 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. So this is for the 1971 film the guana with the tongue of fire It's an Italian giallo, and yeah, this was not one of my favorite. Jalos. I'll just throw that out up front But I love giallo, and so even the not so great. Jalos are worth watching at least once for me I could be talked into watching this one again But just know that my rating my star rating at the end is gonna reflect that I'm not huge on this But obviously I'm gonna break this down. I'm gonna talk about what's good. What's not good because there are good things There are things I enjoyed with the film so anyway This one's directed by Ricardo Freda who also directed lust of the vampire the witch's curse the horrible doctor Hitchcock The ghost tragic ceremony and murder syndrome. I think that was my favorite title of them Written by Freda as well as Sandro Continenza who wrote scripts for uncle was a vampire sex can be difficult your turn to die Murder by music. That's an interesting one seven murders for Scotland yard the crimes of the black cat and the legend of blood castle This was actually filmed in Ireland I believe this is the this has is the distinction of being the only giallo film that was ever filmed in Ireland and one of the key things with this is because it's filmed in Ireland there's some Beautiful settings, especially that scene where they're showing the the very nice cliffs In in Ireland very very cool So apparently Freda the director was not very happy with this film and he After it was finished wanted to take his name off of it. So he created the pseudonym of Willie Pareto Yeah, so when it says directed by Willie Pareto, that's actually Ricardo Freda Just know that he was ashamed of this film and I I can see why there are some issues with it It's not that great of a film Apparently though, he didn't want to go with Luigi Pastel you as Norton in the beginning. He was interested in trying to get Roger Moore for some reason I mean, I'm a fan of Roger Moore. I'm a James Bond fan in general. So Roger Moore would have been awesome Because he's always awesome So anyway, this is starring Luigi Pastel who's been in other Jialos such as a Bay of Blood The case of the scorpion's tail your vice is a locked room and only I have the key and Also Dagmar Lissander is also in this one who's been in some other Jialos Including the forbidden photos of a lady above suspicion and one of my top 10 Jialo films hatch it for the honeymoon By Mario Baba where she was spurned by Baba Because she was supposed to be the leading lady and then there was another individual that came along he was like Oh, I really want to work with you So he wrote a part for her that ended up being the lead over Lissander's character. So Very interesting. I have a review for actually all of those Jialos already on my channel So you can check that out. The title for this film was mainly created because of the popularity One year prior of Dario Argento's the burn with the crystal plumage That's really where the mania around Jialo at the time really started the popularity of it was from that film and the emergence of Argento doing Jialo films. So a Lot of people were putting out Jialos after that with animal names in them So that's why it's called the iguana with the tongue of fire also because there's a reference to a saying about it That I believe it's Inspector Lawrence says to Norton at one point It's I forget the exact quote But it was some quote that basically got to the point of you know, iguanas looking a certain way and like looking nice But then they have a tongue of fire basically. So they're actually deadly Which was kind of a a nod to the fact that the killer would end up being from a high Follute and family which they were because it was the the son from the ambassador's family But actually the first murder being from the ambassador himself. We find out at the very very end Nice leisurely city tour with light music to start the film. I enjoy that I always enjoy those kind of Jaunts within the city to just kind of show you the architecture of the time. I don't know why that's just something that I don't know. It's relaxing and interesting for me Seeing the architecture of different cities around the world is just interesting. I Love how they cut the music when they cut the lights in the beginning during that first kill scene Notice that as soon as the killer cuts the lights the music that's playing just stops with that I thought that was a really cool idea very very awesome and that kill was unbelievably brutal It was a great kill. It's a great way to start the film out With and not wasting too much time getting to a kill with the acid in the face You actually see some of the skin just being melted away And then that really vicious brutal throat slitting with tons and tons of blood coming out Which they did that another time later in the film Which I really enjoyed the things that I didn't like within this are the kills that happen off-screen because it's a Geolophilm you know like the part of the point is the brutality of the killing and especially when you Set it up with a kill like they did with the acid in the face and then the throat slit You got to show us the kills to do it off-screen and then just show a body sucks We don't want that. I'm sure people didn't want it back then either. They wanted to see it all And how