The 10th Victim (Widescreen)

The Italians really did 1960's camp the best. I mean, what is campier than Ursula Andress chasing a man around in a lavender, backless pant suit, while brandishing a pistol? A killer bikini top? A rest, relax and sex stop on the side of the highway? A cult of sunset worshipers in caftans on the beach? The cinematography and locations are so stylish. Rooftop jazz bars in the blaring sun, minimalist interiors decorated with giant, blinking eyeballs, New York's financial district, pre-World Trade Center and Rome and the Vatican shot from a helicopter. Death and fear, what could be funnier?

This movie is what I call one of my "guilty pleasures" and when I discovered it had come out on DVD I had to get it. I first saw this in 1966 and although time has marched on it still is a joy to watch. Sometimes it's not because a DVD has 5 stars and excellent audio/video but because it's a personal favorite. If you agree go ahead,indulge yourself-oh,yea, try watching with the english subtitles on for subtle differences. Now let's see if the powers-that-be can manage the release of "Blow-Up"

An early forerunner in the futuristic "legalized-killing-as-TV-entertainment" genre, The 10th Victim lays the groundwork for many subsequent films including Roller Ball, The Running Man, and most recently Daniel Minahan's Series 7: The Contenders. Briefly summarized: in the 21st Century Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress are two all-star assassins pitted against each other in "The Big Hunt," an international game of legalized murder in which a score of 10-kills awards the victor a prize of one million dollars. What sets this film apart from the others is not so much the plot (as while it may be the original in concept, its followers certainly succeed better in overall craft and more pointed satire) as the permanent aesthetic time/date-stamp of 1960's camp. The 10th Victim is a 60's version of the future, in the very best sense. It's a future full of awesome color schemes, ultra-cool music, great furniture, swanky pads, and characters that just ooze with sexual energy. The gem of this film is an opening sequence in which Andress dances around her ninth victim in a hipster club, fashionably slapping the men in the audience with cool and choreographed abandon before mowing down her adversary with bullets fired from a gun hidden in her bra (a gimmick later ripped for the Fembots in Austin Powers). And while the film offers a couple of other moments that approach the brilliance of this opening, its full potential is never realized -- things are not pushed nearly far enough. My biggest complaint: the alligator death chair catapult gizmo is never put to full effect, though perhaps I'm just yearning for the very thing this film means to comment on - more bloody spectacle. All in all it's definitely worth seeing, though you might supplement it with a healthy dose of Mario Bava's Danger Diabolik for good measure.