In the introductory Boris Karloff commentary (the only recurring gimmick of the Thriller series) to The Bride Who Died Twice, there is a surprising insistence on the difficulty of believing that the events depicted could ever have happened-an obvious last-ditch attempt to play down the political impact of its unremittingly bleak portrayal of what looks! remarkably like a contemporary South American dictatorship.

What's amazing is that although everything is set up for redressing of wrongs (]oe De Santis' mad strutting dictator Is already unravelling at the seams, Euardo Ciannelli's powerless compromised father of the bride starts to show signs of a flickering; integrity, the dashing young lieutenant survive! ambush and reported death, Mala Powers survives her wedding night, the peasant mutter threateningly, the junior officers are restive), the comeuppance never really comes. Or perhaps it's only that no one's left alive to enjoy it. (RS)