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 Clémenti) 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.