and Berger always being a stunning actress.  The film also features giallo starlet Anita Strindberg though in a substantially smaller role than The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail.  Also strong is the film's original score by Tessari regular Gianni Ferrio fresh off of The Bloodstained Butterfly, working to create a mood of both contemporary Italian luxury and giallo thrills and chills.  Visually the film sports a lot of great highlights of Portofino and functions as something of a chase caper ala Hitchcock with elements of old fashioned giallo thrills including but not limited to chainsaw murder.  Sadly however, the forthcoming 4K restoration released on blu-ray by VCI Entertainment leaves much to be desired.  An undoctored scan replete with inconsistent color tonal range and print damage, one wonders what might have been if Arrow Video or Vinegar Syndrome got their hands on it instead.  Oh well, the film nonetheless remains highly watchable even if the picture and sound quality have ample room for improvement.Courtesy of VCI Entertainment An intriguing and sexy giallo thriller from one of its regular purveyors, Puzzle is a solid effort from Duccio Tessari who between his gialli and spaghetti westerns proved himself to be one of Italy’s most skillful stock trade filmmakers of the time.  Fans eager for more gialli will be pleased with the film if they can get past the sub-par transfer quality.  Though not as ornate as The Bloodstained Butterfly, this one was a lot more involving and included some startlingly brutal moments of violence even giallo fans will be surprised by.  While my favorite Tessari at the moment is still A Pistol for Ringo, Puzzle did not disappoint as a giallo exercise at the height of modern Italian exploitation cinema.--Andrew Kotwicki (function() { var zergnet = document.createElement('script'); zergnet.type = 'text/javascript'; zergnet.async = true; zergnet.src = (document.location.protocol == "https:" ? "https:" : "http:") + '//www.zergnet.com/zerg.js?id=59239'; var znscr = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; znscr.parentNode.insertBefore(zergnet, znscr); })();