Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1970-1979
Author: Roberto Curti
Date: 2017-09-07 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Performing Arts; Film; Horror
Description: Italian Gothic horror films of the 1970s were influenced by the violent giallo movies and adults-only comics of the era, resulting in a graphic approach to the genre. Stories often featured over-the-top violence and nudity and pushed the limits of what could be shown on the screen. The decade marked the return of specialist directors like Mario Bava, Riccardo Freda and Antonio Margheriti, and the emergence of new talents such as Pupi Avati ( The House with the Laughing Windows ) and Francesco Barilli ( The Perfume of the Lady in Black ). The author examines the Italian Gothic horror of the per
Publisher: McFarland

Italian Gothic Horror Films,

1970–1979

Also by RobeRto CuRtI

And FRom mCFARlAnd

Riccardo Freda: The Life and Works
of a Born Filmmaker (2017)

Tonino Valerii: The Films (2016)

Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1957–1969 (2015)

Italian Crime Filmography, 1968–1980 (2013)

Italian Gothic Horror

Films, 1970–1979

RobeRto CuRtI

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

Jefferson, North Carolina

ISBN (softcover) 978-1-4766-6469-9

ISBN (ebook) 978-1-4766-2960-5
lIbRARy oF ConGRess CAtAloGuInG dAtA ARe AvAIlAble bRItIsH lIbRARy CAtAloGuInG dAtA ARe AvAIlAble

© 2017 Roberto Curti. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Front cover: Poster art featuring Ida Galli in Un bianco vestito per Marialé (1972; illustration by tino Avelli) Printed in the united states of America

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
table of Contents

Acknowledgments
vii

Introduction

1

A Note on the Entries

5

Abbreviations

7

Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1970–1979

1970

9

Balsamus l’uomo di Satana 9 • Il delitto del diavolo—Favola thrilling a.k.a.

Le regine 14 • Ombre roventi 17 • Il rosso segno della follia 19 • Thomas …

gli indemoniati 23

1971

27

Un gioco per Eveline 27 • …Hanno cambiato faccia 29 • Lady Frankenstein 32 • Nella stretta morsa del ragno 37 • La notte che Evelyn uscì dalla tomba 40 • La notte dei dannati 43 • Qualcosa striscia nel buio 45 • Il sesso del diavolo—Trittico 48

1972

50

L’amante del demonio 50 • Baron Blood a.k.a. Gli orrori del castello di Norimberga 53 • Un bianco vestito per Marialé 57 • Byleth (il demone dell’incesto) 60 • La dama rossa uccide sette volte 62 • Estratto dagli archivi segreti della polizia di una capitale europea 65 • Frankenstein ’80 69 •

La morte scende leggera 71 • La notte dei diavoli 74 • Tutti i colori del buio 77

1973

80

Flesh for Frankenstein a.k.a. Il mostro è in tavola, barone … Frankenstein 80 •

Lisa e il diavolo 84 • La morte ha sorriso all’assassino 90 • La morte negli occhi del gatto 93 • Il plenilunio delle vergini 96 • Il prato macchiato di rosso 99 • Riti, magie nere e segrete orge nel Trecento… 102 • Il sesso della strega 104

1974

106

Le amanti del mostro 106 • L’assassino ha riservato nove poltrone 109 •

Il bacio 113 • Blood for Dracula a.k.a. Dracula cerca sangue di vergine e …

morì di sete!!! 116 • Un fiocco nero per Deborah 119 • Mania 121 •

La mano che nutre la morte 124 • Nuda per Satana 126 • Il profumo della signora in nero 129 • Terror! Il castello delle donne maledette 134
v
vi table of Contents 1975

138

Il cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco ovvero: Dracula in Brianza 138 •

Frankenstein all’italiana—Prendimi, straziami, che brucio di passion! 141 •

Il medaglione insanguinato (Perché?!) 144 • Le orme 146 • La pelle sotto gli artigli 150 • La sanguisuga conduce la danza 154

1976

157

La casa dalle finestre che ridono 157 • La lupa mannara 163 • Un sussurro nel buio 166

1977

169

Anima persa 169 • Sette note in nero 172 • Shock 177 • Suspiria 180 •

Tutti defunti … tranne i morti 187

1978

190

Enfantasme 190 • L’osceno desiderio—Le pene nel ventre 192 • Pensione paura 196

1979

201

Buio omega 201 • Dottor Jekyll e gentile signora 205 • Malabimba 208 •

Sensività 211 • Le strelle nel fosso 214

Appendix: Italian Gothic on the Small Screen

219

Bibliography

231

Index

235

Acknowledgments
my most sincere thanks go to the following, who in one way or another contributed to the making of this book: mark thompson Ashworth, lucas balbo, Francesco barilli, José Antonio diego bogajo, nigel à brassard, da-vide Cavaciocchi, Francesco Cesari, Alessio di Rocco, Philip dittman, steve Fenton, Ramón Freixas, ernesto Gastaldi, mario and Roderick Gauci, troy Howarth, Peter Jilmstad, dorothy Koval, Frank lafond, tommaso la selva, stefano lecchini, tom lisanti, Antonio mayans, Paolo mereghetti, domenico monetti, Antonio José navarro, Kaya Özkaracalar, Alberto Pezzotta, Jonathan Rigby, bernard seray, luca servini, Carme tierz, Pete tombs, donato totaro, david C. tucker, and Gary vanisian.

to my beloved Cri.

vii

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Introduction
the history of Italian Gothic horror cin-
quences that had been partially tampered
ema in the 1970s is one of dissipation and con-with by the censors, highlighted the common
tamination. the main characteristics that
practice of shooting more risqué material for
made the films produced in the early 1960s a
the sex scenes.

tight and rigidly circumscribed subgenre were
sexuality turned into the main attraction
diluted, hybridized and contaminated by out-
in stories that reworked Gothic stereotypes
side influences, resulting in much looser in a patently erotic way. movies like La notte boundaries and in a variety of approaches dei dannati (1971), Il plenilunio delle vergini to the Gothic canon. As a consequence, the

(1973), Riti, magie nere e segrete orge nel Tre-genre’s identity became much more volatile
cento… (1973) and Nuda per Satana (1974)

and multi- faceted, a transformation that spiced their tales of witches and vampires with somehow mirrored the increasingly chaotic
ample sexuality. these sexploitation flicks state of the national film industry as a whole.

were mainly low- budget affairs, shot in real the main factor was sex, which by then
locations like the Piccolomini castle in balsohad become a vital ingredient in popular cin-
rano, and featured leading men from the pre-
ema. In the previous decade, Gothic had been
vious decade, now burdened by the passing
characterized by the reliance on suggestive
of time, such as Pierre brice and mark damon,
eroticism and mild nudity: think of the allu-
as well as other has- beens (mickey Hargitay, sions to lesbianism featured in La cripta e l’in-Joseph Cotten or Rossano brazzi… ) and re-
cubo (1964, Camillo mastrocinque) and
current character actors such as Paul muller,

Danza macabra (1964, Antonio margheriti),
luciano Pigozzi, and Gordon mitchell. last
or barbara steele’s bubble bath in 5 tombe per but not least, the place of the genre’s diva par un medium (1965, massimo Pupillo), just to
excellence, barbara steele, was taken by a name a few. After 1968, the relaxation of cen-plethora of starlets—from Rosalba neri to
sorship gave way to female nudity and simu-

Patrizia viotti, from Camille Keaton to Rita
lated sex on the big screen, and not just there.

Calderoni—who obliged the distributors’

In fact, one of the most consistent influences needs for exposed female flesh. the results
on 1970s Italian Gothic came in the form of
were artistically forgettable and commercially the adults- only comics that flooded the news-marginal at the time of their release: even stands and pushed the limits of what could be
more than in the previous decade, such prod-
shown to the general public in terms of ucts were often put together hastily, and in-nudity, perversion and violence. the appear-
tended for independent or regional distribu-
ance of film magazines and photonovels with
tion; some, like Lady Frankenstein (1971), an erotic content, such as Cinesex, which L’amante del demonio (1972) or Terror! Il hosted more explicit photo versions of se-castello delle donne maledette (1974), were pro-1

2 Introduction duced and/or directed by American expatri-within the boundaries of Gothic were the pe-
ates, such as mel Welles and dick Randall,
riod melodrama (see Il bacio, 1974) and the
and devised for foreign markets. their main
spoof (Frankenstein all’italiana, 1975), the lat-commercial attractive was the abundant erotic
ter revived by the success of mel brooks’

component: evocative titles, provocative

Young Frankenstein (1974).

posters and especially the “forbidden to mi-
the 1970s saw the return to the genre of
nors” (v.m.18) rating, which became some
such specialists as Riccardo Freda, mario bava sort of a “quality mark” to boast for maximum
and Antonio margheriti, with varied results.

effect.

Freda’s only Gothic movie of the decade, the

Another concurring factor in the muta-
disappointing Estratto dagli archivi segreti tion of Italian Gothic was the rise of the giallo, della polizia di una capitale europea (1972),
resulting in a number of crossovers that bor-
was followed by a long hiatus, even though
rowed the black- gloved killers and creative
the director kept working on a number of un-
murder scenes from dario Argento’s films and
filmed projects, some of them pertaining to
transplanted them into typical Gothic scenar-
the genre; his return behind the camera took
ios, and even played on the alleged supernat-
place after eight years, with his final film Mur-ural nature of the murderer. As a consequence, der Obsession, shot in 1980 but released in
the line between giallo and Gothic is often

1981. bava’s output was more consistent and
blurred, as the hyperviolent thrillers made varied, from the ghost story- cum-thriller hy-during the decade often encompassed
brid Il rosso segno della follia (a.k.a. Un hacha elements from the Gothic, and vice versa.

para la luna de miel, filmed in 1969 but re-
other different threads that found their way
leased in 1970) to the more conventional Italian fotobusta for La notte dei dannati (1971), a Gothic film characterized by strong erotic elements.

Introduction 3

Baron Blood (1972) and the ambitious Lisa e

(1975), actually a Gothic yarn in disguise, which il diavolo (1973), the latter destined to a sad displayed another, offbeat influence: the tear-fate which led to its release in a heavily ma-
jerkers centered on unhappy child figures, nipulated form as La casa dell’esorcismo
which in turn hinted at another issue, the (1975). margheriti opted to remake his best
feared dissolution of bourgeois family, shaken work in the genre, Danza macabra, in color
by the disintegration of the Catholic moral
and with an international cast, with Nella and the violent rebellion of the sons against
stretta morsa del ragno (1971), and helmed a
the fathers and society, from the 1968 student Gothic/giallo hybrid, La morte negli occhi del protests to the rise of armed terrorism.

gatto (1973). His name was also associated to
such a frantic agglomeration of diverse
a couple of grotesque horror films shot in Italy influences was a method common to other
by Paul morrissey, Flesh for Frankenstein short- lived threads that were born and took

(1973) and Blood for Dracula (1974): margher-
turns frantically from the mid 1970s onward,
iti was credited as the sole director in the Ital-each more bizarre and daring than the other:

ian prints, under his a.k.a. Anthony m. daw-
the nazi- erotic cycle, the cannibal movie, the son.

short- lived thread on bestiality inspired by
unlike in television, where the genre
borowczyk’s La bête (a case in point is luigi
flourished thanks to such enormously suc-

Russo’s La bella e la bestia, 1977) or the up-
cessful works as the mini- series Il segno del co-coming zombie movie (Zombi 2, 1979, lucio
mando (1971), the place for classical Gothic on Fulci). It was the consequence of the unstop-the big screen was marginal. the success of The pable endogenous mutation of Italian popular

Exorcist (1973, William Friedkin) caused pro-
cinema, caused by a number of factors that
ducers and filmmakers to jump on the band-
involved production, distribution, even laws,
wagon. the sad destiny of Lisa e il diavolo, re-not forgetting a social and political tissue edited and altered in order to become some
which was undergoing shocking traumas,
sort of The Exorcist rip- off, illustrates the from the rise of the ultra- leftist “movement mocking decadence of Italian Gothic, absorbed
of 1977” to the kidnapping and killing of pre-
and overwhelmed by its smarter twin, the de-
mier Aldo moro. but it was also a desperate
monic thread. Films such as L’anticristo (1974, attempt to squeeze as much profit as possible

Alberto de martino), L’ossessa (1974; mario
from the ongoing crisis that plagued the na-

Gariazzo), Un urlo dalle tenebre (1975, elo Pan-tional movie industry.

nacciò, Franco lo Cascio) leapfrogged the im-

Gothic films, like the other genre fare
agery that nourished Il plenilunio delle vergini produced in the country in the current and
and Nuda per Satana, further underlining its
past decades, were mostly aimed at the so-
commercial obsolescence. the elements that
called seconda visione (second-run) and terza
pertained to the Gothic, wherever they
visione (third run) theaters. these were lower emerged—such as the theme of the double,
quality auditoriums, located in the provinces
which brings together the bedeviled Ippolita
and in small towns, characterized by lower

(Carla Gravina) to her ancestress witch in ticket costs (even a fifth or the standard fare) L’anticristo—were few and far between, and
and frequented by unassuming male audi-
distorted by the context; the stories drew from ences. overall, the second and third- run ex-contemporaneous American horror cinema,
perience was quite different from that in a
and bastardized their sources, piling up the
prima visione theater. Audiences came and
elements of excess, such as blasphemous sex-
went during the projection, accompanied the
uality. A notable exception was massimo dal-
scenes with comments and jokes, and filled
lamano’s Il medaglione insanguinato (Perché?!) the auditorium with clouds of smoke, since,

4 Introduction unlike in first- run theaters, smoking was al-Riccardo Ghione) similarly employed vam-
lowed. they hardly cared about the movie it-
pirism as a metaphor for the haute bourself, but went for the experience—whether it
geoisie’s domination of the lower classes. even be watching beautiful ladies take off their more surprising were several peculiar addi-clothes, gunslingers shooting dead hordes of
tions to the so- called “female Gothic” canon.

enemies, or masked killers dispatching their
these latter works transported the Gothic victims in gruesome ways. Seconda and terza
staples to the present day and focused on the
visione theaters had been the recipient for the uneasiness of the female figure in contempo-enduring success of genre cinema: they would
rary society, by depicting mentally unstable
change the bill daily, and grant a longer com-
women at the center of arcane conspiracies
mercial life to movies which would be still

(either imagined or real). the results were
around years after their making. by the end
among the most interesting approximations
of the decade these theaters were gradually
to Gothic made during the decade: Il profumo
converting to hardcore, the safest choice to
della signora in nero (1974, Francesco barilli) face the continuing loss of moviegoers, most
and Le orme (1975, luigi bazzoni). In a way,
of whom had found a much more satisfying
this was also the case with such atypical works alternative in television, after the rise of comas Ombre roventi (1970, mario Caiano), Un
mercial broadcasters.

fiocco nero per Deborah (1974, marcello An-
the non- stop quest for excess on screen,
drei) and Sette note in nero (1977, lucio Fulci), either violent or erotic (or both), drained the with their peculiar mixture of modern- day

Gothic of its primary function and meaning.

Gothic and parapsychological thriller that ex-
two ways were open for producers and film-
plored the period’s interest in the occult and makers who kept investing in the genre: on
the paranormal, a trait that hinted at the the one hand the emphasis on blood and gore
growing tendency toward disengagement

(see Buio omega, 1979, Aristide massaccesi),

(also political) and escapism.

on the other, yielding to hardcore porn (see
but the decade also spawned original ef-

Malabimba, 1979). In both cases, the recycling forts from other major talents. With his early of the Gothic elements would lead to a com-films, Pupi Avati paved the way for a peculiar pletely different terrain. the genre’s ambiguity brand of Gothic, deeply rooted in Italian disappeared, replaced by the parade of attrac-folklore, which blossomed into one of the tions that had become the films’ only reasons
genre’s true masterpieces of the decade, La
for existence. Gothic in its primordial essence casa dalle finestre che ridono (1976). on the
could not survive, because it was still tied to other hand, dario Argento moved from the
formal and thematic elements that were by
giallo to the supernatural horror story with
now outdated.

Suspiria (1977), an extraordinary example of
still, during the 1970s there were also
what can be called Italian neo- Gothic, fol-
works and filmmakers that reinvented the
lowed three years later by Inferno (1980).

genre and its peculiarities in a stimulating

However, by the end of the decade the
way. such were the political rereadings of the genre was gasping for air as audiences were

Gothic myths: Corrado Farina’s feature film
rapidly diminishing, television being a pow-
debut … Hanno cambiato faccia (1971) was an
erful competitor, and other subgenres were
original reinvention of Nosferatu set in the
rapidly surfacing and declining. In the 1980s, present and with an anti- capitalistic message; the face of Italian Gothic would change all
the bizarre Il prato macchiato di rosso (1973, over again, and dramatically so.

A note on the entries
this volume lists the films produced and
situdes they underwent. last but not least, I
released in Italy between 1970 and 1979 that
added an appendix that covers the Gothic in my view can be defined as “Gothic.” (For
made- for-tv films and mini- series produced
an analysis of the term and its implications,
during the decade and up to the early 1980s.

see Roberto Curti, Italian Gothic Horror Films, I would like to stress my choice of dating

1957–1969, pages 3–9.)

an entry according to its release date instead I have included borderline examples of
of its filming (which in a couple of occa-gialli which feature a strong emphasis on the
sions—namely bava’s Il rosso segno della follia supernatural and other Gothic elements (such
and Avati’s Balsamus l’uomo di Satana—
as emilio miraglia’s La notte che Evelyn uscì
would have dated the movie back to the pre-
dalla tomba, 1971, and La dama rossa uccide
vious decade) or its submission to the board
sette volte, 1972) as well as works that rein-
of censors, because in my view a movie never
vented the genre’s staples such as those actually comes alive until it is received by an mentioned in the introduction. on the other
audience.

hand, I decided to leave out most of the Ex-
each entry features as complete a crew
orcist-inspired films for the reasons explained and cast list as possible, based on the film’s above.

opening and closing credits. uncredited
entries include Italian co- productions
extras are also listed, and whenever possible
with other european countries, such as enzo

I tried to note when a cast member does not

G. Castellari’s Sensività (a.k.a. Diabla, 1979), actually appear in the movie: this was often
filmed in spain. on the other hand, I did not
the case for C.s.C. graduates—one of the typ-
include films which featured an Italian par-
ical scams of Italian productions, as a law in ticipation but are actually majoritarian foreign force until 1975 granted tax benefits to those co- productions helmed by foreign directors,

Italian films that had two former C.s.C. stu-
such as Ivanna (1970, José luis merino), La
dents among cast and crew members. Please
mansión de la niebla (1972, Francisco lara
note that in some occasions the Italian crew

Polop) or Ceremonia sangrienta (1973, Jorge
and cast members adopted english pseudo-

Grau): despite the presence of Italian cast and nyms: whenever possible, I included the par-crew members, these cannot be considered as
ticipants’ real names after their Anglo- saxon proper “Italian Gothic films.” I opted to list aliases. Also featured are data regarding pro-the two Italian/French co- productions Paul
duction details, locations, running time, visa morrissey shot in Italy, Flesh for Frankenstein number, release dates, box- office grosses, aland Blood for Dracula, because of the vexed
ternate titles; a brief synopsis; and an essay on question of Antonio margheriti’s actual con-the film, often with the inclusion of little-tribution to both films and the peculiar vicis-known or never- before-seen data regarding

5

6 A note on the entries production history and assorted trivia. Home
makers and actors, newspaper articles and re-
video releases are also listed, with preference views, ministerial papers). Whenever possible, given to english- friendly blu- Rays and I located and consulted the films’ original dvds.

scripts kept at the luigi Chiarini library of the the entries are listed under their original

Centro sperimentale di Cinematografia in

Italian title, followed by the english title in Rome, as well as the Public Cinematographic
brackets and italics (if there was no english

Register at the sIAe offices in Rome, which
language release, a literal translation is in-
provided the shooting dates for a number of
cluded, but not set in italics). the information titles. As for locations, a valuable resource bits provided throughout the text are the was the website www. davinotti. com, which fea-result of thorough research from a variety of
tures remarkable investigation work on the
sources such as academic texts and essays and
matter.

other assorted material (interviews with film-

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations are used in the credits list for each entry

Crew
director; sC: screenplay; sd: set decora-
tion; se: special effects; so: sound; soe:

AC: Assistant camera; ACo: Cos-
special sound effects; sP: still photogra-
tume assistant; ACon: Assistant continu-
pher; ss: script supervisor / script girl;
ity; Ad: Assistant director; Ae: Assistant

W: Wardrobe / seamstress.

editor; Amu: Assistant makeup; APd:

Production design assistant; Artd: Art di-
rector; Asd: Assistant set designer; b:

Production
boom man; C: Camera; Chel: Chief/Head
electrician; CHoR: Choreographer; Co:

Adm: Administrator; AP: Associate

Costumes; Con: Continuity; d: directed
producer; eP: executive producer; Gm:

by; diald: dialogue coach / dialogue di-

General manager; PA: Production assis-
rector; doP: director of photography;
tant; PAcc: Production Accountant; PCo:

dubd: dubbing director; e: editor; el:

Production Coordinator; Pm: Produc-
electrician; GA: Gaffer; Hair: Hairdresser;
tion manager; PRod: Produced by; Ps:

KG: Key grip; lt: lighting technician; m:

Production supervisor; Pse: Production
music; mA: master of arms; mix: sound
secretary; PseA: Production secretary
mixer; mu: makeup; oe: optical effects;
assistant; um: unit manager; uP: unit

Pd: Production designer; Prm: Property
publicist.

manager; s: story; 2ndAd: 2nd Assistant

7

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Italian Gothic Horror Films,

170–17

The films are listed alphabetically within each year.

Notes are given at the end of each entry.

1970

Balsamus l’uomo di Satana (Balsamus

Distribution: I.F.C. Domestic gross: 34,000,000 lire.

the Man of Satan)

Also known as: Balsamus, l’homme de Satan D: Pupi Avati. S: Pupi Avati; SC: Enzo

(France).

Leonardo, Giorgio Celli, Pupi Avati; DOP: Franco Lots of people show up at a dilapidated villa

Delli Colli (Technicolor, Techniscope); M: in the hills, inhabited by the self- described healer Amedeo Tommasi (Ed. S.P.A.); E: Enzo Micarelli; and “miracle man” Balsamus, and ask him to perCO: Silvana Bigi; SD: Claudio Giambanco; Col-
form miracles. Balsamus, a dwarf who believes
laborator to direction: Enzo Leonardo; AD: he is the reincarnation of the Count of Cagliostro, Alberto Bartolani; C: Roberto Brega; AC: Gianni is surrounded by a court of relatives and sycophants, Modica Canfarelli; MU: Gianni Amadei; AMU:

who exploit his delusions for their own profit and Alfonso Cioffi; Hair: Italia Marini; AE: Carlo organize complicated collective rituals, which Bal-Broglio, Massimiliano Cingola; SO: Franco Grop-samus enthusiastically performs. When a couple of pioni; B: Giulio Viggiani; SS: Maria Luisa Merci.

elderly parents ask Balsamus to deflower their Cast: Bob Tonelli [Ariano Nanetti] (Balsamus), teenage daughter, it’s his right- hand man Ottavio Greta Vaillant [Greta Vayan] (Lorenza), Giulio who performs the deed. In fact, Balsamus is impo-Pizzirani (Ottavio), Gianni Cavina (Alliata), Pina tent, and his wife Lorenza (who lives in the villa Borione (Pasqua), Antonio Avati (Dorillo), Lola with her retarded brother and her greedy mother Bonora (Somnambulist), Andrea Matteuzzi (Mr.

Pasqua) goes to bed with whoever is handy, includ-Menopausa), Ines Ciaschetti (Mrs. Menopausa),
ing Balsamus’ henchman Alliata, and writes their Fanny Bertelli (Mrs. Rapisardi), Giacomo Vecchi names in a big “guest book.” The healer’s acolytes (Mr. Rapisardi), Franca Alboni (Rapisardi’s plan an advertising campaign to improve upon
daughter), Libero Grandi (Publicist), Franco San-their earnings, but suddenly Balsamus starts mak-giovanni (Publicist), Gilberto Fiorini (Truck ing real miracles. He magically causes a man to Driver), Luciana Negrini (Virgin), Odoardo Bar-shoot himself, then summons Pasqua (whom he
toloni (The General), Marino Carpano, Mario De had inadvertedly poisoned) from the realm of the Rosa, Valentino Macchi (Man without an arm);
dead. But when Lorenza asks him to perform his uncredited: Elsa Schiassi (Publicist). PROD: conjugal duties and reveals to him the existence Marino Carpano for Magic Films (Bologna); of the “guest book,” Balsamus cannot stand the PM: Umberto Borsato; PS: Giorgio Caputo; PSe:

humiliation and kills himself in front of all his fol-Steno Tonelli. Country: Italy. Filmed on location lowers.

near Bologna and at Incir- De Paolis (Rome). Run-Born in Bologna, on November 3, 138,
ning time: 8 minutes (m. 261). Visa n. 55382

Giuseppe “Pupi” Avati was always a dreamer. In (1.24.170); Rating: V.M.14. Release date: 1.28.170; the difficult World War II years, living as an evac-



10 1970: Balsamus uee in the mountain village of Sasso Marconi,
novels), and had his brother Antonio play a role dreaming was the only way to see a light amid the in the film. What is more, he surrounded fear, pain and destruction that characterized his himself with acquaintances, assembling a group childhood, whether it be listening to the fairytales of players who would become a sort of stock
and frightening stories told by villagers in the cold company on which he leant throughout his sub-winter nights, or devising a bright future for him-sequent work in the 170s. Many familiar faces self.

of Avati’s cinema appear here for the first time, Avati’s first true passion was jazz—the
from the cross- eyed Giulio Pizzirani to the bum-music of freedom, that accompanied the Allies’

bling Gianni Cavina (both stage actors in their liberation of Northern Italy from the Nazis and film debut), whereas Balsamus’ ravenous and
the return to life, Pupi’s adolescence in post–
vulgar mother- in-law is played by Pina Borione, War Bologna, the first dates and blossoming ro-who would later portray Buono Legnani’s
mances. “My dream was to become a great jazz
bedridden sister in La casa dalle finestre che ri-clarinetist,” he recalled, and that dream seemed dono.

to come true in 15, when the 21-year-old Pupi To say that the film had an unlikely lead
joined the Doctor Dixie Jazz Band, a prestigious would be quite an understatement: the dimini-jazz and Dixieland combo based in his home-
tive Bob Tonelli (real name Ariano Nanetti, town. For over three years he felt like walking 12–186) was not even a professional actor,
in the clouds.

but a local entrepreneur. Avati met him through One day, though, it was time for an abrupt
his a.d. Alberto Bartolani, since the script fea-awakening. “A new member joined our orchestra, tured a small role for a dwarf, but when Tonelli a short balding guy named Lucio Dalla. At first I told him that he could raise one billion lire, Avati wasn’t much worried, because he seemed quite a thought he was crazy. Then, one month later,
modest musician to me. But then he displayed a still unable to gather the money to finance his flexibility, a predisposition, a brilliance that were film debut, the director decided to call Tonelli totally unexpected: he silenced me, and pushed back. “Listen,” he said, “I had a dream. I dreamt me in a corner. At one point I even thought of that you were the protagonist of my film, Bal-killing him, throwing him down the Sagrada Fa-
samus.”

milia in Barcelona, because he stepped between Actually, Avati’s first choice for the role was me and my dream.”1 Lucio Dalla went on to be-the prestigious stage thesp Alberto Lionello, but come one of Italy’s most famous and talented pop due to financial issues he had to abandon the idea.

singer/songwriters, and even pursued an idiosyn-His offer was a desperate move, in the hope that cratic acting career. As for Pupi, he put his clarinet Tonelli be able to collect the money he had promin the drawer and took a job at the local frozen ised. Forty- eight hours later, Tonelli showed up foods factory, Findus. “Those were the worst four with a mysterious albino, a local entrepreneur years of my life,” he later commented.

whom he introduced as “Mister X”2: the albino

Eventually the dream resurfaced in another
promptly signed cheques for 160 million lire, form. In hindsight, it is just apt that Avati got without any contract. Avati had finally the money bitten by the film bug when watching for the first to make the movie, and his lead too; the fact that time Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ (163), a movie about as a result Balsamus would have to be turned into a dreamer that begins with a dream. His first
a dwarf was not an issue.3 Tonelli would become steps in the motion picture business were not
one of Avati’s regulars, playing in no less than encouraging, though: the four weeks spent as
twelve features between 168 and 184, and his Piero Vivarelli’s assistant on the set of Satanik son Steno (who acted as production secretary on (168) were so disappointing that Avati later

Balsamus) would be a constant presence on claimed that he had at least learned how not to Avati’s sets as well.

make a movie.

The movie was shot in four or five weeks,

Balsamus l’uomo di Satana, which later the
mostly around Bologna. Despite the conspicuous director labeled as “proudly provincial,” was a budget, the debuting director’s lack of experience family effort. Avati wrote the script with his resulted in a number of compromises during friends Enzo Leonardo and Giorgio Celli (the
shooting. “On the first day, when they saw me at latter a well- known ethologist, entomologist and work, the crew members realized I simply could writer who had been part of the neo- avantgardist not make the film on my own. In fact Franco Delli Gruppo 63 and had written a number of mystery

Colli told me: ‘Don’t worry, we’ll make the movie

1970: Balsamus

11
for ya!’ From that moment on, I felt limited by my film debut whose attempts at saying something
incompetence throughout the whole shooting,
different often turn up awkward and obscure.

and even in check from a technical point of view: The choice of the 18th century adventurer
we always ended up doing the opposite of what I Giuseppe Balsamo, Count of Cagliostro, as the
would do.”4 The director would later evoke his first inspiration for the film’s story7 is in tune with steps as a filmmaker in an ironic way, in the TV

Avati’s interest in the occult, which formed the mini- series Cinema!!! (17).

basis of some of the director’s most inspired Again, it is fitting that Avati’s first features work in the Fantastic genre, such as Zeder were “written and filmed following the stream

(183), L’arcano incantatore (16) and the TV
of consciousness, leaving cinematic rationality mini- series Voci notturne (15, Fabrizio Lau-aside at the search of something more, perhaps renti) which he scripted. “At that time I was fas-too much, but something new nonetheless.”5
cinated by books about the paranormal, the al-

The director has always been very severe toward chemical, that peculiar genre which was well
his early work: “I have never watched those explained in the book The Morning of the Ma-movies again,” he once claimed. “However …

gicians… . At the same time, there was a rural back then I considered them my only opportu-matrix, which had a lot to do with the grotesque nity of having the chance to say everything I
and with a vision of life that resulted from my wanted to say, do or imagine. As I was shooting first five years as an evacuee… . I thought of a scene, in that scene there had to be all my cin-everything in terms of unreality and I thought ema… . There was the fear of not being noticed, that the task of movies was to project on the
not challenging enough what cinema had been
screen what has little to do with reality: to me, so far, not having enough disruptive force.”6 And on- screen reality was everything that stood out indeed, Balsamus has all the shortcomings of a of the borders of reason.”8

Pupi Avati (fourth from left) and Giulio Pizzirani (second from right) during the filming of Balsamus l’uomo di Satana, in 1968. The film was released only in 1970 (courtesy Luca Servini).

12 1970: Balsamus The script, according to the director, was a
gests an uneasy blend of discomfort and pity,
painstaking effort, “with in- depth linguistic, lex-empathy and disgust. It is linked with satire and ical and historical research. We put everything it often borders on the monstrous, conveying
we could in it and more, in the illusion of being opposite feelings in the viewer—all elements
appreciated by who knows who or where. Which
that make it, in the words of Thomas Mann, a
did not happen.” As unripe and pretentious as

“genuine antibourgeois style.”10
it may be, the result already encompasses all the The film’s approach to the grotesque is best
themes of Avati’s subsequent body of work: the exemplified by the depiction of the protagonist.

attraction toward the bizarre, the obsession with Bob Tonelli plays a figure of idiot savant that has religion and superstition, the black humor, the few equals in cinema history: Avati’s sympathy horrific undertones.

toward his main character echoes Tod Brown-

Despite a subtitle that evokes the Prince
ing’s depiction of circus freaks, and in addition of Darkness, added in the attempt at making
to that the director counterparts Balsamus’ bliss-it more suitable to the general audience, Bal-
ful obliviousness to reality with the intrigue and samus l’uomo di Satana is not a horror movie.

squalor that surrounds him. Even though he is

It embodies elements of comedy, with an insis-
exploited and ridiculed, he remains the only
tence on regional types, but its main feature is pure figure in the movie. On the other hand, his the grotesque. Originally referring to the extrav-family and acolytes—who take care of the “mir-
agant art found in Ancient Rome and later acles,” including the sexual duties he is called on copied by the end of the 15th century, the term to perform on nubile girls, since Balsamus is im-encompasses all things strange, ugly, unpleasant, potent—are portrayed as demented caricatures,
even disgusting, and in art and literature it sug-from their absurd make- up to their physical appearance and facial features.

Still, the movie retains a strong

Gothic mood, starting with the theme of
metempsychosis (although played in a
demystifying key) and the central char-
acter of the magician- wizard-healer,
surrounded by a coterie of sycophants
who dress in 18th century clothes, have
their faces painted in blue and green, and
live as if time had frozen. They all look
like ghosts, remnants from a distant past
who play their role for money, and one
of the most original things about such a
genre- defying work is the contrast be-
tween the timeless quality of the scenes
in Balsamus’ villa and the ordinariness
of the present day, embodied by the
people gathering at the healer’s manor—
a nod to the celebrated scene of the pil-
grimage to the sanctuary of “La Ma -
donna del Divino Amore” in Federico

Fellini’s Le notti di Cabiria (157). Fel -
lini’s cinema is the main source of inspi-
ration—think also of the “ghosts” in La
dolce vita (160) or the overall mood of

Giulietta degli spiriti (165)—for Avati’s
choice of unusual, sometimes weird-
looking bit part actors and extras, and his
reliance on the surreal and absurd,
dreamlike quality that imbues the film.

The Italian poster for Balsamus l’uomo di Satana tried to Here, the dream is focused on the
pass it off as a standard sexy horror film.

duality between the past and the present,

1970: Balsamus 13
highlighted by the felicitous architectural choice horrific angle, Avati commented: “The explana-of the imposing, Oriental- influenced country tion lies only in the desperation of a 30-year-old villa11 where the story takes place, and the im-kid who draws from all the movies he has seen
possible escape from an age seen as ugly and cor-and more than anything else wants to do what
rupt. Avati’s goal was to depict “the metaphor of has not been done before. Not something that
a world that is still influenced by such a blatant belongs to him, but something new. And to do
dishonesty,”12 and the relationship between man, this, he tries to stuff the movie with every type faith and superstition would be the core of many of suggestion, and ends up weakening it, because subsequent works, from the comedy La mazurka
in doing so the final result is damaged.”13 To sum del barone, della santa e del fico fiorone (175, it up, he pointed out: “Ours was a provocative which reprised the scene of the virgins on a tree) cinema, we did not want to communicate some-to the obscure Pagan rites performed by the thing, but first and foremost to destroy the ex-

“painter of agony” Buono Legnani in La casa
isting… . And it was in that period, that the Ital-dalle finestre che ridono and the experiments on ian audience started not to consider our the afterlife conducted by the Vatican in Zeder.

country’s movies, and distrust the auteurs, beThe movie’s symbolic universe is filled with
cause cinema had stopped being a means of references to esoterism and freemasonry (the
communication. It had become something dif-

“Grand Orient” is explicitly mentioned), and the ferent, almost an end in itself because of too director openly flirts with the Fantastic, by much exuberance.”14
showing that Balsamus’ powers are ultimately

Balsamus l’uomo di Satana was submitted
real: in a surreal moment, a publicist discussing to the board of censors only in January 170, al-with Balsamus’ assistants (who inquire on how
most two years after its making, and was to portray the alleged “miracles” in TV ads) ex-released in a minimal number of theaters, with plains that, thanks to the magic of cinema, disastrous commercial results. Given such a title, everything is possible, and therefore even a fin-and a misleading poster that made moviegoers
ger can become a gun. He points his index finger believe they were going to watch a horror movie, to the temple, makes the sound of a shot, and
audiences responded in outrage, walking out of falls dead on the floor. Balsamus looks at the theaters and demanding a ticket refund. But it scene with a seraphic, knowing smile. Later on, was nothing compared to the disaster of Avati’s in the movie’s eeriest scene, the dwarf sets out subsequent picture.

an obscure ritual in the hills near a hut, disappears in the wild and returns with his revived NoTeS
mother- in-law—a mysterious, white- dressed revenante that predates those in Zeder.

1. Pupi Avati, Sotto le stelle di un film (Trento: Il Margine, 2008).

Here and there Avati adds incongruous,

2. The mysterious businessman was actually Carmine un explained elements to the story, such as the Domenico Rizzo (116–2006), born in Calabria but a res-stimulating booth where Balsamus’ wife Lorenza ident of Bologna. See Luca Servini, “Balsamus, l’uomo di pre pares herself in anticipation for a night of Satana: la grande avventura,” in Ruggero Abramovit, Claudio Bartolini and Luca Servini, Nero Avati. Visioni dal set pleasure with Alliata (Gianni Cavina), a mad

(Genoa: Le Mani, 2011), 15.

concoction with human arms coming out of its

3. Avati’s director friend Mario Lanfranchi told a walls and caressing the woman—a surreal mix-slightly different version: “The script was about a very tall ture between the notorious corridor scene in

Cagliostro, who towered over everyone. And Tonelli, who Polanski’s Repulsion (165) and Wilhelm Reich’s was notoriously very short, told him: Pupi, I read the script and I like it … and he changed the story, turning Balsamus Orgone machine. It is a moment in tune with
into a dwarf!” Renato Venturelli, “Eroi senza pietà. Inter-the director’s trademark depiction of a bizarre vista a Mario Lanfranchi,” in Renato Venturelli (ed.), Cin-and perturbing sexuality, which encompasses
ema e generi 2010 (Genoa: Le Mani, 2010), 116.

elements of bisexuality as well (such as Alliata’s 4. Abramovit, Bartolini, and Servini, Nero Avati, 25.

