Capricci (1969)

The flimsy “plot” draws inspiration from two works: The Story of the Chevalier Des Grieux and Manon Lescaut and the anonymous Elizabethan Arden of Feversham, from which Bene derives the story of a painter and that of a suicidal poet. The poet, accompanied by his beloved Manon, repeatedly crashes his car in a car cemetery, then runs over some prostitutes and struggles to load them into the car. Manon watches the scene, amused. Meanwhile, the painter Clarke is commissioned by Alice and her elderly lover Mosbie to create a poisoned painting with which to poison Arden, her equally elderly husband, who has gone on a trip to London with his assistant Franklin. The painter agrees in exchange for the favors of Mosbie’s sister, Susanna. The lover also tries to persuade Dick Green, whom Arden has swindled, to murder him. Greene hires some grotesque killers to commit the murder, and a policeman tails them. Arden suddenly dies during an argument with his wife, and Franklin drags his body to Clarke’s house. The policeman arrives too, gets into a hand-to-hand fight with a self-portrait of the painter, and collapses, exhausted. Clarke uses Arden’s blood to sign the self-portrait. Meanwhile, at the car cemetery, one last crash is attempted, ending in a fiery explosion. The poet and Manon survive and lie down on the grass near the flames. A little later, gunshots are heard; someone is seen firing, and people flee. Horsemen dressed like Englishmen arrive, out fox hunting.