Paranoia [Blu-ray] [2019]

I liked finding the Carroll Baker video I was looking for

The quality of this DVD was not as bad as other reviewers seemed to indicate. Maybe mine is a newer and better version. However, at the end ofthe movie it indicated that it had possibly been edited for TV. It did have a number of abrupt scene changes, but that did not detract from the story line. Overall, I found the movie okay with a great script.

Baker is true to form as another tortured-victim-heroine, Catherine West, widow of a wealthy race car driver vacationing in an Italian Villa while her lawyer settles the affairs of his estate. Enters a handsome young man with car trouble and his stepsister, both driven to seduce her. Yet, more is in their plans than sex. First blackmail, then captive holding, then planting a frog in her plate for dinner, all to drive her suicidal. But, wait! Her lawyer helped plan it all along to cheat her out of the inheritance and he delivers the final murder blow. Those were the days of the drive-in triple features, and it played at the Sunset last after "Slasher Saw II." (or movies like it.) VHS contains more erotic scenes than the Italian language DVD. Just to confuse things more about all the non-English versions of this film, the Italian film also contains some nudity that was cut from VHS, but has shorter scenes.

When this came out in 1969 it was met with a whirlwind of controversy. It was highly erotically charged and so steamy it received X ratings in some countries.In many US cities it was shown only at smaller independent theaters.That was the big reason it was such a landmark hit. This version it edited down to a G or PG rated miserable farce..Every time something begins it immediately skips to the next sceneGone are the tense, dramatic moments in the passion that foreshadow some events....and show the tension building between the characters.This is a chopped up mishmash of inconsequential scenes lacking all the suspense, drama and eroticism that made the original such a talked about and sought out film.What a waste!

This was a great movie. Keeps you on the edge of your seat.

As other have noted, this is a poor copy of what appears to be an interesting movie. The print is shabby-looking, not widescreen (as its original aspect ratio would indicate), and as is revealed at the very end, this is a TV edit, so virtually all sex and gore has been cut, with blunt scissors it would seem. A couple of the trims make hash of the narrative, so by the end, there are a couple of plot points that you have to figure out for yourself. There is an uncut widescreen version on YouTube but it's in Italian. Wish I could see a good English-language version.

I only say I like this movie which was originally known as "Orgasmo" in its Italian version and re-titled "Paranoia" for the U.S. because I like camp. A third Umberto Lenzi giallo starring Carroll Baker "A Quiet Place to Kill" was also re-titled "Paranoia" adding to the confusion. Lenzi did three films with Baker, the two mentioned, plus "So Sweet... So Perverse" with Jean-Louis Trintignant. In "Orgasmo" AKA "Paranoia" Baker comes across as her usual shrewish self (Why this American star is known as Lenzi's muse is bewildering) and one feels she gets just what she deserves by being treated as a piece of meat, all rather subversively. The movie contains some really fabulous songs that do not yet turn up on a soundtrack recording. The rest of the cast is great, and in its demoralizing way, you are finally told the movie's "other" moral, when they get what's coming to them. The ending is a bit too pat in the American version, whereas the Italian version gives more length to the details of the denouement and how we are shown, with less emphasis, that crimes doesn't pay. But the songs are stellar and you have a good time playing "hump the hostess."

I'm a big Carroll Baker fan. This movie is good trash. Carroll looks beautiful in it and shows lots of skin.It's pan and scan so you miss some of the image on each side of the screen. The story is pretty suspenseful but it goes on too long. I love the trashy movies she made in Europe in the 60s and 70s. Good fun.But buy this on DVD, if you can find it.