5. Ruggero Abramovit, Claudio Bartolini, Il gotico awkward femme fatale- like moves on Lorenza’s padano. Dialogo con Pupi Avati (Genoa: Le Mani, 2010), 114.

bed), and is never fully separated from the mon-6. Ibid., 115.

strous. It is yet another theme that will cross 7. Already the subject of Alvin Rakoff ’s 14 adventure deeply Avati’s cinema, from comedy (Bordella,
film starring Orson Welles, Cagliostro would also inspire another Italian filmmaker with a strong interest in the oc-starring Al Lettieri, Cavina and Christian De
cult, Pier Carpi, who wrote a biography of the adventurer Sica) to horror (La casa dalle finestre che ridono).

and the script for Daniele Pettinari’s Cagliostro (175) star-Regarding the underplayed yet palpable
ring Bekim Fehmiu.

14 1970: Il delitto 8. Servini, “Balsamus, l’uomo di Satana: la grande tion, he plays a trick on David, staging his own avventura,” 17.

death in an accident and causing the biker to take 9. Ibid., 20.

refuge in the woods to hide from the police. There, 10. John R. Clar, The Modern Satiric Grotesque and its Traditions (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, David meets three lovely sisters who live in a se-11), 20–21.

cluded house by a lake: Liv, Samantha and Bib-

11. The film was shot inside the so- called Rocchetta iana. Soon the young man is entangled by the

Mattei and in Villa Zambonelli, in the hills near Bologna.

three women: first he becomes Samantha’s lover, The suggestive Rocchetta Mattei appeared again in the opening scenes of Tutti defunti … tranne i morti (177) and then he is seduced by Bibiana. And yet he notices in Cinema!!!, whereas Marco Bellocchio used it for his film that something strange is going on: the sisters per-Enrico IV (184), based on Luigi Pirandello’s play.

form nightly rituals in the woods, and meet a

12. Servini, “Balsamus, l’uomo di Satana: la grande mysterious man late at night. David accompanies avventura,” 17.

the ladies to a castle, where a high society party 13. Ibid.

14. Abramovit, Bartolini, Il gotico padano, 118.

is being given to celebrate Liv’s birthday: there, he makes love with her and decides to stay with the Il delitto del diavolo—Favola thrilling
three women forever. As soon as he announces his a.k.a. Le regine (Queens of Evil)

D: Tonino Cervi. S: Tonino Cervi,

Benedetto Benedetti; SC: Antonio Troisio,

Raoul Katz, Tonino Cervi; DOP: Sergio

D’Offizi (Eastmancolor); M: Angelo

Francesco Lavagnino (Ed. C.A.M.); E:

Mario Morra; PD: Massimo De Rossi;

MU: Wayne A. Finkelman; CO: Jean

Bouquin; Hair: Rosetta Tommassello;

Wigs: Aldo Coppola; AD: Ilde Muscio; SO:

Alberto Salvatori; AC: Enrico Lucidi; AE:

Alessio Fabretti; W: Carmen Frasoli; SP:

Alberto Pizzi; SS: Marisa Agostini; Mix:

Alberto Bartolomei. Cast: Haydée Politoff

(Liv), Silvia Monti [Silvia Cornacchia]

(Samantha), Ewelyn Stuart [Ida Galli] (Bib-
iana), Raymond Lovelock (David), Gianni

Santuccio (The Devil), Guido Alberti

(Priest), Geraldine Hooper (Party Guest).

PROD: Tonino Cervi, Raoul Katz for Flavia

Cinematografica (Rome), Carlton Film Ex-
port (Paris), Labrador Film (Paris); EP:

Alessandro Jacovoni; PS: Eraclite Corbi;

PSe: Agostino Morbidelli. Country: Italy /

France. Filmed at Castello Chigi in Castel

Fusano. Running time: 5 minutes (m.

2604). Visa n. 57202 (11.14.170); Rating:

V.M.14. Release date: 12.11.170; Distribution: Regional. Domestic gross: 73,88,000 lire.

Also known as: Les sorcières du bord du lac

(France; 7.26.172), Himon kuningattaret

(Finland; 8.18.172).

A young hippie named David travels
around the countryside on his motorbike.

One night he stops to help a wealthy elderly
gentleman with a flat tire. The man is ac-
tually the Devil: out of spite toward the young man, whose ideals and lack of the

Striking Italian locandina for Il delitto del diavolo (1970), sense of sin make him oblivious to tempta-with the alternate release title Le regine. Art by De Rossi.

1970: Il delitto 15
intention to give up to his ideals, they viciously same, since he has “nothing to offer in place of kill him. Then, the Devil sends the three witches the society” as his opponent spitefully observes.

away to lure new victims…

In the end, the Devil and his acolytes bury him

“You look like a tramp!!” “That’s the way I
and move on to lure other victims before the
wanna look!” goes a revealing dialogue exchange new ideals influence the whole world. “Persuade in Il delitto del diavolo. The fact that it is the them, trap them, keep them thinking in your di-Devil speaking, deploring a young man’s long
rection, create useless necessities for them… ”

hair, sets the tone for Tonino Cervi’s film, a po-As in Aldo Lado’s disturbing political thriller La litical macabre fairytale (as the subtitle points corta notte delle bambole di vetro (171), the rul-out) that imbues Gothic stereotypes with patent ing class is depicted as a horrific entity that symbolical meanings, in the light of the gener-struggles to choke rebellion and individualism.

ational earthquake that was 168.

Il delitto del diavolo was Tonino Cervi’s sec-

Once a revolutionary agent, an agitator of
ond film after the successful Western Oggi a me Creation’s equilibrium, here the Prince of Dark-

… domani a te! (168, co- written by Dario Ar-ness stands for the status quo: a reactionary gento). Born in 12, Cervi (the son of the force—best exemplified by Gianni Santuccio’s
renowned actor Gino Cervi) had started out as
incarnation, a cigar- chomping Commendatore
a producer, including, among other things, an
figure complete with grey blazer jacket and Rolls aborted adaptation of Diabolik directed by Seth Royce—that proselytizes for marriage (but not

Holt, before pursuing an offbeat and interesting monogamy: it is the façade that counts) and lust, career as a director, and Il delitto del diavolo is in contrast with the revolutionary peace- and-no exception. The script—credited to Cervi, love ideals (“So you too are one of those who are producer Raoul Katz and Antonio Troisio, the
against everything?” “I’m just a free man”) em-latter responsible for a number of gialli and hor-bodied by the Christ- like hippie played by Ray ror films in the early 170s—is packed full of Lovelock, whose purity and contempt for soci-overly didactic dialogue, just in case some in the ety’s materialistic values make him the ideal audience did not get it. However, what makes
prey for the Devil’s work. “Nowadays is possible Cervi’s film fascinating is the way Gothic sta-with a little effort to find yourself, let’s say, a ples—the Faustian pact, the lonely traveler good position,” the Great Tempter nonchalantly (think of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story Young
insinuates: it is the same kind of attitude Com-Goodman Brown), the haunted castle, the seduc-
mendator Nosferatu has toward his employee in
tive witch—are revisited in a pop- juvenile key.

Corrado Farina’s … Hanno cambiato faccia. Both The cobwebs, secret passages and old mansions
films ultimately deal with a corruption, which are replaced by a trendy ultramodern and colin Il delitto del diavolo is tinged with a reflection orful loft, filled with such details as trees trunks on the end of the age of Aquarius: hence the Ital-in the middle of the living room, and decorated ian title, literally “The Devil’s Murder,” where with design objects. On the other hand, the mys-the victim is a whole generation’s hope.

terious lady of the castle, the belle dame sans A handful of years earlier, the story of a
merci, is split into a trio of beautiful witches who bargain with the Devil was the pretext for a dress fashionably and sport state- of-the-art wigs bashing of the younger generations (Katarsis,
and make- up. It is here, much more than in the 163, Nello Vegezzi), depicted as violent and
standard direction (with the expected overre-
spineless punks. Here the view of youth culture liance on zooms) that lies the film’s fascination.

is openly sympathetic, but disenchanted: David Sergio D’Offizi’s cinematography and Massimo
is a survivor, a rare bird in a world that has De Rossi’s production design are outstanding,
quickly forgotten kindness and comprehension.

and typical of the Pop Art aesthetics of the time: He is the only one who stops to help a man on
see the witches’ gigantic portraits on the walls a lonely country road, and soon afterwards he
of their abode.

is spitefully labeled as “lousy scum” by a couple The political approach to the subject matter
of passing- by truckers who are not too distant, influences the way the story is told: Il delitto del sociologically speaking, from the anonymous
diavolo does not attempt to scare the viewer, but, gunner that shot down Captain America and
like Farina’s film, it dwells on the suggestive and Billy at the end of Easy Rider (16, Dennis Hop-fascinating aspects of the parable it tells. Cervi per).

piles on the fairy- tale like elements, such as with David is pure, but doomed to defeat all the
the scene of David and the witches having a Pan-

16 1970: Il delitto tagruelian breakfast, which veers somewhat be-As David, Ray Lovelock—then enjoying a
tween an adult version of a Grimm fairytale (say, huge success after his role in Plagio (168, Sergio Hansel and Gretel), and Roald Dahl’s Charlie and Capogna), one of Italy’s first films on male bi-the Chocolate Factory, with an added sexual in-sexuality—played basically the same role as in nuendo lifted from Tony Richardson’s famous

Umberto Lenzi’s lukewarm thriller Un posto ide-seduction scene in Tom Jones, as David and the ale per uccidere (171), and would reprise the women gleefully devour multicolored cakes and
part of the sympathetic longhair in Jorge Grau’s juices, accompanied by circular camera move-harrowing zombie film No profanar el sueño ments and the variations of Angelo Lavagnino’s de los muertos (174), before hardening his own playfully dumb amusement park tune.

angelic screen persona with his roles in such

The script even throws in some weird Bib-
crime films as Milano odia: la polizia non può lical references: if David is a Christ- like figure, sparare (174, Umberto Lenzi), Uomini si nasce the trinity of witches perform such miracles as poliziotti si muore (176, Ruggero Deodato) and the multiplication of the fish, in the “fishing Pronto ad uccidere (176, Franco Prosperi)—not ceremony” scene, and even offer David an apple.

forgetting Armando Crispino’s offbeat giallo,

The most bizarre moment is a symbol-ridden

Macchie solari (175).

nightmare which climaxes in the sight of a hand Lovelock—who contributes to the score
holding a gun, protruding between Haydée
with two of his trademark Dylan- esque folk Politoff ’s open legs—an image almost as surreal songs—is portrayed as a sexual attraction, as
as the enormous vagina that engulfs Philippe
much as the three “Queens of evil.” Haydée Leroy’s character in Femina ridens (16, Piero Politoff (b. 146) was at the peak of her fame: Schivazappa).

launched by Eric Rohmer’s La collectionneuse

It is only at the end that the film suddenly

(167), the Parisian actress started a brief but turns into out- and-out horror, as David—who
fruitful film career in Italy, appearing in a num-has just happily abjured to all his ideals—is sur-ber of movies which played with her enticing
rounded and viciously slain by the witches, a
ingénue image, such as Ugo Liberatore’s exotic scene mostly told from the victim’s point of view Bora Bora (168), Pasquale Festa Campanile’s
in a variation of the climax in Riccardo Freda’s outstanding erotic drama Scacco alla regina Lo spettro (163). Despite his rebellious attitude, (16) and Giuliano Biagetti’s Interrabang ultimately David is as weak and doomed as most (16). Soon, however, her popularity waned:

of Italian Gothic’s male figures. Another thing Politoff ’s last screen role was in Gianni Manera’s in common with 160s Gothic is the imposing
low- budget mafia movie Il cappotto di legno, re-castle featured in the party scenes: Castle Chigi leased in 181 but actually made in 177.

at Castel Fusano, seen in Massimo Pupillo’s 5

Silvia Monti and Ida Galli are equally se-
tombe per un medium and Fernando di Leo’s
ductive as the other witches: Monti (b. 146), gory Gothic giallo, La bestia uccide a sangue then the lover of FIAT’s president Gianni freddo (171).

Agnelli, had a similarly brief career, spanning The discourse on sexuality as the élite’s way
from Fraulein Doktor (16, Alberto Lattuada)

of manipulating the masses is spot- on. “They’re to Finché c’è guerra c’è speranza (174, Alberto all losing the pleasure of sinning, I’m afraid,” the Sordi), in a filmography that included Lucio Devil observes, and one of his “persuaders”

Fulci’s Una lucertola con la pelle di donna (171) adds: “Almost no one believes that sex is sinful.”

and Luigi Bazzoni’s outstanding giallo, Giornata Which was definitely not the case with Italian nera per l’ariete (171). Today she is married to audiences, given the overwhelming amount of
newspaper mogul Carlo De Benedetti. On the
nudity that was filling the screens, and the cru-other hand, Galli (b. 142), had debuted in La sades of magistrates who kept seizing potentially dolce vita, and was a recurring presence in

“obscene” movies. Despite the story’s erotic po-Italian cinema for over two decades, usually tential, Cervi was coherent with his purpose and adopting the a.k.a. Evelyn Stewart, here mis-did not emphasize nudity and sex, and Il delitto spelled in the credits.

del diavolo underwent only minor cuts in Italy, The smartest move on the part of Cervi was
when submitted to the board of censors, in order the casting of the great stage actor Gianni Santo get a V.M.14 rating: a detail of Bibiana’s hand tuccio (111–18), who occasionally lent his con-entering David’s trousers was eliminated and the siderable talent and unmistakable voice to the big final killing was shortened.

and small screen alike. The androgynous, eerie-

1970: Ombre

17
looking Geraldine Hooper (also in … Hanno the film’s confused storyline as well as its subtle cambiato faccia) briefly turns up as one of the fascination.

Devil’s agents: in one of Italian cinema’s most Although sometimes misleadingly de-extravagant and gender- defying casting choices, scribed as a giallo, Caiano’s film features the typ-she would play Massimo Ricci, Gabriele Lavia’s ical elements of the Gothic tale: a damsel in dis-transvestite lover in Profondo rosso.

tress who travels to a distant country; an obscure menace which may or may not be of a supernat-Ombre roventi (Shadow of Illusion)

ural nature; a “return of the repressed” symbol-D: Mario Caiano. S and SC: Enrico Rossetti,
ized by the ruins of a mythical and distant past; Frank [Farouk] Agrama, Mario Caiano; DOP:

an ambiguous romantic hero. All this, though,

Enrico [Erico] Menczer (Technicolor, Technis-
is transported to a middle- Eastern setting, in cope); M: Carlo Savina (Ed. C.A.M.); E: Tatiana the luminous landscapes of Egypt, whose mil-Casini Morigi; PD: Daniele Rizzo; C: Giovanni
lenarian civilization acts as the backdrop for the Ciarlo; MU: Giannetto De Rossi; Hair: Mirella
misadventures of Gail, a modern- day version of Sforza; AD: Furio Maglione; Mix: Gianni D’Am-the Gothic heroine, equally charming but de-
ico; SS: Bona Magrini. Cast: William Berger cidedly more uninhibited, as we learn from an

(Caleb), Daniela Giordano (Gail Bland), Krista early fantasy sequence featuring a lesbian en-Nell [Doris Kristanel] (Sekhmet), Antonio
counter between her and the alluring Sekhmet

Cantafora (Seth), Mirella Pamphili [Pompili],

(Krista Nell).

Enzo Maggio, Giancarlo Bastianoni, Carol Lo-

However, whereas it is pretty much clear to
bravico (The Witch), Debra Berger (Kidnapped
everyone (except for Gail) that the charming
child). PROD: Nino Milano for Liger (Rome),
and mysterious Caleb (William Berger) is the
with the participation of Cairo Film Dept. Int.

reincarnation of the Egyptian God Osiris, it is (Egypt); PM: Claudio Colisi Rossi. Country: Italy. Filmed at Cinecittà Studios

(Rome) and on location in Egypt. Run-
ning time: 5 minutes (m. 254); Visa n.

5583 (4.28.170); Rating: V.M.18. Release
date: 10..170 (?) (Italy); Distribution:

Icar. Domestic gross: 20,525,000 lire.

Fashion model Gail Bland is called
to Cairo by an elusive cosmetics company
named Isis to sign a deal, but upon her
arrival in Egypt she finds herself at the
center of weird events. Gail meets a mys-
terious man named Caleb, who keeps an
ambiguous behavior, and warns her off of
a pair of mysterious siblings. Unable to
leave Cairo, Gail falls prey to a cult of crazed hippie worshipers of Osiris, who
perform human sacrifice rituals and have
chosen her as their victim…

“I saw the movie again three months
ago … and while I appreciated working
with Mario Caiano, who’s a very good
filmmaker, I have to say that I found the
story to be pretty incomprehensible—I
don’t know why, it must have been

Cairo’s atmosphere! Luckily, since the
film’s about the supernatural and has this
eerie atmosphere, one thinks: ‘Well, it’s
my fault, I just didn’t pay enough atten-
tion!’”1 Daniela Giordano’s thoughts on

Ombre roventi pretty much summarize

Italian poster for Ombre roventi (1970). Art by Tino Avelli.

18 1970: Ombre hard to fathom what is going on for much of the pers.”4 Berger’s wife, Living Theater actress Carol running time. Ombre roventi is imbued with the Lobravico, joined the cast too, and gave the film’s period’s flirtation with the occult and Eastern most convincing performance as a menacing
religion, and conveys a weird psychedelic feel sorceress.

throughout, whether it be for the mad hippie

Former Miss Italy 166 Daniela Giordano
cult led by Antonio Cantafora and Krista Nell
became the female protagonist in a similar man-

(an equally freaked out middle- Eastern version ner, replacing the leading actress, who was fired of the Manson family) or the many references
after only one day of shooting: according to Ca-to drugs and altered states of mind. The “red-
iano the original lead was to be Luciana Paluzzi, hot shadows” of the original Italian title might whereas Giordano was adamant it was Gianna
as well refer to the Egyptian landscapes, or to Serra.5 Shooting was not a pleasant experience.

the ancient gods looming over the present day: Egypt was currently at war with Israel (the so-the theme of the reincarnation of Isis and Osiris called “War of Attrition”) and when filming in is lifted from the Egyptian book of the dead, and the desert the crew was escorted by soldiers who years later would form the basis for an unfilmed would warn to turn off the lights in case of air Riccardo Freda script, La dernière momie d’E-raids and wait until the planes were out of sight6; gypte, written with the famed critic Jacques on one occasion the cast and crew had to flee

Lourcelles.

the hotel because of the bombings.

Judging from the many scenes shot in some

Caiano claimed he never even watched the
of Egypt’s more stunning locations, Ombre finished movie, and only completed a first rough roventi looks like the kind of production that cut of it. At least, he managed to concoct a pro-benefitted from economic deals aimed at pub-
fessional- looking product, if a mess nonetheless, licizing the African country’s image abroad.

thanks also to Erico Menczer’s luscious Tech-

Among the names involved (officially as co-niscope cinematography and Carlo Savina’s
scriptwriter), one cannot help but notice Farouk Hammond- driven score. Some scenes—such as

Agrama, a notorious character that served as

Giordano’s escape through a tropical garden,
producer and even as director on other obscure shot with a dynamic use of hand- held camera—

Italian co- productions, such as L’amico del are quite impressive, and make one regret that padrino (172) and the gory horror Dawn of the the script was not up to the task. The throwaway, Mummy (181).2
predictable climax is also a letdown, although the Caiano embarked on the project right after
ending has a pleasant sting in the tail that keeps his most personal film, the ambitious drama
the viewer unsure whether the supernatural angle Love Birds—Una strana voglia d’amare (16),
actually exists or is just part of Gail’s imagination.

had turned out a commercial and critical disasThe movie had a troubled commercial life.

ter, and had met with some troubles with the

It was submitted to the board of censors in April censors too. The director’s recollections shed 170 (with the title Le ombre roventi), and given some light on this troubled production, origi-a V.M.18 rating after the producer refused to
nally to be called Le ombre. “A very mysterious perform cuts: the rating was justified mostly by movie, an adventure from start to finish, a film the use of drugs, a taboo topic at the time (and whose producers were very strange characters,
one which had caused some trouble to another
never seen before or after, with a general organ-film starring Giordano, Mario Bava’s Quante
izer who was just as strange … they had prom-
volte … quella notte, banned by the censors and ised me that there would be a big international released only in 172) rather than by the female actor in the movie, Stewart Granger I think, but nudity.

when we arrived in Cairo we found out that it

A few months after the making of Ombre
wasn’t true at all, and that he didn’t know any-roventi, drugs were at the center of a scandal that thing about the movie … by sheer chance, involved Berger and Lobravico, and which be-shooting another film in Cairo3 there was came one of the vilest and most shameful pages William Berger, a good actor and a friend of
in the annals of Italian justice. In the night be-mine … and so this Neapolitan organizer got in tween August 5 and 6, 170, the police arrested touch with him in half an hour and he became
the two actors (plus seven more people) during the protagonist of my film … then we came up
a drug bust in the villa Berger had rented in Pra-with a role for Berger’s daughter, who is the child iano, on the Amalfi coast: the police had discov-who is kidnapped by the cult of Osiris worshipered half a gram of hashish in a snuff box hidden

1970: Il rosso 1
in the villa (the actor claimed he did not know La Stampa) that the film was being screened in the about it). Berger and his wife, who was suffering Ligurian town of Imperia on July 13, 171. However, publicity material is dated October 170, hinting at a late 170
from viral hepatitis, were forcibly transferred to release. In the absence of certain data, I have chosen to list Pozzuoli’s hospital for the criminally insane. Unthe film as a 170 release.

able to cure herself, Lobravico developed acute peritonitis, but her increasingly critical condi -
tion was ignored by the place’s authorities, until Il rosso segno della follia (Hatchet for the eventually she underwent a useless surgery, be-Honeymoon)

fore being moved to the “incurable disease” di-D: Mario Bava. S and SC: Santiago Mon-
vision, where she died on October 14. Berger was cada; DOP: Mario Bava (Eastmancolor); M:

eventually acquitted in March 171. There may

Sante Maria Romitelli, conducted by Luigi Zito be a chance that the Berger/Lobravico scandal

(Ed. RCA); E: Soledad López; PD: Giulia Mafai; endangered the movie’s commercial pros pects,

AsstArtD: Giuseppe Aldrovandi; SD: Jesus Maria as Ombre roventi was released almost clandes-Herrero; AsstSD: Gianna Spirito; AD: Lamberto
tinely, and distributed regionally in the coun try, Bava, Ricardo Walker; 2nd AD: Mario Bianchi;
with no commercial success.7 Nowadays it is C: Jaime Deu Casas, Emilio Varriano; AC: available in a badly panned- and-scanned English Marcello Anconetani, Gianlorenzo Battaglia,
language copy off a Japanese laserdisc, running Avelino Carla; AE: Liliana Serra; CO: Nadia Fab-88 minutes, titled Shadow of Illusion. Giordano riani (Bridal Gowns: Montserrat Riba Vidal, José is dubbed by Carolynn de Fonseca.

María Tresserra); MU: Elisa Aspach [Aspachs],

Piero Mecacci; Hair: Hipólita López, Emilia Za-N
chini; SO: Pietro Ortolani; SP: José Adrian, oTeS

Giuseppe Parrabano; SS: Marisa Agostini, Pa-

1. Manlio Gomarasca and Davide Pulici, 99 donne.

trizia Zulini; Titles: Luigi Biamonte, Miro Stelle e stelline del cinema italiano (Milan: MediaWord Pro-Grisanti. Cast: Stephen Forsyth (John Harring-
duction, 1), 11.

2. Agrama’s name popped up in the news in the early ton), Dagmar Lassander (Helen Wood), Laura

2000s because of his association with Italy’s media mogul Betti (Mildred Harrington), Jesús Puente (Inand former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, for alleged spector Russell), Femi Benussi (Alice Norton), tax frauds, embezzlements and false accountings on the Antonia Mas (Louise), Alan Collins [Luciano
sale of film rights on behalf of Berlusconi’s private broad-Pigozzi] (Vences), Gérard Tichy (Dr. Kalleway), caster Mediaset which resulted in a trial.

3. La colomba non deve volare (170, Sergio Garrone).

Verónica Llimerá (Betsy), Pasquale Fortunato

4. Stefano Ippoliti and Matteo Norcini, “Intervista esclu -

(John Harrington as a boy), José Ignacio Abadaz siva a Mario Caiano,” Cine70 e dintorni #2, Spring 2002, 22.

[Ignasi Abadal] (Kane), Silvia Lienas (Vicky), 5. “The leading actress ought to have been Gianna Montserrat Riva (Bride on Train); uncredited:

Serra, who quarreled with the producer on the very first day of shooting and took the first plane to Rome; I had Guido Barlocci, Bruno Boschetti (Policeman),
only a small part, but they gave me Gianna’s wig and said Elena De Witt (Model). PROD: Manuel Caño

‘From now on, you are the protagonist!’” Gomarasca and Sanciriaco and Giuseppe Zaccariello for Pan

Pulici, 99 donne, 11.

Latina Films (Madrid), Mercury Films (Rome),

6. “I remember I had a scene with Antonio Cantafora, Películas Ibarra y Cía S.A. (Madrid); AP: a nice guy who received one of my infamous slaps … we had to shoot a scene in the middle of the desert, sur -

Enzo Ferla; PM: Jaime Fernández Cid; UPM:

rounded by soldiers… . As you can see, it wasn’t exactly a Enzo Ferla; APM: Graziano Fabiani, [José]

relaxed atmosphere; moreover, I was scantily dressed—

Pedro Villanueva; PSe: Antonio Angrisano.

and this was another negative factor—and a group of Country: Italy / Spain. Filmed at the Balcázar Egyptian dancers were running around me with burning torches with sparks falling all over my body and burning Studios (Barcelona) and at Villa Parisi, Frascati my skin; furthermore, I was worried that my wig would (Rome). Running time: 88 minutes (m. 2401).

catch fire… . Antonio, who played my executioner, had to Visa n. 55164 (12.16.16); Rating: V.M.18.

come by my side, kiss me and then kill me… . Lights, cam-Release dates: 6.2.170 (Italy); .14.170 (Spain); era, action … and he kissed me for real! ‘Hey, have you gone crazy? With all the problems we’re having now… ! ? ’

2..174 (U.S.A.); Distribution: M.G.M. Domestic and, pfaff, I slapped him in the face: ‘Are you nuts?’ ‘I might gross: 50,4,000 lire. Also known as: Un’accetta be nuts, but if you’re not a professional, then… ’ So we had per la luna di miele (Italy), Un hacha para la to reshoot the scene, with all these 60 extras … and the di-luna de miel (Spain), Hatchet for a Honeymoon
rector … well, you can figure it out!” Ibid, 120.

(U.S.—Home video), Blood Brides (U.K.;

7. To this day, the Italian release date is not certain. Even though the ANICA volumes date the first public screening 12.172); Une hache pour la lune de miel; La baie in Italy to April 16, 172, there is record (in the newspaper sanglante 2 (France); Kalman hääyö (Finland);

20 1970: Il rosso Hentesbárd (Hungary); Lua de Mel Sangrenta
someone who, like Bava, looked at the present

(Portugal); As noivas da morte (Portugal-Home
with sly disenchantment, it was the occasion to video); O sadistis (Greece); Honeymoon (Swe-exercise that ironic vein that remarked his deden); Red Wedding Night (West Germany).

tachment.

Haunted by the memory of the violent death

A Spanish- Italian co- production shot be-
of his mother, mysteriously killed when he was tween Barcelona and Rome under the worka child, John Harrington, the young owner of a ing title Un’accetta per la luna di miele (the same fashion house, feels the impulse to kill women as the Spanish one, Un hacha para la luna de
who are about to get married. The victims are ei-miel), it had a rather troubled shooting due to ther customers or mannequins at his fashion financial issues. Filming was completed in house, such as the young Alice Norton, whom

October 16,1 and the movie was released in

John kills and burns in the hothouse incinerator.

Italy in June 170, as Il rosso segno della follia Harrington is in turn unhappily married to (The Red Sign of Madness), with modest grosses Mildred, who does not want to give him a divorce: (only 50 million lire). The critics snubbed it after the umpteenth argument, he kills her and too: one reviewer commented ironically, “Could miraculously avoids being caught by Inspector
it be that, after all, Mario Bava wanted to make Russell, who suspects John but is not able to an anti- divorce film?”2 (Incidentally, the law gather enough evidence to indict him. Harrington on divorce was introduced in Italy in Decem-falls in love with a model, Helen, but in the mean-ber 170.) Foreign distribution was also mar-
time he is persecuted by Mildred’s ghost, who ginal: besides the predictably timely release does not leave him alone. John escapes a trap set in Spain, the film came out in England only by the police, and is given an alibi by Helen: posin 173, distributed by Tigon as Blood Brides.

sessed by an unstoppable killing urge, he realizes With the title Hatchet for the Honeymoon, it that it was he who had killed his own mother, who reached the U.S. the following year through GG
was about to get remarried. The police, who had Productions and soon ended up in an Avco-used Helen as bait, arrest him. John is taken to Embassy TV package; after the company went
an asylum, but Mildred’s ghost keeps haunting
bankrupt, it entered the public domain in the
him…

States. The glory days of La maschera del demo-After his 166 masterpiece Operazione
nio were long gone.

paura, a few years would pass before Mario Bava At first glance, Il rosso segno della follia is a returned to the genre that was more congenial
variation on the themes of Psycho (“The story
to him. Compared to the director’s early horror of the umpteenth loony,” as the director labeled films, production conditions had changed, and
it with his usual frankness3), with the addition themes and settings were affected by that: in his of references to Bluebeard and its variations Gothics of the late 160s and early 170s Bava (including Claude Chabrol’s Landru, 162).

leaned on Spanish or German co- productions,

Scriptwriter Santiago Moncada likely modeled
and shot his movies abroad; the stories were set the traumatized, impotent necrophile John Harin the present day and attempted to convey a
rington—played by the Canadian- born Stephen
feeling of actuality through various proceedings, Forsyth, already seen in Riccardo Freda’s Gen-from the choice of music to the actresses’ dress-oveffa di Brabante (164) and La morte non conta ing style. Gothic was no longer suspended in a i dollari (167)—upon Norman Bates. How-vague and indefinite past; on the contrary, it was ever, in the film Harrington actually comes heavily characterized geographically and there-closer to Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux (147) and fore immediately recognizable: here, now, at just even more to the protagonist of Luis Buñuel’s
a few hours’ flight.

Ensayo de un crimen (155), because of the ironic The choice to drop ghosts and other typical
self- awareness with which he analyzes his own staples of the genre into the contemporary pathological state. In addition to that, Mon-world, and color them with explicit psychoana-
cada seems to draw from Bava’s earlier film -
lytic references, had practical reasons: the past ography: the setting in an atelier openly rewas not an asset anymore, but a handicap at the calls 6 donne per l’assassino (164). On his part, box- office. Period horror movies had lost their the director allowed himself an ironic self-appeal after works such as Rosemary’s Baby reference in the scene where Harrington takes

(168, Roman Polanski) showed that anxiety and advantage of a TV broadcasting of the episode
evil could proliferate in modern cities. For I Wurdalak—from I tre volti della paura (163)—

1970: Il rosso

21
to justify to the police, who showed up unex-

Bava drastically thinned down the not- so-
pectedly at his door, the female screams which exciting thriller plot (whereas the change of set-actually belonged to his dying wife: the script ting, with Paris instead of London as described refers generically to a horror movie in which a in the screenplay and despite the characters’

girl is chased by a monster.

names, was decided by Caño during the film-

It is interesting to compare the movie with
ing4). Compared with the script, for instance, the script, titled Un’accetta per la luna di miele, the characters of Vences and Louise—John’s kept at the Centro Sperimentale di Cine-collaborators in the atelier, who raised Harring-matografia’s library in Rome. Credited solely to ton after his mothers’ death and who, Moncada

Santiago Moncada, it is debatable whether this implies, seem to know his secret—were drasti-is an earlier draft or actually a new version with cally cut down; Luciano Pigozzi, who plays Bava’s uncredited rewriting, which according to Vences, has only one line in the movie. Some
his son Lamberto was substantial. However, investigating sequences featuring Inspector Rus-there are a number of important differences be-sell (Jesús Puente) were discarded as well, tween script and film. The screenplay opens with namely the discovery of a dead body in a ware-a bravura subjective sequence shot from protag-house, following an anonymous letter sent by
onist John Harrington’s point of view, as the man John himself.

explores the various rooms of the fashion house Rather than focus on the hatchet murders
in his workshop: an idea somehow similar to the and Harrington’s necrophilia (which the movie
incipit of Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr.

also tones down compared with the script), Bava Hyde (131), and full of visual tricks (for instance, preferred to dwell on the relationship between a character is seen through Harrington’s thumb John and his bitchy wife Mildred (Laura Betti).

and forefinger as he makes the O.K. sign). It was Surprisingly enough, then, halfway through, Il likely cut out for practical and budgetary reasons, rosso segno della follia becomes an out- and-out but on paper it looks like it was written specif-ghost story, albeit a rather peculiar one.

ically with the director in mind.

Throughout the movie, Harrington is per-

Italian fotobusta for Il rosso segno della follia (1970), featuring Stephen Forsyth (left, credited as “Steve Forsyth”) and Laura Betti.

22 1970: Il rosso secuted by two ghosts. The first is his own self rable character of Juan’s—now John’s—shrewish
as a child, a psychoanalytic embodiment of guilt wife Mildred, and thus Moncada’s story was connected to a revealing flashback borrowed
transformed into a delicious comedia noir from Marnie (164, Alfred Hitchcock), as with
lamenting a murderer’s inability to escape his every murder the protagonist comes closer to

‘better half.’”7
the source of his childhood trauma—a variation And yet, Harrington’s conjugal vicissitudes
on the “primary scene” with interesting similarand the subsequent appearances/disappearances
ities to both Profondo rosso (175, Dario of Mildred’s ghost, including the one on the villa Argento) and Murder Obsession (181, Riccardo
steps where the spectre seems to materialize out Freda).5 The second ghost is the spiritism-of thin air, are all included in the Rome screen-obsessed Mildred, who won’t allow death to part play, and therefore cannot be considered the reher from her husband. “I will always be by your sult of last- minute rewritings. The main differ-side, whether you like it or not,” the woman says, ence is that Mildred is described in the script as and she will keep her promise. In a sardonic re-

“very beautiful,” suggesting that Bava’s touch was versal of ghost story conventions, John is the actually a brilliant, unconventional casting only one who cannot see Mildred’s ghost, who
move, and that Betti was wildly exaggerating
nevertheless appears and interacts with nearly when she claimed that “we would rewrite scenes everybody else, as if she was still alive.

together.”8 The Rome script also features John’s In La frusta e il corpo (163) Bava had fo-revealing flashbacks, which Lucas hypothesized cused on the alternating points of view of were devised and introduced by Bava later on

Nevenka (Daliah Lavi) and Christian (Tony during filming.

Kendall) to stress the inexplicability of the pres-Il rosso segno della follia’s avenging revenante ence/absence of Kurt’s ghost—who is visible to manifests herself through objects (a book on
the former and invisible to the latter—and there-spiritism, a handbag), similarly to the ones in fore emphasize its Fantastic essence, in the sense La goccia d’acqua (also from I tre volti della codified by Tzvetan Todorov.6 Here the director paura) and Operazione paura; moreover, she im-uses the same trick in reverse, first by showing poses her presence through the reaffirmation of the bewildered John staring at an empty chair
the marriage pledge that ties her to her husband beside him, and then, from a peripheral char-

(and murderer). The only power she has is based acter’s point of view, Harrington sitting by his on a bond that not even death can terminate.

wife—a seemingly ordinary sight here taking on But there is no love, nor passion, in this embit-a mocking supernatural tone. The Fantastic is
tered and vengeful little woman—who never-
not the exception but the rule: ghosts are every-theless, right before her murder, Bava had where among us and we never realized it.

showed making herself up before a mirror, Indeed, no one even cares about them.

trying to look good and desirable for her hus-

The ghastly lady in black here does not band, and almost pathetic in her irreducible have Barbara Steele’s seductive grace, but the hope to rekindle his desire—only a stubborn
plump features, pout and unpleasant laughter of obstinacy, a wry pique that somehow corre-Laura Betti: an unusual presence in a genre film, sponds to the director’s attitude toward the Betti—best known for her roles in Pier Paolo
genre itself, almost a decade after La maschera Pasolini’s films (most memorably as the servant-del demonio.

turned-saint in Teorema, 168)—is the film’s By juxtaposing two different kinds of
most surprising asset, and her affinity with ghosts (one from the Id, the other from the af-Bava’s witty sense of humor would result in their terlife), Bava cleverly explores the common teaming up again for the macabre ronde of ground that characterizes the crossroads be-Reazione a catena (171).

tween the Oedipal- driven giallo and the super-Bava scholar Tim Lucas, reporting the ac-
natural tale. To John’s subjective perception, tress’ statements, suggests that the character of both are very real figures: he succeeds in getting Mildred, absent in the script, was invented by rid of the former, but succumbs to the latter, and Bava and Betti “to develop a suitable role for her the film’s last image shows the spirit of his lost to play, and to restructure the existing story childhood looking sadly at his own adult self as around her presence … in entirely new second
the latter is driven away to (presumably) a men-and third acts that owe something to Noël Cow-
tal asylum.

ard’s Blithe Spirit… Thus was born the memo-

Awareness, to the childlike John—who

1970: Thomas 23
plays with toy trains, and has a wife who behaves a visual gag he had tried already in Diabolik, more like a mother, even cleaning up burnt toast and which further underlines the director’s defor him at breakfast, and with whom he has tached, playful attitude. The ending seems like never made love—means realizing the impossi-a reference to Fellini’s episode Le tentazioni del bility of living in the ordinary world, where he dottor Antonio in the omnibus comedy Boccaccio had somehow managed to conceal himself

’70 (162), where Peppino De Filippo’s charac-
under a semblance of normality. In Operazione
ter—obsessed with the image of Anita Ekberg
paura Giacomo Rossi Stuart’s character chased
on a giant billboard to the point of going crazy—
a fleeing shadow, only to find himself facing his is taken away to a psychiatric hospital in an am-own alter ego; here Harrington is his own dark bulance. Which, considering the vexed question half, and that boy he sometimes glimpses in the of the little ghost in Operazione paura and the distance is the remnant of an innocence that was devil taking on a similar appearance in Toby lost too soon.

