Italian Gothic Horror Films 1957-1989

Faux Goth And Multiply

Italian Gothic Horror Films
1957-1969
by Roberto Curti with a forward by Ernesto Gastaldi
McFarland Press ISBN 9780786494378

Italian Gothic Horror Films
1970-1979
by Roberto Curti 
McFarland Press ISBN 9781476664699

Italian Gothic Horror Films
1980 - 1989
by Roberto Curti 
McFarland Press ISBN 9781476672434

Just a very short but sweet shout out to an absolute powerhouse of a trilogy of reference books by Roberto Curti, comprising Italian Gothic Horror Films 1957 -1969, 1970-1979 and 1980-1989. Not that there aren’t still a few Italian Gothic Horror movies made to this day (and still just about being made, I’m very glad to say) but because, as you’ll see from the progression of the tomes themselves, it goes very much into decline by some point in the late 1970s/early 1980s.

So, each volume is set out in years and every Italian gothic (in Curti’s view) is included with a full listing of titles, alternative titles, casts, crew, distributors etc… just like Sight And Sound used to do, back in the days when that was a great magazine and not the pale spectre of a cinematic review it is these days.

Following on from each entry is a fairly large summation of the film itself, before Curti gets into the full meat and bones of each production, giving potted biographies of the key players, analysis of the way each film came to be funded and made… as well as any distribution and certification woes which eventually led to each film’s buoyancy or downfall at both the Italian and International box offices. And, clearly, Curti has been quite thorough in his research.

Of course, all the classics you would expect from tomes entitled in this manner are covered such as I Vampiri, Black Sunday, Black Sabbath, The Ghost, Suspiria, Inferno, The Beyond and so forth, all including valuable information about each film’s genesis that even the less than casual viewer may find noteworthy. It also delves into the possibly slightly shadowy area of the photonovel style magazines which accompanied some of the films in Italy when they were released... and even, in at least one case, when the film remained either unreleased or heavily censored, neither fate of which befell the photo magazine version.

If I had anything critical to say, asides from the author continually referring back to the Italian titles of many films and thus leaving me in the dark as to which film he’s talking about (and don’t get me started on the fact that a fair few of the English titles of the films have been released in alternate titles by various boutique labels since these works were first published), it would be his insistence of including certain non-horror films in the collection, when actually they belong to another genre entirely…

And I’m primarily talking about gialli here. I mean, there aren’t that many included and I totally understand the inclusion of films like All The Colours Of The Dark. I mean, that film is revealed in the final scooby-doo like reveal to be a giallo for sure but, in Curti’s defence, it does use the language and trappings of the gothic horror film and poses as such for the majority of its running time.

I’m much less forgiving about the inclusion of such thrilling gems as The Red Queen Kills Seven Times or A White Dress For Marialé. On the other hand, certain films that have been marketed as gialli in recent years, by nefarious labels trying to lure unwary customers into parting with their money by tying them into the currently popularity of that genre, are clearly and quite rightly defined as gothic horror here… so I’m glad someone else is with me when it comes to such brilliant genre films as The Perfume Of The Lady In Black or even the somewhat dreary Seven Deaths In The Cat’s Eye.

My biggest pleasure when I read these kinds of reference books is the number of titles new to me which I can add to my shopping list… and I certainly have only seen about a half to two thirds of the movies listed within these pages. That being said, when I started researching titles I was less than familiar with, I discovered that I already had around 90% of them to watch on Blu Ray, sitting in various piles around the room, often as part of boxed editions put out by the likes of Severin Films and Vinegar Syndrome… so that was a nice surprise!

Well that about wraps it up for me and Roberto Curti’s three volume set Italian Gothic Horror Films. These are probably the most useful books I’ve read on the general view of the genre and I would have to recommend them as essential cineaste reference books, as far as I’m concerned. Not a lot more to say about it other than there’s a lot of ground covered in these. Definitely worth a purchase.

Giallo Meltdown 2

Three Cats On
Crystal Velvet

Giallo Meltdown 2
By Richard Glen Schmidt
ISBN 9798853807204

“Serena just exposed her Grandis and I am hoping that Fabio will flash his Testis at us.”
Richard Glen Schmidt, Giallo Meltdown 2

This is a review of a book filled with a bitter-sweet sadness and melancholy towards the end of the experience but, also filled with descriptions of nudity, murder, carnage, cats (Spasmo, Gorgon and Cheese), band practice, garden work, fine dining and cigar breaks. I’ll leave it up to your imagination as to which of those things are referring to the films themselves and which are referring to the writer’s, not to mention his wife LeEtta’s, personal experiences of sitting down to long weekends of binge watching genre entertainment in various formats and states of quality.

Yup... following on from the wildly entertaining tomes Giallo Meltdown - A Moviethon Diary (reviewed here), Cinema Somnambulist (reviewed here) and Doomed Moviethon (reviewed here), Richard Glen Schmidt once again treats his target audience of deranged genre explorers to another ramble through his personal gialloscape with Giallo Meltdown 2.

