The Sweet Body of Deborah

Plot

Deborah (Carroll Baker) and Marcel (Jean Sorel) return to Geneva from their honeymoon in Europe. Marcel learns of his former fiancee Susan's suicide, and is confronted by a man named Philip (Luigi Pistilli) who accuses him of murdering her. Marcel begins to receive threats from someone who holds him responsible for Susan's death. His new bride Deborah also becomes the target of these threats, and a weird neighbor named Robert with voyeuristic tendencies (George Hilton) begins fixating on her as well.

Cast

Reception

The film was a box office hit in Italy, inspiring a number of similar thrillers starring Carroll Baker. It did not do very well in the UK and US however. It was theatrically released in the USA in 1969.

The New York Times gave the film a middling review, with critic Vincent Canby noting the film's "disembodied narrative—[it is] a movie without any real national identity that seems to have sprung into existence not because of any artistic urgency but because somebody could make a deal."

The Saturday Review gave the film a positive review, noting that: "the film's unstinting effort to entertain at all costs is both welcome and refreshing." The film was considered very sexy for its time, showing brief glimpses of Carroll Baker's nudity and Ida Galli's fetishistic clothing. Upon the film's release, The New Yorker republished a snippet of a review by John Mahoney of The Hollywood Reporter, which contained an extensive and detailed description of Baker's nude body as it appeared in the film.

Works cited