Dammit, seems just appropriate.

Stylistically, Il rosso segno della follia does not have the exquisiteness of Bava’s previous

NoTeS
horror movies: there are perhaps a couple of

1. See Variety, 2 October 16.

zooms too many in the perfunctory scenes fea-

2. Vice, “Il rosso segno della follia,” L’Unità, 26 June, turing inspector Russell, and the whole police 170.

subplot is filled with throwaway dialogue that 3. Luigi Cozzi, “Operaszione paura,” Horror #13, De-the director did not care much about. But the
cember 170/January 171, 101.

4. As Stephen Forsyth told Tim Lucas, the Paris exteri-sequences focusing on Harrington and his mad-
ors, shot by a second unit headed by Lamberto Bava, fea-ness are often outstanding for their sheer inventured a double (filmed in long shots) instead of the Cana-tion and strange poetic tone. An extraordinary dian actor, who refused to shoot and stayed in his hotel moment comes early in the film when, during
room, not having been paid for a couple of weeks. Tim a circular panning shot, Bava makes a smooth

Lucas, Mario Bava—All the Colors of the Dark (Cincinnati OH: Video Watchdog, 2007), 785. However, very little of transition from the killer’s private room, the Paris shooting survives in the movie, and Luc Moullet populated with mannequins wearing wedding
suggests that the inclusion of a newspaper’s headline dresses, to a séance whose participants seem just riddled with misspellings was Bava’s revenge on Caño. Luc as lifeless as the mannequins themselves—a mo-Moullet, “La peur et la stupeur,” Cahiers du Cinéma #486, December 14, 71.

ment in tune with one of the director’s favorite 5. Both Profondo rosso and Murder Obsession actually visual themes, the blurring between the animate had their origin from the same source, a story by Fabio and inanimate.

Piccioni which also provided the basis for Il grido del capri-Harrington’s tribulations with Mildred’s
corno, an issue of the adults- only comic Oltretomba gigante (#, February 174, with drawings by José María Bellalta).

ashes culminate in a beautiful, equally memo-

See Roberto Curti, Diabolika. Superheroes, Supercriminals rable bit where John spreads the woman’s ashes and the Comic Book Universe in Italian Cinema (Parkville from a balcony on his villa, with Bava’s camera MD: Midnight Marquee Press, 2016), 30.

designing an exquisite traveling shot from 6. See Curti, Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1957–1969, 104.

below, as the man is illuminated by an eerie sun-7. Lucas, Mario Bava–All the Colors of the Dark, 780.

Incidentally, according to the script kept in Rome, John set gleam. The murders are inventively designed, was not called Juan in the first place.

with little bloodshed and a striking use of edit-8. Ibid., 783.

ing, distorted visuals and surreal animation (in 9. Ibid., 784.

a blink- and-you’ll-miss-it moment, Femi Be-
nussi’s face opens in half in an optical effect that Thomas … gli indemoniati (Thomas …

brings to mind 160s Eastern Europe anima-
the Demoniacs)

tion).

D: Pupi Avati. S: Pupi Avati, Giorgio

Bava (who acted as his own d.o.p., most

Celli, Antonio Avati; SC: Giorgio Celli, Enzo
likely because of budgetary restraints) even in-Leonardo, Pupi Avati; DOP: Toni [Antonio] Sec-
dulges in one of his favorite tricks on the audi-chi (Kodak Eastmancolor); M: Amedeo Tom-
ence, by cutting from a real train in the opening masi (Ed. Sermi Film); E: Enzo Micarelli; PD:

murder to a model train, allowing us for a mo-

Guidobaldo Grossi; CO: Silvana Bigi; ArtD: ment the illusion that the budget was so low as Claudio Giambanco; Collaboration to direction: to force the makers to use a cheap special effect Enzo Leonardo; AD: Franco Sangiovanni; C:

… and then revealing that the train is actually Giorgio Regis; AC: Marcello Gallinelli; SP: Paolo one of the toys Harrington is playing with. It’s Ferrari; MU: Gianni Amadei, Alfonso Cioffi;

24 1970: Thomas Mariangela Melato and little Daniele Samory, as the titular ghost child, during a surreal scene of Thomas

… gli indemoniati. Note the empty bottles in the background (courtesy Luca Servini).

Hair: Ettore Tarquini; KG: Vito Capone; ChEl:

centering on an imaginary boy named Thomas.

Gino Marra; SO: Giancarlo Droghini; AE: Carlo

A medium shows up, and the company sets up

Broglio; AsstArtD: Alberto Menghini; W: Giulia a séance to find out whether the play will be a Ricchieri; Artistic collaboration: Guglielmo success or not. During the séance, a boy named Volonterio. Cast: Edmund Purdom (Marcus),

Thomas shows up. The company leaves to the

Anita Sanders (Giorgia), Bob Tonelli [Ariano
city where they will debut, and during the journey Nanetti] (Bob), Giulio Pizzirani (Pintus), Gianni on train they meet a weird man who tells them a Cavina (Adam), Ines Ciaschetti (Laura), Lola
horrific story about another company opening a Bonora (Lola), Graziano Giusti (Medium),
play in the same town. On arrival, it is agreed Mariangela Melato (Zoe), Andrea Matteuzzi
that each player will keep Thomas for one day, (The Man on the Train), Pina Borione (Seam-and then the boy will decide with whom to stress / Manageress), Daniele Samory (Thomas), stay. Thomas’s presence seems to bring to the Gino Cassani, Fanny Bertelli, Torivio Travaglini, surface each member’s unconscious fears and Vincenzo Busi, Gilberto Fiorini, Claudio Trionfi.

desires. Eventually the child chooses the lead ac-PROD: Cidierre Cinematografica S.A.S. (Bologna).

tress Giorgia, whose unfortunate romance with

PM: Gianni Amadei; PS: Giorgio Caputo, Pierluigi Marcus had inspired the latter to write the Ciriaci; PSe: Steno Tonelli. PSeA: Gianni De play, but in the end it all turns out to have been Cesare. Country: Italy. Filmed on location in a collective hallucination, as the séance is still Bologna, Italy. Running time: 2 minutes (m. 2540); going on…

Visa n. 5670 (11.7.170); Rating: all audiences; Re-Merely eight months after the commercial
lease date: .28.170 (Locarno Film Festival); Dis-débacle of Balsamus l’uomo di Satana, on Sep-
tribution: not released theatrically; Domestic gross: tember , 170, Pupi Avati submitted his second none.

film to the Italian board of censors. The movie—

A provincial stage company is rehearsing a
written by the director, Giorgio Celli and Enzo play written by the lead actor, Marcus, and Leonardo, and financed with 110 million lire gra-

1970: Thomas 25
ciously provided by their patron, Mister X—
enigmatic Thomas is a key to the characters’

benefitted from the presence of two popular subconscious, and the movie takes on a route
leads, Edmund Purdom and Anita Sanders (the
that is openly psychoanalytic.

star of Tinto Brass’ Nerosubianco, 16) and had Curiously, Avati develops themes—marital
been selected at the prestigious Swiss festival of crisis, the fear of parenthood, the presence/ab-Locarno.

sence of an elusive little child—very similar to Reviewing Thomas … gli indemoniati
another ghost story sui generis made around the after its festival screening in the newspaper same time, Marcello Avallone’s Un gioco per Eve-Corriere della Sera, critic Giovanni Grazzini line (171), but his approach to the matter openly wrote: “The Bologna- born Pupi Avati, age 32, nods, as Grazzini noted, to Federico Fellini’s confirms in this sophomore feature film that he universe. What is more, the script encompasses has an unusual talent, addressed to celebrate
varied influences, from Mark Twain’s short story the glories of magic with picturesque visionary Cannibalism in the Cars (which appears to have resources… . Beyond the many Fellini- esque been the blueprint for the eerie story told by the digressions, Avati’s work is conducted like a mysterious man in the train in one of the film’s witty fable; certainly less organized and charged best sequences, characterized by a blatant use of with dramatic meanings than the author would
miniatures; incidentally, Avati will make a mas-want, but rich of anxious cues and scenographic terful use of a train as the setting for a suspense-fervor.”1 Paired with the Festival award won by ful sequence in Zeder) to André Delvaux’s Bob Tonelli as Best supporting actor, it sounded surreal masterpiece Un soir, un train (168) for like a promising start for the movie, which ob-the intricate layers of symbols. The result tained a visa in November of that year. But benefits greatly from Amedeo Tommasi’s score,
then, disaster struck: no distribution company which mixes lounge, jazz and Gothic themes,
picked up the film, which languished in limbo
and is graced with vocals by Edda Dell’Orso.3 A until the early 10s, when it was shown in ret-renowned jazz pianist and composer, Tommasi
rospectives on the author. As of today it survives wrote the music for all Avati’s films up to Cin-only in bad- quality copies circulating among ema!!!

collectors and transferred from a private film li-That said, Thomas … gli indemoniati is
brary print.

wildly uneven, and ultimately self- defeating.

Thomas … gli indemoniati takes a different

The rehearsal scenes exude the kind of metalin-approach than Balsamus l’uomo di Satana, leav-
guistic conceit that was common to so many
ing comedy aside and opting for a dramatic narworks based on (and reflecting upon) the duality rative which is more properly rooted in the Fan-between stage and life, but Avati’s film does not tastic and the macabre, from the effectively eerie have the brilliance of, say, The Balcony (163, opening sequence set in a cemetery, where a

Joseph Strick, from Jean Genet’s play). The strange- looking man (whom we’ll find out is a director is more at ease with the surreal digres-medium) wanders around the graves, looking
sions that form the core of the story, and for some unknown departed to mourn on the
uncover the demons that haunt the main char-

Day of the Dead, so as to appease his own lone-acters—the title’s “demoniacs,” “possessed by
liness.

their own ghosts and obsessed by the demons

Avati builds the film around one of the that don’t stop screaming inside their heads.”4

Gothic clichés par excellence, the séance—here Here, unlike in Balsamus, the director fully em-conducted by the members of a shabby the -
braces the Fantastic, as every character comes atrical company who are about to stage a her-face to face with his or her own dreams, or fears, metic avant- garde play and are understandably with the little boy acting as a catalyst and taking worried about the audience’s response—whose
out the monstrous from them, “with a procedure participants end up summoning the ghastly tit-similar, in a symbolic way, to exorcism.”5 Still, ular boy. From then on, it has been noted, “the these scenes give the movie an episodic, me-narration takes place in a non- time, in which chanical quality that detracts from its effective-echoes of deeply distant periods can naturally ness as a whole.

co- exist.”2 Still, even though the boundaries be-The elderly seamstress’ (Pina Borione)

tween the living and the dead are bound to dis-obsession with death leads to her visit to a hos-solve during the course of the film, the director pice for old actresses, who lie in their white beds is not interested in an ordinary ghost story: the in silence so that one cannot tell whether they

26 1970: Thomas are alive or dead: it is an uncanny segment Eco’s essay Opera aperta (a.k.a. The Open Work, that somehow predates the strength of such 162). It does indeed fall into the realm of the images as the bedridden elderly lady in La casa Fantastic; but it comes off as frustrating, in a dalle finestre che ridono. Then, in the movie’s movie that systematically defies any identifica-most humorous sequence, Bob Tonelli (as
tion or enjoyment on the part of the viewer, and himself) is invited to speak at a conference of makes a point of being obscure and heavy with

“applied sexology” as an expert on the matter.

symbols.

Here, Avati explores one of his favorite themes, As with Balsamus, Avati was critical to
grotesque orgiastic sexuality, like he had done the point of self- hatred when speaking of his in Balsamus, as the diminutive Bob becomes a
sophomore film: “Thomas coincided with a
sexual icon for his female audience, who implore very painful moment in my life. The fact that it him to make love to them, prompting Tonelli
was never distributed has probably a reason. My to utter a memorable tongue- in-cheek line: brother Antonio did not collaborate on the

“After me the word ‘sadism’ will be replaced by script, as he was doing his military service. I

‘bobism’!”

have never watched it again, nor am I tempted

Like many other Avati efforts, Thomas …

to, since it does not raise any type of curiosity gli indemoniati revolves around a world of in me. Balsamus, in some way, had its own losers, who seemingly find a way to soothe their reason for being as a film debut, and in its malaise only by embracing total withdrawal, and ramshackleness it showed our attempt to be savoring it with an almost morbid languor: this there, to establish ourselves. Whereas Thomas
theme recurs throughout the director’s work, up is a parasitic work, and the fact that it disap-to his most recent efforts such as Un ragazzo
peared from circulation is a great advantage d’oro (2014). Avati’s typical defeatist antiheroes in my opinion. To me, Thomas is a very foolish are embodied by the stage company director,
thing.”6

Pintus (Giulio Pizzirani) and the actor Adam

At 32, after only two films, Pupi Avati (Gianni Cavina). The former reveals his morbid seemed finished as a filmmaker. “I found jealousy for Zoe (Mariangela Melato, in her film myself unemployed for four years because of
debut) in the movie’s most Fellini- esque bit, the those movies… . In those four years, somebody
sequence of the field littered with empty bottles told me, ‘Look, if you want to keep on doing
where Pintus digs up marble heads and busts of this job, you’d better change your name.’”7

Pagan deities. Adam, on the other hand, reveals Eventually he found work as a scriptwriter on
his hopeless love for Giorgia, and—the only the Gothic melodrama Il bacio and returned be-one in the group—refuses to keep the boy with
hind the camera with the biting comedy La him for one day, thus giving up the chance of
mazurka del barone, della santa e del fico fiorone, fulfilling his own dreams.

starring Ugo Tognazzi and Paolo Villaggio; Despite the occasional surreal flashes,
this movie resumed the grotesque quality and

Thomas … gli indemoniati gradually disinte-
the surreal intuitions of his first films in a more grates in heavy, self- reflective monologues char-accomplished, commercially apt way, and dis-
acterized by a pretentious literary quality, and played what would become Avati’s trademark
climaxes in the wild scene where the audience
style.

assaults the stage before the play starts, followed by the surreal moment where Giorgia (Anita

NoTeS

Sanders) and Thomas seem to move from the

1. Giovanni Grazzini, “Gli Italiani a Locarno,” Corriere stage play to an otherworldly, idyllic dimension della Sera, October 4, 170.

where they are alone and happy together—per-

2. Abramovit, Bartolini, Il gotico padano, 131.

haps the afterlife, given the presence of a waiter 3. The soundtrack, published by the label Gemelli (GG 10–004), bears the title Thomas, hinting at the possi-whose face we saw on one of the graves in the
bility that, just as with Balsamus, the subtitle was added opening cemetery scene? The circular ending—
subsequently in order to make the film commercially vi-was it all a dream, a product of the main charable.

acters’ imagination, or a circular time loop that 4. Abramovit, Bartolini, Il gotico padano, 12.

5. Ibid., 134.

has them trapped and experiencing the same

6. Ibid., 130.

events all over again?—does not solve the 7. Servini, “Balsamus, l’uomo di Satana: la grande enigma, and appears to have been influenced by avventura,” 32.

the notion of “open text” discussed in Umberto

1971: Un gioco 27

1971

Un gioco per Eveline (A Game for Eveline) Philippe kissing her. Increasingly obsessed by EveD: Marcello Avallone. S: Marco Guglielmi
line, and panicked by the sudden appearance of

[Augusto Guglielmi]; SC: Marco Guglielmi, Ste-
the child, Pierre shoots at her. The four bury the fano Calanchi, Marcello Avallone; DOP: Aldo
little girl’s body, but are interrupted by a police Scavarda [uncredited] (Eastmancolor); C:

inspector: however, the grave turns out to be Enrico Cortese; M: Marcello Giombini; E: Paolo empty… . At this point, Pierre and Nathalie wake Lucignani; PD: Amedeo Fago; SD: Giorgio
up in their wrecked car: it was only a dream.

Bertolini; MU: Giovanna Martino; AMU: Paolo

Pierre, wandering around in search of help, Franceschi; AD: Michele Brancato; AC: Enzo
glimpses a villa…

Tosi; AE: Lorenzo Costantini; SO: Armando

“I wanted to make a somewhat different

Nasca; SS: Valerio Monaco. Cast: Erna Schurer
kind of cinema, closer to the Fantastic. I wrote

[Emma Costantino] (Nathalie Chateleau), Adri-
a ‘noir,’ a genre which we did rarely in Italy, ana Bogdan [Adriana Nicolescu] (Minou Gicalled Un gioco per Eveline. The movie got made, raud), Marco Guglielmi (Philippe Giraud),
but nobody believed in it. It was a difficult work, Wolfgang Hillinger (Pierre Chateleau), Rita out of time, even naive by today’s standards.”1

Calderoni (School Teacher / Housekeeper),

This is how Marcello Avallone recalled his sec-Luisa Delli (German tourist), Stefano Oppedis-
ond feature film as a director, following his be-ano, Franco Jemma (Police Inspector), Angelo
ginnings as a documentarist on TV and his di-

Tagliavia (Mechanic), Giorgio Libassi (German
rectorial debut, L’altra faccia del peccato (16), tourist), Simonetta Negri (Eveline). PROD: a mondo produced by Luciano Martino. Aval-Ernesto Di Fresco for Diva Cinematografica;
lone’s retrospective definition of Un gioco per PM: Sergio Nasca; PS: Michele Macaluso;

Eveline as a film noir is misleading: it is actually PSe: Marisa Gerini. Country: Italy. Filmed in
a ghost story, albeit a sui generis one, with a Mondello (Sicily); Running time: 85 minutes number of nods and analogies to Italian Gothics (m. 2322); Visa n. 5780 (3.18.171); Rating: all of the previous decade. The director himself,
audiences. Release date: 7.16.171; Distribution: when interviewed a few days before shooting

Panta Cinematografica. Domestic gross: 43,833,000
started, pointed out: “The picture’s real protag-lire.

onist is the fear of whatever escapes our senses, A young couple on holiday, Pierre and
our logic control, the reality that surrounds us Nathalie, are having an argument while driving every day. In other words, the fear of the uncon-along the Corsican coast. Pierre insists that they scious, the ghosts that each one of us carries in-have a baby, and Nathalie, who is at the wheel, side and hides to the others, the fear of our own gets so upset and restless that the car skids off the conscience.”2
road. Since the woman has sprained her ankle,

All this, however, is revisited according to

Pierre asks for help at a nearby villa, owned by the typical style and themes in vogue in Italian another couple, Minou and Philippe Giraud. Dur-post-’68 cinema. At first, the story of a young ing their stay, both guests are made the subject of couple undergoing a marital crisis seems to be-explicit advances on the part of the owners, but long to some bourgeois drama on incommuni-the strange foursome is frequently troubled by the cability, spiced with nudity and mild eroticism appearance of a little girl—Minou and Philippe’s as was customary in the period. The beautiful
little daughter Eveline—whom only Pierre is apand sunny setting (the story is set in the parently able to see and hear. As Philippe explains, Corsican coast, although the film was shot in
the girl died a year and a half prior in a fatal ac-Mondello, Sicily3) underlines the impression, as cident, in an avalanche, with the housekeeper; yet do the luxurious villa where most of the story Minou maintains that Eveline is alive and her
takes place, the pretentious dialogue that the husband keeps her hidden from her. The situation characters exchange while idling and wandering becomes even weirder after the couple receives a around the premises, and the expected mutual
visit from a schoolteacher who asks news about games of seduction and betrayal.

the missing girl; Nathalie notices that the woman And yet, the plot is littered with the typical is a dead ringer for the housekeeper, and then sees haunted house elements: a couple forced to stay

28 1971: Un giaco for the night at a strange house whose enigmatic (168), and certainly not a casual choice on the inhabitants seem to hold a terrible secret; weird director’s part. Having been Riccardo Freda’s as-noises and cries in the night; a menacing shadow sistant director on L’orribile segreto del Dr. Hich-projected on the outside walls; a ghastly pres-cock (162), Avallone deals with the genre para-ence. Then Avallone introduces the ghost: a little phernalia with effectiveness: the sequence where girl playing with her white ball who looks like a Nathalie uncovers a life- size doll under the bed’s perfect mixture between Melissa Graps in Op-sheets actually replicates to the letter the mo -
erazione paura and the Devil in Fellini’s Toby ment in L’orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock when Dammit episode in Histoires extraordinaires Barbara Steele found a human skull in her nuptial bed.

However, Un gioco per Eveline is more pre-
occupied with the message. The Gothic and su-
pernatural elements remain purely instrumental and convey a heavy- handed psychoanalytical
significance, in tune with the film’s theme—fear of parenthood, seen as an indication of the collapse of traditional values. As Avallone explained, “The story revolves around the concept that in today’s society family has deeply changed its appearance compared with the traditional
meaning of the word. In the breakneck and chaotic rhythm of life that conditions us all …

the place for children becomes more and more
scarce.”4 The four protagonists are specular to each other, and have openly symbolic traits: Pierre wants a child while Philippe underwent
vasectomy, Minou is obsessed with motherhood
whereas Nathalie rejects the idea. To them “children represent a projection of their own respon-sibilities, their inhibitions, the waivers they are forced to make, the constant attempt to escape reality.”5 The supernatural theme ultimately doesn’t add up to much other than a general
sense of uneasiness and absurdity, underlined
by the final quotation from Samuel Beckett, which tops a circular “dream” ending borrowed
straight from Dead of Night (145).

It would have taken a strong script and di-
alogue not to succumb to the story’s utter pretentiousness (leaving aside its debatable per-
spective). Whereas the characters have to deliver lines such as “Then, no children, it will only be us two and our mucous membranes!” or “Dress
up, in a woman like you there’s nothing else to disclose.” Avallone himself admitted that “perhaps the screenplay was not as rich compared
to what it was trying to say, and the actors were mediocre.”6 It is a pity, since the direction is worthy of better material, as proven by the effective bits featuring Eveline’s ghost as well as a number of suitably stylish moments, with the intriguing use of circular panning shots during the confrontation with the schoolteacher and plenty of Italian locandina for Un gioco per Eveline (1971).

effective camera angles.

1971: …Hanno 2

The screenplay was mainly the work of

3. Davide Pulici, “Erna Schurer (Emma Costantino) la Marco Guglielmi (126–2005), a dignified sup-donna volitiva,” in Manlio Gomarasca and Davide Pulici, Davide (eds.), Le sorelle di Venere 2. Nocturno Dossier #5, porting actor who occasionally dabbled in script -

June 2007, 32.

writing, and who nevertheless is miscast as the 4. Ceretto, “Protagonista la paura.”

would- be fascinating Philippe. The cast also in-5. Ibid.

cluded the ravishing blonde Emma Costantino,

6. Ercolani, “Tra cinema e cavalli: Intervista a Marcello a.k.a. Erna Schurer, quite popular after her role Avallone.”

7. Pulici, “Erna Schurer,” 32. According to the actress, in Alberto Cavallone’s succes de scandàle Le sala-renowned cinematographer Aldo Scavarda (Antonioni’s mandre (16). On the other hand, the Roman-L’Avventura) worked uncredited on the film: no director ian Adriana Bogdan was enjoying a short- lived of photography is listed in the credits, and cameraman notoriety after her appearance in the arthouse Ernesto Cortese was usually credited as d.o.p.

8. Ceretto, “Protagonista la paura.”

cult classic Une soir, un train: the wife of French 9. The board of censors demanded two bits to be cut, director José Varela, and later a friend of Surre-in the love scene between Philippe and Nathalie.

alist poet Louis Aragon, Bogdan disappeared

10. It appears to have had a summer theatrical run in into oblivion in the Seventies after only a mid–July 171. The vice film critic on the Turin newspaper handful of movies. The German- born Wolfgang

La Stampa called it “an obscure drama,” and wrote: “The film does not hide its ambitions to stay out of the ordinary, Hillinger had appeared in films by Bava (Dia-but it lacks dramatic inspiration and narrative breath.” Vice, bolik), Fellini (Fellini—Satyricon), Visconti (La

“Il miliardario e la provinciale,” La Stampa, July 18, 171.

caduta degli dei), mostly in very small roles: his main claim to fame had been Silvio Amadio’s

… Hanno cambiato faccia (They’ve

L’isola delle svedesi (168). After Avallone’s film Changed Faces)

he disappeared from the radar, briefly reemerg-D: Corrado Farina. S: Corrado Farina; SC:

ing with a small role in Roberto Benigni’s Award-Giulio Berruti, Corrado Farina; DOP: Aiace winning La vita è bella (17). Renato Polselli’s Parolin (Eastmancolor, Telecolor); M: Amedeo
muse, Rita Calderoni, turns up in a small part, Tommasi; E: Giulio Berruti; PD, CO: Mimmo
donning a platinum blonde wig, as the

Scavia; C: Maurizio Gennaro; AC: Franco Bour-
enigmatic schoolteacher. According to Schurer, sier; SO: Alessandro Di Carlo; MU: Manlio Roc-the movie was financed by “a mafi oso… . He chetti; W: Enrica Bronzi; AD: Giulio Berruti; SP: used to pay us by putting the money inside a

Antonio Casolini; AE: Massimo Latini, Edda
newspaper, I remember him coming over in Pascale. Cast: Adolfo Celi (Giovanni Nosferatu), weekends, carrying these small packages… ”7

Geraldine Hooper (Corinna), Giuliano Dis -

Filmed in the summer of 16,8 Un gioco
perati (Alberto Valle), Francesca Modigliani per Eveline was submitted to the board of (Laura), Rosalba Bongiovanni, Pio Buscaglione, censors only two years later: it underwent some Salvatore Cantagalli, Giulio Flores Perasso, cuts to be secured a “per tutti” (all audiences) Mariella Furgiuele, Luigi Garetto, Guglielmo
visa, and had a brief and disastrous theatrical Molasso, Wladimiro Nemo, Maria Randisi Sal-run.10 Avallone was so disappointed that he gave ice, Lorenzo Rapazzini, Claudio Trionfi; uncred-up movies and returned to television documen-
ited: Amedeo Tommasi, Corrado Farina (Scien-
taries. He would return to directing with 176’s tist in commercial). PROD: Filmsettanta S.r.l.

Cugine mie, an erotic comedy which had lots of (Rome); PM: Carlo Chamblant; PS: Massimo
trouble with the Italian censors, and was banned Alberini, Guido Mattei. Country: Italy. Filmed twice due to its supposedly “obscene” nature. In in Turin and at Incir- De Paolis Studios (Rome).

the Eighties he delivered a couple of slick, if not Running time: 5 minutes (m. 2605); Visa n.

too original, horror films, Spettri (187) and 5734 (03.27.171); Rating: V.M.18. Release date: Maya (18). His last feature films were a thriller, 07.02.171; Distribution: Garigliano. Domestic Last Cut (17), starring John Savage, and the gross: 28,010,000 lire. Also known as: Wettlauf TV movie Indizio fatale (1).

gegen der Tod (West Germany); Han cambiado
de cara (Spain); La rencarnación del mal

N

(Spain—home video), Zmiana oblicza (Poland).

oTeS

Alberto Valle, an employee of the Auto

1. Eugenio Ercolani, “Tra cinema e cavalli: Intervista a Avion Motor car factory, is unexpectedly sum-Marcello Avallone,” Fascination Cinema, January 27, 2014.

moned to the villa of the company’s owner, Engi-

(www. fascinationcinema. it.)

2. Alberto Ceretto, “Protagonista la paura,” Corriere neer Giovanni Nosferatu. During the journey to d’Informazione, August 1, 16.

the mountains, where Nosferatu lives, Alberto

30 1971: …Hanno meets a young hippie rebel woman, Laura, whom
take shape 168 was over, and Italy was in full he feels attracted to. At Nosferatu’s mansion, he turmoil: students protests, workers’ strikes, the is welcomed by the enigmatic secretary Corinna,

“Hot Autumn” that would lead to a new legal
who ends up in bed with him. Much to Valle’s sur-discipline of hired labor (the Workers’ Statute, prise, Nosferatu offers him a chance to become in May 170). Farina’s idea was to adapt the con-the company’s president, but Alberto notices that cept of vampirism to the times: if I vampiri cen-weird things are going on in the villa: Nosferatu tered on a member of the élite, an aristocrat, keeps a register of all newborn babies, whose fu-who drained young women’s blood to keep her
ture is programmed from birth. Valle then dis-
beauty, here the vampire exploits the workers
covers a crypt in the park, with Nosferatu’s grave and enslaves the consumers through advertising in it: the date of birth is 1801 and there is no date and occult persuasion. Moreover, Farina and
of death. Overhearing a meeting where Nosferatu co- scriptwriter Giulio Berruti were heavily inand his employees discuss the launch of a new
fluenced by the writings of the German philoso -
product on the market—LSD—Valle discovers
pher Herbert Marcuse, whose 164 book One-
that the Engineer rules his company with a ruth-Dimensional Man, a critic of both contemporary less attention to profit. Alberto becomes convinced capitalism as well as Communist Russia, would
that Nosferatu is a vampire: he shoots him and provide the film’s thesis—consumerism as a flees from the villa. Outside, he meets Laura, form of social control—and its final epigraph: who—vampirized by Nosferatu—has turned into

“Terror, today, is called technology.”

a bourgeois, eager to become part of the system.

The script, at least in the first act, para-

Having lost all hope, Valle accepts his fate and re-phrases Dracula with a witty, clever spirit that turns to the villa, where Nosferatu is waiting for results in the reinvention of the novel’s staples.

him.

The story is set in present- day Turin, at a car

“In full 20th century, you still believe in
factory which blatantly stands in for FIAT (then vampires?” “Myths don’t die, they transform …

owned by the Agnelli family and with Giovanni
you have changed face, but keep sucking people’s Agnelli as chairman), and follows the protago-blood.” This dialogue exchange between Engi-
nist’s journey (by car, of course) to the vampire’s neer Giovanni Nosferatu (Adolfo Celi) and his
castle, which here becomes a luxurious villa in employee Alberto Valle (Giuliano Disperati) the Alps.

sums up the allegorical significance of Corrado Farina and Berruti inject some nice atmos-Farina’s feature film debut, an original and pheric details (such as Alberto’s stop at a remote thought- provoking variation on the Dracula mountain village whose inhabitants are scared
myth. Fresh from his experience as assistant di-by the mere pronunciation of the name Nosfer-
rector in Nardo Bonomi’s unreleased psycho-
atu) and come up with plenty of visual and the-logical oddity Sortilegio, starring Erna Schurer matic ideas. The opening scenes bring to mind
and Marco Ferreri, Farina drew from his love
some of Dino Buzzati’s short stories (see Al-
for Gothic and vampire movies, as well as from berto’s ascension from his mediocre office on
his experience as copywriter at the prestigious the 10th floor to the president’s office on the 20th Studio Testa, where he had worked from 163 to floor); once at Nosferatu’s mansion, Valle finds 168, shooting TV advertisements.

himself surrounded by aural advertisements that Farina (13–2016) had been struck as he
keep popping up at every place and moment,
reached adulthood by a couple of horror films, even when he is taking a shower (an idea re -

Riccardo Freda’s I vampiri (157) and Terence
cently explored in the Fifteen Million Merits Fisher’s Horror of Dracula (158)—two radically episode of Charlie Brooker’s brilliant TV series different interpretations of the vampire myth—

Black Mirror); the dinner sequence stands out
which pushed him to make a Gothic movie on
as a humorous variation on Harker’s dinner at
his own: the result was his second short film, the Dracula castle, as Alberto is served homog-one of a number Farina directed between 158
enized, flavorless, decidedly unappetizing baby-and 163, the 8mm horror parody Il figlio di like food, not dissimilar to the one eaten by the Dracula (160), that amiably spoofed the genre.

astronauts in 2001: A Space Odyssey (168). “The After the end of his working experience with the stimulus provided by the taste and smell, like Studio Testa, Farina moved to Rome and started the sexual ones, results in a pleasure for its own working on his feature film debut.

sake, that is a useless waste of energy,” Nosferatu When … Hanno cambiato faccia started to
explains, adding that “productive energy is too

1971: …Hanno

31
precious to run the risk of wasting
it.” The film’s most impressive in-
vention, however, is the sight of the

Fiat 500 cars patrolling the villa like
guard dogs, a modernized version
of the “children of the night” that
roar instead of howling.

Like I vampiri’s Duchess Du

Grand, Nosferatu has no fangs, but
his methods of vampirization go
way beyond sucking people’s blood.

Valle finds out not only that the En-
gineer actually has the whole élite

(the Church, the Police, the Army,
the Government) in his power, but
that his own life has been pro-
grammed since birth, like that of
every other worker/consumer.

In his unequal struggle against
the vampire, Alberto is confronted
with two female types, apparently
poles apart: the free- living, noncon-
formist Laura, a bare- breasted hip-
pie who claims to be against the sys-
tem, and Nosferatu’s enigmatic,
androgynous secretary Corinna,
whose professional attitude does
not exclude a willingness to engage
in sex with the guests as part of her
duties. Like many other male heroes
in Italian Gothic, Valle is ultimately
weak: he feebly tries to rebel, but

Italian poster for … Hanno cambiato faccia (1971).

eventually discovers there is no use
to it. Revolution, and violent opposition—ex-

Godard (a bearded man babbles slogans on Rev-
emplified by him shooting Nosferatu—result in
olution), Fellini (an elderly clown plays a tuba a brief, apparent victory, before Power takes on upon a hill and meets his parents), and erotic a new shape and face.

cinema (a debauched Sadean libertine tortures

For all its lively approach to the matter,
and whips a couple of female slaves), even in-

… Hanno cambiato faccia stagnates and sags clude a cameo by Farina himself, as a scientist halfway through: the overtly didactic discourse in white coat who explains the scientific benefits on consumerism, media manipulation and the
of the synthetic drug. The segment is occasion-sheep- like tendencies of the public is a bit naive ally amusing, but ultimately overlong and and predictable, and the film becomes repetitive overindulgent.

and verbose in its relentless socio- political The director was rather dismissive toward
agenda, at the expense of the plot. An example the result: “Had it been made with a bigger is the scene of Nosferatu’s reunion with his em-budget and means, it might have been a cute
ployees—itself a nod to the vampire ball in The little thing … it is sad to see it today, as it is ba-Fearless Vampire Killers (167)—which explores sically a conceptual movie.”1 The shoestring Farina’s love/hate relationship with his own past budget is painfully obvious at times: according as a copywriter, as the Engineer envisions a trio to Farina, the film—produced via a cooperative of fake b&w commercial TV spots commis-by the director and some friends—cost only 50
sioned to a bespectacled, nervous- looking, million lire.2 It was shot in and around Turin overly pretentious director, to advertise his new and in the Lanzo Valleys, in the Piedmont Alps, product, LSD. The ads, spoofing respectively
from December 170 to February 171, and

32 1971: Lady Farina recalled that a line of dialogue was added mained his last film to date. Farina returned to specifically to try and make up for the blatant television and advertising, before embarking in contrast between the exterior of Nosferatu’s villa a career as a novelist in the 10s. He died in and its interiors: “Since we did not have any

June 2016.

money, we filmed the outdoor scenes at some
friends’ villa outside Turin, whereas the interiors NoTeS
were shot at another villa, always in Turin: they 1. Roberto Curti and Davide Pulici, Corrado Farina have nothing to do with each other, since the in-

(Milan: Nocturno Libri, 2000), 135.

side is modern whereas the outside is 18th cen-2. Piero Perona, “I vampiri ‘girano’ sulla collina tury! (laughs) At a certain point, there’s a line torinese,” La Stampa, December 2, 170. Per [Piero Per-that we added just to save face, as Giuliano [Dis-ona], “Vampiri in cooperativa,” La Stampa, December 31, perati] asks, ‘Why is this villa so old outside and 170.

3. Curti and Pulici, Corrado Farina, 13.

so modern inside?’ and Geraldine [Hooper]

4. Ibid., 138.

replies, ‘We don’t make any difference between 5. Ibid., 13.

the present and the past!’ (laughs).”3

6. For an in- depth analysis of Baba Yaga, see Curti, Di-The cast was assembled with similar crite-
abolika, 136–141.

ria: Giuliano Disperati, the lead, had done a few interesting films such as Piero Livi’s bandit yarn Lady Frankenstein (Lady Frankenstein)

Pelle di bandito (16), and the next year he D: Mel Welles [Ira Meltcher]. S: Dick Ran-would even appear in Georges Lautner’s Il était dall; SC: Edward Di Lorenzo [and Mel Welles,
une fois un flic (172), alongside such popular uncredited] [Italian version: S and SC: Umberto names as Alain Delon, Michel Constantin and

Borsato, Egidio Celso, Aureliano Luppi]; DOP:

Mireille Darc. However, his following career was Richard Pallotin [Riccardo Pallottini] (Eastman-hardly noteworthy: he later changed his sur -
color, Metrocolor); M: Alessandro Alessandroni; name to Esperati, since, according to Farina,

E: Cleo Converse [Cleofe Conversi]; ArtD: Fran-

“the word Disperati [author’s note: meaning cis Mellon; CO: Maurice Nichols [Marisa

‘desperate’ in Italian] seemed a bit ominous… ”4

Crimi]; MU: Timothy Parson; Hair: Cass Whyte;

The weird- looking Geraldine Hooper had ap-

AD: Joseph Pollin [Giuseppe Pollini], Anthony
peared in Sortilegio and Il delitto del diavolo, Bishop [Antonio Casale]; C: Serge Martin [Ser-whereas Francesca Modigliani (actually a pseu-
gio Martinelli]; AC: Charles Taffan [Carlo donym: the director did not recall her true Tafani]; SO: Francis Grappian [Francesco Grop-name) was a friend of Disperati’s: “We needed
pioni]; B: Corey Volpe; SE: Charles Ramboldt
an easy, nice person, someone who didn’t mind

[Carlo Rambaldi]; SS: Farley Merrel. Cast: displaying her breasts on film,”5 Farina com-Joseph Cotten (Baron Frankenstein), Rosalba
mented ironically.

