Color, 1968, 92 mins. 40 secs.
Directed by Cesare Canevari
Starring Cristina Gaioni, Dimitri Nabokov, Maria Luisa Geisberger, Ben Salvador, Sandro Pizzochero, Karina Kar, Stan O'Gadwin, Otto Tinard
Celluloid Dreams (Blu-ray) (US RA HD), Cecchi Gori (DVD) (Italy R2 PAL)

Made with a batch of A Hyena in the Safeunknown, mostly one-off actors and run for a mere week in a handful of Italian A Hyena in the Safetheaters, A Hyena in the Safe is one of the many gialli that fell between the cracks in the late '60s before Dario Argento gave it a fresh shot in the arm. At a time when only the glossy potboilers starring Carroll Baker stood much of a chance worldwide, this early outing from director Cesar Canevari (Matalo!, Gestapo's Last Orgy) hedged its bets by mixing a body count thriller with a heist caper a la the previous year's Grand Slam among many others. The film itself has a great deal to recommend it though including loads of eye-catching visuals and solid performances, all of which were enough to earn it some attention from dedicated giallo hunters once fan subbed copies started turning up on the video trading circuit.

Nearly a year after pulling off a daring Amsterdam job for a haul of diamonds, the thieves convene at a sprawling country mansion during the local fireworks-laden carnival to split up their haul. However, their leader Boris has reportedly died in the interim and, now buried in the garden, is represented by his glamorous, frequently A Hyena in the Safecostume-changing widow, Anna (Geisberger). The other attendees include A Hyena in the SafeSteve (Nabokov-- yes, Vladimir's son) from England, unknown replacement Juan (Salvador) from Spain and his girlfriend Karina (Kar), older German Klaus (O'Gadwin), and French junkie Albert (Pizzochero) and his fiancee Jeanine (Gaioni). Each of them has a key that's required to open the lead safe which is safely stashed underwater complete with a radioactive barrier, and of course, it's only a matter of time before they're getting bumped off one by one -- with one missing key possibly holding a major clue.

Obviously the central idea of crucial multiple keys leading to treasure and murder has been floating around at least since the days of Edgar Wallace's The Door with Seven Locks, but this variant gives it a fresh go-go spin with a frothy sense of humor, great outfits, and an infectious score by Gian Piero Reverberi that will stick with you for quite a while. Given the year it was made, this one isn't very graphic but does deliver some engaging murder scenes and a bit of nudity to keep up with the times. It's also very visually dynamic and better paced than some of the later '70s films that followed the model of miscreants getting killed at an isolated locale; even for giallo newcomers, this one delivers a great festive time and ends with one of the craziest optical devices A Hyena in the Safeof its A Hyena in the Safetime.

The first commercial home video release of this film appears to be the 2012 Italian DVD from Cecchi Gori which wasn't English-friendly and sported a substantial featurette, "7 Guests for a Massacre" (51m10s), featuring Canevari, Pizzochero, "general organizer" Ninì Della Misericordia, and journalists Adriana Morlacchi and Diego Pisati looking at the making of the film including shooting in Varese, the director's own acting background that affected his choices, a related trick here he used for Io, Emmanuelle, the primary villa location's odd history, and some uncooperative weather that had to be cheated.

In 2025, Celluloid Dreams added the film to its roster of outstanding giallo releases with a Blu-ray special edition including a direct order option that comes with a very cool slipcover and eight full-sized lobby card reproductions. The film looks gorgeous, easily surpassing the DVD with a vibrant color scheme and excellent detail throughout. As with the DVD, it's presented opened up at 1.33:1 and looks nicely composed that way; a handful of other gialli around this time like Yellow: Le cugine also work nicely that way. The trailer included here has company logos that indicate this was probably matted to 1.85:1 theatrically, and if you do that on your display, it's workable but looks very tight throughout. The Italian LPCM mono audio sounds excellent and very punchy, and the optional English subtitles are also excellent. It's worth noting that an English track was never A Hyena in the Safeprepared for this film; as usual, the A Hyena in the SafeItalian audio was prepared in post-production with the actors very visibly speaking a variety of languages on the set (but none of it English judging from some basic lip reading). However, the dialogue from the multinational characters often drops in an occasional quick phrase in French, English, German, or Spanish, which is indicated clearly in the subs. A new commentary track by Guido Henkel is up there in quality with the stellar ones he did for the label's The Case of the Bloody Iris and Short Night of Glass Dolls. The "7 Guests" featurette is ported over here but in much better HD quality and with English subtitles this time, while the new visual essay "Schrödinger's Diamonds: The Duplicitous Mystery of Hyena in the Safe" (36m4s) by Andy Marshall-Roberts covers Canevari's career at the time and his later thoughts on pushing things further in retrospect, the film's limited theatrical and TV fortunes, and the visual techniques here that build tension and character development revolving around what amounts to a clever McGuffin. In addition to that trailer and an image gallery, a trip to the villa itself arrives in "The Mysteries of Villa Toeplitz" (7m52s) with Francesco Pollanetti guiding you through the historic grounds while covering Canevari's contribution to its history, the property's history, and the specific shots where some of the most memorable outdoor moments occurred.

Reviewed on November 5, 2025