Now, I have to warn you that it may take a little while to get into the very first book of his you pick up (as I’m sure I probably flagged in other reviews) because Schmidt’s style of writing is much more a stream of consciousness approach to the review process rather than something more academic (so I guess that makes him comparable to Joyce and Kerouac, right?). But it’s worth persevering because, frankly, these books (including this very tome) are absolutely entertaining as hell... and I totally love them. I honestly can’t imagine not picking up a new Schmidt tome to snigger and wonder through... which is where the sadness of this review also kicks in... I’ll get to that later.

Okay, so what we have is another series of the kind of moviethons (aka binge watch movie sessions) which also inform and entertain on his website, www.doomedmoviethon.com. So yeah, there are some glorious ‘go to’ reviews bound up in session chapters with titles such as Let’s Go To Asia, Bruh (A Giallo For A Gweilo) and The Blood In Spain Falls Mainly From The Vein. Personally I’d like to add some caveats at this point. I don’t usually have criticisms of Richard’s work because, once you realise that a lot of what he says is not to be taken at face value (aka it’s a straight lie, take a pinch of salt) and that he’s joking pretty much 80% of the time (in the absolute best way), then it’s easy to read these books in a very relaxed manner and not get bent out of shape. But...

... in this particular tome he’s included a lot of things that I wouldn’t personally class as gialli... and what’s more, he knows some of his choices will wind people up and so he defends those choices admirably (not successfully but... admirably ;-)). So while I’m completely on board for a cinematic giallo not having to be originating in Italy (which reminds me, there’s a really gialloish Asian movie I have to recommend to this guy... if only I could remember the damned title) I’m less inclined to treat genres such a krimi (there’s a whole chapter dedicated to those and, franky, if you dedicate a whole chapter to something then surely that’s enough to acknowledge it’s something else other than something found in another chapter... if you see what I mean) or straight up supernatural horror films would fall into the same category. But, as Richard says... write your own book! He says that he was going to include Argento’s Suspiria in this one specifically to annoy certain readers (like myself, I guess) but couldn’t face watching it again at that time for whatever reason.

So allow me just a quick detour and then back to the review. To me, the modern movie buying landscape overuses the term giallo deliberately. Take the fine film The Perfume Of The Lady In Black, for example. It’s a movie featuring a supernatural ghost and a bunch of cannibals (okay, one of those terms may be a bit of a spoiler which you’ll hopefully forget about if you’ve not seen that classic before). It’s not a giallo but it’s been labelled as such on DVDs and Blu Rays over the last 15 or so years. I can just see a cynical marketing guy working at one of the companies (all of the companies) saying, slap a ‘giallo’ label on the front somewhere, it’ll sell more. I’m also a little dismayed at the term ‘cult cinema’ but... that’s a whole other can of worms.

But I digress... back to this truly delightful tome again. If you want to smile your way through a book, then Richard Glen Schmidt’s often nonsensical, more often endearing ramblings are an instant recipe for turning those mouth muscles up on themselves. And even the humour can often be laced with a keen observation or three. So I would say there are at least three types of humour on display in these mental meanderings. There’s straight up humour such as “This movie is some sloppy, ramshackle bullslap but I’m enjoying the sensation of my melted brain leaking out of my eyes.” or “We made it an all-round indulgence by getting some Starbucks as well. The poor company is so broke, so we are happy to help.”

Then there’s the incisive, satirical criticism of things which pull a rock off the ground to reveal a certain amount of truth... now I’m English but I don’t eat Indian food. Even so, I found his acerbic comment about our country to reveal more than a kernel of truth when, in the chapter marking the occasion of sitting down and watching UK gialli, entitled Ello Guvna! You’re Right Fit... For A Casket he writes “Like a proper British couple, LeEtta and I order an Indian takeaway from our Taj Indian Cuisine.” Yup... funny but true, for most Brits I would say.

And then there’s the other style of humour he uses which really makes for a sometimes enlightening but also quite clever read when it comes to his stuff. And these are aimed at people who really know the subject matter that he’s talking about... I imagine that some of these seemingly throwaway comments would seem a bit abstract if you don’t know some of the films and players in question. For instance, when watching British thriller Twisted Nerve he makes the comment, “Gee, this soundtrack by Bernard Herrmann sure does sound familiar.” And, you know he knows exactly why it would sound familiar to a younger generation of Tarantino fans but, he doesn’t elaborate (thankfully, because that’s part of his charm). Similarly, when talking about Dario Argento’s excellent giallo The Stendhal Syndrome, he introduces Asia Argento’s character as “Police detective and known fish kisser, Anna Manni...”. Again, if you haven’t seen the fantastic opening scene of the film in question you might be at a loss as to how to take this stuff.