Neri (Tania Frankenstein), Paul Muller (Dr.

… Hanno cambiato faccia was given a

Charles Marshall), Peter Whiteman [Riccardo

V.M.18 rating, officially “for the scenes of sadism Pizzuti] (The Creature), Herbert Fux (Tom and eroticism” but more likely for its anti–Cap-Lynch), Mickey Hargitay (Captain Harris), Re-
italist message; the rating was dropped to a nata Kashe [Renate Kasché] (Julia Stark), Lor -

V.M.14 only in 2011 after some minor cuts. It was enzo Terzon (Peter, Harris’ assistant), Ada Pom -
even selected at the Locarno Film Festival, and etti (Farmer’s wife), Andrea Aureli (Jim Turner), was well- received by critics, but performed Gianni [John Louis] Loffredo (John), Pietro poorly at the box- office; over the years, it gath-

[Petar] Martinovitch (Jack Morgan), Herb An-
ered a growing cult following in its home coundress (Harry, the Hunchback), Gualtiero Rispoli try. It was released on DVD in the States in 2014

(Simon Burke), Adam Welles (Child); uncred-
as They’ve Changed Faces, with a cover that made ited: Marino Masé (Thomas Stark), Romano
it look like a poliziottesco—an understandable Puppo (Zack). PROD: Mel Welles for Condor
attempt at commercializing such a unique film

International Productions, Alexia Film (Rome); to an unsuspecting audience.

PM: Egidio Celso; EP: Harry C. Cushing, Hum-

Farina went on to make Baba Yaga (173),
bert Case [Umberto Borsato], Jules Kenton an adaptation of Guido Crepax’s comic Valen -

[Gioele Centanni]; PM: Frank Fly [Ferruccio
tina starring Isabelle De Funès and Carroll Mosca]; PA: August Dolfis [Augusto Dolfi]; PSe: Baker, which had a troubled development and

Tony Pitt [Antonio Pittalis]. Country: Italy.

turned out a box- office disappointment.6 It re-Filmed at Incir- De Paolis (Rome). Running time:

1971: Lady

33

 minutes (m. 2700). Visa n. 5112 (10.18.171); cardo Freda pics. Occasionally Welles—who had

Rating: V.M.18. Release dates: 10.22.171 (Italy); directed his first film in 157—returned behind 10.173 (U.S.A.); Distribution: Alexia (Italy); the camera, though: Un affare tranquillo (164), New World Pictures (U.S.A.). Domestic gross:

a prudish comedy about a brothel based in a

13,683,000 lire. Also known as: A Filha de small fishing village, inspired by Maupassant’s Frankenstein; A Mulher de Frankenstein (Brazil); story La Maison Tellier and featuring Frank Furankenshutain: musume no fukushu (Japan).

Wolff, was banned by Italian censors; La isla de Baron Frankenstein and his assistant, Dr.

la muerte (167), starring Came ron Mitchell and Charles Marshall, are working on the creation of filmed in Spain, caused some confusion in fol-an artificial man. With the help of a slimy body lowing years, as a number of sources kept iden-snatcher named Lynch and his aides, they get hold tifying Welles as a pseudonym of the German
of the body of a hanged criminal, Jack Morgan.

producer, Ernst Ritter von Theumer. Another

Meanwhile, Frankenstein’s daughter Tania—fresh such venture was Lady Frankenstein, a film with a surgery degree and a fervent supporter of which—like Warren Kiefer’s Il castello dei morti her father’s theories—has arrived at the castle.

vivi (164)—took shape in Italy and was granted The baron and Marshall transplant Morgan’s Italian nationality, but was actually the brain -
brain into the creature: the experiment succeeds, child of foreigners.

but the brain is damaged. The result
is a creature with criminal instincts
and extraordinary strength; after
murdering the baron, the monster
flees and runs amok across the
countryside. Tania con vinces Mar-
shall, who is in love with her, that
the only way to stop the monster is
to create another creature able to de-
stroy it. To do so, Tania plans to
transplant Charles’ brain into the
body of a handsome and strong but
retarded servant named Thomas, to
whom she is attracted. Meanwhile,

Captain Harris, who leads the in-
vestigations and is in love with

Thomas’ sister Julia, becomes very
suspicious of what is going on at the

Frankenstein castle. Eventually,

Thomas faces the monster in a
deadly struggle, and gets the better
of him. Tania and her creature con-
summate their passion while an
angry mob sets fire to the castle…

Having relocated to Rome in

161, after his work with Roger

Corman on such AIP cult epics as

The Undead (157) and The Little

Shop of Horrors (160), actor/direc-
tor Mel Welles was one of the many

Americans who enjoyed a first-
hand taste of the Dolce Vita and
the Golden Age of Cinecittà. In

The outstanding Italian poster for Lady Frankenstein (1971), Italy, he soon made himself a living
enhanced the Gothic content, depicting Rosalba Neri’s character as voice actor, dubbing foreign lanas a typical damsel in distress. The manor in the background is guage films into English, including
clearly modeled upon Castle Chigi at Castel Fusano. Art by Lu -
a number of Mario Bava and Ric-
ciano Crovato.

34 1971: Lady As Welles himself recalled, he had been ap-other issues to take care of. “I came back and proached by a rich American expatriate and made a deal with Skip Steloff of Heritage Films, Vanderbilt scion by the name of Harry Cooke
because Harry gave me only so much money;

Cushing IV (124–2000), who wanted to pro-
the rest was to come in a letter of credit from duce a movie starring Rosalba Neri, with whom

Skip. I got the letter of credit and it had a few …

he was madly in love. A sight for sore eyes, Neri

‘tricky dicky’ things in it, so it wasn’t discount-

(born in 13) was one of Italy’s most glamorous able and I was stuck again. By this time, I had starlets; she had appeared in a number of genre 126 people working and the studio booked.”4
films (mostly sword- and-sandal and spy flicks) Suddenly Welles was short $0,000. What to do
since the 160s, and her willingness to appear next? “I got on a plane, flew to California, and nude had made her one of the country’s erotic
went to see Roger Corman.”5
bombshells, after her roles in such works as Top It was Corman’s company New World Pic-Sensation (168, Ottavio Alessi) and Jesús tures that secured the necessary money to make Franco’s Marquis De Sade’s Justine (168) and 99
the movie, and Corman got the rights to the film Women (168). According to Welles, Cushing
in America, in perpetuity. Filming finally started was literally pursuing the actress. “She was turn-on March 1, 171. However, the small budget—
ing him down, everywhere. She couldn’t actually under $200,000—was not enough to secure
stand him; Harry was actually quite good-Joseph Cotten’s services for a long time: as Dick looking, but he was a pain in the neck because Randall told Variety, “we rewrote his part, cut-he had never lived in the real world—and that’s ting it to two weeks. In the final version, the what she resented about him. He never worked
monster turns on his creator and crushes him
a day in his life. So here, in my lap, he dropped to death in the fifth reel. Either that or get a less the script and the money to do it. What a wind-expensive star.”6
fall!”1

Productively speaking, then, Lady Franken-

On his part, Welles jumped at the oppor-
stein had little Italian to it, besides the location: tunity. “In this business, when somebody comes a number of indoor scenes were filmed at the
and says, ‘Here’s the money, let’s go do a film,’

De Paolis Studios in Rome, which had all sorts that is the greatest thing that can happen to you.

of set pieces that would be re- used from film to I said okay, and I worked for a few months film (the lab props would turn up again in Flesh trying to put it together, and discovered he did for Frankenstein), whereas the castle scenes and not own the script.”2 The person who owned
all those featuring Mickey Hargitay (dubbed by Lady Dracula—a story about a vampire who Rod Dana, in order to make up for the actor’s
worked in a funeral parlor—was former peplum
thick Hungarian accent) were shot at the Pic-
actor Brad Harris, who wanted to produce the
colomini castle in Balsorano, the home of so
movie by himself.3 So, Welles had to knock out many Gothic horror pics of the period. On top
an entirely new script with his friend Edward
of that, the movie was listed on the Public Cin-Di Lorenzo (better known for his work on tele-
ematographic Register as directed by Aureliano vision, on such series as The Wild Wild West,

Luppi.

Space: 1999, and Miami Vice) in three weeks:

Overall, the story is even more detached

Welles and Di Lorenzo possibly took inspiration from the canons of Italian Gothic, and under-from the comic book story For the Love of standably so: the film was written by foreigners Frankenstein, penned by Bill Warren with
and devised for the overseas market, and its nar-pencils and inks by Jack Sparling, and published rative models are sensibly different. Lady Frank -
in the issue #4 (April 16) of Vampirella mag-enstein takes inspiration from Hammer’s pro-
azine.

ductions, with an encephalitic creature that Welles then teamed up with the Rome-recalls the one seen in The Horror of Franken -
based producer Dick Randall to assemble a cast stein (170, Jimmy Sangster) and a major em-that included Joseph Cotten and Jayne Mans-
phasis on the surgical details of the experiments.

field’s widower Mickey Hargitay: around the What is more, it also draws from the most same time the former “Crimson Executioner”

shameful Victorian chronicles: the despicable
was to star in a pair of Renato Polselli’s wildest Tom Lynch (Herbert Fux, dubbed by Welles concoctions, Delirio caldo and Riti, magie nere himself in the English language version) is mode segrete orge nel Trecento… ; after completing eled on the notorious Burke and Hare as seen
the script, Welles found out that there were in John Gilling’s The Flesh and the Fiends (160),

1971: Lady 35
and on the “resurrection man” played by Boris
logue exchanges as “But to create life …

Karloff in The Body Snatcher (145)—characters shouldn’t man leave that to God?” “Here on that have little or nothing to do with Italian Earth man is God,” the Shelleyan theodicy be-Gothic. For the rest, Welles and Di Lorenzo comes, more concretely, a matter of sexual ap-threw in a little bit of mumbo jumbo (as the di-petite, and the transplant of a brain from one rector stressed, “The film … satisfied a number body to another is a way to overcome impo -
of my own pet peeves about horror films as I
tence: indeed, just a couple of years earlier Steno was growing up. One was that those films never had directed Il trapianto (16), a satire of Pro-showed you where the light came from when
fessor Barnard’s surgical exploits, transplanted they performed these very delicate brain oper-into the phallocentric universe of the Latin male.

ations. Secondly, they never told you where the No wonder, then, that the climax features not
electricity was coming from to make all those
only the inevitable purifying fire of the scientist’s little electric sparks and ladders going up and lab, but the cathartic and lethal coitus between down in laboratories”7), and had some fun with Frankenstein’s daughter and her creature / part-the characterizations. Frankenstein comes off as ner / sex object. The director claimed that “his-a compassionate liberal who is against the death torically … it was the first Gothic horror film penalty (which he labels “legalized murder”),
with an explicit sex scene in it,”8which is debat-whereas the investigator (a perpetually grinning able. However, the movie indeed predates Flesh Hargitay) is a prudish type who is clearly dis-for Frankenstein and Young Frankenstein for its gusted at Lynch’s lack of morals.

concept of the monster as a sex object.

Nevertheless, Lady Frankenstein imple-

When asked about Lady Frankenstein, Ros-
ments a reversal of gender, carving out a leading alba Neri recalled: “For a number of reasons—
role for the female presence, a fact that therefore not sentimental ones, anyway—I used to go links the movie in some way to the typical around with the director, Mel Welles, his wife themes of Italian horror. Welles later claimed and children. Frankly, I don’t think of him as a that he wanted to develop feminist themes, a
great director; on that film there was a talented purpose which results in Neri delivering such
cameraman, Riccardo Pallottini, who did every-
goofy lines as “I may be a woman, but I’m pri-
thing by himself—those nice lightings, for in-
marily a doctor,” and in a scene between Tania stance … he used to place the camera, then he
and Tom Lynch, where she contemptuously re-
waited for the director; he also solved technical jects his proposal to spend the night together in problems and so forth.” Indeed, the lab scenes payment for his services, which has Herbert Fux are suitably atmospheric, thanks also to Alessan-utter a line that curiously recalls one by Claudia dro Alessandroni’s dramatic score.

Cardinale in Leone’s C’era una volta il West Welles was adamant that he wanted to

(168): “After you can take a bath and everything achieve realistic effects, even at the cost of taking will be brand new again.”

care of them himself, with a resourcefulness that Tania comes out as the umpteenth figure
had something Italian in it: “In Spain and Italy, of woman/witch, dominating and lethal. Her
at that time, you couldn’t find a good special ef-mature and unmanly assistant Charles (Paul fects man anywhere. The guys I used on Lady

Muller) is so smitten by her (a relationship, one Frankenstein, there was one thing I wanted them suspects, echoing the one between Harry Cush-to have ready… . So I kept after them about this ing and Neri) that he willingly becomes her one shot, where Rosalba was supposed to put
guinea pig, allowing Tania to transplant his the probes into the large beaker with the brain brain into the body of the retarded but hand-in it, causing all kinds of sparks to fly out. I kept some and virile servant Thomas (“Except for the telling them, ‘We’re shooting it on Thursday brain, he is completely normal,” she observes), morning. At 8:00 Thursday morning, I want
so as to finally love her carnally. Thomas is everything ready.’ On Wednesday night, they
smothered in bed during lovemaking, and in
came to me and said, ‘You can’t shoot it tomorturn the creature strangles Tania while they are row morning.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Because we need having sex—one presumes, since Thomas’ in-more time to get ready, and we need $300 more
stinct has prevailed over Charles’ infatuation.

to get all the stuff.’ I said, ‘Forget about it.’ I went Or perhaps it is just a punishment for Tania’s out to the government- controlled tobacco store hu bris?

over there… . I bought half a dozen pinwheels

Ultimately, despite such predictable dia-
and I came into the set and told them, ‘Here’s

36 1971: Lady Baron Frankenstein (Joseph Cotten, left) and Dr. Marshall (Paul Muller) performing a gruesome oper-ation in a scene from Lady Frankenstein.

what you do: you rig these on a bar across a

October 171, to mediocre box- office, Welles had beaker within the beaker, a smaller beaker inside already left Italy to South- East Asia and then to the larger one … and you fix this with a spark-Australia. He would return to the U.S.A. only in starter and a blip- switch.’ The effect cost $1.80

176. Lady Frankenstein came out in the States and it worked fine!”10
in March 172, five months after its Italian re-The gore effects by Carlo Rambaldi are
lease: New World had come up with a truly rather crude, and most of the outdoor sequences memorable tagline: “Only the monster could
run from poor to embarrassing; we follow the
satisfy her strange desires!” accompanying a monster (“Peter Whiteman” a.k.a. stuntman Ric-poster featuring a buxom (and blonde!) Lady
cardo Pizzuti, the bad guy in many Bud Spencer Frankenstein, in a tight yellow dress, standing and Terence Hill flicks) wandering in the Lazio beside a semi- naked monster lying on the op-countryside and stumbling on hapless victims—
erating table, and apparently well- endowed be-mostly lovemaking couples: a laughable moment
neath the sheets.

has him throw a supposedly dead (and naked)

For the U.S. version, Corman cut over ten
girl into a river, which results in the poor actress minutes, shortening or eliminating no less than desperately trying not to drown for real. On top twenty scenes. The cuts affected not the nudity of that, the subplot featuring Hargitay and Re-and gore, but the expository bits, mostly includ-nate Kasché is merely filler. There is little doubt ing Captain Harris’ investigations, and a scene that what Welles really cared about was the tit-between Tania and Charles where the latter ex-
ular lady. After all, that was why he was being plains to her how the laboratory equipment paid for.

works, and the names of pioneer experimentors

Predictably, the film was given a V.M.18 rat-
with electromagnetics, Alessandro Volta and
ing by the board of censors, because of the Luigi Galvani. Commenting on Corman’s cuts,

“many erotic scenes.” When it was released, in Welles observed that “they never … seemed to

1971: Nella stretta 37
have any real logic. He never believed in taking (Alan Foster), Michèle Mercier (Elisabeth Black-any time to develop insights, character traits, wood), Klaus Kinski (Edgar Allan Poe), Peter
subtleties. Since he bailed me out of a failed Carsten (Dr. Carmus), Silvano Tranquilli
deal with Skip Steloff, he had all rights to do (William Perkins), Karin Field (Julia), Raf Bal-whatever he wanted. Most Cormanities suffered
dassarre (Herbert), Irina Malewa [Maleeva]

the major frustration of Roger’s slashing of (Elsie Perkins), Enrico Osterman (Lord Thomas
pictures because they took ‘too much time to

Blackwood), Marco Bonetti (Maurice), Vittorio
get to the action’ or were ‘too slow,’ or what-Fanfoni (Guest at the Inn), Carla Mancini.

ever.”11

PROD: Giovanni Addessi for Produzione D.C.7

Incidentally, the credits for the American

(Rome), Paris- Cannes Production (Paris),
version have the Italian cast and crew members Terra- Filmkunst (Berlin); PM: Ennio Di Meo;
concealed under English pseudonyms: most real

GM: Franco Caruso; PS: Salvatore Di Rosa; PA:

names are identified for the first time in this vol-Furio Addessi; PSe: Dino Di Dionisio; ADM: Silume.

vestro De Rossi. Country: Italy / France / West Germany. Filmed at De Laurentiis Studios

NoTeS

(Rome). Running time: 110 minutes (m. 3005).

Visa n. 58787 (8.20.171); Rating: V.M.18/V.M.14.

1. Tim Lucas, “Father of Lady Frankenstein. Mel Welles Release date: 8.26.171; Distribution: Panta Cin-interviewed,” Video Watchdog #78, December 2001, 3.

ematografica. Domestic gross: 232,442,000 lire.

2. Louis Paul, Tales from the Cult Film Trenches (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008) 272.

Also known as: Dracula im Schloß des Schreckens 3. Lady Dracula was eventually made in West (West Germany, 3.16.172); La horrible noche del Germany 177. It was directed by Franz Josef Gottlieb, and baile de los muertos (Spain); Vampyrernas slott starring Harris and Evelyne Kraft, with Stephen Boyd in (Sweden, 8.7.172); Skrækuhyret slår til (Den-his last film role.

mark, 1.15.173); Dracula in het kasteel der ver-4. Lucas, “Father of Lady Frankenstein,” 3.

5. Paul, Tales from the Cult Film Trenches, 272.

schrikking (Netherlands, 7.8.173); Les fantômes 6. Christopher T. Koetting, Mind Warp: The Fantastic de Hurlevent (France, 2.8.178).

True Story of Roger Corman’s New World Pictures (Parkville, Alan Foster, an American journalist in En-MD: Midnight Marquee Press, 2013), 33.

gland, challenges Edgar Allan Poe on the authen-7. Ibid., 34.

8. Tom Weaver, Interviews with B Science Fiction and ticity of his stories, which leads to him accepting Horror Movie Makers (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 188), a bet from Lord Blackwood to spend the night in 34.

the family’s haunted castle on All Souls Eve.

9. Gomarasca and Pulici, 99 donne, 267.

Ghosts of the murdered inhabitants appear to Fos-10. Lucas, “Father of Lady Frankenstein,” 40–41.

ter throughout the night, re- enacting the events 11. Ibid., 41.

that lead to their deaths. It transpires that they feed on the blood of the living visitors in order to Nella stretta morsa del ragno (Web of the maintain their existence. Blackwood’s sister Elis-Spider)

abeth is also one of the ghosts, as she had been D: Anthony M. Dawson [Antonio Mar -
murdered by her husband. Elisabeth and Alan
gheriti]. S: Bruno Corbucci, Giovanni Grimaldi; fall in love, and the woman tries to save his life SC: Bruno Corbucci, Gianni Grimaldi, Antonio
from the bloodthirsty undead…

Margheriti, Giovanni Addessi; DOP: Sandro

What makes a film director remake his

Mancori, Memmo [Guglielmo] Mancori (Tech-
own work? When asked by François Truffaut
nochrome, Techniscope); M: Riz Ortolani (Ed.

about the difference between the 134 and the

R.C.A.); E: Otello Colangeli; PD: Ottavio Scotti; 156 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much,

CO: Mario Giorsi; SD: Camillo Del Signore; C:

Alfred Hitchcock famously answered: “Let’s say Mario Sbrenna, Emilio Varriano; AC: Renato
that the first version is the work of a talented Palmieri, Remo Crisanti; AD: Ignazio Dolce;
amateur and the second was made by a profes-

MU: Maria Luisa Tilli; AMU: Angelo Malan -
sional,”1 implicitly focusing on the technical as-trucco; Hair: Nicla Pertosa Palombi; ACO: pects of the movie and on the more mature han-Roberto Ranucci; W: Antonietta Maggi; AE: dling of storytelling. On the other hand, to Giuliana Colangeli; SO: Pietro Spadoni; Mix:

someone like Jess Franco, reworking the same

Sandro Occhetti, Fausto Achilli; SE: Cataldo story over and over again was primarily a way

Galliano; SP: Mauro Paravano; SS: Eva Koltay.

of reinventing his own cinema, based on the

Cast: Anthony Franciosa [Anthony Papaleo]

continual recombination of characters, stories

38 1971: Nella stretta and events, but also, and quite often, an attempt end of the planned scene; in between there at retrieving those ideas that had been dropped should have been a transformation with very
due to budgetary or censorship- related reasons, psychedelic effects and opticals. As it stands, he or downright altered by producers’ cuts or reed-runs and he’s gone. Great, isn’t it—and very its. As for Antonio Margheriti, he was adamant.

spectacular for its time! (laughs) We had to cut

“I’m a slave for my producers. A prostitute. If it’s all the good stuff out. It was really painful for for money, my answer is ‘yes’; and of course, for me to do that.”4
the fun of it all… . If the money’s there, I’m In addition to that, the director underlined
there.”2 And this is what happened with Nella
that color ultimately detracted from the overall stretta morsa del ragno, a color remake of his mood and tension, pointing out that “even 164 black- and-white Gothic horror classic today, I’m still convinced that the only way of Danza macabra (a.k.a. Castle of Blood) as he ex-making a really scary horror film, with that kind plicitly acknowledged. “I did it for the money, of disturbing atmosphere and suspense, is to
and also because it was for the same producer
shoot in B&W. The only other solution would as Castle of Blood, who also did And God Said
be to get a really outstanding director of pho-to Cain… He mentioned what a pity it was that
tography and make a color film with a mono-

Castle of Blood had not been a big success, be-chromatic look. Color is important for costume cause he loved it so much. I agreed—it is a very pictures, but it easily distracts. It takes the at-good film, but it didn’t do well at the box- office tention away and a film can easily drown in at all—so he said, ‘Why don’t we try it again with wrongly chosen colors, which is the case with a a bigger budget and some popular actors?’”3
lot of modern horror films.”5 A surprising state-Nella stretta morsa del ragno was the direc-
ment, given the exquisite use of color in Con-
tor’s fifth proper Gothic horror film, following tronatura. However, the issues with Nella stretta The Unnaturals—Contronatura, even though
morsa del ragno go way beyond the use of color.

Margheriti’s second Western, E Dio disse a Margheriti and Addessi added minimal

Caino… (170) had a distinct Gothic flair, and touches to the original screenplay: most events was yet another German co- production, as his and dialogue from Danza macabra were re -
previous three works. The producer, Giovanni
prised verbatim—from the “living” portrait to

Addessi, was probably aiming primarily at that Elisabeth’s infamous line “I am a woman, a real market, given the presence of Klaus Kinski in a woman!” in response to Julia’s lesbian advance, small but pivotal role, as none other but Edgar from the nude scene of the bride about to be

Allan Poe. The international cast featured An-
vampirized by Julia up to the very same camera thony Franciosa (who was enjoying a revamped
movement that ends the film. Still, even though popularity thanks to the TV series The Name of they are stylishly shot, the few additions—such the Game) and Michèle Mercier, the star of five as the long ball scene, or Franciosa’s hallucinated Angélique films from 164 to 168. Addessi in-solo in the graveyard—do not improve upon the
vested good money in building the sets, which, story, but only serve to push up the running
in addition to the use of color (with Tech-time to one hour and fifty minutes, almost half nochrome cinematography by Sandro and
an hour more than the original. As a conse-Guglielmo Mancori) and to Riz Ortolani’s more
quence, the movie drags down as it goes along.

contemporary- sounding score, gave the result a As expected, Margheriti emphasizes Poe’s
lush, rich look.

role in the story, leaning on Kinski’s feverish and And yet, Margheriti blamed the resulting
charismatic take on the tormented writer, and
failure on the very use of color, which “created concocts a totally new opening sequence that
problems and ruined the whole film for me. At
visualizes part of the short story Berenice, which that time, Technicolor in Rome had abandoned

Poe is narrating to his attentive audience in the the three- strip printing process; they started tavern. The result, with Kinski wandering printing directly from the negative, as all the around a damp, gloomy crypt among spider other labs did. For that reason, most of the film’s webs and gravestones, and doing what he does
special effects were never used as we planned.

best—conveying strong emotions with only his

Now, you can see only very simple tricks they
body and face language, and the immense power
did with one reversal, and that’s it. You see some-of his magnetic stare—is admittedly impressive, body walking and—Poof!—he has disappeared!

but has a singular, self- sabotaging side effect.

What can be seen is only the beginning and the By staging and giving shape to Poe’s words,

1971: Nella stretta

3
the director whittles away at the previous film’s Foster and Elisabeth’s night of love (which in-power—the suggestion of what was not shown
cludes the same line from the first film, “You (or was impossible to show)—and solves its am-give me back my life… . I live only when I love”) biguity right from the start. In Danza macabra, is rendered via a circular panning shot that ends Poe drew his evocative status by being the con-on a fireplace, as if Margheriti was paying hom-scious witness of a trascendent reality whose
age to a famous scene in Claude Autant- Lara’s weight ended up crushing him, thus giving sig-Le Diable au corps (147). However, the sapphic nificance to his line about not being a narrator, torments that drive Julia are not too convinc-but a reporter. In Nella stretta morsa del ragno, ing, especially when compared with the tor-the lunatic, incontrollable Kinski is no more a mented sexuality of Marianne Koch’s character
reporter, despite what he says of himself (“I did in Contronatura. What is more, Mercier—look-not know whether I’d written another story or I ing quite older than her character and saddled had really lived that hallucinating adventure”), with a bad copper- colored wig—does not have
but, once again, a narrator. This way, he becomes an ounce of Barbara Steele’s unsettling charm, too strong a counterpoint to the ghosts of Black-and Karin Field (who would later appear in Jess wood House.

Significantly, Poe is no longer a neutral wit-
ness of the bet between Lord Thomas Black -
wood and Foster, but the direct cause of the journalist’s perdition: it is he who insists that Foster spend the night in the haunted castle, because, he says, “each story needs its own protagonist,” and in doing so he marks the man’s destiny. In short, in Danza macabra, Poe was emotionally crushed by the stories he wrote, and his torment came from the fact that his only way to survive the horrors he had witnessed was writing them down, but with the knowledge that no one would ever believe him—like a Cas -
sandra of sorts. In Nella stretta morsa del ragno, Poe creates the conditions for these horrors to happen.

On the other hand, Lord Blackwood be-
comes a forgettable character—not the least because Enrico Osterman does not have an ounce
of Umberto Raho’s sinister aplomb in the role.

Margheriti and Addessi went so far in altering the relationship between these two characters
that a line uttered by one of the spirits that in the original film referred to Lord Thomas is changed ad hoc: “Only Poe’s sick mind could
think of sending you here on the night of No-
vember 2.” The writer’s fame has spread among
the dead as well…

Surprisingly, given the fact that Margheriti
had already explored the blending of horror and eroticism in his previous Gothic, Nella stretta morsa del ragno is quite shy when it comes to
portraying the assorted passions that tie together the living and the dead—which re -
sulted in a bad surprise for the makers when the Italian board of censors initially gave the film a V.M.18 rating (soon changed into a more apt

Surrealist Italian locandina for Nella stretta morsa V.M.14), as there is very little nudity in the film.

del ragno (1971).

40 1971: La notte che Evelyn Franco’s Les Démons) is singularly bland and
ghosts, that is the deep and hidden (according cold.

to Freud) human reality … and for the very The other cast members are a mixed
same reason Poe- Kinski is condemned in the
bunch: Silvano Tranquilli (the only returning
first part of the film—not to death (and the hope cast member from Danza macabra, where he
of redemption that comes with it) but to a limbo was a fine Edgar Allan Poe) is good, but Raf Bal-of permanent horror.”8
dassarre is miscast as the hulking, passionate With its existence, Nella stretta morsa del
groom. The film’s best moments are those fea-
ragno—a classically shot film, which administers turing Carmus, who, as played by co- financer scarce scares and thrills, and is based essentially Peter Carsten, is given a good deal of screen
on atmosphere—showed that the original
time. The German version (fancifully titled season of Gothic had ended and could not be

Dracula im Schloß des Schreckens, “Dracula in
repeated: such a product could not compete the Castle of Secrets”) runs 12 minutes shorter with the new paths taken by the horror genre in than the Italian one and features a different ed-the decade.

iting, including a scene where Julia seduces Herbert and convinces him to murder Elisabeth’s

NoTeS
husband, the act that will give way to the 1. François Truffaut, Hitchcock/Truffaut (New York: macabre ronde that Alan Foster will witness Simon and Schuster (166) 2015), 4.

years later.

2. Peter Blumenstock, “Margheriti—The Wild, Wild In-If Nella stretta morsa del ragno is not quite
terview,” Video Watchdog #28, May/June 15, 45.

convincing as a remake, its thematic links with 3. Ibid., 46.

Contronatura—which can be detected from the

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid., 45.

very opening image on a pool of water, the same 6. Teo Mora, “Per una definizione del film di fantasmi,”

as in the 16 film—prove definitely more inter-Il Falcone Maltese #2, luglio 174, 27.

esting. Which brings us again to the film’s raison 7. Ibid.

d’être. It is as if Margheriti returned to the same 8. Ibid., 28.

story to further investigate the central theme.

“Greed and the violence of passion are primitive La notte che Evelyn uscì dalla tomba
and absolute, and there is no innocence opposed (The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave)

to them (if not as a remote potential at most… ),”

D: Emilio P. Miraglia. S: Massimo Felisatti,

Gothic film scholar Teo Mora observed, adding

Fabio Pittorru; SC: Massimo Felisatti, Fabio Pit-that “their condemnation does not come from
torru, Emilio P. Miraglia; DOP: Gastone Di Giothe outside (that is, from the Christians’ God or vanni (Technicolor, Techniscope); M: Bruno from the main good character) but from them-Nicolai; E: Romeo Ciatti; ArtD, CO: Lorenzo
selves, and it is an immediate consequence of

Baraldi; MU: Marcello Di Paolo; Hair: Giusep-
their existence and unwinding. What is more,
pina Bovino; AD: Palmambrogio Molteni; C:

their strength is such that, far from being de-Fernando Gallandt; AE: Gabriele Ingafú; As-
feated … they overwhelm the innocent, or the
stArtD: Marco Dentici; SO: Fiorenzo Magli; B:

least guilty.”6 Here, just like Joachim Fuchs-Armando Jamota; Mix: Mario Morigi; SS: Pa-
berger’s character in Contronatura, Foster is a trizia Zulini. Cast: Anthony Steffen [Antonio De collateral damage of such a self- destructive fury.

Teffé] (Lord Alan Cunningham), Marina Mal-

In both films, as Mora notes, the ghost “ei-
fatti (Gladys Cunningham), Rod Murdock
ther does not act and limits itself to the role of

[Enzo Tarascio] (George Harriman), Giacomo
catalyst (as in Contronatura), so that its potential Rossi Stuart (Dr. Richard Timberlane), Umberto material nature is neither assumed nor denied, Raho (Farley), Roberto Maldera (Albert), Joan
but becomes a purely secondary matter, whereas C. Davies (Aunt Agatha), Erika Blanc [Enrica
its predominant quality is its providential nature; Bianchi Colombatto] (Susie), Ettore Bevilacqua or it manifests itself openly, at least for the (Graveyard Caretaker), Brizio Montinaro, Maria viewer, as an image, representing to our eyes a Teresa Tofano (Polly), Paola Natale. PROD: An-returning past.”7 Speaking of Nella stretta morsa tonio Sarno for Phoenix Cinematografica
del ragno, Mora attributes a decidedly epistemo-

(Rome), PSe: Alberto Passone. Country: Italy.

logical connotation to the ghost’s ethical interFilmed in Thiene, Sovizzo and Montegaldella
vention: “The protagonist (and the viewer) is

(Vicenza). Running time: 103 minutes (m. 2807).

condemned for having witnessed the reality of

Visa n. 58701 (8.12.171); Rating: V.M.18. Release

1971: La notte che Evelyn

41
dates: 8.18.171 (Italy); 7.26.172 (U.S.A.); Dis-scripts, but a series of interesting TV mini-tribution: Cineriz. Domestic gross: 446,573,000
series, Qui squadra mobile, and several crime
lire. Also known as: L’appel de la chair; Holo -
novels with heavy social and political under-
causte pour une vierge (France; 5.3.173); Die tones, such as Violenza a Roma (174) and La

Grotte der vergessenen Leichen; Stumme Schreie madama (175), which were adapted for the big

(West Germany; 12.5.175).

screen, albeit with debatable results.

Note: Brizio Montinaro and Paola Natale,

La notte che Evelyn uscì dalla tomba was
although credited, do not appear in the film.

Felisatti and Pittorru’s second giallo script after England. Released from a mental hospital
the excellent Concerto per pistola solista (170, run by his friend Dr. Richard Timberlane, but still Michele Lupo), an amusing take—from a story
haunted by the memory of his deceased wife, the by Sergio Donati—on the typical English- style redhead Evelyn, Lord Alan Cunningham picks up
murder mystery, with clever references to Leo
prostitutes whom he tortures and (apparently)

Bruce’s classic novel Case for Three Detectives murders in the dungeons of his decaying castle.

(Gastone Moschin played a bumbling country

Following a hint from his cousin George Harri-
cop modeled upon Sergeant Beef ). With La man, he visits a nightclub where a redheaded notte che Evelyn uscì dalla tomba, the duo moved stripper named Susie performs a risqué number, on along the same tracks, and concocted a pas-invites her home and kills her. The encounter with tiche of classical mystery motifs and Gothic el-the lovely Gladys seems to cure Cun-
ningham: the two get married and
move to Alan’s castle. There, however,
a series of strange occurrences seem to
suggest that Evelyn’s ghost has come
back from the grave: a series of mur-
ders take place, before a horrible
scheme against Alan is revealed…

Even thought it owes part of its
notoriety among U.S. film fans to
being unfavorably mentioned (“One
imported Italian turkey”) in Stephen

King’s essay on the horror genre,

Danse Macabre,1 La notte che Evelyn
uscì dalla tomba is nevertheless an
interesting—if not really successful—
example of the hybridation between
the Gothic and the rising Argento-
esque giallo.

Scriptwriters Massimo Felisatti
and Fabio Pittorru were, together
with future film director Florestano

Vancini, among the leading figures
in the cultural life of the city of Fer-
rara in the 150s: their political com-
mitment resulted in the collaboration
to local left- wing newspapers and
magazines and, in the case of Pit-
torru, in the making of a documen-
tary (Uomini contro il Po) about the
frightening flood of the river Po,
which was adversely received by the
board of censors. In the 160s, both
writers moved to Rome, and started
working together: their output in-

Lurid U.S. poster for the Gothic giallo, La notte che Evelyn uscì cluded not only a good number of
dalla tomba (1971).

42 1971: La notte che Evelyn ements, this time amply imbibed with the in-

(168), plus the thriller A qualsiasi prezzo (168), gredients in fashion at the time—a black gloved-starring Klaus Kinski—does a rather ordinary
killer and ample doses of sex.

job. The style features the usual overabundance Overall, the result is not quite memorable,
of zooms and the odd visual tricks (Steffen’s but enjoyable all the same. The Argento connec-

“veiled” point of view shots in the opening scene tion is actually very thin, as the movie works are definitely awkward, though); but Miraglia
primarily as an old- style whodunit revolving fails to fully convey the expected Gothic atmos-around the typical “drive someone crazy”

phere. Still, Gastone Di Giovanni’s scope cine-scheme, and in obedience with the spirit of the matography and Bruno Nicolai’s delightful
time the damsel in distress turns out to be not score—with themes lifted from his work for Jess quite innocent as she seems. The ample resort

Franco’s Eugenie … The Story of Her Journey Into to Gothic staples (the castle, a crypt, a séance, a Perversion—give the movie a lush tone.

vengeful ghost evoked by a portrait that haunts The cast is an assembly of familiar actors
the protagonist) is spiced with nods to Edgar
for fans of Italian genre movies: EuroWestern

Allan Poe (Evelyn’s red hair recalls Berenice), icon Anthony Steffen (wooden as always with

Hitchcock (primarily Rebecca and Vertigo, not
his shortsighted look and unchanging expres-
to mention the umpteenth glass of milk lifted
sion), Giacomo Rossi Stuart, Roberto Maldera
from Suspicion) and Boileau and Narcejac’s (who is given nothing to do but look menacing), clever mixture of psychological Gothic and mys-and Enzo Tarascio (a.k.a. “Rod Murdock”), tery. The story is packed full with plot holes, but easily the best actor in sight. Their female coun-Felisatti and Pittorru come up with no less than terparts steal the show: the striking- looking Ma-three consecutive endings in a row: the first cli-rina Malfatti displays a number of breath- taking max reveals the patently bogus supernatural in-négligées and has a couple of risqué love scenes, trigue; the second, and best, is a cynical sting in while Erika Blanc makes a brief but truly mem-the tail as the accomplices turn one against the orable apparition, first performing a night- club other as characters from a Mario Bava movie;
act which wouldn’t be out of place in a Jess the third and final one is the customary, and

Franco movie, and then running away from rather perfunctory, happy ending.

Steffen’s character while wearing only panties All this seamlessly conjugates with the
and thigh- high leather boots. Due to the film’s glamour aesthetics of the period, complete with insistence on eroticism, the board of censors de-design objects and mind- blowing costumes: manded a number of cuts concerning the flash-Lord Cunningham’s castle is a real joy for the backs with Evelyn and her lover—a scene similar eyes, with its 17th century frescoes and gloomy to the prologue in Romano Scavolini’s Un bianco dungeon rubbing shoulders with TV sets and
vestito per Marialé (172)—as well as Alan’s love-white leather furniture, but the film’s best visual making scenes with his wife. La notte che Evelyn joke is provided by the five platinum- blonde uscì dalla tomba ultimately got a V.M.18 rating, maids who speak in unison, and look like motivated also by the “terrifying, bloody and
refugees from a TV ballet show. Add to this the horrid scenes” such as the gory demise of the
patently Italian setting (the Cunningham castle character of Aunt Agatha, who ends up eaten by is a Venetian villa) posing as British, with all the foxes that rip apart her intestines.

incongruences that follow, such as driver seats The movie was a reasonable success in
on the left, and the result is a bogus Gothic for Italy, and was even distributed overseas as The the 170s jaded viewers, a bit rogue in its display Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, making it-of luxury and wealth (see the high society party self a name in the U.S. grindhouse circuit in the Cunningham and his cousin attend, with lob -

170s with the help of such gimmicks as theaters sters and champagne aplenty), which plays with serving “Bloodcorn” (popcorn dyed red) instead genre mechanisms in a suitably mocking way.

of ordinary popcorn, as King recalled amusedly.2

It would have perhaps taken a better film-

Several versions circulated, often heavily cut and maker to make this shaky concoction work. Di-re- edited, including one shown late nights on rector Emilio Miraglia—an ex assistant to Lu-TV under the title Evelyn Raises the Dead.

ciano Salce and Carlo Lizzani, and previously

Miraglia and Pittorru would team again the
the helmer of a couple of passable gangster following year for another Gothic- whodunit hy-movies starring Henry Silva, Assassination brid, La dama rossa uccide sette volte.

(167) and Quella carogna dell’ispettore Sterling

1971: La notte dei dannati 43

NoTeS
stroys her, saving Danielle just before she is sac-1. Stephen King, Danse Macabre (New York: Simon and rificed.

Schuster, (181), 2011), 17.

The third- to-last film directed by the vet-

2. Ibid.

eran Filippo Walter Maria Ratti (114–181) is one of the most bizarre items in 170s Italian La notte dei dannati (The Night of the Gothic. Active in the movie business since the Damned)

130s, Ratti had debuted as a director in 146

D: Peter Rush [Filippo Ratti]. S and SC:

with the drama Felicità perduta, and helmed a

Aldo Marcovecchio; DOP: Girolamo La Rosa;
small number of films, mostly unpretentious

M: Carlo Savina; E: Rolando Salvatori; PD: Elio comedies (such as Non è mai troppo tardi, 153), Balletti; CO: Virginio Ciarlo; SE: Rino Carboni.

with the exception of the bleak drama Dieci ital-Cast: Pierre Brice (Jean Duprey), Patrizia Viotti iani per un tedesco (162), about the infamous (Danielle Duprey), Angela De Leo (Rita Ler -

Fosse Ardeatine massacre, which featured Enzo
nod), Antonio Pavan, Alessandro Tedeschi

G. Castellari as second unit director. By the end (Prof. Berry), Mario Carra (Guillaume de Saint of the decade Ratti got involved with the short-Lambert), Daniela D’Agostino, Irio Fantini, lived production company Primax and made

Carla Mancini. PROD: Nicola Addario, Lucio
two movies written by Aldo Marcovecchio and

Carnemolla, Gianni Solitro for Primax (Rome).

starring Pierre Brice and Patrizia Viotti: the Country: Italy. Filmed in Ceri, Cerveteri (Rome) erotic drama Erika and La notte dei dannati,
and at Elios Studios (Rome); Running time: Ital-shot back- to-back on the same sets. Erika was ian version: 86 minutes (m. 2335). Visa n. 58702
released in March 171 and met surprisingly (8.26.171); Rating: V.M.18. Release date: .10.

good box- office results, with over 300 million 171; Distribution: Panta Cinematografica. Do-lire grossed, but was seized because of its al-mestic gross: 82,772,000 lire. Also known as: La legedly obscene content1; by the time the second nuit des damnés; Les nuits sexuelles (France; film was submitted to the board of censors, Pri-4.23.175); Sexuelle Gelüste triebhafter Mädchen max had already gone bankrupt.

(Germany; 5.25.173); Night of the Sexual Despite being a low- budget affair, La notte

Demons.

dei dannati benefits from a script—originally tiThe famed journalist and amateur detective
tled Il castello dei Saint- Lambert—packed full of Jean Duprey receives a strange letter from an old erudite references from the opening scene, friend, Prince Guillaume de Saint Lambert, who where the protagonist solves a riddle whose key asks him for help. Jean and his wife Danielle travel is hidden in an old edition of Charles Baude -
to the Saint Lambert castle, where they are wel-laire’s book of poetry Les Fleurs du mal. Later comed by Guillaume’s enigmatic wife, Rita Ler -
on, another vital plot point has a character using nod. Jean discovers that the prince is suffering a fake name borrowed from 18th century phi -
from a mysterious disease, and is being cured by losopher Jean- Jacques Rousseau’s book The the creepy Professor Berry. According to Guil-Confessions, and the screenplay also envisioned laume, a terrible curse is over his family, whose an opening sequence inspired by Bruegel’s The
members are doomed to die upon reaching 35

Triumph of Death and Bosch’s Hell, which ulti-
years of age. Jean cannot save his friend, who dies mately remained on paper only. Even the hero,
a few days later. Other mysterious deaths ensue: the unfailing, brilliant, pipe- smoking amateur the victims are young women related to Saint
detective played by Brice, is depicted with an Lambert, who are drained of their blood. Mean-eye to illustrious literary models, starting from while, Danielle is having strange nightmares, and the name: Jean Duprey, a reference to Edgar
is falling under the influence of Rita. Jean finds Allan Poe’s Auguste Dupin, the protagonist of
out that the woman is the reincarnation of a The Purloined Letter and The Murders in the Rue witch, Tarin Drôle, who had been burnt to the

Morgue. Like Poe’s character, Jean has to deal stake 300 years earlier by one of Saint Lambert’s with cryptograms, anagrams and various riddles ancestors. With her supernatural powers, Rita

(including a locked room mystery)—and yet, in
performs ritual killings, abducting her victims an amusing visual joke, he is first seen intent on and sacrificing them to the forces of evil. Jean—
reading a Mickey Mouse comic.

immune to her powers thanks to an amethyst However, viewers cared little about all this:

ring given to him by Guillaume—locates the the film’s main selling point was the presence of crypt where the witch had been buried, and de-sexy starlet Patrizia Viotti. The 21-year-old

44 1971: La notte dei dannati model had first known notoriety as the heroine foreign markets: both Erika and La notte dei
of one of the first adults- only photonovels, the dannati were likely produced with the uncred-sci- fi oriented Lunella, and as the ex- girlfriend ited financial aid of a French production com-of teen pop idol Mal (Paul Bradley Courling),
pany (a possibility underlined by the presence the former lead singer of the band The Primi-of Brice) and shot in a double version. The one tives, a love story that ended in a tempestuous distributed in France a few years later, under the way, with ample coverage in newspapers. In title Les nuits sexuelles, featured decidedly more Ratti’s films, Viotti willingly took her clothes off daring sequences, in tune with what was offered before the camera and performed full frontal
by the adults- only comics of the period: the nude scenes and simulated sex with an enviable scenes that take place in the witch’s extradimen-easiness: an extended sapphic interlude between sional reign mixed horror and eroticism, as the her and Angela De Leo caused La notte dei dan-female victims are first tickled by naked hand-nati some trouble with the board of censors, re-maidens, while heterosexual and lesbian cou-
sulting in cuts for slightly over one minute. The plings take place all around them, amidst dry
scene ended up in the October 171 issue of the ice and colored lighting, in a surreal set piece erotic photonovel BigFilm.

vaguely reminiscent of the nightmare footage in The print submitted to the Italian censors

Julian Roffman’s The Mask (161).

was quite different from the one aimed at A curious incident took place in a theater
in Genoa, where the “nude
version” was screened by mis-
take, as reported by an arti-
cle—significantly titled E
beato chi c’era! (And lucky who
was there!)—in the weekly
mag ABC (issue #13, January

7, 172), which included ade-
quate photographic documen-
tation of said scenes: “Satur-
day, December 18 … at the

Cinema Smeraldo in Genoa

… an unusual event hap -
pened: the screening of the
film La notte dei dannati was
interrupted by the projection-
ist himself, Lorenzo Mona -
chello, who apologized to the
audience and invited them to
show up at the box- office and
have their ticket money back.

Some had already anticipated
the projectionist’s invitation,
because the movie was being
screened in English and they
did not understand a thing.”

According to the article, the
true reason for the sudden in-
terruption was “the eloquence
of the images, of such an un-
leashed eroticism that was
never seen before on our
screens.”2

La notte dei dannati’s
fame as one of Italy’s first

Italian poster for La notte dei dannati (1971). Art by Renato Casaro.

proto- hard movies risks ob-

1971: Qualcosa 45
scuring its qualities as a Gothic tale, which are notte dei dannati, one in Italian, censored for our screens, quite superior to those of other sex- horror flicks and one in English, destined to foreign ones. The distributor made the mistake of switching the film scans.” Ag.

of the period. The story delves into the usual Italia, “Operatore sospende la proiezione perché il film è clichés—the secular curse, the reincarnated

‘troppo erotico,’” La Stampa, December 1, 171; Anony-witch, the old castle with secret passages—and mous, “Film proibito pr errore sullo schermo,” Corriere captures the contrast between the present day
d’Informazione, December 18–1, 171. However, an and a menacing past in a way akin to such works English language version has not surfaced so far. Pics from the French version were also featured in the magazines as I vampiri. Moreover, the sparse special effects New Cinema (August 171, 28–31) and Cinema Erotico have an old- style feel to them that makes them (172, 160–165.) Over the years, two different French ver-endearing despite their primitiveness: see, for sions have surfaced to home video: a VHS released in Bel-instance, the superimposition of a skull over the gium (La nuit des damnés, although the on- screen title is Les nuits sexuelles) runs 73 minutes and cuts short a bedridden Saint Lambert’s face when he con-number of dialogue scenes, and even the suggestive funeral fesses that he has little time left to live, or the sequence, but retains the sex sequences. Another version, flame that appears over the etching of a witch featuring an Italian audio track, runs 5 minutes, and can burnt at the stake centuries earlier, much to be found only on bootlegs.

Danielle’s horror.

The result is strangely captivating, not the

Qualcosa striscia nel buio (Something least because of Carlo Savina’s score, abundantly Creeping in the Dark)

recycled from his work in Malenka, la sobrina

D: Mario Colucci. S and SC: Mario Colucci;
del vampiro (16, Amando de Ossorio). Still,

DOP: Giuseppe Aquari (Eastmancolor); M: An-
the movie would have benefitted from more ca-
gelo Francesco Lavagnino (Ed. C.A.M.); E: Enzo pable hands behind the camera: Ratti often fails Micarelli; ArtD: Silvano Pan; SD, CO: Massimo
to exploit the script’s potential, and despite the Bolongaro; MU: Telemaco Tilli; Hair: Nicla odd intuition—such as the malevolent presence

Palombi; AD: Marina Prodan; C: Emilio Gian-
on the loose across the corridors at night, por-nini; AC: Carlo Aquari; SO: Tonino Cacciuot -
trayed through a subjective shot reminiscent of tolo; SOE: Goffredo Salvatori; SS: Maria Pia Ster-a similar moment in La maschera del demonio—
licchio; SP: Gioacchino Cantone; AE: Carlo his direction is often perfunctory. The acting Broglio; W: Elisabetta Costantini; KG: Sergio
is nondescript: Brice makes for a suitably sym-Profili; ChEl: Michele Pellegrini; SE: Ci.Pa. Cast: pathetic hero, but De Leo is not nearly as fasci-Farley Granger (Spike), Lucia Bosé (Sylvia Fornating as her role would require, whereas Viotti rest), Giacomo Rossi Stuart (Donald Forrest),
could not act to save her life as the ingénue Stan Cooper [Stelvio Rosi] (Dr. Williams), Mia who is preyed upon by her vampire- like seduc-Genberg (Susan West), John Hamilton [Gianni
tress.

Medici] (Joe), Giulia Rovai (Joe’s Girlfriend), La notte dei dannati was far less successful

Frank [Franco] Beltramme (Sam), [Angelo]

than its companion piece, grossing a modest

Francesco Lavagnino (Prof. Lawrence), Dino
sum at the box- office. However, Ratti would not Fazio (Inspector Wright), Loredana Nusciak stray from the path of eroticism, as proven by (Lady Sheila Marlowe). PROD: Dino Fazio for
his following films, the eloquently titled Mondo Akla Productions S.p.A. (Rome); PM: Mario erotico—Inchiesta n. 8 (173) and the Gothic gi-Colambassi. Country: Italy. Filmed at Incir- De allo, I vizi morbosi di una governante, shot in Paolis Studios (Rome). Running time: 6 min -

173 (with the title Gli occhi verdi della morte) utes (m. 2632); Visa n. 57580 (01.23.171): Rating: but submitted to the censors only in 176, and V.M.18. Release date: 04.15.171; Distribution: released in 177 after a few cuts.

D.D.F. Domestic gross: 110,05,000 lire. Also known as: Shadows in the Dark; Something NoTeS

Creeping in the Night (Ireland; promotional title); Jigoku no Shainingu (Japan).

1. In May 172 Erika was judged obscene, and Ratti, Two cars are chasing wildly along a country
producer Marcovecchio, distributor Stefania Stracuzzi and actors Viotti and Brice were condemned to pay a fee.

road during a stormy night until they are blocked Anonymous, “Autori e attori di ‘Erika’ condannati per by the fall of a bridge. Inspector Wright and his oscenità,” Corriere della Sera, May 24, 172.

right- hand man Sam arrest Spike, a maniac mur-2. C.C. [Callisto Cosulich], “E beato chi c’era!,” ABC, 7
derer. Several other vehicles are forced to stop by January 172, 66–67. The same agency news was reported by other newspapers such as Corriere d’Informazione and the circumstances, and their occupants seek ac-La Stampa, which specified: “There are two versions of La commodation at a nearby villa: the policemen

46 1971: Qualcosa and their prisoner are joined by Dr. Williams and which allows each individual’s fears, obsessions his assistant, a bourgeois couple formed by and desires to come to the surface. Whereas Donald and Sylvia Forrest, and a Philosophy pro-Margheriti focused on a moral path that led the fessor. Then someone has the unfortunate idea to protagonists to face their own dirty conscience set a séance. Strange things start happening, as if and atone their past guilt, Colucci is content to an evil spirit had taken possession of some of the throw into the fray a rather squalid array of guests. Forrest kills his wife and then himself; types and allow their vices to come to the fore.

Spike eliminates Sam; more horrific events will Not unlike the despicable slice of mankind as
ensue before dawn…

seen in Contronatura, the main characters look Less than two years after The Unnaturals—
like a concoction of sexually fixated types. In Contronatura, Mario Colucci’s Qualcosa striscia addition to the bourgeois couple and the dan-nel buio reprises the same basic plot as Margher-gerous sex offender, Colucci’s script throws in iti’s film. However, the two movies actually share an inhibited female doctor (Mia Genberg), and
the same source of inspiration: in fact, Colucci’s a couple of proletarian servants (Gianni Medici original script (initially titled La notte dei dan-and Giulia Rovai) with strong sexual appetites; nati) dated back to 161 and was loosely based once it has become clear that she and her tem-on Buzzati’s short story Eppure battono alla porary companions are stalled in the villa, Sylvia porta, which also provided the inspiration for jokingly suggests that they all indulge in an orgy Contronatura.1 The project was to be an Italian/
to kill time. Nineteen- sixty-eight has not passed German co- production to be directed by Primo in vain.

Zeglio; the tentative cast featured Silvano Tran-Whereas in the original script the malevo-
quilli (Williams), Ingrid Stern (Susan) and Rob -
lent spirit evoked during the séance turned the ert Hundar (Spike). Scheduled for shooting in
possessed guests into vampires, in the movie it early 162, it eventually fell apart.2 In 164 Co -
lets loose their erotic passions and frustrations, lucci penned another unfilmed Gothic project:

starting with Sylvia’s sadomasochistic fantasies.

L’ombra, a weird mystery about a seemingly su-

Nevertheless, Qualcosa striscia nel buio fails to pernatural murderer unleashed in an old dark
go all the way and turn into a supernatural ver-castle. It was only after the director’s debut, the sion of Pasolini’s Teorema. The ghost of the violent Western Vendetta per vendetta (168, as promiscuous owner of the villa, the late lady

“Ray Calloway”), that La notte dei dannati was Sheila Marlowe (Loredana Nusciak, here ap-exhumed from limbo and became Qualcosa
pearing only in photo, in a modern- day striscia nel buio.

variation of the typical Gothic theme of the Similarly to Contronatura, Colucci’s film
haunted portrait), possesses the guests one by deals with a heterogeneous group of characters one, but this results in a rather tame haunted who are stranded in an old dark house during a house routine, with little or no frissons at all.

storm and take part in a séance which has lethal Colucci assembled a cast of rather presti-consequences for a number of them. Here, gious, if fading, names. At that time Granger
though, the action is set in the present day, and was based in Italy, where he acted among others the story starts like a crime film of sorts, with a in Lo chiamavano Trinità… (171), Rivelazioni
subplot about two detectives who have just cap-di un maniaco sessuale al capo della squadra mo-tured a maniac killer (Farley Granger, looking bile (172, Roberto Bianchi Montero) and Alla
rather lost in denim and leather jacket); what is ricerca del piacere (172, Silvio Amadio), while more, the bickering upper class couple (Lucia
former Miss Italy Bosé, once the star of such

Bosé and Giacomo Rossi Stuart) look and sound
prestigious films as Antonioni’s Cronaca di un like they have just stepped out of some Sixties amore (150) and La signora senza camelie movie on incommunicability, as they keep on

(153), had returned to acting by the end of the teasing and tormenting each other with a bitter-160s after over a decade away from the sets; a ness that hints at a deep conjugal crisis and, on curious presence was Mia Genberg, one of the
the part of the husband, implies the inability to twin Genberg sisters (the other was Pia), satisfy his wife.

Swedish dancers at Paris’ Folies Bergères who

The storm which isolates the main charac-
played together in a number of films in the early ters in the haunted house, functions as a means 160s: Mia then acted alone in several more to cut them away from the present and cause a
films, including Fernando di Leo’s Rose rosse per de facto regression to Gothic’s ancestral past, il Führer (168). However, the shoestring budget

1971: Qualcosa

47
is not only given away by the use of a crude itage of the old 123 Fascist law that listed miniature for the outdoor shots of the villa, but séances as one of the reasons for banning a film by the fact that two key acting roles—a police altogether.

inspector and a enigmatic professor who

Qualcosa striscia nel buio was Colucci’s sec-
delivers such stilted lines as “Do you think death ond film as a director, and his last to be distrib-is the end of everything?” and “Don’t knock on uted theatrically. In 172 he helmed a giallo hell’s door: it might open”—are played respec-based on a true story and characterized by a
tively by producer Dino Fazio and composer
complex flashback structure, L’altro piatto della Angelo Francesco Lavagnino.

bilancia (first announced as Tutta la verità sul Still, Colucci manages to inject some at-caso Izoard) starring Philippe Leroy and Cather-mosphere in the proceedings: the sequence ine Spaak, which was never released theatrically where Giacomo Rossi Stuart speaks with Lady
because of production problems and resurfaced

Sheila’s voice, with the actor’s face eerily pale via only recently, in 2012.

some white stage make- up, is rather effective, as are the subjective shots of the spirit roaming NoTeS
across the corridor and the use of slow- motion 1. Alessio Di Rocco, “Da Dino Buzzati a Mario Colucci,”

during Bosé’s erotic nightmares. What is more, in Misteri d’Italia 5. Nocturno Cinema #131, July / August the ubiquitous presence of clocks, whose ticking 2013.

at a certain point mysteriously

2. The cast also included Herbert Boehme (Wright), stops in synch, is an unsettling
plot element which predates such
films as Evil Dead II and Lucio

Fulci’s La casa nel tempo (18).

All in all, Qualcosa striscia
nel buio keeps in tune with
several of 160s Gothic staples,
such as the indeterminacy of time
and the blending of past and pres-
ent (as in Danza macabra and

Contronatura). The denouement
is suitably abstract and ambigu-
ous, one would say philosophical.

Faced with puzzling events, the
viewer is left powerless just like
the characters, and must take
note, as Professor Lawrence puts
it, that “the past and the present
meet and intertwine, and leave
the unfolding of the truth to the
future,” so that “we are not al-
lowed to know, only to believe or
not believe.”3

Shot from May to July 170,4
the movie was submitted to the
board of censors in January 171
and passed with a V.M.18 rating
after a brief cut was performed in
a scene featuring the caretaker
and his girlfriend in bed. Curi-
ously, among the reasons that jus-
tified the rating was “the climate
of anxiety and fear that lingers in
the unfolding of the story because

Italian poster for Qualcosa striscia nel buio (1971). Art by enrico of spiritualistic practices,” a her-De Seta.

48 1971: Il sesso Alfredo Censi (Donald), Edmea Lisi (Sylvia), Pier Ugo housekeeper Fatma. The previous owner, a French Grignani (Lawrence), Gino Donato (Joe), Dina Ilam sculptress named Claudine, died mysteriously,

(Betty), Franco Santelli (Sam). La notte dei dannati was to hanging herself from a tree, and strange things be financed by Giuseppe Sanna’s company Continentale Compagnia Cinematografica, Bruno Bolognesi’s C.I.F.-
begin to happen, of a seemingly supernatural ori-Consorzio Italuano Film and the German company Film gin. The uneasy relationship between Andrea Kontor. Colucci was to be Zeglio’s asistant director. Ibid.

(who is impotent) and his wife collapses even 3. Similarities have been noticed between Colucci’s film more; meanwhile Sylvia seems to be haunted by
and an obscure novel written by journalist Franco Prattico under the a.k.a. Morton Sidney: Il messaggero bussa alla the spirit of Claudine, and she and Barbara start porta (literally, “The Messenger Knocks at the Door,” al-an ambiguous liaison. Andrea survives attempts though the phony original title is listed in the paperback on his life, and becomes obsessed with an elusive as “Messager [sic] Is Waiting”), published in November art collector, Leonid Oblomov, who seems to know 170 in the series “I racconti di Dracula,” which pays ref-more about Claudine’s death. But the key to the erence to Buzzati’s story from the very title. Given the circumstances surrounding the production of Colucci’s film, mystery is actually Fatma…

the analogies are merely coincidental, but significant to Shot in Istanbul in the summer of 170, Il
show the proximity between pulp literature and genre cin-sesso del diavolo is one of the most obscure ema. Even more evident, in turn, is the influence of Qual-Italian productions of the period, despite the cosa striscia nel buio on the adults only comic Possessione malefica (Oltretomba Gigante #28, September 175), which presence of such well- known actors as Rossano reprises many elements from the movie, starting with the Brazzi and Sylva Koscina. Initially it should have opening chase between the inspector and the serial killer.

been directed by Renato Polselli, who eventually See Davide Rosso, “I sintomi del gotico,” La Zona morta dropped out of the project to make La verità sec-

(http:// www. lazonamorta. it/ lazonamorta2/?p= 17570).

4. Al. Cer. [Alberto Ceretto], “La Bosé e la magia,” Cor-ondo Satana (170). Direction was taken over
riere della Sera, July 27, 170.

by Brazzi’s younger brother Oscar, a longtime
friend of Polselli’s, whose company Chiara Films Il sesso del diavolo—Trittico (Sex of the had just produced the successful made- for-TV

Devil—Triptych)

mystery mini- series Coralba (170) written by D: Oscar Brazzi. S and SC: Sergio Civinini,

Biagio Proietti and directed by Daniele D’Anza.

Paolo Giordano; DOP: Luciano Trasatti (East-

It was thanks to his starring roles in such tele-mancolor); M: Stelvio Cipriani (Ed. C.A.M.); E: vision products as Coralba and Melissa (166,

Attilio Vincioni; PD: Giovanni Fratalocchi; AD: Daniele D’Anza) that the 54-year-old thesp was Jak Şalom; CO: Simonetta Piselli; AC: Giorgio
enjoying a renewed popularity in Italy.

Di Battista; AE: Massimo Rinchiusi; SS: Ornella The script for Il sesso del diavolo (originally Marandola; SO: Bruno Borghi; MU: Renzo
titled Avventura a Istanbul, and signed by the Francioni; Hair: Walter Giangrasso. Cast: Ros -
elusive Sergio Civinini and Paolo Giordano) sano Brazzi (Andrea), Sylva Koscina (Sylvia),
sought to recreate a mood similar to the made-Maitena [Maïténa] Galli (Barbara), Fikret
for-TV mysteries of the period, spiced with Hakan (Omar), Güzin Özipek (Fatma), Aydin
plenty of erotic footage and revolving around a Tezel (Leonid Oblomov), Hülya Şengün, Ali morbid ménage à trois hidden in the past. The

Necati Çakus, Paola Natale, Brizio Montinaro,
theme of sapphic love was no longer a taboo,

Domenico Stefanucci, Franco Romagnoli.

after Alberto Cavallone’s Le salamandre as well PROD: Chiara Films Internazionali (Rome),
as other movies dealing with female homosex-

Tura Film Prodüksiyonlari (Istanbul); PM:

uality, from Mark Rydell’s The Fox (167) to Mario Maestrelli, Erdogan Türkün; GM

Claude Chabrol’s Les biches (168)—which came

(Turkey): Ali Necati Çakus; PSe: Maisie Guakil.

out in Italy with its title maliciously advertised Country: Italy. Filmed on location in Istanbul.

as Lesbiches, a wordplay on the word “lesbiche,”

Running time: 0 minutes (m. 2482), 3 minutes lesbians. In addition to that, the theme of (m. 2560); Visa n. 57444, 57637 (12.2.170; middle- age male crisis was a common topic of

2.10.171); Rating: V.M.14; V.M.18. Release date: the period, and the stories of couples disinte-1.26.171; Distribution: Regional. Domestic gross: grating in exotic settings (Bora Bora had been a 13,607,000 lire.

huge hit in Italy) somehow represented a vul-

A surgeon, Andrea, goes on vacation in Is-
garized drift of the dramas on bourgeois incom-tanbul with his wife Barbara, in the hope of municability, complete with tourist footage, saving their marriage. There they are joined by lounge music and female nudity. Another vari-Andrea’s assistant, Sylvia, and settle down in a ation, akin to the genre, had been Mario villa on the Bosphorus, now managed by the eerie Caiano’s pretentious Love Birds—Una strana

1971: Il sesso

4

Italian fotobusta for Il sesso del diavolo—Trittico (1971).

voglia d’amare, characterized by a symbolic, arrived it seems to me that anything can happen dreamlike feel.

… or has already happened” Andrea’s friend

What makes Il sesso del diavolo worth qual-

Omar says), a Domus mortis (House of Death)

ifying as a Gothic, albeit quite a peculiar one, is where people’s destiny no longer depends on
the way the narrative is constructed, with a no-free will, but on the unfathomable ways of fate, table emphasis on the occult and the esoteric. A according to the stars and their influence on hu-vital element to the story is the villa where An-mans. Astrology is a recurring backdrop to the drea (Brazzi) and his friends move, which is still story, which can only marginally be labeled as imbued with the presence of its former dead in-a giallo: as in some of the Gothics made during habitant: a mysterious sculptress, Claudine, the previous decade (Un angelo per Satana, 166, whose memory is worshipped by the sinister

Camillo Mastrocinque), the menace is revealed
housekeeper (the veteran Turkish actress Güzin to be a human conspiracy, but nevertheless the Özipek) and whose works (in particular the characters end up fulfilling the destiny that has stone triptych to which the film’s subtitle refers) been chosen for them, according to their zodiac are scattered in the garden as a memento, a signs and the coffee grounds. In a neat ironic tempting image of the character’s innermost de-touch, the movie ends not just with destiny resires as well as an omen whose meaning they
peating itself (like Claudine, another character cannot grasp. In pure Gothic spirit, art becomes ends up hanged from the same tree), but also
a way to the transcendental, linked to “an with the blooming of a ménage à trois which, as abstral, medianic conception of life,” as one it usually happens in these bourgeois slices of character notes, and paves the way for the theme life, is mutually and silently accepted by all char-of the doppelgänger, as Sylvia (Koscina) seems acters involved.

to be possessed by the spirit of Claudine, to the As expected, Il sesso del diavolo relishes
point that she not only dresses like her, but takes heavily on exotic tourist footage and pleasant on her lesbian inclinations as well.

female nudity, plays heavy with esoteric

The villa becomes a typical Gothic non-
symbols, and doesn’t do much with its confused place, where time seems to be frozen (“Since we mystery plot, but encompasses a campy feel

50 1972: L’amante (including the expected distorted visuals and

Il sesso del diavolo underwent quite a curi-
ominous camera angles) that makes it worth
ous procedure in Italy: it was submitted to the viewing for devotees of Italian bizarre cinema.

board of censors in December 170, in a version The somnolent pacing makes it difficult to watch running 0 minutes, and received a V.M.14 rat-at times, and the unintentionally ridiculous is ing for the lesbian theme, the scene of Brazzi often right around the corner: it is hard not to and Koscina making love on the beach and the
smile when the main theme of Stelvio Cipriani’s grisly surprise ending. Then, a few days after its score, which shamelessly rips off Iron Butterfly’s release, a new version was submitted, running

In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida, pops up. But Brazzi is a

3 minutes and fleshed out with more erotic
slightly more competent director than Polselli, footage: it received a V.M.18 for the scene of and sometimes he just touches the right note:

Brazzi and Galli kissing in the nude under the the opening sequence on the boat to Istanbul,
shower and Andrea’s erotic dream of Barbara
which follows Andrea and Barbara’s efforts to
and Sylvia having sex. It received limited distri-revive their marriage, is suitably compelling. At bution in Italy, so much so that reviews turned times, the result even touches the dreamlike up as late as mid–172: the newspaper Corriere quality of the Jess Franco films shot in Istanbul, della Sera dedicated only a few scathing lines to such as Venus in Furs (168) and Vampyros Les-the “Turkish abominations” of “the last photo -
bos (170). As the middle- aged Andrea, who
novel signed by the Brazzi duo.”1
desperately tries to be manly but whose disas-
trous attempts at marital sex are met with laugh-NoTe
ter by his sensuous wife (the French- born 1. (not signed) “Il sesso del diavolo,” Corriere della Sera, Maïténa Galli), Brazzi is less wooden than usual, June 23, 172.

and Koscina is ravishing. The cast also included the Turkish star Fikret Hakan.

1972

L’amante del demonio (The Devil’s Lover, sel). PROD: Dick Randall for Nova International a.k.a. Lucifera: Demonlover)

Films; EP: Harry Cushing; AP: Harold Vander;

D: Paolo Lombardo. SC: Paolo Lombardo;

PM: Salvatore Miglio; GM: Cesare Seritti; UM:

DOP: Antonino Modica (Eastmancolor, Tele-

Ugo Porcelli; PSe: Romeo Corpetti. Country:

color); M: Elvio Monti (Ed. Bixio Sam); E: Italy. Filmed at Castle Ruspoli in Vignanello

Francesco Bertuccioli; PD, ArtD: Giovanni Frat-

(Viterbo) and at S.C.O. Studios (Rome). Running alocchi; MU: Maria Mastrocinque, Lucia La time: 7 minutes (m. 2161). Visa n. 5307 (11.2.

Porta; Hair: Dora Bruno; AD: Marco Masi; APD:

171); Rating: V.M.18. Release date: 1.26.172; Dis-Marco Kamm; SO: Remo Ugolinelli; SE: Sergio
tribution: Regional. Domestic gross: 75,3,000

Chiusi, Basilio Patrizi; C: Aldo Ricci; AC: Aldo lire. Also known as: La amante del demonio Marchiori; W: Renata Renzi; SS: Isabella Piga; (Spain).

SP: Sandro Borni. Cast: Edmund Purdom (Gun-

The present. Helga and her two friends ar -
ther / The Devil), Rosalba Neri (Helga), Spar -
rive at Castle Hornberg, a 16th century manor
taco Conversi (Johan), Francesca Lionti (Eva), which is believed to be inhabited by the Devil. The Carla Mancini (Woman in tavern), Maria Teresa
three girls are welcomed by a sinister butler and Pietrangeli [Maria Teresa Pingitore] (Magda),
spend the night at the castle. Helga falls into a Massimiliano Roy (Christine’s beau), Maria deep sleep. She wakes up centuries earlier, on the Vianello (Wilma), Bruna Olivieri (Christine),
eve of her wedding with Hans. When donning her Giovanna Di Vita [Bruna Antonia Di Vita] (1st
wedding dress, Helga notices a red- hooded figure cave inhabitant), Laura De Benedittis (2nd cave spying on her from behind a window, which ac-inhabitant), Robert Wood [Robert Woods] (Hel-
cording to tradition is bad luck. Meanwhile, mut), Ferdinando Poggi (Knight), John Benedy

Magda, a young girl in love with Hans, asks Hel-

[Giovanni Di Benedittis] (Butler), Lella Catta -
mut to help her ruin Helga’s reputation: he obliges, neo (Old Hag); uncredited: Veronica Sava (Dam -
but demands to make love to Magda in return.

1972: L’amante

51

Helga’s damsels, Eva and Wilma,
are kidnapped by two demons,
raped and murdered by a female
vampire. Helga goes to an old
witch, in an attempt to escape
from bad luck, but the hag gives
her to the hooded figure, Gun -
ther, who turns out to be the

Devil. Helga, now in the devil’s
power, agrees to kill Hans on her
wedding night. Then she tortures

Magda, who has discovered the
murder, and rips out her tongue.

But the devil ultimately gives

Helga to the crowd and she is ex-
ecuted. Helga wakes up: it has all
been a dream. She and her friends
leave the castle, watched by the
butler and his master: the devil.

One of the most obscure

Italian Gothic horror films of
the decade, L’amante del demo -
nio is a blatant example of how
the Gothic clichés were re-
worked in the early- to-mid

170s with a copious amount of
eroticism to please the audience,
resulting in a work that is closer
in spirit to the adults- only pa-
perback comics of the period,
such as Ediperiodici’s Lucifera,
centered on a female succubus
whose aim is to practice evil and
fight good.

Italian poster for L’amante del demonio (1972). Art by Aldo De Ami-The film’s genesis is some-
cis.

what obscure, as is the figure of
the director, Paolo Lombardo, whose filmogra-
he revived the tradition of the French Grand-
phy adds up to three titles overall, the other Guignol—which had first arrived in Italy in being Re Manfredi (162), an obscure adventure 108, thanks to the “Compagnia del Grand film co- directed by Piero Regnoli and starring Guignol” led by Alfredo Sainati and Bella Ken Clark and Moira Orfei, and the spy/crime

Starace—with four one- act dramas staged at hodgepodge Dagli archivi della polizia criminale Rome’s Piper Club, based on popular mystery

(173), itself a patchwork job consisting of scenes and horror stories: Qualcuno viene ad uccidermi featuring Edmund Purdom added to footage

(Sorry, Wrong Number, by Lucille Fletcher), L’al-from Regnoli’s unfinished 167 spy film Carne
lucinante party di Mr. Wu (inspired by the play per l’inferno, featuring Sergio Ciani (a.k.a. Alan Mr. Wu by Harold Owen and Harry Vernon),

Steel) and Gordon Mitchell.1 The opening line

La statua d’argilla (“The Clay Statue,” written by of L’amante del demonio—which states “this Lombardo himself) and Lui! (based on Oscar
film’s story is based on the theatrical play of the Méténier’s famous one- act play, the first to be

‘Grand Guignol’”—helps shed some light on it.

staged at the Paris Théâtre du Grand- Guignol An ex- magistrate with a passion for script -
in 187), starring Pippo Lauricella and Cleofe writing (he co- wrote The Embalmer, a.k.a. Il Del Cile.

mostro di Venezia, 165) and directing, Lom-

Lombardo’s intention—welcomed with
bardo gained a marginal notoriety in 16, when some irony by the press2—was to turn this

52 1972: L’amante revival into a stable stage attraction in Rome, at At one point, Lombardo was even replaced
the Teatro Manzoni, where he planned to revisit by actor Robert Woods—on his first film direct-old Grand Guignol staples and truculent
ing experience. As Woods explained, “Harry

Neapolitan sceneggiate. The plan was ultimately Cushing felt the movie was incomplete and unsuccessful, and led Lombardo to try his for-needed to be improved upon, and that is why I
tunes on the big screen, with the help of movie was hired to ‘finish it.’ Needless to say, it was producer Dick Randall and executive producer
without credit and I did a small part in it as well.

Harry Cushing IV, the latter looking for another The direction I did for Harry was all in and vehicle for his beloved Rosalba Neri after Lady around Rome and I have to admit, other than

Frankenstein. On a personal level, one would say the dailies, I didn’t see the finished project.”5 The that the movie was a triumph, as Neri eventually actor’s words seem to imply that his role was
agreed to marry Cushing in 172.3 Cinematically added later on in the film, and in fact he never speaking, however, the result was not as success-interacts with Neri and her co- star Edmund ful.

Purdom. However, Woods could not do much

L’amante del demonio is a work of mind-
to salvage such an utter disaster: his confronta-boggling amateurishness. Technical errors
tion with the red hooded devil, in a shack that abound, and production values are cheap be -
looks like a leftover from a Western village, is yond belief: the two “demons” wearing cut- rate on a par with the rest.6

Halloween rubber masks are especially jaw-Another sequence which was likely filmed
dropping. Despite shooting the opening scenes
separately (by Randall himself?) is totally unre-at the Castle Ruspoli in Vignanello, near Viterbo lated to the rest. After the grotesque demons

(also seen in Umberto Lenzi’s Zorro contro have abducted Helga’s friends, the two women

Maciste, 163), Lombardo failed to come up with are taken to a cave and raped: there, a lesbian any convincing Gothic atmosphere whatsoever:

scene- cum-orgy follows, until at one point a
most of the film takes place in the countryside blonde, caped woman enters, reveals her spiked and in a couple of shabby interior sets, with such fangs and vampirizes the girls, who turn up incongruous details as cellophane windows and
again vampirized, hand in hand like in a Jean
modern- day floors and furniture. What is more, Rollin film. The vampire woman never appears
surviving prints feature scenes meant to be set again in the story. Such a non sequitur recalls at night that were not tinted in post- production, other Randall- produced films, like Terror! Il which results in unintentionally comical mo-castello delle donne maledette, also featuring Pur-ments of characters exclaiming “It’s so dark!” in dom and starlet Laura De Benedittis. An often
broad daylight. Ultimately the references to overlooked presence in the film is that of Mas-Grand Guignol’s over- the-top violence are re-similiano Roy, who gained minor fame claiming
duced to a stabbing and a tongue ripped out
to be Salvador Dalí’s secret son, and appeared in (offscreen), while the director seems to be more a number of photonovels and films in the 160s preoccupied with the erotic digressions, char-and the early 170s, including the leading role acterized by such lines of dialogue as “You are in Il seme di Caino (172, directed by Marco
too much of a woman in every cell of your body.

Masi), credited as “Roy Milian.”

Your blood flows too hot in your veins. Only a Shot in early 171 (a photonovel version ap-lover such as I, free from any human law, could peared in issue #43 of Cinesex, in July 171), L’agive you that supreme ecstasy your femininity
mante del demonio underwent some trouble
deserves!”

with the censors, due to its blatant erotic Not even the movie’s overall amateur ish -
content: the board demanded that several scenes ness can undermine Rosalba Neri’s fulgid
be cut,7 for a total of 181 metres (about 6 minutes beauty. The actress’ recollection of Lombardo
and 35 seconds), and gave it a V.M.18 rating. The was curious to say the least: “The director, poor film had a marginal theatrical release in Italy in man, just couldn’t stay awake for more than two early 172, but found some notoriety among hours … a poor man with white hair… . Paolo
genre fans during the glorious heyday of local Lombardo looked as if he was near his end, from broadcast television and then in the home video the way he walked and moved around. I think
circuit, where it was distributed on the well-he must have been very ill… ”4 Which is puzzling known AVO Film label. It was released overseas since the director was merely in his forties when to home video, in a terrible- looking, fullscreen he made the movie.

print, on the Mya label as Lucifera: Demon -

1972: Baron 53
lover—a mislead ing title that, willing or not, un-Hummel), Rolf Hädrich (Auctioner), Alfred
derlined its proximity to 170s adults- only comics.

Leone (Man on the Aircraft), Kathy Leone (Woman on the Aircraft), Maurice Poli (Land

NoTeS

Surveyor), Valeria Sabel (Martha Hummel),

Franco Tocci (Baron Blood). PROD: Alfred

1. See Roberto Curti, Italian Crime Filmography 1968–

Leone for Euro America Produzioni Cinema -

1980 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2013), 80.

2. Enrico Morbelli, “Brutto, orripilante, militesente cer-tografiche (Rome), Dieter Geissler Filmproduk-
casi per il ‘Grand Guignol,’” La Stampa, December 2, 16.

tion (Munich). EP: J. Arthur Elliot, Samuel Z.

3. Cushing and Neri got married in a hastily arranged Arkoff; PM: Bruno Frascà. Country: Italy / West ceremony in Baltimore, but the marriage was just as hastily Germany. Filmed in Vienna, Burg Kreu zenstein, ended by the actress in Haiti less than a month later. In his autobiography, Vanderbilt Scion–Memoirs of a Modern Korneuburg (Austria). Running time: 8 minutes Knight- Errant, Cushing claims that he had not seen (m. 2672); U.S. version: 1 minutes; Visa n. 5720

Rosalba Neri since the fourth day of their marriage in 172, (2..172); Rating: V.M.14; Release dates: 2.25.

but Getty Images does have a photograph in their photo 172 (Italy), 10.27.172 (U.S.A.); Distribu tion: library of Harry and Rosalba sitting in their swimming Jumbo Cinematografica (Italy), American In-costumes back to back under a sun umbrella at the very glamorous Il Pellicano Hotel in Porto Ercole, Tuscany, in ternational Pictures (U.S.A.); Domestic gross: 173. Cushing—who had already been married two times, 26,812,000 lire. Also known as: Baron Vampire with Georgette Windsor and Ruth Dunbar Swift—got mar-

(France); Orgía de sangre (Spain); A Câmara de ried a fourth time, with Laura Alvarez, ending with yet an-Torturas do Barão Sangrento (Portugal); Barão
other divorce. A passionate polo player since youth, he founded the Rome Polo Club. After thirty years of living Sanguinário (Brazil); The Torture Chamber of
in Rome, in 185 he returned in America and spent his last Baron Blood (U.S.A.—home video).

years in Manhattan, where he died in 2000.

Peter Von Kleist returns to Austria to re-

4. Gomarasca and Pulici, 99 donne, 178.

search his ancestor, a sadistic baron who ter ror -

5. Email interview with the author, March 2015.

ized the area with his gruesome practices and

6. For his part, though, assistant director Marco Masi (who does not recall anything else about the shooting) is eventually met a horrible end at the hand of his adamant that Woods did not do any directing on the film.

victims. Peter owns a parchment which contains Phone interview with Marco Masi, December 2016.

a curse that is said to have the effect of reviving 7. Namely: “1) Helmut and Magda in bed, from the mothe baron. The young man, who is staying at his ment where she turns back to the end of the scene; 2) The cave scene from the close- ups of two witches to the uncle, professor Karl Hummer’s place, befriends entrance of the female vampire; 3) Gunther and Helga at young architect Eva Arnold, and together they re-the end of the sequence where they make love behind the cite the magic formula, at night, in one of the cas-flame, to the end of the lovemaking scene… ”

tle’s rooms. The baron returns from the grave and kills three men, including the castle’s current Baron Blood, a.k.a Gli orrori del cas tello di owner, who was planning to turn the manor into Norimberga
a hotel. The castle is put on auction and bought D: Mario Bava. S: Vincent G. Fotre; SC:

by a mysterious paralytic, Alfred Becker. Eva is Vincent G. Fotre, Willibald Eser, Mario Bava
attacked by the disfigured baron but escapes.

[U.S. version: Vincent Fotre, William A. Bairn]; Hummer asks the help of a psychic, Christina

DOP: Antonio Rinaldi (Technicolor); M: Stelvio Hoffmann, to get rid of the malevolent ghost, but Cipriani [U.S. version: Les Baxter]; E: Carlo to no avail, and the woman is killed too. Becker Reali; ArtD: Enzo Bulgarelli; CO: uncredited;
invites Peter, Eva and Karl to the inauguration of MU: Silvana Petri; Hair: Rossana Gigante; the castle, which he just restored. There, he reveals MUFX: Carlo Rambaldi; AD: Lamberto Bava;
himself to be the baron reincarnated: he imprisons C: Emilio Varriano. SE: Franco Tocci; C: Emilio and tortures his guests, but Eva manages to de-Varriano. Cast: Joseph Cotten (Baron Otto von
stroy him by way of an amulet that revives Von Kleist / Alfred Becker), Elke Sommer (Eva Kleist’s victims…

Arnold), Massimo Girotti (Dr. Karl Hummel),

Ninteen seventy-one had marked the re-

Antonio Cantafora (Peter Kleist), Alan Collins lease of one of Bava’s most extreme and personal

[Luciano Pigozzi] (Fritz), Humi [Umberto]

films, Reazione a catena, a gory thriller whose Raho (Inspector), Rada Rassimov (Christina
plot structure would prove influential to the Hoffmann), Dieter Tressler (Mayor Dort -

American slasher film of the following decade.

mundt); uncredited: Pilar Castel (Madeleine, the Still, the movie’s surprising critical success did Doctor’s Assistant), Gustavo De Nardo (Dr.

not turn into encouraging box- office results with Werner Hessler), Nicoletta Elmi (Gretchen
a disappoint ing 88 million lire grossed in Italy.

54 1972: Baron The director’s next work, Baron Blood, filmed in Quante volte … quella notte, Bava filmed a sim-the fall of 171, was a return to safer territory: ple, down- to-earth horror story which relied on teaming up with producer Alfred Leone, after
well- tested Gothic clichés: a product easy to sell the unfortunate experience of the yet- unreleased abroad (and in fact it was picked up by A.I.P. in the U.S., and submitted to the usual

“treatment,” with Stelvio Cipriani’s
score replaced by a Les Baxter one
and a number of trimmings which
resulted in a version approximately
seven and a half minutes shorter
than the European cut1) and likely
to please everyone.

The script, by former tennis
player Vincent Fotre, has a preado-
lescent, almost Disney- like quality:

the supernatural is reduced to its
primordial core, in the story of the
cruel baron who returns from the
grave to resume his deeds, amid an-
cestral formulas and family curses.

Not coincidentally, Baron Blood—
released in Italy as Gli orrori del
castello di Norimberga, even though
the story takes place in Austria and
not in Germany: the title alluded to
the “Virgin of Nuremberg” which
appears among the Baron’s torture
instruments and was featured in the
posters—was one of the few Italian
horror movies of the decade to be
given a mild V.M.14 rating. Inciden-
tally, tamer versions of the murder
scenes were shot for television.

Baron Blood bears no trace of
the sinful and lethal females that
populate the Gothics of the period.

The menace is embodied by a male
figure, a senile villain who is
scarcely interested in the heroine’s
body, and even though the female
lead wears a miniskirt from begin-
ning to end, there are no erotic di-
gressions: the romance subplot be-
tween Eva (Elke Sommer) and Peter

(Antonio Cantafora) remains at the
level of the frivolous Hollywood
comedies of the past decades.

In his reincarnation as the
seemingly crippled Alfred Becker,
the baron has fun scaring his poten-
tial victims like a carnival barker
with the unlucky walking around in

Italian locandina for Mario Bava’s Gli orrori del castello di the funhouse: he presses a button

Norimberga (1972). Art by Piero er manno Iaia.

and has pre- recorded screams of

1972: Baron 55
terror and pain echo all over the castle,2 and dec-its primigenial essence, and Bava’s sardonic dis-orates the battlements with corpses that look
tance. On the one hand, the director rigorously like macabre puppets. In a way, it is the same separates the good from the bad, and gives away self- satisfied showman’s habit that Bava displays the villain’s “surprise” identity from his very first behind the camera, playing with the audience
appearance: even the most naive viewers will re-with amiable nastiness. Baron Blood is the one alize that Baron Blood has reincarnated in the among his works that is closer to William Cas -
elderly, wheelchair- bound Alfred Becker long tle’s jokey horror movies, such as The House on before the main characters do, and it takes a little Haunted Hill (15), to the point that some gim-girl to point out the obvious to them. Leone
micks, like those Castle toyed with to sell a few originally got in touch with Vincent Price and extra tickets, wouldn’t have been out of place Ray Milland for the title role, but Joseph Cotten here.

hams it up with gusto, and relishes his lines so Such a pragmatic, literal approach to the
much that he almost winks to the audience at

Fantastic conveys an irreverent attitude, which every scene he is in. On the other hand, Bava
never becomes an explicit, postmodernist nod.

turns the ever- present Luciano Pigozzi in a gig-Irony is mostly implied in the contemporary set-gling caricature as Fritz the guardian, who does ting, because Bava allows the discrepancies and not have a single line in the movie, and whose the perplexities to come to the fore, by juxtapos-performance consists merely in sneers and ro-
ing a legendary and truculent past on one hand, tating pupils: he is the typical stupid and de-and a concrete and indifferent present on the
mented servant, who in a scene even stages a
other, just like that Coca- Cola vending machine gag similar as Igor’s (Marty Feldman) in Young that is incongruously placed in the manor’s Frankenstein, when Fritz’s grinning, plump face stairs, and which becomes the background for
pops up at the end of a row of skulls in a crypt, a murder scene: incidentally, the victim is Dort-scaring the impressionable Eva.

mund (Dieter Tressler), the entrepreneur who

The preteen mood with which Bava revisits
is planning to turn the castle into a hotel (shades the Gothic stereotypes is underlined by the role of Tempi duri per i vampiri). In a sense, the of primary importance given to a little girl. Ital-Baron is also protecting the environment from
ian horror would soon follow the thread
the invasive shadow of modernity: in some launched by The Exorcist with a plethora of ways, the castle in Baron Blood can be seen as a crazed, dirty- talking and sexually precocious homologue to the bay in Reazione a catena—
teenagers, whereas Baron Blood makes one step
whose original ending as devised in the script, back to the typical child figure. As Karl Hum-incidentally, underlined the uncompromising
mel’s (Massimo Girotti) little daughter Gretchen, ecologist message.3
the only one able not just to perceive the menace Bava’s view of the present is as detached as
and identify the bloodthirsty Baron, but also to it is disillusioned. It is an era of commodities understand the real meaning of cryptic prophe-and superficiality, as colorful and fatuous as the cies, Nicoletta Elmi—soon to become one of the people that inhabit it: the two protagonists laugh symbolic faces of Italian horror movies—brings about past horrors, and when dealing with a for-the tale back to a fairytale dimension: see the mula that must not be recited, they don’t resist scene where the Baron pursues Gretchen in the
and do exactly the opposite—not once, but woods, like a true fairytale ogre. Despite Elmi’s twice—to see the effects. Like in La maschera
subtly disturbing features, the result is as de-del demonio, the new generations pale before the tached from Operazione paura’s nods to Henry
mythical image of their ancestors, but their at-James’ work as it is from Shock’s Oedipal under-titude toward the past is very different: whereas tones. Similarly, the insistent use of wide- angle Katia was oppressed by Asa’s memory, the hand-shots and extreme depth of field, which results some but insignificant Peter, the last in the von in the characters looking dwarfed in the castle’s Kleist family line, investigates his ancestor’s grim halls, seems to recreate the point of view of a history with the hollow excitement of someone
child, to whose eyes everything seems unrealis-who does not care about the moral weight of
tically huge.

family roots.

The film is so down- to-earth that even the

The charm of Baron Blood lies in the con-
sudden jumps from night to day no longer open
stant oscillation between the homage to a clas-those glimmers of uncertainty that characterized sical Gothic that is now impossible to retain in its predecessors, and the story’s blatant incon-

56 1972: Baron sistencies (how is the seemingly crippled Becker effect is no more of an alluring beauty being per-supposed to move far and wide through the cas-
versely disfigured, but only a grim comeuppance tle with no one assisting him?) are accepted by for a minor, forgettable character.

the protagonists without posing too many prob-

Similarly, the murder of the doctor (Gus-
lems. And for the most part of the movie, Bava tavo De Nardo) is another set piece filled with seems content to draw from his own past, not
black humor, as the evil Baron, soon after re-
in a bout of postmodernist whim, but as a way
turning from the grave, knocks at the doctor’s to do his job as efficiently as possible. Hence, door for a first aid intervention, and kills the Baron Blood features some extraordinary cam-good Samaritan for a reward. Here, by recycling erawork: the credited d.o.p. is Antonio Rinaldi, a key image in 6 donne per l’assassino (the phone but according to Leone Bava supervised the cin-swinging off he hook in the film’s final scene) as ematography. Cameraman Emilio Varriano re-an unimportant addition in the doctor’s demise, called the extraordinary difficulty of several according to Bava scholar Alberto Pezzotta, shots, where the use of the zoom lens (with Bava

“Bava does not seem to celebrate himself, but
calculating the various distances) was nothing rather to diminish his own past. The self-short of virtuosic. “There is a long shot, with the reference creates a familiar air, it plays things zoom lens wide open, of two actors walking to-down.”5
ward the camera, and little by little the zoom However, there is a point where the story
closes in, and ends on a close up of a hand of falls apart, and Bava indulges in those abstract somebody who is putting out a cigarette just a and anti- narrative temptations that had found few feet away from the camera, as close as the ample outlet in 5 bambole per la luna d’agosto zoom would allow. This person lifts his hand

(170) as a reaction to an anodyne plot, and and we see his face, and at that point we recog-which in Reazione a catena had admirably
nize who was the person watching the other two.

welded to the narration instead. It is not, as The difficulty was to determine the exact point some might think, the celebrated sequence of arrival of the zoom, because if you start with where Eva is pursued by the Baron through the
a long shot and close in little by little on the ash-city’s deserted streets, amid multicolored fogs tray, you have to create your landmark as you
and bizarre camera angles, an amiable homage
go along, or else you’ll end up zooming in on
to House of Wax whose abstractness is part of
the feet!”4
the above- mentioned funhouse attitude; but,

In addition to the homages to classic horror
rather, the scene where the psychic Christina
cinema—from Jacques Tourneur’s The Leopard

Hoffmann (Rada Rassimov) evokes the spirit of

Man to André De Toth’s House of Wax—Bava
a witch who fell victim to the Baron. It takes reworked a number of scenes from his previous
place at sunset, in the woods, and Bava manages films: the Baron’s resurrection is culled from Er-to capture the magic suggestions he already cole al centro della terra (161), the detail of the touched in Operazione paura through the char-oscillating phone in the doctor’s murder recalls acter played by Fabienne Dali. In this scene,

6 donne per l’assassino, and Fritz’s supplice is Baron Blood’s manneristic adherence to classical culled from La maschera del demonio. Like other Gothic gives way to an original reinterpretation, filmmakers who were treading water after a pe-entrusted exclusively to visual suggestion. The riod of splendor—such as Riccardo Freda, to

Fantastic manifests itself through a creative use name one—Bava’s resort to his previous work
of shots, with the passage from out- of-focus to was some kind of pragmatic safety net; but by
focus and vice versa, the objects’ definition or doing what he knew best, revisiting tricks and their dissolution in abstract shapes, rather than images of his own filmic past, the director also through camera movements or the use of light-added his trademark ironic distance. Having
ing. It is perhaps the only moment in the film Fritz undergo the same horrible fate as Asa de-where Bava really attempts to escape from the
tracts any disturbing halo to the scene: instead routine of an enjoyable yet minor work. And it of Barbara Steele’s beautiful features, it is the is telling that, after the good commercial foreign grotesque- looking Luciano Pigozzi who has his sales of Baron Blood (which on the other hand
face punctured by the lethal needles, with the did mediocre business in Italy), he would work same shot, counter shot routine as in the direc-again for Leone on a much more personal proj-
tor’s debut, with the POV shot of the victim ect, which, sad to say, became one of his most watching the torture instrument approach. The
bitter failures: Lisa e il diavolo.

1972: Un bianco

57

NoTeS

(Rome). PM: Armando Bertuccioli; PS: Antonio

Palumbo. Country: Italy. Filmed at Palazzo 1. For a detailed list of the cuts in the U.S. version, see Lucas, Mario Bava–All the Colors of the Dark, 885–86.

Borghese, Artena (Rome) and Rizzoli Palatino

2. Alberto Pezzotta suggests that the idea of the Baron’s (Rome). Running time: 2 minutes (m. 2525).

peculiar son et lumière show might be taken from Georges Visa n. 61425 (11.17.172); Rating: V.M.18. Release Franju’s Pleins feux sur l’assassin (161). Reportedly, Bava dates: 11.30.172 (Italy), 4.10.175 (France); Dis-knew and admired Franju’s work. Alberto Pezzotta, Mario Bava (Milan: Il Castoro Cinema (15) 2013), 115. Inciden-tribution: Regional. Domestic gross: 64,564,000
tally, the castle where Baron Blood was shot is the same as lire. Home video: Camera Obscura (Blu-ray, Gerin Adrian Hoven’s Im Schloß der blutigen Begierde (168) and Freddie Francis’ Gebissen wird nur
nachts—das Happening der Vampire (171).

3. The script of Reazione a catena kept at Rome’s CSC features an ending, never shot or edited, where the two kids add a line with fresh paint to the sign “LA BAIA” (The Bay), which in the end becomes “LA BAIA È DI TUTTI” (The

Bay Belongs to Everyone). See Pezzotta, Mario

Bava, 108.

4. Emilio Varriano, quoted in Manlio Go-
marasca and Davide Pulici, “Il talento di Mr.

Bava,” in Manlio Gomarasca and Davide Pulici

(eds.), Genealogia del delitto. Il cinema di Mario e Lamberto Bava. Nocturno Dossier #24, July 2004, 15.

5. Pezzotta, Mario Bava, 115.

Un bianco vestito per Marialé

(Spirits of Death)

D: Romano Scavolini. S: Giuseppe

Mangione; SC: Giuseppe Mangione,

Remigio Del Grosso; DOP: Romano

Scavolini (Telecolor, Colorscope); M:

Fiorenzo Carpi, conducted by Bruno

Nicolai (Ed. Gemelli); E: Francesco

Bertuccioli; SD: Emiliano Tolve; CO:

Herta Schwarz Scavolini, Angelo Litrico

(Marialé’s white dress); MU: Carlo

Sindici; Hair: Ettore Tarquini, Anna-
maria Ginnoto; AD: Arduino Sacco; C:

Renato Mascagni; AC: Giovanni Can-
farelli Modica; SP: Ettore Papaleo; AE:

Adalberto Ceccarelli; SO: Emilio Pugli -
elli; SP: Ettore Papaleo, Gianni Tatti; KG:

Giulio Diamanti; ChEl: Otello Magalotti;

Mix: Bruno Moreal; Press attache:

Franco Brel. Cast: Evelyn Stewart [Ida

Galli] (Marialé Bellaria / Marialé’s
mother), Luigi Pistilli (Paolo), Ivan Ras-
simov (Massimo), Pilar Velázquez (Mer-
cedes), Edilio Kim (Gustavo), Gengher

Gatti (Osvaldo the butler), Giancarlo

Bonuglia (Jo), Gianni Dei (Marialé’s
mother’s lover), Ezio Marano (Sebas-
tiano), Shawn Robinson (Semy), Franco

Calogero (Marialé’s father), Carla

Mancini (Prostitute), Bruno Boschetti.

Italian locandina for Un bianco vestito per Marialé (1972).

PROD: Franca Luciani for KMG Cinema

Art by Tino Avelli.

58 1972: Un bianco many). Also known as: Exorcisme tragique
cieca announced, albeit in a purely instinctive (France), La orgía de sangre (Spain).

level, the great social and political upheaval that Note: Although credited, Bruno Boschetti
was soon to come in 168. The Italian board of does not appear in the film.

censors did not like it the least bit: the movie Marialé, who as a child saw her father kill
was banned outright for obscenity, a decision
her mother and her lover and then commit sui -
that underlined the committee’s retrograde cide, lives with her husband Paolo in a gloomy mentality. Scavolini fought against the verdict castle. Paolo and the butler keep her segregated and even appealed to the Council of State, but and sedated, and avoid allowing her any contact to no avail. He followed A mosca cieca with more with the outside world. However, Marialé man-experimental, avantgardist works, often cen -
ages to invite several friends to the villa, including tered on political themes, such as the shorts Ecce her former fiancé Massimo. Paolo is forced to re-Homo (167) and LSD (170) and the feature
ceive the guests, but maintains a detached atti -
films Lo stato d’assedio (16) and La prova gen-tude. The visitors find an assortment of bizarrely erale (170, starring Lou Castel and Frank dressed mannequins in the castle’s basement, and Wolff). In 170 he left for Vietnam, as a freelance set up a costume party which turns into a drunken photographer: he was wounded and reported
orgy. Then a mysterious murderer starts killing missing. His return to Italy marked Scavolini’s them one by one, in many different ways—stran-descent in the realm of genre moviemaking.

gled, slaughtered with a hammer, drowned in the Un bianco vestito per Marialé was by no
pool, devoured by dogs, slashed by a razor. Even-means a personal project, but rather a forced
tually Paolo, Massimo and Marialé are left alive, move in order to survive: the director himself and the mystery is unveiled…

labeled it as “a film which deserves only to be Although his name is known by English-forgotten.”2 Still, it is an interesting work, which language film buffs mainly in association with helps understand how genre labels put on Italian the infamous gory psycho thriller Nightmare (a.

movies of the period are often approximations
k. a. Nightmares in a Damaged Brain, 181), Ro-that do not reflect the film’s core. Often de -
mano Scavolini’s career is much more varied and scribed as a giallo, Scavolini’s film does in fact surprising than one would imagine. Born in turn into a violent murder mystery of sorts only Fiume in 140, Scavolini was a self- taught film-around the hour’s mark, but the giallo aspects—
maker: at 17 he moved to Germany where he
a few violent murders and a (not-so) surprise
shot his first 16mm film, I devastati, self-twist ending—are definitely marginal, and look financed with the money he earned working at
more like a bow to the audience, at a time when the docks; back to Italy, he directed a number Argento- inspired gialli were the rule, than an of short films and documentaries and made his
organic aspect of the story. The script, by Giu -
feature film debut in 166, with A mosca cieca.

seppe Mangione and Remigio Del Grosso, mixes

Influenced by such writers as André Gide and
cultured and lowbrow elements, by throwing in

Albert Camus (The Stranger), shot in 16mm and
assorted references and “creative borrowings,”

in black- and-white, it told a story of alienation so to speak, and is more akin to a perverse kam-and existential anguish: a man named Carlo merspiel of sorts, liberally imbued with diverse wanders aimlessly in the streets; he thinks about elements, which range from Gothic to avant-his love story with a girl named Laura and his garde theater. The result is an uneasy mixture conversation with friends; he steals a gun from which gives away the film’s compromise nature.

a parked car and fantasizes about committing

Mangione and Del Grosso insert a number
crimes; eventually he shoots a passer- by.

of Gothic elements into the story. The premise, A mosca cieca was characterized by a free-with the main characters locking themselves in wheeling, experimental style, which departed
a microcosm isolated from the outside world
from traditional narrative coordinates: the plot where they unravel in decadence, brings to mind was thin, with very little dialogue, and a contin-Poe’s short story The Masque of the Red Death
uous interspersing of “reality and unreality, of (but also Sade’s unfinished novel The 120 Days fantasies and memories, of past and present”1
of Sodom). In typical Gothic fashion, the setting which mirrored the psychological condition of
is a timeless castle (actually Palazzo Borghese in the protagonist, and followed the lesson of the Artena, also seen in Freda’s Murder Obsession, French Nouvelle Vague (Godard openly ex-among others): with its crypts and old armors, pressed his admiration for the movie). A mosca it becomes a key presence in the film. The hero-

1972: Un bianco 5
ine, Marialé, looks at first like the typical damsel thor Luigi Pirandello’s favorite themes is further in distress, at the mercy of a possessive and proof of the script’s velleities, which make the seemingly psychotic husband and a sinister but-first half look like some sort of off– Broadway ler (Gengher Gatti, a fleeting presence in horror play with a Message (spelled with a capital M… ) films of the period). A portrait of Marialé’s to deliver. In addition to exploring a gallery of mother, who looks exactly like her (both char-unpleasant types, the writers pay reference to acters are played by the same actress, Ida Galli), contemporaneous issues, such as Third World
hints at the themes of the double and the “return emancipation. “But she learned to walk only yes-of the past,” already introduced by the prologue.

terday!” “Sure. Because people like you have cut The film fleetingly touches other Gothic staples off her legs,” goes a dialogue exchange between such as the uncanny indistinction between an-Jo (Giancarlo Bonuglia) and Massimo (Ivan imate and inanimate, namely in the introduction Ras simov) regarding the former’s Afro-of the butler played by Gengher Gatti, and in

American lover Semy (singer Shawn Robinson,
the scene where Sebastiano (Ezio Marano)

in her only film role), in a nod to one of the pe-seemingly notices his own doppelgänger among
riod’s most quoted literary works, Frantz Fanon’s the mannequins in the basement of Marialé’s

The Wretched of the Earth (the inspiration for castle. What is more, even though the script Alberto Cavallone’s Afrika, 173).

never attempts to suggest a supernatural pres-

In order to further expose this slice of hu-
ence at work, the ending—which bitterly closes manity’s misery, Scavolini even stages a de-the narrative by way of a violent event that is the bauched, blasphemous rendition of the Last exact repetition of a past tragedy we saw in the Supper, with the drunken guests mockingly prologue—marks the inescapability of fate, and quoting lines from the Gospel (and using a roast suggests a circular structure akin to that of other chicken as “the body of Christ”), which openly Italian Gothic horror films of the past and cur-borrows—also visually—from Buñuel’s Viridi -
rent decade, from Danza macabra to L’assassino ana (161). The presence of various animals,
ha riservato nove poltrone.

to which the characters are repeatedly comIn blending the old- style Gothic parapher-
pared in a symbolic way, is another Surrealist nalia with a psychoanalytic exploration of a tor-touch that somehow recalls the work of Marco
tured, paranoic soul, the movie comes closer to Ferreri.

the “Female Gothic” pictures of the decade.

Stylistically, the movie is more refined than

Marialé is the victim of a childhood trauma that most Gothic and gialli of the period. Despite the left an indelible mark on her psyche, and, as film meagre budget, Scavolini (who acts also as di-scholar Kai Naumann correctly points out, “the rector of photography) makes ample use of long interior of the castle mutates into a map of Mar-takes and dolly shots, and tries to avoid the ex-ialé’s soul.”3 The scene in the cellar, where the pected clichés as much as possible. The impres-various guests discover extravagantly dressed
sive opening scene features a number of power-
mannequins (whose costumes they will end up
ful moments: the idyllic sight of the two lovers wearing for a wild party where they let loose
amid an Eden of sorts; the arrival of Marialé’s their vices, neuroses and hidden desires) be-father, elegantly dressed in white, in an old lux-comes a metaphorical descent into the subcon-
ury car; the little girl watching from inside the scious that leads to a dual meaning. To Marialé, vehicle, her hands pressing against the window wearing the titular “white dress” has the effect like Melissa Graps in Operazione paura; the man of bringing to the surface her childhood trauma; proceeding to the lovers’ romantic nest (with
to the others, the masquerade actually becomes the camera following his steps via a backward
an unmasking. It is in their ordinary life that tracking shot on the man’s feet through the they wear masks of respectability, which they
woods); and the ensuing slow- motion death put on again after their true self has been tem-scene à la Sam Peckinpah (complete with full
porarily unleashed—a microcosm which is re-
frontal male nudity by Gianni Dei as the unfor-vealing of the human condition according to
tunate lover).

Scavolini: “They’re pathetic, hypocritical, gut -

Still, Scavolini’s direction (and Fiorenzo
less, jealous and crazy like everybody else,” as Carpi’s score) cannot overcome the script’s many Marialé sums it up.

shortcomings—namely, sketchily developed

The fact that Mangione and Del Grosso
characters, pretentious dialogue, heavy- handed openly hint at one of Nobel Prize–winning au-symbolism. The acting is mediocre overall, with

60 1972: Byleth the partial exception of Luigi Pistilli as the three-part project still in progress, featuring ambiguous, tormented husband, in a role very

John Phillip Law’s last screen appearance.

close to the one he played that same year in Sergio Martino’s Il tuo vizio è una stanza chiusa e NoTeS
solo io ne ho la chiave; Italian genre film fans will 1. Luigi Quaglietti, Cinema 60 #58, April 166, 27–28.

recognize Carla Mancini in one of her rare 2. Luca M. Palmerini, Gaetano Mistretta, Spaghetti speaking roles, as the girl in a miniskirt (possibly Nightmares (Rome: M&P edizioni, 16), 127. The page a prostitute) to whom Ivan Rassimov’s character quote refers to the Italian edition of the book, the only in-asks for direction early on in the film. On top of tegral version approved by the authors.

that, the sudden turn into giallo territory, with 3. Kai Nauman, Blood on a White Dress, essay in the German Blu- ray Un bianco vestito per Marialé.

the expected violent killings (including a murder interspersed with a gratuitous lesbian
seduction scene and a razor slashing which re-

Byleth (il demone dell’incesto) (Byleth—
calls Freda’s Lo spettro), is an ill- fated move, The Demon of Incest)

which undermines the makers’ ambitions and

D: Leopoldo Savona. S and SC: Leopoldo
gives a fatal blow to the fragile balance that sus-Savona; DOP: Giovanni Crisci (Eastmancolor,
tains the film, one of those amazing oddities that Telestampa Italiana); M: Vasil Kojukaroff (Ed.

were not uncommon within the production sys-

Nazionalmusic); E: Otello Colangeli; PD, SD:

tem of the period.

Elio Balletti, Fabrizio Diotallevi; MU: Lucia La With only 64 million lire grossed, Un

Porta; AD: Roberto Giandalia; AC: Antonio bianco vestito per Marialé did poor business in Minutolo; 2ndAC: Antonio Quattrone; CO:

Italy, although it surfaced in France a few years Tigano Lo Faro; AE: Dante Amatucci; Music ed-later under the misleading title Exorcisme trag-itor: F. Achilli; SS: Clara Tamburini. Cast: Mark ique, to cash in on the success of The Exorcist.

Damon (Lionello Shandwell), Claudia Gravy

In 172 Scavolini also tried his hand at pro -

[Marie-Claude Perin] (Barbara), Aldo Bufi
ducing with the offbeat mystery drama Amore

Landi (Giordano), Franco Jamonte (Judge),
e morte nel giardino degli dei, directed by his Tony Denton (Lieutenant), Fernando Cerulli
brother Sauro and starring Erika Blanc, where

(Doctor), Silvana Pompili (Floriana), Caterina he was also the director of photography: it did Chiani (Gisella), Franco Marletta (Dario, the
even worse than Un bianco vestito per Marialé
groom), Antonio Anelli (Don Clemente, the at the box office, with around 38 million. Scav-priest), Carla Mancini, Alessandro Perrella, olini’s following works were an odd bunch.

Bruna Baini [Beani] (Dolores, the first victim), Cuore (173) was an adaptation of the epony-Florian Endlicher (Dolores’s lover), Karin mous, tearjerking novel by Edmondo De Amicis

Lorson (Dolores—additional sex scene). PROD:

set during Italian unification and characterized Agata Films (Rome); PM: Marino Vaccà; PS: Ste-by its reliance on patriotic themes, whereas fania Garratoni, Eolo Capritti; UM: Maurizio

Servo suo (173) was a weird thriller about a pro-Pastrovich. Country: Italy. Filmed in Borgo del fessor (Chris Avram) who becomes a hitman for

Sasso, Cerveteri (Rome), Manziana (Rome) and
the Mafia, which reprised one of the director’s at Elios Film Studios (Rome). Running time: 5
favorite themes, violence as an inescapable minutes (m. 255); Visa n. 60243 (4.26.172);
human condition.

Rating: V.M.18. Release date: 5.31.172; Distribu-After a period spent traveling in Central
tion: Panta Cinematografica. Domestic gross: un-and South America, Scavolini relocated to the
known. Also known as: Les démons sexuels United States in 176, where he took various jobs (France), Trio der Lust (West Germany, 81 min-to make ends meet before returning to directing.

utes; 10.7.175).

He helmed the action thriller Savage Hunt Italy, mid–19th century. The young duke Lio -

(180), the infamous Nightmare and the war nello welcomes to the family castle his sister Bar-movie Dogtags (187), inspired by his own vi-
bara, who has returned from England: the two
cissitudes in Vietnam, followed by a long inac-siblings share a morbid affection since they were tivity. He returned behind the camera with Us-kids, and Lionello is devoured by jealousy when tica: una spina nel cuore (2001), followed by the he learns that Barbara has married a mature no-documentary Le ultime ore del Che (2004) and
bleman, Giordano. Meanwhile, two mysterious
the gangster film Two Families (2007). In 2005
murders upset the area: a prostitute and Lionello’s he started shooting L’apocalisse delle scimmie, a maid Gisella are viciously killed, stabbed in the

1972: Byleth

61
neck with a three- blade knife. After discovering L’ultima carica (164), the kind of old- style ad-Lionello and Barbara intent on swearing mutual venture stories that audiences were quickly fidelity with a blood ceremony, Giordano tries to growing tired of. Savona was also the man be-cure the duke from his incestuous love by inviting hind the directorial chair for Helmut il solitario, to the castle his young and beautiful cousin Flo-which was halted and eventually taken over by
riana. Unfortunately the woman is murdered as

Mario Bava and became I coltelli del vendicatore well. An elderly priest, expert in demonology, con-

(166). The reminder of his nondescript career firms Giordano’s suspicions of Lionello, and sug-saw him jump on the Spaghetti Western band-
gests that the man may be a succubus of the wagon, starting with the bizarre El rojo (166), demon Byleth, who appears in the guise of a starring Richard Harrison.

black- dressed rider on a white horse and pushes After a handful of Westerns came Byleth,
his victims to murder and incest. Giordano purthe first of two sui generis Gothic yarns which sues his brother- in-law, who has taken refuge in were heavily influenced by the changing cur -
the ruins of an old village, and shoots him, but is rents in Italian cinema and popular culture. The killed by Byleth. The wounded Lionello returns script (by the director and the elusive “Norbert home, and he and Barbara
make love. Then Byleth com-
mands him to kill his sister,
but Lionello refuses, and the
demon kills him.

Although he had actu-
ally debuted behind the
camera with the swash-
buckler Il principe dalla
maschera rossa (155), star-
ring Frank Latimore and

Yvonne Furneaux, Leo -
poldo Savona (113–2000)

worked throughout the

Fifties and the early Sixties
mostly as assistant to such
renowned directors as Luigi

Zampa (Anni facili, 157),

Giuseppe De Santis (Uomini
e lupi, 157), Riccardo Freda

(Agi Murad—Il diavolo
bianco, 15), and Pier

Paolo Pasolini (on Accat-
tone, 161), besides occa-
sionally appearing as an
actor. His directorial career
was nowhere nearly as dis-
tinguished as those famous
names would make one
think, though: on I mongoli

(161) he was credited
alongside André De Toth,
but most of the film was ac-
tually shot by Riccardo

Freda, and Savona’s output
in the early- to-mid-’60s
comprised such non de -

Italian poster for Byleth (il demone dell’incesto) (1972). Art by Mario Pio-script fare as La leggenda
vano / Studio Paradiso. The same image was reused with slight alter-di Fra Diavolo (162) and
ations for the poster of Il sesso della strega (1973).

62 1972: La dama Blake”) stitches together a number of heteroge-suit of Lionello on horseback in an abandoned
neous elements: despite Gustave Doré’s itchings village, where the director’s past in Westerns for Dante’s Inferno under the opening credits, comes to the fore, whereas the climax—with

Savona borrows the figure of the demon Beleth

Byleth appearing to Lionello in the house’s mir-from the 16th century treaty Pseudo monarchia
rors, riding his horse—is badly rushed. As the Daemonum. Unlike the English setting of the
obsessed Lionello, Mark Damon gives one of the films made during the previous decade, the story worst performances in the history of Italian hor-takes place in Italy, and recalls the popular ror, constantly wide- eyed, his forehead beaded novels by Carolina Invernizio and the like rather with sweat and his shirt open to show his macho than the British Gothic horror stories; for one hairy chest; in his incarnation as Byleth he is thing, it has a heavy emphasis on melodrama
constantly replaced by a double except in the
and peculiar period details: a police officer very last scene. The Belgian Congo–born (and
blames the Carbonari revolutionary society, naturalized Spanish) Claudia Gravy (seen in which struggled for Italian independence, for

Jorge Grau’s Acteon, 167, and Jess Franco’s 99
the murders. On the other hand, the incestuous Women, among others) fares no better, while the relationship between the young duke Lionello
veteran Neapolitan actor Aldo Bufi Landi is and his sister possibly draws from John Ford’s sympathetic as the doomed Giordano, and even
tragedy ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, adapted just a gets to show his fencing skills in a duel scene few months earlier by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi
that seems one of the few moments that actually (Addio fratello crudele, 171). On top of that, the benefitted from attentive direction on the part sequences in which Lionello slaughters young
of Savona. The cast also features Silvana Pompili, naked women are shot through the killer’s sub-Mirella Pamphili’s sister and a recurring pres -
jective shots and look like something out of a ence in many TV movies and mini- series.

low- budget giallo, with plenty of hand- held The Italian board of censors gave Byleth a
camera shots, distorted wide angles and black-V.M.18 rating but demanded no cuts. However,
gloved hands. The result is closer in tone to the the film was distributed in Germany, as Trio der adults- only comics of the period, which bor-Lust, in a significantly different version from the rowed the horror and Gothic setting as an one released in Italian cinemas: apart from being excuse to depict nudity and sadism.

several minutes shorter, and doing away with

The most interesting aspect of the story is
expository and dialogue scenes, it features a dif-its ultimate ambiguity: is Lionello really posferent editing in parts and more explicit sex sessed by the demon Byleth, as a Catholic priest scenes, with plenty of full frontal female nudity: claims, or is he just the victim of a schizophrenic among the actresses stripping off for the camera split personality that has him identify with a su-is Caterina Chiani, later to be known as Marzia pernatural entity in order to vent his violent in-Damon (an a.k.a. adopted as a homage to the
stincts—that is, the unhealthy love for his sister American actor), one of the more generous and his impotence with other women? Sadly, the starlets of Italian softcore cinema of the 170s.

psychological element is confusingly developed, The German DVD on the X- rated label features and apart from the emphasis on nudity (with all the shorter, German version, as does the Italian the victims dispatched in bed, just after sex), one.

there is little to recommend in Byleth. The plot Savona’s next film was another Gothic/gi-is muddled and slow- moving, and the low allo hybrid, the little- seen La morte scende leg-budget is patent: most of the film takes place in gera.

and around Lionello’s castle (the baronal palace in Borgo del Sasso, in Cerveteri1), but unlike the NoTe
black- and-white Gothics of the 160s the result 1. The palace can also be spotted in Mario Bianchi’s is far from stylish, and a society ball sequence Biancaneve & Co. (182). Another prominent location in ends up looking like a fourth- grade rip- off of the film is the Macchia Grande woods in Manziana, near Visconti’s celebrated scenes in Senso (154) and Rome.

Il gattopardo (163).

Savona’s direction is characterized by per-

La dama rossa uccide sette volte (The
functory, time- saving long takes ridden with Red Queen Kills 7 Times)

zooms, and rarely comes out with anything in-

D: Emilio P. Miraglia. S: Fabio Pittorru; SC:

teresting. The best bit is possibly Giordano’s pur-Fabio Pittorru, Emilio P. Miraglia; DOP: Alberto

1972: La dama

63

Spagnoli (Technicolor, Cromoscope); M: Bruno
comes involved in a series of horrible murders.

Nicolai, conducted by the author (Ed. C.A.M.-

The perpetrator appears to be a young woman

CIDIAS); E: Romeo Ciatti; ArtD, CO: Lorenzo
with a black cape who looks just like the “Red Baraldi; MU: Giulio Natalucci; Hair: Iolanda

Dame,” and all the victims are related to the fash-Conti; C: Franco Bruni; AC: Cesare Venturini;
ion house. Ketty, haunted by guilt for having AE: Gabriele Ingafú; APD: Ignazio Sig-noriello; SO: Fiorenzo Magli, Umberto

Picistrelli; SS: Graziella Marsetti. Cast:

Barbara Bouchet (Ketty Wildenbrück),

Ugo Pagliai (Martin Hoffmann), Ma-
rina Malfatti (Franziska Wildenbrück),

Marino Masé (Police Inspector Toller),

Maria Pia Giancaro (Rosemary

Müller), Sybil Danning (Lulu Palm),

Nino Korda (Herbert Zieler), Fabrizio

Moresco (Peter), Rudolf Schindler

[Schündler] (Tobias Wildenbrück),

Maria Antonietta Guido, Carla Man -
cini, Bruno Bertocci (Hans Meier,

Spring Director); uncredited: Sisto

Brunetti (Policeman), Dolores Calò

(Dress-Fitter at Fashion House), Ne-
store Cavaricci (Policeman), Alfonso

Giganti (Fashion Studio Boss). PROD:

Phoenix Cinematografica (Rome), Ro-
mano Film G.M.B.H. (Munich), Traian

Boeru (Munich); PM: Elio di Pietro;

PSe: Giu seppe Bruno Bossio; PSeA:

Michele Figazzaro, Sandro Testa. Coun-
try: Italy / West Germany. Filmed in

Rome and Würzburg (Germany) and
at Safa Palatino Studios (Rome), Run-
ning time: 8 minutes (m. 2668). Visa
n. 6077 (8.2.172); Rating: V.M.14. Re-
lease date: 8.18.172; Distribution:

Cineriz. Domestic gross: 513,725,000
lire. Also known as: The Corpse Which

Didn’t Want To Die; The Lady in Red

Kills Seven Times; Feast of Flesh

(U.S.A.); Die Rote Dame; Horror House

(Germany); La dama rosa mata siete
veces (Spain; 3.4.174); La dame rouge
tua 7 fois (France); La dama de la capa
roja (Mexico; 8.18.173).

Bavaria. The elderly Tobias Wil -
denbrück reveals to his granddaughters

Ketty and Eveline that their family holds
a terrible curse: every 100 years the ghost
of the “Red Dame” returns from the
grave and kills 7 people, to take revenge
on her rival sister (and murderer), the

“Black Dame,” who will be her final vic-

Italian locandina for emilio Miraglia’s second giallo/Gothic tim. Several years later, Ketty—now a
hybrid, La dama rossa uccide sette volte (1972). Art by Man-photographer at a fashion house—be-
fredo Acerbo.

64 1972: La dama unintentionally killed Eveline, believes that her The murders are suitably nasty, includ-sister has returned from the grave to take her re-ing an unexpected stabbing (as the Red Queen
venge; despite her cousin Franziska’s help in con-pops up from the right edge of the screen in
cealing Eveline’s murder, Ketty is persecuted by the Hans’ murder) and a scene where a man is latter’s drug addict boyfriend Peter. Ketty’s lover dragged to death by a car that predates Profondo Martin—whose demented wife was one of the vic-rosso. Even better, however, is a nightmare setims and who is consequently one of the prime
quence which features the Red Queen running
suspects—investigates, and finds out that som -
toward the sleepy Barbara Bouchet across an ap-eone has put up a diabolical plan against Ketty…

parently endless corridor, a truly unsettling mo-Emilio Miraglia’s second giallo in a row,
ment that provides the movie’s most memorable
again scripted by Fabio Pittorru, blends who-
image. For over an hour, the story flows dunit and the Gothic in a similar manner as La smoothly and endlessly enjoyable, thanks also
notte che Evelyn uscì dalla tomba, and with even to Bruno Nicolai’s first- rate score, but when the more emphasis on the allegedly supernatural
time comes to pull the strings of the plot, im-angle. The prologue contains all the elements of plausibilities and incongruities pop up, once
the customary ghost story: an old castle, a again stressing that logic was not one of gialli’s gloomy portrait, a centuries- old family curse main strengths.

which is doomed to repeat over and over. All

Just like in La notte che Evelyn uscì dalla
this is then transferred into the colorful, swingin’

tomba, Miraglia gives plenty of room to the 170s Bavaria, amid photoshoots and fashion
erotic factor. The cast features striking examples houses, miniskirts and sexy outfits (courtesy of of pulchritude on the part of the likes of Barbara stylist Mila Schön), astonishing wallpapers and Bouchet, Marina Malfatti, Sybil Danning and
enough J&B in sight to drown a whole city. It is Maria Pia Giancaro, most providing nude
a pop approach to the genre compared with the
scenes: Bouchet’s rape is actually more risqué in austere black- and-white of the previous decade, the film’s trailer, where the actress’ pubic hair is and it employs (naked) bodies, lava lamps and
briefly glimpsed. Danning—who in the same
design objects with the same relish as its pred-year appeared also in the giallo, L’occhio nel labir-ecessors did with period clothes, chandeliers
into (172, Mario Caiano) and in Bluebeard and dusty crypts.

(172, Edward Dmytryk)—has an especially

Fabio Pittorru’s script winks at the Gothic’s
memorable sex encounter with Ugo Pagliai
contemporaneous TV renaissance—here certi-

(looking slightly embarrassed in a fancy dressing fied by the casting of Ugo Pagliai, the lead in the gown), during which she has a line that could
occult- themed mini- series Il segno del co-be delivered with a straight face only in an mando—and throws in ghastly appearances, se-Italian giallo: “Even the police know I’m an in-cret passages, night visions and a climax in a credible nymphomaniac.”

flooded crypt that recalls both La vergine di La dama rossa uccide sette volte2 did pretty

Norimberga (163) and Contronatura. On the
good box- office in Italy and was distributed other hand, the impressive “Red Dame” (or “Red abroad: as it often happened, the German ver-Queen” in the English version) is a creation that sion was rather different than the Italian one, somehow recalls the Edgar Wallace villains running fifteen minutes shorter. Despite its good (think of the Monk with the Whip in Der Mönch
commercial results, it was Miraglia’s last film as mit der Peitsche, a.k.a. The College Girl Murders, a director.

167), here in a female incarnation—which might partly be due to the coproduction deal

NoTeS
with West Germany, in order to deliver a more

1. Namely Riccardo Freda’s A doppia faccia (16), L’uc-krimi-oriented product, since some gialli were cello dalle piume di cristallo (170, Dario Argento), Sette actually distributed in Germany as additions to orchidee macchiate di rosso (172, Umberto Lenzi), Cosa the Wallace cycle.1 In fact the film was mostly avete fatto a Solange? (172, Massimo Dallamano).

shot on location in Germany, in Wurzburg and

2. According to Franco Bruni, who debuted as camera-Weikersheim; the impressive Wildenbrück
man in this film, the working title was Sette scialli di velluto rosso (Seven Shawls of Red Velvet), possibly dropped so as manor is a castle in Neuestein, in the Baden-to avoid confusion with Sergio Pastore’s Sette scialli di seta Württemberg region; only some scenes, such as
gialla (literally, Seven Shawls of Yellow Silk), released those in and around Ugo Pagliai’s modern apart-around the same time as Miraglia’s film.

ment house, were shot in Rome.

1972: Estratto 65

Estratto dagli archivi segreti della po -
sort of succubus. In the end we find Jane in a state li zia di una capitale europea (Tragic
of shock, locked in a cell at a mental home: she is Ceremony)

murdered by a supernatural presence that is revealed to be Lady Alexander.

D: Robert Hampton [Riccardo Freda]. S

Riccardo Freda’s penultimate film has long
and SC: Mario Bianchi [Spanish version: José
been a mysterious object, not the least because Gutiérrez Maesso, Leonardo Martín]; DOP:

the director always carefully avoided men tion -

Francisco Fraile; M: Stelvio Cipriani; E: Iolanda ing it in interviews, and even in his own memoir Benvenuti; SD: Rafael Ferri, Amedeo Mellone;

Divoratori di celluloide, published in 181. And CO: Manolita Iglesias; MU: Cristobál Criado,
yet, in recent years, after its reviviscence at the Renzo Francioni; Hair: Ana Criado; AMU: Luis

2004 Venice Film Festival as part of the retro-Criado; SE: Carlo Rambaldi; SO: Eugenio Ron-
spective “Italian Kings of the Bs”—a screening dani, Alberto Escobedo; C: Giorgio Di Battista, which ended with the audience booing, and Teodoro Roa; AC: José Luis Criado, Miguel definitely not an apt choice to celebrate a master Ángel Muñoz; AE: Alba Di Salvo, Felisa Rueda.

filmmaker (and not a “King of the B,” whatever Cast: Camille Keaton (Jane), Luciana Paluzzi
this may mean) as Freda—and its release to (Lady Alexander), Luigi Pistilli (Lord Alexan-home video, Estratto dagli archivi segreti della der), Giovanni Petrucci (Fred), Tony Isbert [An-polizia di una capitale europea has become a
tonio Spitzer Ysbert] (Bill), Máximo Valverde
rather popular item among genre fans, adding

(Joe), Pepe [José] Calvo (Sam David), Irina insult to injury, as there are so many better and Demick (Bill’s mother), Paul Muller (Doctor),
more representative films in the director’s fil-Beni Deus (Ferguson), Milo Quesada (Cop),
mography.

Alejandro de Enciso, Elsa Zabala (Devil wor-

Despite the Italian title—literally, “Excerpt
shipper), Ambra Mascarello, Adriana Facchetti
from the secret archives of the police of a Euro-

(Woman in Alexander’s house), Fulvio Mingozzi
pean capital”—which seems to belong to some

(Police Inspector), Carla Mancini. PROD: José
politically committed crime film à la Damiano

Gutiérrez Maesso for PIA—Produzioni Inter-

Damiani, Estratto dagli archivi segreti della nazionali Associate (Rome), Tecisa (Madrid).

polizia di una capitale europea is actually a su-PM: Sergio Merolle, Faustino Ocaña. Country:

pernatural Gothic horror story with copious

Italy / Spain. Filmed in Costa Brava (Spain).

amounts of gore: the umpteenth in a line of Running time: 86 minutes (m. 2334). Visa n.

work- for-hire projects which the director cared 61507 (12.4.172); Rating: V.M.18. Release date: little about. In that period, Freda was trying to 12.20.172; Distribution: Cineriz. Domestic gross: put together the project of a lifetime, on which 7,680,000 lire. Also known as: Trágica ceremonia he would work for two decades: Francesco
en villa Alexander (Spain; ..174).

Baracca, about a famous Italian aviator who died Bill, an introverted rich young man, invites
in World War I, a major motion picture that
three acquaintances on his boat, including Jane, needed a conspicuous budget and production
whom he is attracted to. Bill gives her a necklace values which scared potential financers. And so, that he has stolen from his mother, and which is Freda—once a major film director, working for
said to have once belonged to a woman possessed Italy’s most prestigious studio, Lux Film—had
by the devil. On the way home, the group’s dune to settle for B- pictures, jumping from one genre buggy runs out of fuel: after an encounter with a to another in a thinly disguised way to keep his weird gas station owner, the four take refuge in a name afloat in the stormy Italian film industry, villa whose owners, Lord and Lady Alexander,
which he had even briefly abandoned in the turn out to be members of a satanic cult. Jane falls mid–160s, when he had moved to France to di-into their hands and is about to be sacrificed dur-rect four pictures (a new version of the novel Les ing a black mass, but the ceremony climaxes in a deux orphelines, two spy flicks in the Coplan se-massacre: Bill accidentally kills Lady Alexander, ries and the excellent period drama Roger La
and the devil worshippers are driven to kill each Honte).

other by a mysterious force. The hippies flee the Following the disastrous Israeli experi-villa and end up at Bill’s place, but they are chased ence of the Biblical- inspired erotic drama Tamar away by his mother and take refuge at a country Wife of Er (170) and the grim giallo, L’iguana house owned by Bill’s father. There they are dis-dalla lingua di fuoco (171), Freda accepted an patched one by one by Jane, who has become some offer to direct a horror movie based on a script

66 1972: Estratto entitled Quella maledetta sera (“That Doomed

Freda’s participation in the filming was con-Evening”), written by Mario Bianchi and co-
firmed by Carlo Rambaldi, who took care of the financed by the Spanish producer José Gutiérrez over- the-top gory effects and who would

Maesso. Maesso’s company Tecisa, based in become a good friend of the director,2 and by

Madrid and active since the early 160s, almost Freda’s eldest daughter Jacqueline, who accom-exclusively dedicated to co- productions, espe-panied him in Spain with her mother Silvana
cially with Italy. Tecisa advanced the money Merli and served on the set as a factotum—or,
from Spanish distribution, and its participation in her own words, as “assistant slave”—despite usually varied between 45% and 50%: it took
being only eight and a half years old.3 Freda even care of location shooting, transportation and
wrote the lyrics for the title song, composed by technical equipment, as well as hiring crews and Stelvio Cipriani and sung by Ernesto Brancucci, extras.

La vita, a macabre little number whose lyrics go Shooting began in June 172: according to
like this: “Questa è la vita / Un uomo ride felice some sources, Freda left the set after a few days,

/ La bocca già piena di terra / Danza una donna and was replaced by Filippo Ratti.1 However,

/ Brulicante di vermi” (This is life / A man laughs happily / His mouth already filled with soil / A
woman dances / Teeming
with worms).

By comparing the
original screenplay (kept
at the C.S.C. library in

Rome4) with the finished
film, Ratti’s contribution
can perhaps be circum-
scribed to a couple of
scenes that are not in

Bianchi’s script: namely,
the flashback in which Bill
gives his mother the pearl
necklace and tells her the
legend that accompanies
it, and the epilogue in the
asylum, where a doctor

(Paul Muller) offers an
awkward explanation for
the baffling supernatural
events that have been
going on, disserting about
astral bodies with a raving,
demented look. This addi-
tion might have been ei-
ther the result of the need
on the part of the producer
to come up with enough
footage for a feature length
film, or a consequence of
the story’s awkwardness.

On the other hand,

Bianchi’s script encloses
the story within one long
flashback, after an opening

Italian poster for Estratto dagli archivi segreti della polizia di una capitale set in the asylum where
europea (1972). Art by Mario Piovano / Studio Paradiso.

Jane is being questioned by

1972: Estratto 67
a police inspector and a female doctor, a scene common in the period: see also Steno’s giallo
that in the finished film takes place near the end; spoof Il terrore con gli occhi storti, also made in in addition to other minor differences, a few

172.

scenes were cut or possibly never filmed, such Overall, the mixture of reincarnation and
as one where Lord Alexander screens a 16mm
black magic is fairly pointless, and the additional film shot in India for his guests, which depicts scenes only make matters worse. From Bill’s his first encounter with Lady Alexander, thus
monologue about the doomed necklace, at first
hinting at the woman’s supernatural origins.5
we are supposed to think that the evil menace

The result is a wildly incoherent story, is unleashed by the jewel, which Jane seemingly which at times bears to mind the delirious cir-cannot take off her neck, and which is paired
cular pattern of Lisa e il diavolo. The two films with a bracelet worn by Lady Alexander, that
have a number of elements in common, such as
functions as a link between the two women (all the travelers seeking shelter at a villa whose inthis is more clearly outlined in the script, habitants are in league with evil forces, and an though). In the end, however, the diabolical enigmatic Devil (played by the Spanish char -
presence is revealed to be Lady Alexander her-
acter actor José “Pepe” Calvo) with a playful, self, with the help of her devilish factotum-catty attitude who acts as a factotum- servant.

driver (Calvo again), whereas Paul Muller’s in-What is more, the way the gas station attendant coherent babblings fail to make any sense.

mocks the young hippies, coming up with every

Freda did little to improve upon this mess.

sort of excuse not to fill their car’s tank, brings One can only guess that he simply did not care to mind the spiteful attitude of the butler played about such a down- at-heel potboiler. There are by Telly Savalas in Lisa e il diavolo, and Calvo some moments of undeniable suggestion,
adds some nice touches, such as his character
though: the scenes set at the gas station, filmed sniffing at the traveler’s checks book handed to with the director’s trademark panning shots, are him by the wealthy Bill, in a fun variation of the suitably atmospheric, thanks also to Francisco Latin saying pecunia non olet. However, both

Fraile’s accomplished cinematography. At times works ultimately met a similar fate, with little Freda resorts to his own cinematic past: the distribution and more or less intrusive manip-image of Camille Keaton descending the villa’s ulations.

stairs, holding a candlestick, while the night Whereas Bava’s film adopted a Surrealist,
breeze eeriely raises the windows’ curtains by poetic approach, Freda’s wavers uncomfortably
her side, brings to mind a similar moment in
between pale reminiscences of 160s Italian Aquila nera (146) and especially the Du Grand Gothic, frantic splatter scenes and ill- fated nods castle scenes in I vampiri; the moment where
to the present. The pairing of beauty and horror the pearls slip out of her necklace and bounce was one of Italian Gothic horror’s staples since down the steps echoes not just Bava’s 5 bambole I vampiri and La maschera del demonio: the diper la luna d’agosto, but its earlier antecedent, aphanous Jane, the object of desire of Bill and the scene of a little child’s ball bouncing down his young hippie friends, becomes a ghastly the stairs in Freda’s own La leggenda del Piave presence and the instrument of a vengeful force (152), a tearjerking melodrama set during that seduces her unfortunate lovers, and at one World War I. Some themes are closer to the di-point she displays a fleshless, putrescent skull rector’s sensibility, though. Bill’s morbid, vaguely that is the equivalent of Barbara Steele’s rotting incestuous attraction toward his fascinating and torso in Bava’s debut—and in itself unawarily
promiscuous mother (Irina Demick) predates
reminiscent of the German silent film Von mor-

Murder Obsession, and the story’s original cirgens bis mitternacht (120, Karlheinz Martin), cular narrative is in tune with Freda’s vision of which first featured the image of a woman’s face a deterministic universe where events are transforming into a skull. The same image doomed to repeat over and over.

would turn up in a much more convincing way

On the other hand, Freda’s use of hand-
in Aristide Massaccesi’s La morte ha sorriso al-held camera and wide- angle shots shows that he l’assassino (173). On the other hand, the script’s had put to good use the lesson of contempora-biased view of the hippie movement is typical
neous gialli, much more so than in the sub- par of many films of the era, and includes a totally L’iguana dalla lingua di fuoco. Still, the climactic gratuitous reference to the Bel Air massacre

“tragic ceremony” is rendered with an overre-
and Sharon Tate’s murder, something not un -
liance on weird camera angles and wild- eyed ex-

68 1972: Estratto tras that recall the black mass scenes in Sergio Tony Isbert. Luigi Pistilli and Luciana Paluzzi, Martino’s Tutti i colori del buio, released early although top- billed, have minimal roles.

that year, and soon become tiresome. At one

Estratto dagli archivi segreti della polizia di point an on- set light and a cameraman can be una capitale europea was submitted to the Italian seen popping up in the frame during a low- angle board of censors in December 172, and was
shot, underlining the director’s habitual use of given a V.M. 18 rating “in relation to the theme several cameras to film a scene as well as the of the film, the seriously gruesome scenes of vi-sloppiness with which the film was made.

olence (such as the rite that ends up in a mas-Nevertheless, the result is one of the most
sacre), linked to drug use, as well as the foul lan-bizarre and over- the-top gore scenes ever seen guage used in several sequences.” It performed in an Italian 170s film, and one of the very first, very poorly in Italy, and was released in Spain in a year when Rambaldi also concocted the
only two years later. After completing the movie, equally crude, but more restrained gory f/x for it looked like Freda was ready for more impres-La notte dei diavoli. In Freda’s film gunshots to sive efforts, namely Crossroads, an Italian-the belly give way to abundant blood spilling, a French suspense thriller to be filmed in Tunis, man has his face bisected via a sword, Luigi Pis-and L’imperatore di New York, a.k.a. Emperor of tilli’s character receives a bullet to the head New York (a script on real-life mobster Lucky
which results in a geyser- like stream of blood Luciano dating back to the mid- to-late 160s).6
from his forehead, a woman is decapitated, an-

However, eight years would pass before
other one catches fire. For all its crudeness, it is Freda’s return behind the camera with Murder
a triumph of Grand- Guignol which tries hard

Obsession, his final movie. In the meantime, to cram as many creative deaths as possible in definitely less inspiring projects ended up in the less than a minute. Regrettably, though, the drawer. One was Gli esorcisti (The Exorcists), an black mass’ splattery climax is repeated several attempt at cashing in on the success of Friedkin’s times throughout the picture, with the result of film (which was actually released in Italy in Oc-drastically cutting down its impact. The film
tober 174), like other similar titles such as also features a couple of horrific scenes not in-L’ossessa and Un urlo dalle tenebre, from a script cluded in the script: Bill ends up dead and blue-Freda developed from a story by Mario Righi,
faced inside a wardrobe—Tony Isbert’s make-
who was to finance it with his company Alexan-
up recalls the otherwordly presences seen in yet der Cinematografica Internazionale. The cast
another awkward Italian/Spanish horror film,
indicated in the working sheets featured Anto -

Mario Siciliano’s Malocchio (175)—whereas an-
nia Santilli (seen in Il Boss, 173), Adolfo other bizarre gory scene looks like a gruesome Lastretti and Claudio Cassinelli. Scheduled to variation on Martin Scorsese’s famous short The be filmed starting on February 23, 174, it Big Shave (168).

stopped dead at pre- production stage. In the fol-The movie stars the 25-year-old Camille
lowing years Freda’s name was attached to some Keaton, one of the many starlets in Italian horror horror- themed projects scripted by Piero Reg-of the 170s. After her debut in Massimo Dallanoli, such as the elusive Thanat 82 (178) which mano’s Che cosa avete fatto a Solange? (172), was supposed to star Ursula Andress and Hardy

Keaton enjoyed a short- lived popularity: she was Krüger, and Satan’s Night, a.k.a. Qualcosa pene -
the centerfold of the November 172 issue of the tra in noi (Le notti di Satana), first announced Italian Playmen, and went on to make a handful as Sensory in 178 and to be directed originally of mostly bad films such as Il sesso della strega by Roberto Montero. The tentative cast featured and the parapsychological drama Madeleine–

Gabriele Tinti, Silvia Dionisio, Olga Karlatos, Anatomia di un incubo (174, Roberto Mauri),

Ettore Manni, Laura Gemser and the Swiss before returning to the U.S. and starring in the François Simon, and the story was a rather drab controversial I Spit on Your Grave, a.k.a. Day of mixture of horror and eroticism, with an em-the Woman (178), directed by her then-
phasis on the latter, set in a haunted house where husband Meir Zarchi. Despite her none- too a number of characters unleash devilish forces convincing acting skills, the pale, fragile- looking by way of a séance. Filming was scheduled to
actress makes for an unsettling presence, partly start in February 17, but eventually the movie because of the visible scars on her face, the result was cancelled. Gemser and Dionisio would turn
of a car accident in her youth. She makes an un-up in Murder Obsession.7
easy pair with a very young, creepy- looking

1972: Frankenstein 6

NoTeS

6. See respectively Variety, 3 May 172, and 27

December 172.

1. Alessio Di Rocco, “Estratto dagli archivi segreti della 7. For more details on Freda’s unfilmed projects, see polizia di una capitale europea,” in Riccardo Fassone (Ed.), Roberto Curti, Riccardo Freda: The Life and Works of a

“La stagione delle streghe. Guida al gotico italiano,” Noc-Born Filmmaker (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2017).

turno Dossier #80, March 200, 65.

2. “I did a film in Spain with him. Very likeable. A master at bypassing obstacles,” Rambaldi stated. Which con-Frankenstein ’80 (Frankenstein ’80)

firms Freda’s presence on the set, and suggests that there were obstacles during filming. Michele Giordano, Da Ercole D: Mario Mancini. S: Ferdinando De Le -
a Piedone (e oltre) il mito dell’uomo forte nel cinema italiano one; SC: Ferdinando De Leone, Mario Mancini;

(Rome: Gremese 18), 128.

DOP: Emilio Varriano (Technicolor, Technis-

3. “Despite being a skinny little girl I woke up early in cope); M: Daniele Patucchi (Ed. C.A.M.); E: the morning with dad, and he made me do any kind of job Enzo Micarelli; AD: Renzo Girolami; AC: Ed-on the set, in the most disparate ways. And when I didn’t know what to do, he would say, ‘Go help the electricians mondo Pisani; MU: Gianni Amadei; Hair: Lucia
mount the dolly!’ The things I remember the most about La Porta; SO: Paolo Esposito; SP: Alfio Quat -
the film are Rambaldi, the stuntmen, and my decision to trini; SD: Giuseppe Pappalardo; ChEl: Giovanni become a stuntwoman myself. When I saw the action Marini; KG: Ubaldo Di Curzio; DubD: Robert
scenes I went to my father and said, ‘Dad, when I grow up I want to do this!’ And he: ‘Sure, sure, why not… ’ Perhaps Oliver; English script: Frazier Rippy; SE: Carlo he thought it was like that other time when I told him I Rambaldi; SS: Giuseppe Bruno Bossio. Cast: wanted to be a CIA agent… !” Jacqueline Freda is adamant John Richardson (Karl Schein), Gordon Mitchell in stating that her father stayed in Spain for the whole (Dr. Otto Frankenstein), Renato Romano (In-shooting, and directed most of the film. “He directed all spector Harald Schneider), Xiro Papas [Ciro
the action scenes. But, you know, on practically every film he left after finishing the action scenes, ’cause to him the Papa] (Mosaic), Dalila Parker [Dalila Di Laz-film was over. He shot all the scenes in the villa, the action zaro] (Sonia), Bob Fiz [Roberto Fizz] (Prof.

scenes, all of Rambaldi’s splatter scenes, the black mass …

Rudolf Schwartz), Dada Gallotti (Butcher), but also the boring stuff, such as the girl in the bathtub… .

Marisa Traversi (Second prostitute), Lemmy He never talked about the movie? Of course—he thought it was crap!” Jacqueline Freda, interview with the author, Carson (Head Nurse), Marco Mariani (Track

May 2015.

Spectator), Fulvio Mingozzi (Second Investiga-

4. There are actually two scripts kept at the CSC library, tor), Enrico Rossi (First Investigator), Umberto identical save for the title. One is titled Estratto dagli archivi Amambrini (Vice Straus), Luigi Antonio Guerra
segreti della polizia di una capitale europea, and the other (Agent), Luigi Bonos (Hobo); uncredited: Eolo

Quella maledetta sera (“That Doomed Evening”), which echoes the Spanish title, Trágica ceremonia en villa Alexan-Capritti (Bystander at accident site with sun-
der (“Tragic Ceremony at Villa Alexander”) and was likely glasses). PROD: M.G.D. Film (Rome); PM:

the original title. Both are 166 pages long, and are dated Benedetto Graziani; PS: Eolo Capritti. Country: June 6, 172.

Italy. Filmed in Munich and Rome and at Cave

5. The script also features the gory flashbacks from the

“tragic ceremony”—over-the-top, in slow- motion and very Film Studio (Rome). Running time: 8 minutes
similar to the ones in the film—from the very first scenes; (m. 2604). Visa n. 61258 (10.20.172); Rating: Bill and friends do not travel on a dune buggy but (more V.M.18. Release dates: 12.12.172 (Italy); 6.26.174
realistically) on motorbikes, and their initial bet does not (France); 8.12.177 (West Germany); Distribu-center on nautical terms, but on the non- existent “flying fish” that Bill’s companions bet they can spot on the sea (a tion: Les Films 2R Roma. Domestic gross: un-much more convincing idea, incidentally); during the mas-known. Also known as: Frankenstein ’80 / Les
sacre, the cultists—who are described as naked, save for orgies de Frankenstein 80 / Frankenstein 2000
their black cloaks and leather belts with Rosicrucian sym-

(France); Frankenstein ’80 / Midnight Horror
bols that cover their pubic area—see each other as mon -

(West Germany), Frankenstein Sex (Belgium).

sters (“They cannot see the real, natural faces, but horrible furry monsters, devilish, unreal- looking”), and the gory A girl dies after a heart transplant because
bits are slightly different: there is no mention of the bi -
someone has stolen from the clinic an antisected head, and Lord Alexander ends up impaled on a rejection medication perfected by the surgeon, Dr.

dagger “that almost cuts him in half.” Also missing is a Schwartz. The thief is Dr. Otto Frankenstein, who brief scene set in a church, where a beat combo is rehearsing, and Bill seems to recognize the parish priest as Lord works at the same hospital and has secretly as-Alexander. The deaths of the three hippies are also differ -
sembled an artificial man named Mosaic with the ent, and decidedly less gory: Bill is found in the bathroom, limbs of deceased people. The monstrous creature a mask of terror, a green foam coming out from his mouth, preys on women whom he rapes and horribly eyes wide open (but not that ugly blue- colored face); Fred murders. The police, led by Inspector Schneider, hangs himself; Joe runs away from a horrible sight (which is implied to be Jane, whose monstrous alter ego is not grope in the dark. Meanwhile, the dead girl’s mentioned in the script) and falls to his death into the sea.

brother, journalist Karl Schein, is investigating on

70 1972: Frankenstein his own: he meets Frankenstein’s beautiful niece stein myth produced in Italy after the female-Sonia, and falls for her. Mosaic’s new victim is Dr.

centered Lady Frankenstein. Whereas Mel

Schwartz, whose eyes Frankenstein transplants to Welles’ film attempted to retain the period feel the monster: however, Schwartz’ serum is almost of Hammer Gothics, Frankenstein ’80 throws it
finished, and Mosaic’s sexual and bloody appetite in the drain with its very title, which openly proves difficult to control. When the monster at-quotes Howard W. Koch’s Frankenstein 1970
tacks Sonia, Frankenstein tries to stop him, but (158), and sets its story in the present day.

is killed by the creature. Mosaic escapes just before Despite the liberal use of the name “Frank -
the police’s arrival, and goes on a killing spree.

enstein” there is very little in common between Forty- eight hours later the effects of the antithe story and Mary Shelley’s character. Rather, rejection drug stop, and Mosaic dies just as he is the inspiration for the script lies heavily in the about to kill Karl and Sonia.

adults- only comics, such as Oltretomba, Walle -

“You may have a limp when you walk, but
stein and the like, which featured copious I bet you don’t have one in bed!” says the pros-amounts of blood and gore in addition to pa-
titute to the eerie- looking scarred giant with a rades of female flesh. The Frankenstein monster, hat and an overcoat that has approached her in aptly named Mosaic, is assembled with various
a park, and who is now following her to her
body organs (mostly female) graphically ex-place like a puppy dog. It is one of many cringe-tracted from the unwilling donors, courtesy of inducing moments in Frankenstein ’80, the Carlo Rambaldi’s special effects—here slightly decade’s second approximation to the Franken-above the level of Herschell Gordon Lewis’

blood feasts.

The murder scenes are gro -
tesque: the kill ing of a female
butcher in a cold room, by means of
a femur bone, sticks in the memory
for its sheer outrageousness. How-
ever, the director is just as interested
in providing a parade of nudity and
over- the-top sex, which climaxes in
the encounter between the above-
mentioned streetwalker and Mosaic,
who rapes the unfortunate woman

(the implication is that he is mon -
strously endowed as well) and mur-
ders her. Even though the gore is
crude, the result is an early hint of
the tendency toward excess that will
characterize Italian genre cinema of
the decade, and the mixture of hor-
ror and sex is as poor taste as the
soon- to-blossom Nazi- erotic cycle.

