Review of The Flower in His Mouth

The setup for this movie is interesting: young schoolteacher is transferred to a small Sicilian town, where poverty and old traditions prevail. Not long after her arrival, a man who was seen publicly harassing her is found dead on a chair in the middle of a piazza, with a flower stuck in his mouth. The incident makes her a respected and/or feared celebrity in the town, but soon there is another attack on her - and the attackers meet the same fate. Is it a curse? A conspiracy? A coincidence? Unfortunately, the resolution of the mystery is underwhelming. The pieces of the puzzle do fit together, mostly, but you expect something bigger to be behind it all than - SPOILERS - merely one man with the rather pedestrian motive of increasing the future value of his land. The other problem with the film is that Jennifer O'Neill's heroine is not a very sympathetic one. The actress does a fine job, and is extremely beautiful to boot, but, for example, just on her second day on the town she shouts in the middle of the street "What are you people made of? Stinking place!". I think the film would have worked better if her first few weeks on the town WERE indeed idyllic, and the trouble started later. Still, there are some atmospheric scenes, helped by the location filming and the Ennio Morricone score, and dependable support from Franco Nero (as a fellow teacher) and James Mason (as O'Neill's landlord), thought neither role is among the actors' most memorable. All in all, a rare film that's worth a look if you can find it, but an undiscovered treasure it is not. ** out of 4.