does the kid not have a reaction when he finds a dead body in the trunk of a car? That kid was so despondent just like in his own world Just I guess maybe he it was shock or something But it seems like he was just very casual about the the fact that there was a naked dead body in the trunk I don't know. Maybe he was trying to process the fact that oh my god. It's a dead body But at the same time. Oh my god, it's a naked woman So something I is traumatic but something that I like I don't know but it just it was a weird thing. It's very weird I like how unconcerned Ambassadors of yes, he is about the dead woman in his car trunk Which is probably a very strong indicator that he did kill her or at least knew about her being killed But you find out at the end he did kill her and that's even when he's being interviewed by inspector Lawrence now That's the weird thing is that you would think you'd be more concerned You think you'd be more forthcoming and everything but I guess he's just in that mode because he's used to being an ambassador Ambassador he has that diplomatic immunity and he knows that no one could touch him even if they find out that he was the killer in fact So I guess maybe that's the reasoning for it But it did seem weird because you would think that he would still want to be throwing suspicion off of himself And he doesn't do that These same shades the the sunglasses keep showing up everywhere I'm fine with the fact that the sunglasses keep showing up everywhere and they focus on them But the music that goes along with it. It's like Totally annoying totally over the top Ridiculous not a fan of that In general though the music in this film is very unremarkable. I really think it's it's whatever I mean, I didn't even remember the music. That's how kind of forgettable it was Mandel sure is a suspicious dude. That's why he can't be the killer. Yes the driver for the ambassador There's no way he was going to be the killer because they make him look super suspicious Suspicious from the get-go like sneaking around consistently I like the part where he comes out of the the secret door that was where that bookshelf was That's my favorite. He's always just like looking around like super sneaky dude I'm like, yep, obviously not the killer because we're supposed to think he's potentially the killer red herring number one The killer also can't be so BSK since he was with his metric mistress right before she was killed It's just too easy now That's before I knew obviously that he was the killer of the first individual He didn't kill anyone after that after that it was his son Marco So I was right in that respect that he didn't kill his metric mistress And obviously I figured that one because they literally had just showed him talking to her and giving her money to basically keep her mouth shut But then you know Marco came after the fact it killed her Seems like an interesting household with Norton his daughter and his mother Granny granny was kind of like one of those kind of zany Corky characters that you end up getting a lot within giallo films. She kind of Hit the quota I guess for for giallo films of that weird character Granny who kept losing her glasses and for some reason her granddaughter tells her You know, you can't hear when you lose your glasses Okay Granny guesses the son of the ambassador as the killer because she read Agatha Christie books I like that and when that conversation was going on where she's saying well, obviously, it's the son of the ambassador I read these Agatha Christie books. I was like That's probably it then like why else would they have it in here? And it's this kind of it's supposed to be dismissed It's like oh, she's an old lady just basing it off reading her stories. I Had a feeling it was in there because she would end up being right and she was right obviously Not a bad fight scene between Norton and the other Detectives when he was kind of I think it was the ambassador's house. He was prowling around Trying to gather evidence But they use this the same Scuffling foot sound on loop basically and you can tell very easily it's very very in your face that The scuffling noises are not actually matching up with people's feet moving and you can also pick up very easily on the fact that It's the same Segment of scuffling feet sound just on loop. It just sounds the same. It sounds terrible. That's another one of these issues I have with this film just some bad choices made with this How about that flashback to Norton beating the piss out of a suspect and then that suspect blowing his brains out That was pretty intense. It was a good scene plus when he blows his brains out It shows like the blood and some of his hair splatter on the wall Pretty nice that works The scene with Norton going to the doctor is pretty ridiculous all the facial close-ups and the crazy music as The doctor ends up talking about the murders and how he and then he's like handling his instruments including a straight razor at one point because he needed to shave the head of Norton to patch him up from the gash. He got from the fight with the other detectives It's just a really over-the-top scene I guess that's another one of those quirky giallo characters the doctor Kind of would like to see a little bit more of him He was an interesting character could have been even better red herring if they kind of rode that one a little