Death Laid an Egg is a 1968 film from Italy, directed by Giulio Questi.
Anna (Gina Lollobrigida) and Marco (Jean-Louis Trintignant) are a wealthy husband and wife—or rather, she's wealthy, and he married her. She owns a poultry farm, which has recently gone to automation, and thrown some locals out of work. Living with them is Gabri (Ewa Aulin), Anna's sexy young cousin, who is working as their secretary. Marco and Gabri are having an affair, but as Gabri points out, he can't leave his wife because he doesn't have any money of his own. Gabri, as it happens, has ulterior motives, which are related to Mondaini, the handsome young man hired by the poultry company as a marketer.
Also, the company Anna and Marco's farm provides chickens for wants to breed chickens with no heads. And Marco apparently unwinds by murdering prostitutes...or does he?
Tropes:
- Artistic License – Biology: Pretty hard to see how even a weird mutated chicken could survive without a mouth to eat with.
- Big Beautiful Woman: The second prostitute Marco visits is fairly chubby but still very attractive.
- Bittersweet Ending: Anna is killed by Mondani, and while Marco realizes who is responsible while trying to dispose of her body, he falls into the chicken feed grinder. Mondani and Gabri find Anna's body just as the police arrive. Since Marco is nowhere to be found and there is proof that he wasn't a serial killer because all the prostitutes he supposedly murdered are still alive, the two are likely going to prison for Anna's murder, so at least they'll face justice for their scheme.
- Dead-Hand Shot: Anna's hand flops over as Marco unwraps the sheets he's hidden her in. She's clutching Mondaini's bracelet in her hand, which is how Marco realizes who did it.
- Disposable Sex Worker: Subverted. All three prostitutes we see Marco murder were all faking it as part of some roleplay, and all three are seen again alive and happy towards the end.
- Driven to Suicide: Part of the opening sequence shows a man apparently committing suicide by taping a bag over his head. This has nothing to do with the rest of the narrative.
- The Dying Walk: Seen only briefly in a flashback, but the shot of Gabri's dying mother staggering away from the car crash is repeated several times.
- Eye Open: The first shot of the film is an extreme closeup of a man as he drops eyedrops into his eye. This apparently has nothing to do with the rest of the narrative.
- Fan Disservice: A gorgeous prostitute in her underwear, right before Marco kills her (or so it seems).
- Fanservice: Multiple shots of Anna and Gabri lounging around in not very much clothing.
- Flashback: A flashback to Marco and Anna making love in happier days; a flashback to Gabri's parents getting killed in a car wreck.
- Foreshadowing: A dog falls into the feed grinder and gets ground up into chicken feed. This foreshadows what will happen to Marco at the end.
- Hands-On Approach: Marco drapes himself all over Gabri when correcting her typing on a letter.
- Love Triangle: Marco, his older but still hot wife, and his luscious young secretary.
- Repeat Cut: The flashback to the death of Gabri's parents in a car accident is done with a Repeat Cut. The same sequence of shots—a car zooming down the road, a closeup of her father dead in the street, then a medium shot showing the father in the street while the dying mother staggers away from the car—is repeated several times.
- Serial Killer: Seemingly played straight, ultimately averted. Marco is seen bringing hookers to hotel rooms and murdering them. Only we don't see the murders because of the Gory Discretion Shots, and it's eventually revealed that he doesn't murder them. It's all very freaky role play in which he pretends to murder them, then sends them on their way alive.
- Sexy Secretary: Nubile Gabri, with her tight sweaters and long legs, is having an affair with her boss, Marco.
- Sleeping Single: It must be hard to sleep in separate beds when your wife is the alluring Gina Lollobrigida. Since this is an Italian film in 1968 it seems most probable that it's a deliberate choice showing that Marco and Anna's marriage has gone stale.
- Technicolor Science: The chicken farm has a lab where a scientist has the standard collection of beakers and flasks holding brightly colored liquids. Eventually it's revealed that this Technicolor Science is part of a project to create freaky headless chickens.
- Twist Ending: Marco isn't really a Serial Killer; it's just freaky role play. And Gabri is in cahoots with Mondaini, her lover, to kill Anna and frame Marco so that Gabri will inherit the whole business.
