Riccardo Freda weaves a giallo out of the convoluted simile that is IGUANA WITH THE TONGUE OF FIRE, on Blu-ray from Arrow Video.

A woman whose face has been disfigured by vitriol and her throat slashed turns up in the trunk of a Rolls Royce belonging to Ireland's Swiss Ambassador Sobiesky (Anton Diffring, SEVEN DEATHS IN THE CAT'S EYE). Although Sobiesky claims not to know her identity, Inspector Lawrence (Arthur O'Sullivan, BARRY LYNDON) suspects otherwise but knows that diplomatic immunity and the ambassador's local political connections will hinder his progress. Disgraced detective John Norton (Luigi Pistilli, A BAY OF BLOOD) – who has earned the nickname "The Brute" for an interrogation that lead a suspect to take his life – on the other hand, has nothing to lose when Lawrence turns him loose on the suspects via Sobiesky's pretty and willful stepdaughter Helen (Dagmar Lassander, HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY). After a nightclub singer (Dominique Broschero, LIBIDO) who was Sobiesky's mistress is also murdered, the ambassador seems the likely suspect but Norton probes deeper. Is the ambassador or someone in his retinue trying to silence blackmailers or frame him? The suspects are a tangled web of family, servants, and hangers on including Sobiesky's alcoholic wife (Valentina Cortese, THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH), his estranged stepson Marc (Werner Pochath, BLOODLUST), chauffeur Mandel (Renato Romano, DEATH LAID AN EGG), Helen's (and possibly Marc's) Walter (Sergio Doria, DEATH SMILES ON A MURDERER), the family doctor (Niall Toibin, RAWHEAD REX), and the butler of course. Norton may be getting to close, however, when the killer threatens his mother (Ruth Durley) and teenage daughter.

Although Riccardo Freda racked up nearly fifty credits as a director in his filmography, he is generally known internationally for about eight or nine films in the horror and thriller genres from I VAMPIRI and CALTIKI, THE IMMORTAL MONSTER – both finished by Mario Bava – to his golden age Italian gothics THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK and THE GHOST as well as his lesser 1970s and 1980s gothic throwbacks TRAGIC CEREMONY AT VILLA ALEXANDER and MURDER OBSESSION. IGUANA WITH THE TONGUE OF FIRE was his only giallo – the earlier DOUBLE FACE with Klaus Kinski being an Italian co-produced Edgar Wallace krimi – and his seeming lack of interest in his later productions is evident here in the handling of an already twisty plot where the red herrings feel more like digressions (the backstory of the murder of Norton's wife goes nowhere while the scenes with Norton's family provide more humor than drama). Freda, composer Stelvio Cipriani (BARON BLOOD), and Tinto Brass' cinematographer Silvano Ippoliti (SALON KITTY) pummel the viewer over the head with clues denoted by musical stings and zoom ins. The killer's motivation is as crude as the detective work – Lawrence notes that the use of vitriol suggests a woman or a "colored person" – the labored explanation for the title is laughable, and the final twist must be explained in a bit of throwaway dialogue. The make-up effects are rather crude, a feature that marked Freda's later two excursions into gore TRAGIC CEREMONY (an early Carlo Rambaldi credit) and MURDER OBSESSION (an unbilled assistant credit to later Dario Argento effects man Sergio Stivaletti). While the irresistibly-titled film is not a highlight in the genre, IGUANA WITH THE TONGUE OF FIRE is suitably diverting in the details to entertain.

Unreleased in the United States and rejected when submitted for classification in the UK in 1972, IGUANA WITH THE TONGUE OF FIRE made the rounds as a boot of a foreign-subtitled VHS until German company New put it out on DVD (under the German title "The Beast with the Fiery Breath") in an anamorphic but only fair quality transfer with English audio. Sourced from a 2K scan of the original camera negative, Arrow's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen transfer looks as good as the rather unspectacular photography allows. The resolution lends the Irish locations a chilly ambience and the gore effects are grislier than before even if the seams of the make-up show, while the weave of Ippoliti's lens diffusion during the flashbacks is more visible than before. English and Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 mono tracks are provided, with the former providing plenty of guffaw-provoking attempts at Irish accents and a choice of English SDH for the English dub or English subtitles for the Italian track reveal that the two tracks are generally similar in regard to dialogue content. Audio choice in the setup menu also determines whether the Italian or English title sequence is show via seamless branching (although audio and subtitle options can be switched during playback via remote).

Extras start off with an audio commentary by giallo connoisseurs Adrian J. Smith and David Flint who previously provided a track for STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER. They remark on the unusual giallo setting of Dublin – noting that the production was actually shot there with some local actors as opposed to the Scotland-set SEVEN DEATHS IN THE CAT'S EYE or Freda's THE GHOST – the Irish-isms of the script and dubbing, and the cast. They also discuss Freda's diffidence to the genre and his later works, as well as suggesting that Freda's dissatisfaction with the finished product lead him to choose the pseudonym "Willy Pareto" rather than his usual "Robert Hampton" one. In "Of Chameleons and Iguanas" (21:55), cultural critic and academic Richard Dyer discusses the genre's themes of questions about the nature of the family, deviance, and threats to the sanctity of family and violations of familial spaces while also noting that the film seems unable to effectively address them. In "Considering Cipriani" (25:58), DJ and soundtrack collector Lovely Jon discusses Cipriani's beginnings and how his touring as a musician for Rita Pavone, abroad with Dave Brubeck, and meeting other musicians on international cruise ships lead to the diversity of instrumentation and musical styles in his scores. He also provides a sort of selected scene commentary in discussing three musically-linked scenes from the film.