Because of the international flavour enabled by mixing it up with the countries of origin in this volume, it means you’ll get people like Jess Franco, Paul Naschy, Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis making ‘guest appearances’ in the book. There’s also a Norman J. Warren Joke that I totally failed to ‘get’, I’m afraid to say. I guess I’ve not seen enough of his movies.

Included as kinda bonus pieces in random places (so maybe a better analogy given the subject matter would be Easter Eggs) are two sections, one which reprints some of his hand written notes from when he’s watching the movies (which doubles up on the fact that this man has a proper writing process, as far as I’m concerned) and also a nice section of giallo inspired comic strips by his wife LeEtta. She always illustrates the wonderful covers of these books - front and back (there are nice drawings of Spasmo, Gorgon and Cheese on the back cover of this one) but it’s also nice to see some of her other stuff highlighted. There’s an especially gorgeous splash page by her of A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin included here. You can see more of her work and even purchase some of it at her website here... https://www.theleemsmachine.com

And now for the sad stuff. There are portents all the way through the book and, by the end of the last chapter, the truth is revealed. This was his last moviethon. By my reckoning the guy must be almost ten years younger than me but, for some insane reason, he no longer wants to binge watch fifteen or so movies a weekend. I can sympathise though, if I wasn’t writing this blog I know I’d be getting through at least ten films a week (that’s another story though and I have no desire to stop writing anytime soon). It’s sad because, honestly, I truly look forward to the years when a new Richard Glen Schmidt hits the shelves. I love my time spent between the covers of his epic ramblings. There is a little hope because, he mentions he won’t give up writing about film (yay), just won’t be binging them in this fashion in future (nay). So, I continue to hold out hope that another tome will be coming out at some point.

Either way, Giallo Meltdown 2 is an absolutely funny and laugh out loud read (or would be if I ever LOL’d) and I can’t recommend it enough... once you’ve acclimatised yourself to this man’s writing style and allowed your mind and body to just go with it. Also, you don’t need to read his four books, to date, in any order, either. You could start on this one and then go back to the others if you like... if you wanted to be all George Lucas about your approach to it. So yeah, big recommendation from me and, please, bring on the next book as soon as possible. Schmidt is no James Bond but Sean Connery himself surely taught us all to never say never.

And check out his blog at https://www.doomedmoviethon.com, for sure.

Opening The Cage: A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin

A Lizard But
Taller, In London*

Opening The Cage:
A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin
Written by Keri O’Shea
Warped Perspective No ISBN

Just a very quick shout out to Keri O’Shea’s new monograph, Opening The Cage: A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin. I have to admit, I bought this one thinking it would be another modern take on one of my favourite gialli which I would probably disagree with and ultimately become enraged by but, how often do you see a dedicated study on Lucio Fulci’s A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin? So I plonked down my money and received my copy a very quick two days later, accompanied by a brief note by the author thanking me for my support (I always love it when that happens.... it’s just a shame she didn’t sign the copy too).

And I have to say, I was quite joyfully surprised by this one when I started to read. I mean, okay yeah, if I ever sat with this lady in a pub there might be possibly be some slight disagreement in the difference in genre between giallo and horror in cinema but, honestly, this was a refreshing, intelligent look at the movie through none of the obfuscating prisms... nor, indeed, the usual paths I was expecting from modern film criticism.

I mean, if you’re looking for an in depth look at how the film was made or marketed etc then you are possibly at the wrong venue. What we have here instead, is an analysis of the film which goes into other areas less well travelled. And where the thing does stray to make its point, it does so in a very thorough manner and, perhaps my appreciation of this particular work on the subject comes from the fact that the writer is, indeed, taking me into areas where I don’t have nearly as much knowledge as she... so I was always going to find this one interesting, at the very least. But this isn’t “the very least”... it’s so much more.

For instance, the chapter entitled A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin And The Curious Death Of The Age Of Aquarius is one of many chapters highlighting the two ‘LSD blinded hippie witnesses’ in the movie but explains how the films main protagonist...and, okay yeah, spoiler warning, don’t read on if you’ve not seen the movie... antagonist, played by Florinda Bolkan, rejects the hippies as a negative factor (whilst obviously embracing some of their lifestyle for at least a little of the movie, in her recent back story) and how this is filtered from Lucio Fulci’s own attitudes towards them and their falling out of favour with the world after incidents like the Manson Murders. Indeed, the next chapter entitled We’re Not In Wonderland Anymore, Alice gives a good background on Manson and his followers, as other chapters veer off into such fascinating subjects as LSD and various locations in London where the movie was shot (I learned that some of it was also shot in Italy, doubling for London, which I didn’t realise before).