bit harder But you know, whatever they chose not to Mrs. Sobiesky's confessions of her life to Norton are really unhinged. She's just like going off basically And she talks about how she can't be touched by the law That's another thing so that is supposed to cast a little bit of suspicion on her from the audience's perspective of She's talking about you know diplomatic immunity and that the law can't touch her So maybe she's the killer, but she's not getting close at that point getting close, but I also don't understand why she would keep Talking about that stuff to Norton since he is the law I mean, I guess it's another one of those things going back to my theory on the ambassador himself of Just thinking they can't be touched. So whatever they don't care. They're willing to brag about that fact The scene shot at the cliff are beautiful. I already talked about that early on Well, the killer isn't Walter since he was last seen with the dead guy in the car before he turns up dead That's another one of those ones though Where I wish the kill was on screen He just shows up randomly in the car dead and then it has some sort of note Which I guess is supposed to be a warning to Norton basically saying look don't pursue this any further in essence, which I Guess at that point. That's Marco doing that And then he shows up dead Yeah, then to follow that up as soon as I was like well It can't be Walter at this point then Walter shows up dead on the bed with all the flowers around him I didn't really understand that I don't think they ever like drew an actual connection Between like the flowers and his like body's Presentation as he's dead or not, but you can let me know in the comments if I missed that one. I Like how granny looks right at the camera after Norton explains he cut himself with a razor She found literally if you go back and watch that scene where she finds the the bloody razor That Norton then says oh no, I did cut myself shaving he pulls down his shirt And he's like actually got like a bandage there then she just she literally looks right at the camera I don't know if that was intentional or not But that's literally what you don't want in film You never ever ever want that the actors to look directly at the camera and she does it I now I think maybe it could have been intentional because it's supposed to be this kind of like wink to the audience of like oh Yeah, right you cut yourself shaving as another way to kind of throw another red hair Out there that was kind of my main reading of it, but it could have just been bad filmmaking. I don't know Yikes the decapitated cat in the fridge. I didn't see that coming. I hate kind of seeing those types of things But it was an effective scene Especially with how decapitated that cat wasn't the blood just dripping down and the fact that it was in the refrigerator too Very interesting. That's jarring Finding something dead, especially your pet in your refrigerator when you're just going to get some food Traumatizing say the least I would think The bobsled wrecking Totally unexpected. I kind of laughed at that scene because I didn't see it coming where they were just watching the bobsled I think that was Norton and Helen were watching it at that point and she was like Oh, that's my father's bobsled and then you're just seeing it go down and then just Flies over this this snowy cliff and like Wrecks into a tree and you could see that it was a dummy in the bobsled and it just it looked funny It looked real funny plus the fact that like I said total surprise didn't see that coming. What a wreck Kind of disturbing how Mrs. Sobieski is bleeding out and actually still moving when Norton's walking around in the bathroom when she Tried to kill herself even though someone else was trying to kill her apparently Man, yeah, like that was that extra Aspect of disturbing like finding a dead body like that is one thing But the person still being alive and like actively bleeding out and then also Norton's just kind of like Just walking around very nonchalant within the bathroom. Like it's not a big deal I mean he did say, you know call 9-1-1 basically but Yeah, he's just like, you know, she's just dying whatever you didn't even like try to stop the bleeding That's another thing like why wouldn't you like try to help a little bit? She's bleeding out from the neck and I think her her wrist as well Because I think when they open that scene her hand is like up on the side of the tub And I think I could see like a gash, so she's bleeding a lot When they reveal the missing piece of Mandel sunglasses, you just know he's not the guy Because there's still 20 minutes left in the film That's another thing that I always look at I know I probably shouldn't stuff kind of like ruining things about the story But I like guessing like who's the killer and who's not the killer So I look at runtime when when things like that come up and I'm like, yeah, there's still 20 minutes There's no way it's Mandel in geolos. They never solve it with 20 minutes left and left in the film It's always solved within like the last 10 to 5 well 5 to 10 minutes I would say let's say 10 to 5 but it makes more sense to say 5 to 10 Yeah within the last 5 to 10 minutes when it's really solved and then they You know give you all the details of what was the motivation and all that jazz which they do here as well Norton's daughter just about killed granny with a heart attack I thought that was a funny moment where she sneaks up on her and like puts her hands over her eyes And this is when they're like still on full alert because the dead cat was found in the fridge So you would think she wouldn't try to kill her own grandmother by doing something like that Very ill advised she could have killed her But then it's the it's marco who shows up dressed as helen who ends up killing her instead by like ramming her head against The railing and then I think on the sink in the bathroom as well she did The scene of helen running from the killer is kind of too dark at times to really see what's going on although I did Like how she ends up kind of like hanging on to the edge of that like Opening bridge and just hanging there and then she eventually falls in the water I like that aspect and you could see it then but everything prior to that Very hard to see what was going on. That's one of my big pet peeves Is when things are in the dark and you can't see what's happening It's like why am I even watching this at all because I can't see anything. There's no point Mark's uh home invasion scene is okay. It's an okay scene The best part being him plummeting to his death and all the blood that's pouring out of his mouth After his head goes through the windshield of I think it was his own car. He had a driver with him or a friend But um, yeah, just how like his head goes through and it shows that like upside down and then all that blood just comes pouring out Love it. I was like I like seeing how they do the bodies falling out of windows in giallo films because Most of the time you can tell it's dummy this one I think they went kind of fast enough that you didn't have enough time to really focus on it being a dummies So I thought that was good so One of the positives So the ambassador killed the first woman And then did mark end up mark. Sorry mark. Marco end up killing All the other women. No, it was mark. I'm sorry Uh, did mark end up killing all the other people after that as a way to clean up after his father That's kind of what I thought but put it in the comments. Let me know your thoughts on it It seemed to me what was going on is that and maybe I missed it Maybe they did explain it but somehow I missed it because sometimes I'm taking notes and I'm trying to listen but he It seemed like he was just trying to clean up and there were these moments where the ambassador was paying him Giving him checks and even said in the beginning like here. This is the last one I think maybe he was kind of paying him to go ahead and clean up after him to make sure that Anyone who had knowledge or could obtain knowledge of the murder that the ambassador perpetrated that that needed to be cleaned up so Yeah, but obviously in the end, you know, norton says the ambassador did the first one But he's not going to get away because when he gets back to switzerland They'll be taking care of him there because he does not have diplomatic immunity in switzerland So my last thing to say about this, uh, the english dubbing is particularly good on this one I take note of that. There are a lot of these giallo films where the dubbing is really not good It's very very off and it's like they are not even trying The dubbing on this one was really good So kudos on that one The other thing I want the last thing I want to say about this is that it kind of feels like a meandering kind of disjointed mess Uh, and it gets kind of boring at times Like it loses a lot of momentum a lot of the times and it seems a little bit aimless Like they kind of don't know where to go with the story and they're kind of maybe trying to fill out some runtime With some just random side things that just aren't that interesting There are plenty of giallo films that will you know They're not doing stuff that's really filling in the story, but it's interesting, you know But this film I felt like all those moments were kind of just not Interesting just really kind of ho hum every day crap, so That's my big issue with it. So out of five stars with half stars in play I'm gonna give this a two star rating. I was between two stars and two and a half stars But I think it's more of a two star rating. This isn't a great one But if you love it go ahead and tell me why I'm totally open to listening Maybe there's some stuff I didn't consider so in general just love to hear people's comments about this film Also, just any giallo in general. I'm I'm down for that because obviously I love it Like I said, I have an an entire giallo review playlist on my channel Which has like at this point like 52. I think 52 giallo reviews at this point Um, it's a lot and I'm continuing on I plan on Going well over 100 giallo reviews at some point. So if it's giallo and it's out there I'm getting my eyeballs on it just saying but anyway, thanks for checking this out Do me a quick favor though hit subscribe if you can and you can because it literally takes you a second It costs you no money and it really helps my channel out and I appreciate it It really legitimately keeps me motivated to keep doing these videos So I'd appreciate that also hit the notification button because then you'll know whenever I'm putting up new videos But regardless, I thank you for taking your time to watch this especially if you've stayed with me this long So until next time keep it brutal