"Even our lord bows down at your beauty" Richard Burton declares to wife Karin Schubert in church here, and during a hunt celebrating their second anniversary (during which time a fox, dear, giant hare and a wild boar are killed),Schubert gets the boar for her final pillow. The death of his wife, on the judge's decision of accidental death, leads to a series of other murders carefully plotted out, with Richard Burton's baron a campy villain closer to Vincent Price as Dr. Philbes than John Carradine's sensitive artist in the 1944 classic.

It's his next wife Joey Heatherton who truly discovers his weirdness, finding him with the decaying body of his mother, a la Norman Bates, leading to her breakdown. When Burton goes away on business, he gives her a large ring of keys to explore the house, asking her not to use a certain key, yet failing to say which room it goes to, as if indicating that he knows she'll try it out anyway, setting up her demise. There's also a ridiculously flimsy bridge that dispatches the airhead maid, going over it with horse and carriage and ending up nearly drowning in a stream that is obviously 100 times as deep as it is wide.

The worst material (and wig and outfits) are left for Virni Lisi who never stops singing (obviously annoying Burton into killing her) and gets to look like a giant bottle of Pepto bismol with a poodle on her head as she saunters around the grounds singing a medley of old songs. Her fate is wildly appropriate. It's with her sequence that Burton, preparing to kill heatherton, begins to tell her of how he got rid of his other wives, and the construction of the film goes haywire. The winking comedy that occurs with Lisi is the highlight of the film.

Nathalie Delon, as his next victim, could easily have been left out as her footage is dreadfully boring. When she begins speaking in baby talk, giving each of her breasts names, the fast forward button becomes really handy. At least you get to see Burton's mind turning when he decides it's her turn, having discovered her in a lesbian embrace with Sybil Danning. As for Raquel Welch's appearance as a vulnerable young nun, you can easily scan into the film 75 minutes to find her, and this takes the film into a place darker than where it has already been. You begin to get the sensation that the point the film is making is that once these wives are broken in, they become annoying distractions and deserve dispatching.

You won't need to be checking the time on your screeching owl clock because there won't be time as you'll quickly be drawn into the fabulous awfulness of this colorful piece of 70's Eurotrash. Instead of being a Hammer or an American International or even Italian Mario Bava gothic thriller, this is an independent release directed by 40's film noir master Edward Dmytryk. Garish colors dominate the art direction; bloody, angry colors, as if to represent Burton's burning soul. A maid steals Sally Anne Howes' "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" music box dress, complete with sweet roll buns on the side, looking absurd. It's details like this meant to distract the viewer from seeing how awful this is, although amusingly wretched is a closer analogy.

Austrian aristocrat Kurt Von Sepper (Richard Burton) is a celebrated WWI pilot with a striking blue beard and connections to the fledgling neo-Nazis. He's a real ladykiller. He meets and marries American vaudeville performer Anne (Joey Heatherton). After moving into his castle, she makes disturbing discoveries including his seeming inability to consummate their marriage. He gives her the keys to the castle with a golden key which leads to a freezer filled with his murdered former wives. He recounts to her the story of each wive and their faults which led to him murdering them. Anne plots her escape as she listens to his tales of horror.

This is sold as an erotic thriller with an international cast of beauties such as Raquel Welch. Joey Heatherton has a sincere bouncy cuteness which fits the sincere vaudeville role. However, she is not the best of actresses. She has to be both inwardly horrified and outwardly placating the crazed killer. Her inconsistencies only add to the camp of this movie. Richard Burton is still a powerful actor but the material is strictly B-level. There are some very memorable kill scenes like the elephant tusk chandelier and the hawk. The erotic thrills are fleeting and the horror is old style weak. Most of it is in flashbacks which takes away any intensity. It is still a memorable camp classic.

This movie was basically awesome: consistently statuesque women, exquisite castles, campy acting, ridiculous script, plenty of nudity, six murders, Richard Burton, and a pervasive, Euro-style charm that made even the sleaziest moments really fun and laughable. We ended up getting this as a Sybil Danning/Raquel Welch fan, and were really blown over by the film's consistent campiness and general Eurosleaze greatness. As far as Eurotrash goes, "Bluebeard" is double platinum. This was a really big budget production, and a lot of money went into the art direction. That said, expect great looking costumes and sets, which often rival the women as overall cinematic eye candy. I have to mention the ladies again, because they are stunning. Listen to this cast: Raquel Welch, Sybil Danning, Joey Heatherton, Virna Lisi, Nathalie Delon, Karin Schubert...."Bluebeard" plays out like a virtual "Whos Who" of A-list 1970's bombshells. Anyway, the script is ludicrous and silly, as is Joey Heatherton's performance as the female lead, but Richard Burton does a terrific job holding everything together. Raquel Welch plays one of the murdered wives, (and a nun to boot),and she's in the film for about 10-min. Sybil Danning plays a prostitute, and she has a pretty dank lesbian scene, but her screen time is similarly brief. The film's mystery elements are pretty predictable, but the whole affair is campy and attractive enough for it not to matter much. It is a bit long, and there is a tasteless hunting scene where a range of animals are shot, but I can't discount how fun most of this was. A Eurosleaze classic. ---|--- Reviews by Flak Magnet