Above and beyond the high quality of the writing and the thought behind it, the whole book is presented well too. Starting off with the famous poster image on the front cover of Leslie McRay... who wasn’t even in the film but modelled for the advertising (see my review of The Female Bunch here for more details)... the book is really well designed and put together as an attractive package featuring lots of colour photos. Admittedly, the section on Fulci’s burgeoning interest in art and his use of it in the movie could have used a few illustrations of the paintings in question and, yeah, there are just a couple of pages where legibility and readability are slightly threatened by the colours on the underlays but, I can’t complain because the whole thing hangs together really well and just looks fantastic!

And I even learned a new word and now know what Cruention is so, yeah, the book is certainly informative in ways I wasn’t expecting it to be, too. All in all then, Opening The Cage: A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin is a very positive read on aspects of one of my favourite Fulci films that are often not considered and this one clearly demonstrates how various writers can bring their own, very valid spin to things. If you’re into the movie then I’d say snap this one up while you can. Copies can be ordered direct from the publishers at https://warped-perspective.com/index.php/shop/

 *Yeah, if you can work out that pun title... you're really good. ;-)

The Giallo Canvas

Laughing Windows,
Broken Blinds

The Giallo Canvas -
Art, Excess and Horror Cinema
by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
McFarland Press
ISBN: 9781476675398

Just a quick shout out to what I believe is one of the more entertaining, refreshing and illuminating books about various gialli in contemporary writing on the genre, The Giallo Canvas - Art, Excess and Horror Cinema by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. Now I’ve found myself, at first accidentally, following the career of the writer over the last few years via expert inclusion on Blu Ray releases and essays in various venues such as accompanying leaflets and books. There’s even a brilliant episode of the podcast All The Colours Of The Dark which features her as the guest of honour, which is really worth a listen to (as are all the other episodes and anything hosted by Dr. Rebekah McKendry and Elric Kane). I’d not actually read an entire book by her before so I’m happy to start with one that is not only about one of my all time favourite genres of cinematic spectacle but also, in this case, approaching from a different and somewhat unique route... that of the overlap and relationship between various forms of art (mostly painting but not only limited to that) and themes and ideas that permeate a multitude of gialli.

Now, regular readers may be expecting a tirade of negativity from me in that the title itself (and some of the comments in the book) makes evident a perception that giallo is, perhaps, a sub-genre of horror cinema and, those same regular readers (I know you’re out there) will know that I don’t believe gialli are in any way an overlap of horror cinema (and neither are slasher movies for that matter)... if anything, they may be considered a sub-genre of crime films, if the point really needed to be pushed. However, I’m not going to labour that point here, specifically because Heller-Nicholas doesn’t ram that connection (or lack of) down your throat as some writers in the genre have and, mostly, because she’s easily written one of the most intelligent books on the subject going so... yeah, opinions on genre should be thrown to the side as this book is certainly one which is worthy of celebration.

Okay, so she had me right from the start with this one, literally from the first words of her introduction to the concepts she will go on to explore (in a much less formal and stuffy way than many academics go about leading a path to their imminent conclusion), by quoting an article by Virginia Woolf, writing about the first run release of The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari. The way that distinguished writer’s view of recognising high art and the questioning which comes as a reaction to it, seems pretty similar to Heller-Nicholas’ own discoveries of giallo and alternative cinema via Australia’s Special Broadcasting System (SBS) and numerous visits to video rental shops in her youth.

The book is set up in various sections including ‘Clues, Presence and Painting’, ‘Painters’ and ‘Other Art Forms’ and each one of these is split into chapters which explore either a specific painter (such as Vermeer), other mediums such as sculpture, music, writing, theatre/film performance and, also, movies in which characters in the stories are themselves an artist in one medium or another... and the way each of these subjects informs and illuminates the story and ideas presented in various gialli, usually taking one or two examples in each chapter as the main focus. So one chapter might mostly focus on Vermeer as seen in The Forbidden Room and The Psychic (aka Seven Notes In Noir) while another may highlight the use of Francis Bacon’s paintings in Lizard In A Woman’s Skin.

And it’s a really great book illuminating, for example, the highlighting of the visual reference created to mimic art as a metatextual element pulling the spectator out of the event... just as Godard used to try and do to his audience all the time (I guess I should also, myself, reference Brechtian theatre here as an example of this) or the way clues are missed in various films due to the main character’s failure to correctly interpret the clues in a specific piece of art (think of the painting in Argento’s The Bird With The Crystal Plumage and, of course, the tell tale mirror reflection of a painting of faces at the start of Argento’s Deep Red). There’s also some nice work done here with some really thorough interpretations of the various paintings seen (and sometimes fallen into) in The Stendhal Syndrome and similar interesting deductions and inclusions found in such gialli as The House With Laughing Windows and The Red Queen Kills Seven Times. And she also looks at the links between giallo and fashion, highlighting Bava’s Blood And Black Lace as kickstarting this juxtaposition, along with the humourous observation that crimes against the victims in films such as these are also violent attacks on the ‘high price tag’ clothing they wear. I’m also glad that she takes the time to briefly name check some other good writers in the field, including the brilliant Rachael Nisbet.

