Overview: Giovanni (Jean Sorel, Rosa la rose, fille publique) is shot in an underground parking garage by a mysterious bearded man. As his life flashes before his eyes, through flashbacks we learn about his life and what led to this moment.

His flirtatious wife, Lucia (Ewa Aulin, Death Smiles on a Murderer) and the fissures her behavior creates, complications with the family business, Lucia’s relationship with a travelling hippie and her beautiful mother-in-law (Lucia Bosé, Fellini Satyricon).

With its delirious editing, continually returning us to the site of his murder, Giovanni’s life turns in on itself as the film explores masculinity, eroticism, and the uncanny. One of the undiscovered greats of the genre, Romolo Guerrieri’s (The Sweet Body of Deborah) The Double is a sexy, metaphysical giallo newly restored and officially released for the first time since VHS.

Blu-ray Verdict: Poor Jean Sorel. He heads down to an underground car park to innocently park his car and some mysterious guy shoots him. As he hits the ground, instead of his life flashing before his eyes, an entire giallo film does instead, and not just the flashbacks of stuff that actually happened – this flashback contains his fantasies too!

You see Jean is a young(ish) businessman working for his father in Morocco, although mooching off him while his brother (Giacomo Rossi- Stuart) does all the hard work might be a better description. When we first meet Jean he’s frolicking around the beach with his new wife Lucia (including some underwater noodling – that’s one detailed flashback!)

Lucia seems to be interested in a local hippy type who’s wandering around the beach, which Jean isn’t too happy with. He also keeps hallucinating that he’s with another lady, which confused the hell out of me at first.

This other lady is Lucia’s mum, and although Jean gets jealous of Lucia talking to the hippy (Eddie, his name is), he doesn’t mind trying it on with her mum or becoming completely obsessed by her, and it doesn’t help that she’s hooked up with Eddie. This leads to Jean fantasizing about shooting Eddie in the face with a rifle, which is a strange thing to have a flashback about.

Things jump between Rome and Morocco while Jean flirts with Lucia’s mum, argues with Lucia, discusses the hippy movement on a yacht and such like. It’s all kind of trippy and disjointed and although it’s quite different from your usual giallo madness, there’s not enough of the usual giallo madness here. Although the ending was pretty daft.

Jean Sorel seems to have moved away from the Giallo genre following this and Short Night of the Glass Dolls – he was quite good though, in my humble opinion.

Bonus Features:
4K restoration from the original negative
Optional Italian and English audio tracks
Original uncompressed mono audio
Audio commentary by Tim Lucas (2026)
Archival interview with director Romolo Guerrieri and star Eva Aulin, newly edited for this release (2026)
Appreciation by author Stephen Thrower (2026)
Easter egg (2 mins)
Reversible sleeve featuring artwork based on original posters
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Nathaniel Thompson

Official Purchase Link

www.MVDshop.com