The Designated Victim

The rarely seen Designated Victim is a true high point in 70s Italian thriller cinema, this inspired remake of Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train from director Maurizio Lucidi is able to push the concept of the original movie into something far more unbearably tense and deliciously twisted. Stefano (Tomas Milian) needs to sort out his troublesome wife who is seriously cramping his future plans. A chance meeting with a wealthy Count Matteo (Pierre Clementi) leads to an extraordinary plan where both will do each other a murderous favor to free them from the people who ail them. The problem is Stefano treats this as a joke whilst Matteo is deadly serious and what he does drives Stefano to the edge of sanity in a gripping race against time. Shot in a mist-wreathed eerily beautiful Venice this near dream-like melding of thriller with baroque giallo overtones has remained until its home video re-release in 2008 a criminally hidden psychological gem.