I’m not going to give away too many of the fascinating pleasures which make up the minor masterpiece that is The Giallo Canvas - Art, Excess And Horror Cinema but I would certainly say that, if you are into giallo and exploitation cinema and are looking to read something different to the usual meanderings in this field, then this one is really worth a purchase. And, it also educated me in one very important point that may have escaped my attention completely if I hadn’t picked up this tome... that the mannequin on the old posters for Spasmo bears a striking resemblance to Tori Amos. Not to mention Heller-Nicholas’ conclusion section, which takes time to mull over the much overused critical phrase ‘style over substance’ and its use as a negative in relation to the genre when, in some ways, it could also be seen as a much more positive engagement with the subject. Yep, there’s some real next level observations in this book. Give it a go.

The Flower With Petals Of Steel

Heavy Petal

The Flower With Petals Of Steel
(Il fiore dai petali d'acciaio aka
The Flower with the Deadly Sting)
Italy/Spain 1973 Directed by Gianfranco Piccioli
Dencam Movies DVD Region 0

Warning: Slight spoilers but... no, not really. The really
big spoilers will remain hidden beneath the steel petals.

Okay... so I thought it was time to check out one of the more obscure giallo movies in my ‘to watch’ pile and so, I chose one of the ones with the silliest and most gialloistic titles.

This films starts off with a quite eerie scene of a scuba diver under water, during the credits. For the first half of the credits there is no actual music and the claustrophobic nature of the scene is enhanced both by the sound of loud bubbles on the soundtrack and a camera point of view that sits just behind the diver. Then the music score, by Marcello Giombini of Sabata fame kicks in and... wow, it’s really good. Kind of a stage beyond dissonance... like an atonal, abstract melange of hostility but with a sweet, candy shell wrap. This needs to be issued on a CD soonest.

As the first swimming figure approaches a second figure, the credits finish and we cut to a scene involving more POV shots, tight in on the action, as the camera crosscuts between a speeding ambulance with it lights and sirens blaring (in some cases the camera is literally just behind the siren which takes up the foreground of the shot) and the main protagonist of the movie driving his own car equally fast and in the same direction as the ambulance. There are a heck of a lot of tight shots bordering but rarely quite getting, to the full first person viewpoint in this movie... it seems almost an obsession with the director but, that being said, it gives this its own style and is very effective in certain sequences.

We soon find out that the reason this man is going in the same direction as the ambulance is because he works at the same hospital. The main protagonist being Dr. Valenti, as played by Gianni Garko, whom the Italian genre cinema fans among my readers will recognise had parts in such classic movies as Cold Eyes Of Fear (reviewed here) and The Psychic (aka Seven Notes In Noir)... not to mention his upcoming role as Sartana in Keoma Rises (in which Franco Nero will be returning to the role of Keoma, by all accounts).

As soon as Valenti ‘lands’ at the hospital, he has to go right into surgery as the aforementioned ambulance was bringing in an emergency job. We see exactly what kind of a hot tempered and mostly unpleasant protagonist he is when he fires his main Operating Theatre nurse for not giving him the correct instruments quickly enough. He also has a nasty attitude to his girlfriend... or ex-girlfriend as far as he’s concerned.

Meanwhile, his ex-girlfriend is entertaining the company of her lover Evelyn, played by Carrol Baker. Except, it turns out, she isn’t just her lover... she’s also her sister. Hmmm... nothing odd about this one so far. It seems to be a state of affairs that Valenti is quite aware of and, he doesn’t want his ex around anyway... especially since one of the nurses in his Operating Theatre, who also somehow doubles as his secretary, is obviously sleeping with him on the side.

Anyway, when the good doctor comes home from work that day, he finds his ex in his apartment and, although she says absolutely nothing, he goes completely mad and gives her a good dressing down before getting so emotionally unstable that he shakes her around a bit and throws her onto the floor. He also, somehow, manages to knock his 'giant steel plant' which he just happens to have in his living room... and it goes toppling onto the floor as he rushes off to take a good, hard swig of his giallotastic J&B whiskey. You can always tell a good, traditional giallo from the J&B whiskey bottle sighting. However, when he goes back to check on his ex he finds she is dead, stabbed to death with one of the petals of steel on the aforementioned plant or, you know, flower with petals of steel. So, yeah, anyone thinking this was one of the more abstract giallo titles can go think again... this is the actual murder weapon mentioned in the title. Smooth stuff.

Valenti is suitably distraught... well... okay, he’s suitably unimpressed, that he has to now cover up the woman's accidental murder and dispose of the body but, luckily for him, he’s a doctor. So he goes to it in a fairly longish sequence as we half get to see him (most of it is off screen) dismember his ex-gals body with his trusty surgeons scalpel and then load her into bags, in a fairly ‘matter of fact’ presentation. Don’t usually get to see post murder dismemberment in a giallo, I have to say, so this was a bit of a new one on me.

After this he drives to a somehow conveniently located giant grinding machine... possibly some kind of industrial cement mixer, I couldn’t really tell, and pitches the bags full of body into the mix. There’s some great sound design for this similarly long and quite intense scene, which plays out with no musical scoring as Valenti silently watches his former sweetheart get swooshed and pulped in no uncertain terms.

And that’s when thing start to unravel for Valenti. The next day, Carrol Baker comes looking for her lover/sister, Daniella, and he fobs her off with an excuse. However, Baker is on to him and starts getting him embroiled in an investigation over the disappearance of Daniella. Added to this, a package turns up at his home for him and it’s a box containing two of the steel petals of... “the flower with the petals of steel.” Someone knows something and so now Valenti’s being blackmailed by an unseen party on top of everything else.

And then things start to get nicely convoluted but... also confusing.

For example, there’s a totally random scene were Valenti travels to an exterior location with lots of chattering dolls heads and a naked woman pinned, bleeding to an upright structure... she might even be the murdered Daniella. I couldn’t figure this scene out... seems not to be a dream sequence and also seems to have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story. It’s just completely confusing and, as the movie carries on, it seems to get more and more obvious that it was completely superfluous to anything else going on.

However, we also have another plot strand turning up where it seems Valenti also has a wife who he committed to an insane asylum for having nymphomania (Seriously? This is a good reason to have someone committed rather than just buy them a sexy present?). It seems she has been cured and released but, I think, Valenti seems to have had no idea that she’s presumably on the loose somehow... was his accidental murder of the girl all that it seemed? Or is there something entirely more sinister and giallo-like going on behind the steel petals of this movie?

And then even the police inspector starts shifting his amorous attentions to one of the main female characters but... what’s this? Right near the end... just when I was beginning to doubt whether this movie actually qualified as a giallo, we have another murder of a main character and the reveal behind this one is all tied into a scene almost at the end of the movie when we, finally, continue with the scuba diver scene that started the whole affair for us. I don’t want to give away too much about the revelations and plot twist reveal at the end here but... underwater girl on girl action is also included in this sequence, if that’s the kind of thing that floats your boat.

So, yeah, a crazily surreal title which actually means something, a few murders, some nudity, a J&B bottle sighting and lots of self reflection in the main protagonist means this definitely gets itself into giallo territory by the end of the movie. There’s also the visual style to take into account here and director Piccioli supports the whole 'gialloness' of the movie by giving us some nicely designed shot set ups at certain points in the film, where the actors stand in just the right kinds of places in a composition to be highlighted by the structures around them. Together with the minimally spotted but very cool score by Giombini, which definitely deserves some kind of release (unless it’s possibly been tracked in from other Giombini scores?) then The Flower With Petals Of Steel is a nice example of the genre, even with the downright confusing scenes, and really needs a proper transfer, preferably on Blu Ray, sometime soon before this movie slips into even more obscurity. Definitely one I’d re-buy in a remastered edition with, hopefully, a few more subtitles in places which maybe needed them. If you’re a fan of Italian gialli, though, it’s definitely one to check out.

Death Fallls Lightly

Giallo Go Lightly

Death Falls Lightly (La Morte Scende Leggera)
Italy 1972 
Directed by Leopoldo Savona
Westminster Films DVD Region 0

I’m told that Death Falls Lightly is quite a rare giallo to get hold of but it’s one I especially wanted to take a look at because, as regular readers of this blog might have already guessed, I absolutely love Lallo Gori’s score to this movie and I really wanted to see how the music fit the picture in this one.

The films starts with a longish, guitar dominant song which is a particular favourite of mine, accompanying a point of view camera shot of someone as they stand in the hallway of a house and look around. There’s a fair bit of moving camera in this one. We are then, via the camera eye, taken into a bedroom and there is the shape of a person under a pillow...

Cut to our unsympathetic protagonist Giorgio Darika, played by Stelio Candelli, an actor I’ve apparently seen in quite a few things such as Planet Of The Vampires, Nude For Satan and Demons... although I didn’t actually recognise him, I have to say. He leaves the house, jumps in his car and we continue with the theme of the camera eye looking through the windscreen of his car as we drive the streets with him... while the rest of that gorgeous opening song and the credits sequence play out.

He visits his ‘judge friend’ and tells him that he has found his own wife dead with her throat slashed open in his house. He has absolutely no alibi or witnesses as to where he has been apart from the fact that all his friends in high places, like the judge, know he’s been on a trip running drugs to fund their political careers. So it’s up to his high powered friends to help him lay low and find a way out for him while the police are "making their enquiries". After a brief stop to pick up his lover (played by Patrizia Viotti, and not to be confused with his wife, obviously), the district attorney drives him to a deserted hotel... although how such a big place is completely devoid of customers is beyond me... and the two are left there to wait out the manhunt until something can be done.

Now, it’s not a bad giallo at heart. The director manages to make the most of his location and it feels quite claustrophobic at times. When the two in the hotel realise that, actually, they are not totally alone there after all, things get going with a lot of wordless sequences where Darika is wandering around the hotel uncomprehending as he meets various “inhabitants” like the owner of the establishment who he sees has murdered his own wife in the exact same way that Darika’s wife was killed. After he helps the owner bury the body, things start to get a little bit more off kilter as various little incidents accumulate to gradually wear down Darika’s mental health and place a strain on his grasp of reality.

What’s really interesting, though, and something I applaud, is the fact that there are loads of little things in this that seem completely superfluous to the plot and which are never followed up on. For instance, on the way to the hotel, Darika and co come across a road accident with two men who have been thrown from their car and who lay bleeding on the street. I guess it’s maybe there to show that Darika, who has to be persuaded to not go and help, isn’t completely heartless but, if that’s the case, it certainly doesn’t work... at least not for me. He’s certainly not a hero figure that I could recognise as such. Another little throw away scene has the detectives working Darika’s case, searching around his house and not being able to get into a locked room which they decide needs to be opened. We never once come back to the detectives or the house again in the movie, as far as I can see. Now, it may be these are hangovers of a script which changed after those scenes were shot, perhaps, and I know that some people would be put off by the insertion of story elements that don’t go anywhere but, honestly, I prefer this kind of inclusion of material over the standard Hollywood cause and effect approach any day, although that can also work very well for certain kinds of films.

Now there’s a trick ending to this movie which I have to say, I did see coming. I also, it has to be said, guessed the identity of the killer in this movie from very early on in the running time but, being as it’s a giallo and they always defy logic and throw in every kind of red herring in the book, I wasn’t too upset by my easy identification of what the writers and director were trying to hide. What bothers me more is the sheer loopyness of the way everything is revealed. The killer, for example, and there’s no way I’m going to spoil it for you here and tell you who it is, could have gotten away with things scott free if they hadn’t made the mistake of blindly lashing out at someone with a razor blade for no apparent reason at the end of the movie. Not only does it defy credibility when that single swipe leaves three... yes, three... deep gashes in a victim’s throat and face... it also makes no sense whatsoever. I knew it was this person behind the original killing in the movie but why the heck give yourself away like that? It makes no sense. I dunno. The mind of a killer, eh?

At the end of the day, the music was still the best thing about this movie, although it seemed a little overscored for the imagery in a few places, I felt. Sequences best left unscored had exciting music thrown over the top of them and vice versa but, honestly, this may not have been the composer’s decision and these things happen a lot more after the score has been recorded than you might hope. It contains a lot of Jews Harp in the latter half f the score which fans might expect to be more appropriate for one of Gori’s spaghetti western scores than in a giallo but it seems to work out okay and it’s not as out of place as some of the other stuff in this film.

Death Falls Lightly is not the best giallo I’ve seen, for sure, but it does have a nice atmosphere all its own and fans of the genre who are already familiar with classic works in the form by directors such as Mario Bava, Dario Argento. Sergio Martino etc may do well to take a look at this one sometime. It may not be one of the greats but it certainly isn’t one of the worst and, despite its deeply implausible plot mechanics, there are a lot more nonsensical films than this on the market. One to watch, then, if you are a fan of the genre, rather than to use as an entry point into this kind of movie making.

The Killer Is On The Phone (L’assassino... È Al Telefono)

The Bald and the Beautiful

The Killer Is On The Phone 
(aka L’assassino... È Al Telefono)
1972 Italy/Belgium
Directed by Alberto De Martino
Camden Collection DVD Region 0

The killer on the phone is not the best giallo I’ve seen, but it’s certainly nowhere near the lower tier of some of these films and it’s got some quite interesting stuff going on it. This held my attention for the full running time without me even looking at my watch... and that in itself is a good thing these days.

It’s a little unusual for the majority of films in this genre... and this one joins the likes of Luigi Cozzi’s The Killer Must Kill Again (helping to create a little sub-genre of giallo all its own, perhaps), in that this is one of the few, the very few that I can even recall, where the identity of the main killer is pretty much known to the audience right from the start of the picture. What we don’t know until the end, although you really will begin to suspect this from very early on... is who the killer has been hired by. Therein rests the mystery, such as it is, in The Killer Is On The Phone.

Now there’s one big problem with this specific giallo and it’s the story/writing. The principal idea is okay and we watch Telly Savalas play a hit man who goes to kill a woman, five years after the death of her husband... an event in which she was a witness. Don’t ask me why it’s taken him five years to figure this out because, frankly, I don’t know. Anyway, when Telly approaches the main protagonist/ heroine, Eleanor (as played by Anne Heywood), she has a bizarre memory thing going on and feints dead at his feet. I don’t know why he doesn’t just finish her off there and then... except that they are out on show to the general public at large to a certain extent... although why you would then confront her in public at all and tip your hand is anybody’s guess at this point.

