Arthur Anderson (Michael Craig) is your typical guy who’s been widowed three times. Each of his deceased wives had a life insurance policy bigger than the one before her and now the law and his insurance company are getting just a little suspicious of him. Wacky police inspector Dunphy (José Luis López Vázquez) is particularly driven to uncover some evidence to prove that Arthur is guilty and even stalks the guy on his days off. After just barely not going to jail for wifeslaughter, Arthur is just kinda bumming around his house and sort of grieving a little, when he notices some rando lady swimming in his dang pool.

Unfortunately for enthusiasts of the paranormal, it’s not the ghost of his dead wife but fortunately for enthusiasts of trespassing, it’s Julie Spencer (Carroll Baker)! Julie is a fun-loving gal with a quirky personality -read as “probably deranged”- and the next thing you know, she and Arthur are married. Before they can ride off into the sunset together upon Arthur’s mighty steed, they got some shit to clear up. For starters, why does Julie just disappear on their honeymoon and who the heck is that mysterious woman snooping around the grounds of the Anderson estate?

Everything I’ve seen from Eugenio Martín has been great and The Fourth Victim (1971) is no exception. It might not be the most edge-of-your-seat thrill ride I’ve encountered. Heck, I don’t think it’s even a back-of-your-seat thrill ride. But this one checks off all of my boxes when I want to sit down with an obscure giallo, especially of the Spanish-Italian co-production variety. The sets and locations are glorious and the bangin’ music score by the prolific Piero Umiliani is exceptional. Speaking of prolific, dig the career of cinematographer Guglielmo Mancori. He shot some choice titles like Murder Mansion (1972), The Crimes of the Black Cat (1972), and Manhattan Baby (1982).

I always have time for giallo films that stray from the black-gloved killer formula and go right for the “jet setting rich people behaving badly but also murders happen” subgenre. Carroll Baker just happened to be the queen of this particular type of film, but more about that later. The plot of The Fourth Victim is just crazy, which is not too surprising when you see that there are 5 people credited for coming up with this freakin’ story. But there’s a scene where Michael Craig is too late to catch his hovercraft ride, so you won’t care.

Thanks to a recent boxset released by Severin, folks who may not have known about Carroll Baker’s contribution to the giallo genre are getting an eyeful of her work for the one and the only Umberto Lenzi. And full disclosure, I used to not appreciate Baker as much as I do now, but the gal has really grown on me over the years. The Fourth Victim features one of my other favorite giallo starlets, Marina Malfatti. I will never forget seeing her for the first time in The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971), a film that solidified my love of the giallo genre. Another familiar face in this film for us Spanish genre freaks is Danish actress Lone Fleming. She’s married to director Martín and was in all kinds of great films, but Toms of the Blind Dead (1972) and A Candle for the Devil (1973) are key titles.

My previous copy of The Fourth Victim AKA Death at the Edge of the Swimming Pool (and no, I did not make that up) was a gnarly bootleg, so excuse me if I don’t get too incensed that Severin’s disc has some flaws. Colors are deep and the print is sharp but unfortunately there’s a strobing effect here that runs through the whole movie. I found it distracting only in that every few minutes I noticed that it was still happening. However, I managed to strongly enjoy my viewing of this disc. The first extra on the disc is a cute deleted scene that adds almost nothing to the film. Much more substantial is an interview with Eugenio Martín biographer, Carlos Aguilar. He talks about the director’s amazing career that spanned 40 years and touched on just about every genre you can think of.