A man is found one morning in the bushes of a city plaza in Prague. He is taken to a hospital where the doctors confirm that, although his eyes are wide open, he is dead. There is no heartbeat or sign of life, except, strangely enough, his body temperature is normal. No matter, he's certified as dead and sent into cold storage to wait for an autopsy. "I'm alive," the man thinks, "can't you see I'm alive?" The man, Gregory (Jean Sorel), isn't dead but he's paralyzed and helpless to alert his condition to anyone. As the doctors prepare for the autopsy, Gregory thinks back to yesterday, when he was making plans to help his girlfriend (Barbara Bach) get out of the country. Gregory begins piecing together the mystery of what happened to him in fractured bits of memory -- but will solving the puzzle do him any good? ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide
Review
The horror elements in Aldo Lado's giallo murder mystery are fiercely strong, not from an onscreen onslaught of blood and guts, but from the tension of the situations Gregory and those around him find themselves in. People around Gregory wind up dead at the hands of unseen killers who are offing them for unknown reasons, until the final sequence when the abstract elements of the film become whole. It's a clever cinematic exercise that resists monotony, save for one interlude where a lame pop song is sung (it was a device popular at the time). Jean Sorel does a masterful job of not moving and mannequin-like Barbara Bach nearly matches him for vapid facial expressions -- but he's supposed to be dead and she's supposed to be alive. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide
