The Flower with Petals of Steel

Dr. Andrea Valenti (Gianni Garko) is a handsome, rich and successful surgeon in Rome, who is adored by his staff and patients. However, he is in the midst of a break-up with flame-haired lover, Daniella (Paola Senatore). During a fight at his apartment a woman is killed—we presume it is Daniella, but it is too dark to tell—when she appears to fall and become impaled on a sharp objet d’art (the flower with the petals of steel of the title). Rather than report the accident to the authorities, Dr Valenti decides to dispose of the corpse by cutting it up and dumping the remains in what looks like a sewage plant.
However, the doctor’s ex-lover, Evelyn (Baker), knows that Daniella was due to visit him, and becomes concerned when she doesn’t return. Evelyn is not only Daniella’s half-sister, but also her lesbian lover—and was seemingly plotting with her against Valenti. She visits him in his apartment, but he denies having seen her sister, despite her car being parked outside. Evelyn goes to the police, and tries to convince Detective Garrano (Ivano Staccioli) that Valenti is behind her sister’s disappearance. Garrano is at first unconvinced, but becomes more suspicious when it turns out that Valenti’s heiress wife was committed to an asylum after a rare condition caused her to go insane after having sex with her husband for the first time on their wedding night. However, on further investigation it turns out that she is now sane and has been released, but her whereabouts are unknown. Valenti continues to try and act normally, and beds his beautiful secretary, Elaina (Pilar Velázquez), but he begins to suspect that a neighbour may have seen the murder and soon finds himself the victim of blackmail …
- http://www.hysteria-lives.co.uk/hysterialives/Hysteria/flowers_with_petals_of_steel.htm