Anyway, when Eleanor recovers she goes to her house to find it’s been knocked down. When she goes to ring her husband, she asks for her “other” husband who died five years ago, not her current geezah on the spot. It’s clear by now that Eleanor is finding herself a little plagued by memory problems and as, throughout the film, her amnesia has brief signs of clearing through dreamlike flashbacks... including knife murders and bondage sequences opposite both her previous husband and Telly Savalas... our lovable hit man is stalking her and waiting in the wings to see if her memory comes back, delaying his next contract killing so he can sort out his loose ends here.

It sounds okay but the execution in terms of the writing is really not great and while the premise itself is actually quite strong, the writing is just not dextrous enough to pull off any real surprises or take the audience unawares, it seems to me. Right from early on a character is introduced into the proceedings and by then you’ll probably have your suspicions as to just who has been (and is) killing off people around Eleanor... although, it has to be said, the pleasantly surprising motivations behind these murders kinda makes no sense when you think about it... unless Telly Savalas is actually acting completely alone. Which he’s obviously not. So, yeah, I think it’s fair to say that this is one of those gialli when it’s really best not to scrutinise the story content too much and just try and go with it.

Which isn’t a bad thing to go with on this one.

Story issues aside, the movie is a visual and aural treat with performances by all the leads, who are particularly strong for this kind of movie. There are a fair few sequences throughout the picture with little or no dialogue and this makes the majority of this picture just about physical acting... and I’m not talking about action sequences either. Some of these scenes get into the whole aesthetic of stripping the craft of acting down to something along the lines of silent cinema, where a walk across a street can be as interesting as anything else that’s going on during the movie.

This not only gives the actors a breather away from some of the terrible lines they have to say (the version I saw was in Italian with English subtitles but this didn’t blunt the mediocrity of the dialogue as it often can in foreign films) but it also gives the cinematography, set design and music a chance to shine just a little brighter. And they do.

The director does what a lot of his “giallo comrades in arms” do on these things and goes for elaborate camera shots which frame and sub-divide the scenes beautifully. My theory has always been that the scripts on these things were so bad that the directors distracted themselves from the tedium by crafting the most complex mise-en-scene you can get in cinema. Whatever the reason, this film is no exception and De Martino splits shots into smaller blocks to frame different parts of the screen and even goes as far as to add texture or reflection to different plains to push your eyes right where he wants them to be in the frame. He also has some quite dynamic moments with combinations of movements and characters in a single frame falling naturally into each other. An example of this would be fairly early in the film where Eleanor gets into a car and we pan round as it drives off to the right of the shot... and then turns a bend and is driving away from us... then Telly Savalas will enter from screen right as the car is driving away from us and we’ll track back round to the left and follow him to where he ends up. Stuff like this always resonates with me and I find these kinds of films relaxing.

The score, by giallo stalwart Stelvio Cipriani (which was released last year as a 500 limited edition pressing from Digitmovies) is a departure from some of the writing I have come to expect from this guy in the past. It’s not a trippy bass line with beats and a big swooping melody like some of his scoring from around this time... it’s much more sedate and haunting and, it has to be said, a little more mono thematic than I would expect from him. With the exception of just a couple of typical “atonal jazz crime” cues, the score is mostly variations of one theme played repetitively and, mostly, slowly over the course of the film. It’s not bad but you won’t be able to stop humming it for a while... not because it’s particularly catchy but because of the amount of exposure it gets in the film. Still, a good support for the movie and nicely done.

The version I saw is known to be an uncut version but the film is, with the exception of one “giallo-typical” naked lady stabbing, mostly bloodless... even when Telly Savalas dies a particularly nasty death towards the end of the picture... before the, not so big, reveal of the person behind the whole plot. The camera cuts away at his slow dissection just at the last minute... which is curious for a genre of cinema which would normally revel in the amount of gore and arterial spray it can get up on the screen to satisfy an ever jaded audience. This is not a criticism... merely the pointing out of an oddity within the course of a giallo which, to be fair, is decidedly odd itself.

As I said, the performances are great but not particularly character based, although you do get a real sense of some of these characters as you follow them around and little details such as Telly’s collection of toy soldiers flesh the people out just enough without straying too far from the expected territory in that sense. Savalas does an excellent and very subtle job on this one which is kind of strange when you compare it to the role he’d just completed in the same year before shooting this, the over-the-top cossack in Horror Express (reviewed here).

All in all, I would say that if this kind of movie is really not your thing anyway, then I wouldn’t bother with this one... it’s not a jumping on point to get you hooked on the genre by any means. If, however, you are already invested in this genre to some extent, then The Killer Is On The Phone is certainly one you should see if you know what to expect, to a certain extent, from the Italian gialli of this period. Not a great giallo but certainly a competently made and watchable one.