The story, revolving around a
miraculous healing serum which
prevents post- op rejection, hints at
contemporary issues in the wake of

Dr. Barnard’s exploits: Dr. Franken-
stein, not the least bit preoccupied
with the ethical implications of his
work, is mostly focused on solving
surgical issues, as the monster con-
tinually needs new organs to replace
the rejected ones, and suffers from
a neurological disease too. Not that

German poster for Frankenstein ’80 (1972).

the script gives any resonance to this

1972: La morte 71
bland theme: the story moves confusingly from
use of cheap low- angle close- ups in the scenes one horrific moment to the other, with an awk-of Mosaic attacking the victims.

ward series of police procedural scenes and oth-In addition to Mancini, the name of Ciro
ers featuring the vapid hero (John Richardson) Papa stands out: the bald, hulking actor, usually investigating on his own. In contrast to Richard-typecast as the monster (he was the “monster
son’s somnambulic acting, Gordon Mitchell is
vampire” in Il plenilunio delle vergini, and played awfully hamming his way throughout the movie

“Lupo” in Luigi Batzella’s Nazi- erotic epic La bes-as the unlikely, mustachoed and spirited Otto
tia in calore) had served as production manager Frank enstein, who sutures dead bodies as if he in a number of low- budget films of the period, was darning socks, nonchalantly keeps severed
and popped up in Casa d’appuntamento and Ter-
heads in the fridge, and extracts and manipu -
ror! Il castello delle donne maledette as well. Ac-lates various body organs with leering abandon.

cording to Mitchell, Papa “originally worked in After Dr. Frankenstein is mercilessly dispatched production. Unfortunately he then had an acci-by his creature roughly around the hour mark,
dent: during a car ride to Venice he fell asleep the viewer must resign himself to a protracted driving and his car hit a tree. He was instantly hodgepodge of badly shot gory scenes (with car dead.”3
race footage added for good measure in a scene Frankenstein ’80 passed almost unnoticed
where Mosaic pops up near a race track) until
in Italy at the time of its release. It also came out the none- too-exciting climax.

in photonovel version in the Italian issue of Despite the familiar faces in sight—note

Cinesex #26 (May 173), and found marginal dis-also the 1-year-old Dalila Di Lazzaro, soon to tribution abroad, namely in France and West
be involved in another Frankenstein movie, and Germany. It is currently in public domain in the character actor Renato Romano, playing a car-United States.

icaturish cigar- chomping commissioner—

Frankenstein ’80 has very little in common with NoTeS
the Gothic films made in Italy in that period, 1. Christian Kessler, “Maciste und die Spaghetti aus starting with its German setting and exteriors.

dem Weltall,” www. christiankessler. de. The German lan-When interviewed by Christian Kessler, Mitchell guage interview was published in a slightly different (and recalled: “Parts of the movie were probably shot sometimes not completely faithful) English translation in in Bavaria, but none of those in which I was in-the Video Watchdog magazine. Christian Kessler, “Gordon Mitchell. Atlas in the Land of Cinema,” Video Watchdog volved.”1 Other scenes, such as those at Franken-

#48, 18, 47. Thanks to Gary Vanisian for the new trans-stein’s clinic, were filmed in Rome. Lou Castel lation from the original German text.

was originally to star in the film, possibly in 2. Appealing against his client’s expulsion, Castel’s Richardson’s role, but was forced to withdraw
lawyer submitted to the authorities the contract for when he was expelled from Italy in late April

Mancini’s film (referred to as Mosaico Frankenstein 80), which the actor was supposed to start shooting on May 2.

172: his working permit was not renewed be-

Anonymous, “L’attore Lou Castel ha lasciato l’Italia,” Cor-cause of the actor’s political views.2
riere della Sera, April 27, 172.

Obviously aimed at foreign markets, Frank -

3. Kessler, “Maciste und die Spaghetti aus dem Weltall.”

enstein ’80 has still many shady points, starting with the presence of dubbing director Robert

La morte scende leggera (Death Descends Harrison Oliver, who owned a dubbing facility

Lightly)

in Munich. Oliver was involved in various roles D: Leopoldo Savona. S: Luigi Russo; SC:

in a number of Dick Randall- produced flicks of Luigi Russo, Leopoldo Savona; DOP: Luciano
the period, such as Guido Zurli’s grotesque farce Trasatti (Eastmancolor, Telecolor); M: Lallo Lo strangolatore di Vienna (171), the sleazy Casa

[Coriolano] Gori (Ed. Nazionalmusic); the song d’appuntamento (172), and the trashy Terror! Il Sunday in Neon Lights is played by Mack Sigis
castello delle donne maledette, which he signed Porter Ensemble; E: Otello Colangeli; ArtD, CO: as director. The latter film has quite a few things Fabrizio Diotallevi; MU: Marcella Pelliccia; AD: in common with Frankenstein ’80, starting with Luigi Russo; SO: Angelo D’Abruzzo; C: Giorgio
the presence of cinematographer Mario Man -

Di Battista; AC: Antonio Quattrone; SS: Paola
cini, here credited in his only directorial effort, Tiezzi. Cast: Stelio Candelli (Giorgio Darica), and considered by some to have had a hand on

Patrizia Viotti (Liz), Veronica Korosec (Adele), Terror! Il castello delle donne maledette. His di-Rossella Bergamonti (Marisa), Tom Felleghy rection is flat and perfunctory, with an annoying (Savara, the Attorney), Antonio Anelli (Hotel

72 1972: La morte Owner), Marcello Di Martire (Commissioner
whom he was about to leave, has been murdered.

De Carmine), Maily [Mathily] Doria (Irina, He asks for help from shady politician Magrini, Giorgio’s wife), Fernando Cerulli (Judge Ma-who in turn enlists his lawyer Savara to find Dar-grini), Franco Marletta (Malvestiti, the stage di-ica a temporary hideout since he has no alibi.

rector / Man in stag film), Lella Cattaneo (Hotel Savara takes Darica and the latter’s lover Liz to Owner’s Wife), Alessandro Perrella, Carla
a deserted hotel, where they will stay for a couple Mancini (Girl answering the phone); uncredited: of days. Meanwhile, Magrini gets in touch with a Eros Buttaglieri (Cop at crime scene), Caterina stage company for a mysterious plan. At the hotel, Chiani (Woman in stag film). PROD: Agata Darica and Liz get bored and restless. Soon, their Films (Rome); PM: Gianni Solitro; PS: Nicola
seclusion is interrupted by a series of strange Addario, Stefania Garratoni, Sergio Bellanti; events. The hotel’s former owner turns up unex-APSe: Franco Bartoli. Country: Italy. Filmed at pectedly, and a series of seemingly supernatural Rizzoli Studios (Rome). Running time: 88 min-events and murders take place. Darica becomes
utes (m. 240). Visa n. 60782 (8.10.172); Rating: convinced that the hotel is populated with ghosts.

V.M.18. Release date: 8.16.174 (?)1; Distribution: However, it turns out it was all part of Magrini’s Regional. Domestic gross: unknown. Home
plan to make him confess his wife’s murder. But video: Futurama (VHS, Italy).

Darica is not the culprit…

Rome. Upon returning home from Milan,

Made a short while after the period Gothic
gangster Giorgio Darica finds out that his wife, Byleth (Il demone dell’incesto), and again produced by Agata Film (the com-
pany also responsible for Luigi

Russo’s unfinished sex- horror

Paura, made that same year),

Leopoldo Savona’s penultimate
film (originally to be titled La
morte scende leggera come un
ragno) was a mixture of differ-
ent genres, with an emphasis
on eroticism. At first glance, La
morte scende leggera looks like
a standard giallo: it opens in
modern- day Italy, with a POV
shot of a murderer coming into
a sleeping woman’s room and
dispatching her (offscreen, at
least in circulating prints). As
the protagonist, the menacing
gangster Darica (Jack Palance
lookalike Stelio Candelli, re-
placing Robert Woods in the
lead) asks for help from Mafi -
oso politician Magrini, the
script even throws in some bla-
tant commentary on the coun-
try’s corrupt politicians. The
early scenes look a bit like
something out of a Mafia
movie, not the least because the
politician is played by one of

Fernando Di Leo’s recurring
actors, the slimy- looking Fer-
nando Cerulli: people ex -
change phone calls in a chain

Italian poster for La morte scende leggera (1972).

of power that goes from the

1972: La morte 73
powerful MP to a corrupt lawyer, a Mafia pic-
disfatta (“The Undone Skein”—a reference to
ciotto, and ultimately the obedient executors, Paolo Lombardo’s Grand Guignol company, per-each asking a favor (i.e. demanding it, in a men-haps?). Incidentally, the stage director, Malves -
acingly mellifluous tone) to someone lower in
titi, is played by Franco Marletta, the same man grade.

seen in the “porn” clip.

As with most genre films of the era, the

When strange and seemingly supernatural
makers’ main preoccupation is eroticism, and
events start to take place at the hotel, then, even the presence of Patrizia Viotti as Darica’s lover, the most naive viewer realizes that the comedi-Liz, alerts the viewer that soon there will be ans might have something to do with them. That plenty of bare female flesh in sight—which soon is not the case, however, with Darica, possible happens. Secluded in a deserted hotel in the out-the most gullible Mafia killer ever portrayed on skirts of Rome (incidentally, the same location screen: like the journalist played by Georges Riv-glimpsed in a few scenes of La notte dei dannati, ière in Danza macabra he is just a powerless wit-also starring Viotti), Darica and Liz soon find a ness who does not move a finger to intervene or way to kill time, watching an 8mm stag film stop the events he sees, an attitude that comes (amazingly, even if on the run the gangster off as forced and ridiculous, as does the gang-found the time to bring over some diversions)

ster’s psychological breakdown.

and indulging in a torrid lovemaking session.

If Candelli, a supporting actor here playing

“But this is Italian!” the bewildered Liz says one of his rare leading roles, is a weak presence, while watching the loop; “Italy produces more

Patrizia Viotti is slightly more convincing than

[porn] than Sweden and Denmark combined”

in La notte dei dannati, perhaps since the role is Darica’s ironic answer, much more so if we
makes her darker side come to the fore, in ad-
consider that the supposed stag film is actually dition to her body. Even though 172 was a a clip from Savona’s own Byleth (il demone del-rather busy year for the actress, who appeared l’incesto) featuring Caterina Chiani and Franco also in a couple of “Decamerotics” (Beffe, licenze Marletta. The scene—which does not feature ex-et amori del Decamerone segreto and Decamer -
plicit sex—caused some trouble when the film
one proibito), La morte scende leggera was one was submitted to the board of censors, and was of her last film roles. In 174 Viotti appeared in slightly shortened (with cuts for a total of 23 sec-the German comedy Charlys Nichten (a.k.a.

onds) to obtain a V.M.18 rating.

Confession of a Sexy Photographer) directed by It is only halfway through that La morte

Walter Boos and unreleased in Italy. It was a
scende leggera turns into a sort of modern- day nondescript end to an all- too-brief film career, remake of Danza macabra, as the hotel appears
with a sad coda. On June 25, 175, Patrizia Viotti to be haunted by ghosts who revive bloody was arrested for possession of drugs. She re-events from the past, and seem to be rather will-mained in jail for 27 days before release, but her ing to indulge in the pleasure of the flesh: “Come drug addiction led to another arrest, and to into my arms. I am alive to love you!” a woman eleven more days in the pen, in November 184.

says to Darica, paraphrasing Barbara Steele’s

Patrizia died at only 44, on August 24, 14.

most famous line in Margheriti’s film. The best In a movie hardly noteworthy on the tech-thing about Luigi Russo and Savona’s script is nical side (d.o.p. Luciano Trasatti, of I vitelloni precisely the injection of Gothic elements into fame, had long fallen out of grace and mostly
a contemporary, ordinary tale: the squalid hotel, worked on cheap productions), the opening abandoned after a bankruptcy, becomes a
song stands out: the fuzzy, doomy Sunday in
modern- day version of the haunted manor, and

Neon Lights, performed by Ghana singer Mack
a vague anticipation of the Overlook Hotel in

“Sigis” Porter, features inspired, Hendrix- like The Shining.

guitar work and sticks in the memory long after However, it would have taken a far better
the end credits have rolled. A black African script and direction to make the story work,
artist, born in Ghana during the English colonial whereas Russo and Savona practically give away occupation, Porter moved to the Netherlands
the twist early on, as one of Magrini’s men, a and then to Italy in the late 160s. He released stereotypical Mafioso with a thick Sicilian four pop and soul- oriented singles for the small accent, is seen calling a theatrical company, aptly Neapolitan label Fans, and in 16 he won the
named “I Feretri” (The Coffins), that is about to

“Un disco per l’Europa” song contest in Lugano, stage a macabre mystery play called La matassa Switzerland.

74 1972: La notte dei diavoli In 172 Porter recorded the concept album

Man zi ana, Mazzano Romano (Rome) and at

Peace on You, characterized by a psych and D.E.A.R. Studios (Rome). Running time: 8 min-slightly progressive mood and featuring an Italutes (m. 241). Visa n. 60050 (3.28.172); Rating: ian backing band that included keyboardist V.M.14. Release date: 4.2.172. Distribution: Vince Tempera from the prog combo Il Volo.

P.A.C. Domestic gross: 156,686,000 lire. Also Tempera would become one of Italy’s leading
known as: La noche de los diablos (Spain; authors and arrangers for TV and film. After his 6.25.173), La nuit des diables (France; 4.10.173), musical career Porter stayed in Italy and became Akuma no hohoemi (Japan), Demonen der Nacht
a stylist under the name Mack Squire.2

(Netherlands), Djävulens natt (Sweden).

An inmate at a mental hospital, Nicola, tells

NoTeS
his strange and frightening story to a doctor. After his car broke down in the woods, Nicola took shel-1. According to the ANICA reference volumes, La morte scende leggera was given a marginal release only in ter at a farmhouse near the Slovenian border.

August 174, after a two- year oblivion, but this bit of in-Soon he noticed that a strange atmosphere sur-
formation is debated, and there is chance that the movie rounded the place and its inhabitants: the whole circulated earlier. Therefore, as with Ombre roventi, in the family, led by the elderly Gorka, seemed to be absence of certain data, I have chosen to list the film as a 172 release.

under the influence of superstitious beliefs, and 2. The album was reissued by the German label Shadoks its members were terrified by a powerful witch Music in 2006, in a limited pressing of 400 copies in vinyl.

who could turn people into undead vampires.

After witnessing what he thought to be a murder, La notte dei diavoli (The Night of the Dev-Nicola fled to report it to the authorities, but a reils)

tired detective convinced him that the murderous D: Giorgio Ferroni. S: Eduardo Manzanos
spell was real, prompting him to run back and

Brochero, based on the novelette Sem’ya vurda -
save the young Sdenka, with whom Nicola had
laka by Aleksey Tolstoy. SC: Romano Migliorini, fallen in love. Nicola eventually discovered that Giambattista Mussetto; DOP: Manuel Ber -
all the members of Gorka’s family had been in-
enguer (Eastmancolor, Techniscope); M: Gior -
fected, and barely managed to escape. Back at the gio Gaslini; E: Gianmaria Messeri; ArtD: José
asylum, Nicola receives a visit from Sdenka, whom Luis Galicia, Jaime Pérez Cubero; CO: Elio he believes has turned into a monster as well…

Micheli; SD: Eugenio Liverani; MU: A. [Pieran-

Over a decade after Il mulino delle donne
tonio] Mecacci, Adolfo Ponte; Hair: Júlia Gon -
di pietra (160), Giorgio Ferroni returned to the zález; AD: Gianni Siragusa, Mariano Canales;

Gothic genre with a new version of Aleksey PropM: Ginés Blanco; SE: Carlo Rambaldi; As-Konstantinovich Tolstoy’s novella The Family of stSE: Carlo De Marchis; C, 2ndUD: Nino [Se-the Vourdalak, already adapted by Mario Bava
bastiano] Celeste; SP: Antonio Ortas; SS: Monica as an episode of I tre volti della paura. An Italian-Mercatelli, Isabel Mulá. Cast: Gianni Garko [Gi-Spanish co- production, La notte dei diavoli was anni Garkovich] (Nicola), Agostina Belli
co- financed by Eduardo Manzanos Brochero’s

(Sdenka), Mark Roberts [Roberto Maldera]

Copercines together with two Italian companies, (Jovan), Cinzia De Carolis (Irina), Teresa Gim-Filmes and Due Emme: the latter had been pera (Elena), William Vanders (Gorka Ciu -
founded in 171 by Luigi Mariani and Roberto
velak), Umberto Raho (Doctor Tosi), Luis

Maldera, who also played one of the main roles Suárez (Vlado), Sabrina Tamborra (Mira), Rosa
in the film.

Toros [Rosita Torosh] (Nurse), Stefano Op -

Even though they retained many elements
pedisano (Male Nurse), Maria Monti (The
from the story, scriptwriters Romano Migliorini Witch); uncredited: John Bartha (Saw-Mill
and Giambattista Mussetto (although Brochero

Owner), Tom Felleghy (Police Commissioner),
was credited as co- scriptwriter, his contribution Renato Turi (Kovacic, the Retired Detective),
to the script—as with most of his credits in Ital-Giovanni Petrazzi. PROD: Luigi Mariani and
ian movies—was likely only nominal)1 made a

Eduardo Manzanos Brochero for Filmes Cine-
number of decisive changes. In addition to fram-matografica, Due Emme Cinematografica
ing the story as one long flashback told by the (Rome), Copercines, Cooperativa Cinemá-protagonist, they changed the Wurdalak’s
tografica (Madrid); PM: Solly V. Bianco; PA: gender, turning it into a woman, and devised a Eugenio Silverano, Julián García de la Vega.

modern- day setting, at the border between Italy Country: Italy / Spain. Filmed in Bracciano, and Slovenia.

1972: La notte dei diavoli

75

An Italian fotobusta for La notte dei diavoli (1972), emphasizing the film’s gory content.

The horrific clash between modernity and
a propaganda key in the documentary Ai
a rural environment was a typical element in
margini della città (154), where he tried to show many horror films of the period, particularly the how along the precarious border between the
so- called “American Gothic” titles of the 170s countryside and the suburbs there was still room (from Deliverance to The Texas Chain Saw Mas-for a poetic portrayal of everyday life; here, he sacre) and can be found also in a number of
immerses the Gothic theme in a realistic con -

Spanish horror films of the decade, despite their text, developing Tolstoy’s story in an environ-foreign setting: a case in point is León Kli mov -
ment comparable to that of any rural depopu-
sky’s La orgía nocturna de los vampiros (173).

lated Italian area, amid abandoned farmhouses

The main intuition of Ferroni’s film is that, even and poor families still characterized by a rigid before they become undead, Gorka and his fam-patriarchy in which the woman is a passive and ily are already ghosts from a world that does not silent presence. The result is not far in spirit exist anymore, the remnants of a rural civiliza-from the harsh portrayal of Southern Italy as
tion wiped away by urbanization—the same sce-
seen in Lucio Fulci’s Non si sevizia un paperino nario evoked by realist dramas such as La grande (172). As in Fulci’s film, this world is seen scrofa nera (172, Filippo Ottoni), here revised through the eyes of an outsider, a dealer whose in a Fantastic key.

rational, concrete vision is undermined by the

“Out here life is hard and the rewards are
confrontation with such an unexplored, forgot-
small. In the city it’s the opposite. The younger ten reality.

generation likes money. They don’t want to Gorka and his family are the obstinate sur-break their backs for practically nothing. They vivors of a rural world that keeps rejecting civ-want the good life,” Jovan (Roberto Maldera) ex-ilization and its benefits, seen as an element of plains to the protagonist, played by Gianni disruption and contagion. When he sarcastically Garko, commenting on the ongoing exodus
claims that the only good thing he learned dur-from the countryside. A former documentarist,
ing military service was how to fix cars, Jovan Ferroni had depicted the same phenomenon in
rejects the alleged social and educational value

76 1972: La notte dei diavoli of conscription, that rips young people away
delle donne di pietra: the budget does not allow from their land and family; and when Sdenka
for stylish embellishments, but the director (Agostina Belli) confesses to the incredulous
makes good use of the woods and the dilapi -

Nicola that she has never watched TV in her
dated country farms and huts, with some strik-
whole life, the cultural hiatus between the two ing shots. One such is the first appearance of the worlds becomes blatant. The germ that infects
two kids, seen behind a window that frames and corrodes this microcosm comes from the
them like in a portrait, looking straight at the outside, from the civilization that corrupts the camera: a truly Bava- esque moment. The gory
impermeability of the family and ultimately scenes are surprisingly savage: Ferroni embraces turns its members against each other: just like graphic horror with plenty of gruesome gory ef-the witch that seduced Gorka’s brother, turning fects—stakes driven through hearts and faces
him into a vampire, the city dealer played by Gi-that melt like wax—courtesy of Carlo Rambaldi.

anni Garko is not only the witness of a tragedy—

The versions aimed at foreign markets included the dissolution of Gorka’s family—but a factor additional splatter effects (an exploding head, that accelerates its destruction. In a way, then, an eviscerated heart) and nude bits during the Nicola is yet another version of the “visitor” em-opening sequence, as part of Nicola’s hallucina-bodied by Terence Stamp in Teorema.

tions.3 On the other hand, the apparitions of the The implosion of family veered in a horror
witch—filmed in slow- motion, pale and with
key in the climax of Ferroni’s film can be comsilent movie- like moves—recall certain Spanish pared to the one showed by George A. Romero
horror flicks of the period such as La noche de in Night of the Living Dead (168): in the film’s Walpurgis (170, León Klimovsky), and are very most atrocious and shocking scene, a little girl evocative: d.o.p. Manuel Berenguer used pe -

(Cinzia De Carolis) attacks her own mother culiar black- and-white filters for the night (Teresa Gimpera), biting her and ripping her
scenes, in order to obtain a suggestive atmos-
chest—a moment lifted from Tolstoy’s story, phere. Giorgio Gaslini’s score is another asset.

which nevertheless here acquires a savage The film was shot in five weeks, in late 171
power, after Romero’s film broke down the bar-
and early 172, near the Bracciano lake in the riers of what could be shown in a horror pic.2

Lazio region (which nevertheless makes for a

Similarly, Nicola’s desperate escape from the convincing Yugoslavian setting), at a hunting
monsters by car is another scene reinvented lodge owned by the proprietors of the Odescal -
from the literary source and fit to accommodate chi castle. It was assistant director Gianni Sira-the taste for blood and gore, which also pays ref-gusa who suggested Agostina Belli, with whom
erence to Romero’s debut.

he had worked on Lina Wertmüller’s Mimì Met-

Vampirism is never mentioned explicitly:

allurgico ferito nell’onore (172), for the role of in order to make the film more akin to the cur-Sdenka. Led by Gianni Garko, who was trying
rent trends, the victims of the contagion are to renew his image after his success in 160s
called “living dead,” and the vampire sorceress Westerns, the cast also featured the Spanish herself is a hybrid, a chilling corruptor whose Teresa Gimpera (Craig Hill’s wife) and the child nature is elusive. The umpteenth “witch” figure actress Cinzia De Carolis, very popular in Italy in Italian Gothic, played by stage actress Maria after her roles in the TV movie Anna dei mira -

Monti, is devoid of the seductive allure of those coli (168) and Dario Argento’s Il gatto a nove embodied by Barbara Steele but is nevertheless code (171). De Carolis would become an accom-imbued with a sexual power that becomes the
plished voice actress, and sporadically returned key to erode the family core: she is a wild, lib-to the sets: one embarassing occasion was the
erating force which destroys the patriarchal fam-trashy erotic drama Libidine (17), in which she ily values. On top of that, the narrative frame played alongside Marina Hedman, Ajita Wilson,
set in an asylum denotes an antipsychiatric and and a python.

anti- institutional vein that recalls the political At the time of the filming, the 63-year-old
horror movies of the period.

Ferroni was almost completely deaf, and could

Despite some poor dialogue and perform-
direct the movie only with the help of a hearing ances, as well as the time- saving use of zooms, aid; cameraman Nino Celeste directed a second
the result is quite interesting, if not fully suc-unit for a number of night scenes, including part cessful. Ferroni’s mise- en-scène is poles apart of Nicola’s escape by car. Even though around
from the languid charm displayed in Il mulino
the time of La notte dei diavoli’s release news-

1972: Tutti i colori 77
papers announced another project with him be-

Fenech (Jane Harrison), Ivan Rassimov (Mark
hind the camera, the evocatively titled E i mostri Cogan), Julián Ugarte (Jerome McBride),
uscirono dalle loro tane (And the Monsters Came George Rigaud (Dr. Burton), Maria Cumani

Out of Their Lair),4 Ferroni helmed only one

Quasimodo (Elderly Neighbor), Susan Scott
more film—the comedy Antonio e Placido: at-

[Nieves Navarro] (Barbara Harrison), Marina
tenti ragazzi … chi rompe paga, signed as “Calvin Malfatti (Mary Well), Alan Collins [Luciano Jackson Padget” like his 160s Westerns—in Pigozzi] (Franciscus Clay), Dominique

175, before retiring. He died in 181.

Boschero (Jane’s Mother), Lisa Leonardi (Girl

Tolstoy’s story was filmed again in 175, by
with dog), Renato Chiantoni (Mr. Main), Tom
the Spanish film director José Antonio Paramo, Felleghy (Inspector Smith), Vera Drudi (Night-as La familia Vourdalak, a 60-minute movie that mare Woman), Carla Man cini, Gianni Pulone;
was part of the TV series El quinto jinete, uncredited: Sergio Martino (Journalist/Police-starring Charo López as Sdenka. Ferroni’s film man). PROD: Mino Loy and Luciano Martino
was also the inspiration for issue #21 of the for Lea Film, National Cinematografica (Rome), adults- only comic Oltretomba gigante, La

C.C. Astro (Madrid); PM: Fabio Diotallevi; UM: maledizione dei Wurdalak, published in Feb -

Franco Fogagnolo, Floriano Trenker. Country:

ruary 175 by Edifumetto.

Italy/Spain. Filmed on location in London, West Sussex (U.K.) and at Incir- De Paolis Studios NoTeS

(Rome); Running time: 4 minutes (m. 2570);

Visa n. 5784 (2.24.172); Rating: V.M.14. Release 1. Romano Migliorini had previously collaborated with date: 2.28.172; Distribution: Interfilm. Domestic Roberto Natale on the script for a couple of Gothics directed by Massimo Pupillo, 5 tombe per un medium and Il gross: 24,470,000 lire. Also known as: Day of boia scarlatto (both 165), as well as on Bava’s Operazione the Maniac; Demons of the Dead; They’re Coming paura; they would work again with Bava (uncredited) on to Get You! (U.S.A.; 8.13.176); Todos los colores Lisa e il diavolo. Moreover, he and Mussetto penned a num-de la oscuridad (Spain; 8.27.173); Toutes les ber of scripts together, such as Bandidos (168, Massimo Dallamano), Omicidio per vocazione (168, Vittorio Sin-couleurs du vice; L’alliance invisible (France; doni), Freda’s A doppia faccia, and the ultra- violent rape-1.3.174); Todas as Cores do Medo (Brazil); Todas and-revenge flick La settima donna (178, Franco Prosas Cores da Escuridão (Portugal).

peri).

Note: Carla Mancini and Gianni Pulone,

2. The image was reprised, albeit in a grotesque way, in although credited, do not appear in the film.

a notorious scene of Andrea Bianchi’s Le notti del terrore (181).

Due to a childhood trauma (she witnessed

3. These gory and nude bits are retained in the copy the murder of her mother), exacerbated by a presented in the Raro DVD and Blu- ray.

recent car accident that caused her a miscarriage, 4. Anonymous, “‘Catturata’ dal cinema,” Corriere della Jane Harrison is plagued by nightmares which af-Sera, March , 172. The movie was slated to star Angela Brambati, the singer from the pop band Ricchi e Poveri.

fect her sex life with her partner, Richard. Her fears seem to have materialized, assuming the appearance of an unknown blue- eyed assassin that Tutti i colori del buio (All the Colors of the pursues her relentlessly, armed with a dagger. Fol-Dark)

lowing her sister Barbara’s advice, Jane turns to D: Sergio Martino. S: Santiago Moncada;
a psychiatrist, Dr. Burton, and starts a series of SC: Ernesto Gastaldi, Sauro Scavolini; DOP: Gi-therapy sessions. Meanwhile, she makes the ac-
ancarlo Ferrando, Miguel Fernández Mila
quaintance of Mary, a mysterious young woman

(Tech nochrome, Techniscope); M: Bruno Nico -
who has recently moved into her own condo, and lai (Ed. Gemelli); E: Eugenio Alabiso; PD: Jaime who introduces her to a cult of Satan worshipers.

Pérez Cubero, José Luís Galicia; SD: Giorgio

The new experience upsets Jane’s mind even more, Bertolini; CO: Giulia Mafai; MU: Giuseppe Feras she is apparently forced to kill Mary during a rante; Hair: Iolanda Conti; AD: Francisco Ro-ritual. After Dr. Burton and an old couple to driguez Fernández, Vittorio Caronia; C: Bruno
whom the doctor had entrusted Jane are found

Pellegrini; AC: Adolfo Troiani; ACO: Silvio Lau-murdered, Richard and the police are able to iden-renzi; SP: Francesco Narducci; AE: Amedeo Mo-
tify the participants in the black masses and arrest riani; SO: Bruno Zanoli; Mix: Bruno Moreal; SP: them. Jane’s nightmares were the result of a dia-Francesco Narducci; SS: Mirella Roy [Mirella
bolical conspiracy…

Malatesta]. English version: Lewis E. Ciannelli.

Following the success of Lo strano vizio

Cast: George Hilton (Richard Steele), Edwige
della signora Wardh and La coda dello scorpione

78 1972: Tutti i colori (both 171), the third giallo written by Ernesto the typical female Gothic heroine, who is “si-Gastaldi1 for Sergio Martino revolved again multaneously a victim and an investigator of a around a typical whodunit mystery, but at the
haunting that is caused by anxieties about trans-same time it emphasized extraneous and irra-
gressive sexuality,”2 Jane remains a thoroughly tional elements, which turned the movie into an passive figure.

out- and-out Gothic hybrid. The writer intro-

Gastaldi keeps the story firmly anchored
duced a Satanic conspiracy theme borrowed to a rational scheme: the plot against Jane is or-from Rosemary’s Baby which pushed the story
chestrated by the surprise villain for strictly into “female Gothic” territory: Edwige Fenech
monetary reasons, and the Satanic subplot turns plays a modern- day damsel in distress, a weak-out to be a scam. “It was a film against paranor-willed woman persecuted by her own sexual
mal beliefs which was taken by many for a film fears (embodied, similarly to Lo strano vizio in favor of those beliefs.”3 But the visuals plunge della signora Wardh, by the character played by it into the realm of Gothic from the very Ivan Rassimov)—even though, compared with
opening shot, the image of a lake at sundown
where the sounds of na-
ture convey a subtle ee-
rieness that explodes into
a grotesque nightmarish
vision: in a rarefied, the-
atrical space, with sparse
white furniture standing
out on a black back-
ground, three different fe-
male figures—a pregnant
woman on a gynecology
table,
another

(Do-
minique Bosch ero) in a
bed and an elderly,
grotesque “living doll”—
are murdered by a blue-
eyed man; the scene is fol-
lowed by a breathless
camera car shot across a
desolate country road, in
negative, which ends
against a tree trunk. The
result is a tad dated and
definitely heavy- handed
in its use of Freudian
symbols paired with
weird wide- angle shots,
but
quite
effective
nonetheless. Similarly, the
satanic rituals—accompa-
nied by Bruno Nicolai’s
prog- influenced score,
spiced with sitars and fe-
male chants—feel more
than a bit kitschy (and
with a nod to contempo-
raneous
adults- only
comics), with the system-
outstanding Spanish poster for Tutti i colori del buio (1972). Art by Fran-atic use of the wide- angle
cisco Fernandez Zarza- Pérez, a.k.a. “Jano.”

lens to emphasize the dis-

1972: Tutti i colori 7
gusting menace, as the cultists’ leering faces ap-Ugarte as the sect’s high priest is felicitous, proach poor Jane in eager anticipation of the
whereas Luciano Pigozzi is given little to do ex-orgy that will follow.

cept looking menacing as usual. Given the pres-Interestingly, in the final scenes Gastaldi
ence of Fenech as well as other ravishing ladies adds a genuine paranormal touch to the story
such as Susan Scott and Marina Malfatti, the di-that further enhances the Gothic angle and al-
rector does not stint on eroticism either, and—
lows for an effective twist ending, as Jane has a a testimony to the makers’ shrewdness—one key
foresight of events to come via a premonitory
clue to the solution is handed to the viewer dur-dream (also characterized by extreme wide-ing a nude scene. Predictably, the board of cen-angle shots that distort perspectives). It is yet sors asked for the erotic scenes between Hilton another example of how the giallo’s rational core and Fenech to be trimmed before giving the
allowed for irrational elements, that would ul-movie a V.M.14 rating.

timately take the upper hand in works such as

Gastaldi followed a similar route with his

Profondo rosso.

next script for Martino, Il tuo vizio è una stanza Tutti i colori del buio (a title Gastaldi took chiusa e solo io ne ho la chiave (172), by from a sci- fi paperback in the Urania series4) is blending a typical family intrigue à la Les dia-at its most effective when it plays with the con-boliques (155, Henri- Georges Clouzot) with a trast between the heroine’s drab existence and subplot and an ending lifted from Edgar Allan
her escapist desires, which lead to her embracing Poe’s The Black Cat: however, unlike Tutti i colori black magic as a way to leave behind the boring del buio, the Gothic elements played more as an ordinariness of middle- class life, as opposed to embellishment to a story firmly rooted in giallo, the rational path to explore the unconscious and and overall less convincingly handled.

its traumas through psychoanalysis. All this is Tutti i colori del buio circulated overseas in underlined by the striking English locations, the a trimmed version, released by Sam Sherman’s
gloomy condo where Jane lives, and the decay -
company Independent International under the
ing magnificence of the castle where the Satanic title They’re Coming to Get You!, featuring a new sect performs its rituals.5
credit sequence designed by Bob Le Bar. It also The best thing about Martino’s film is pre-surfaced on TV as Demons of the Dead. It was
cisely the ability to catch the irrational dissatis-finally released in the U.S. in its uncut version faction that creeps under the façade of a rational to home video.

society, something that Polanski portrayed masterfully, but which here becomes a trait d’union NoTeS
with the many dramas about married couples
that are no longer able to communicate sexually: 1. Although the script is credited to Gastaldi and Sauro within Italian cinema of the period, a theme

Scavolini, from a story by Santiago Moncada, Gastaldi such as marital unhappiness—a recurring topic
claims to have written it on his own. “Moncada was only a name for co- production reasons, and perhaps Scavolini in Gastaldi’s work, as proven also by his own
may have done a revision or a reading, I don’t know. But I movies as a director, such as Libido (165) and never worked with him on the script.” Ernesto Gastaldi, La lunga spiaggia fredda (171)—could turn up
email interview with the author, September 2016.

either in an auteur film or a genre product, from 2. Misha Kavka, “The Gothic on Screen,” in Jerrold E.

Antonioni to giallo, without losing its edge.

Hogle (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 21.

Here, the heroine’s last line, “I’m afraid I’m not 3. Ernesto Gastaldi, email interview with the author, myself anymore … help me… ,” is both an ad-September 2016.

mission of her detachment from the rational

4. Tim Lucas, “What Are Those Strange Drops of Blood world and a call for help to her man, in one of in the Scripts of Ernesto Gastaldi?,” Video Watchdog #3, May/June 17, 46. The book Gastaldi mentions is Lloyd the most problematic reconciliatory happy end-Biggle Jr.’s 163 novel All the Colors of Darkness, the first ings seen in an Italian genre film of the period.

in the Jan Darzek cycle, published as Tutti i colori del buio, The paranoia mood is well- handled

Urania #335, May 164.

through out, and Martino employs convincingly

5. The condo is Kenilworth Court, in West Putney, London, whereas the castle is Wykehurst Place, in West Sussex, his leading man, George Hilton, in a role that a Gothic Revival mansion seen in a number of movies, in-remains ambiguous almost until the end; what
cluding Demons of the Mind (172, Peter Sykes) and Legend is more, the casting of the eerie- looking Julián of Hell House (173, John Hough).

80 1973: Flesh 1973

Flesh for Frankenstein, a.k.a. Il mostro è in misunderstanding, Frankenstein ends up decap-tavola, barone … Frankenstein
itating Sacha, a prospective monk who was taken D: Paul Morrissey [Italian version: Anthony
to the brothel by his friend, the sexually hyperac-M. Dawson [Antonio Margheriti]]. S and SC:

tive peasant Nicholas. The latter survives the at-Paul Morrissey [Italian version: Tonino Guerra, tack and is summoned to the castle by Franken-from an idea by Paul Morrissey]; DOP: Luigi
stein’s wife (and sister) Katrin, who uses him to Kuveiller (Space-Vision 3-D, Eastmancolor, LV-satisfy her carnal appetites. Nicholas discovers the Luciano Vittori); M: Claudio Gizzi (Ed. R.C.A.); baron’s experiments and sneaks in the lab, but is E: Jed Johnson [Italian version: Franca Silvi]; PD, captured by the doctor. Frankenstein’s plans are CO: Enrico Job; ArtD: Gianni Giovagnoni; MU:

destined to disaster, though: Katrin succumbs Mario Di Salvio; SE: Carlo Rambaldi [and An-after intercourse with the monster, and Otto de-tonio Margheriti]; Hair: Paolo Franceschi; AD: stroys the female creature while attempting to Paolo Pietrangeli; 2ndUD: Antonio Margheriti;
have sex with her. The baron kills his assistant, C: Ubaldo Terzano; SO: Carlo Palmieri; B: Piero but when he orders the male creature to dispatch Fondi; SOE: Roberto Arcangeli; Mix: Fausto An-Nicholas, the latter rebels and murders Franken-cillai; 3-D consultant: Robert V. Bernier; SP: stein in gruesome fashion. The creature then com-Paolo Pettini; ACO: Benito Persico; AE: Loretta mits suicide by disemboweling himself. But Mattioli; SS: Silvia Petroni. Cast: Joe Dallesandro Nicholas is not safe yet: the baron’s children seem (Nicholas), Monique Van Vooren (Katrin Frank -
all too happy to follow their father’s experiments…

enstein), Udo Kier (Baron von Frankenstein),

The names of Paul Morrissey and Joe

Arno Juerging (Otto), Dalila Di Lazzaro (Female Dallesandro gained notoriety in Italy in early monster), Srdjan Zelenovic [Italian version: 172, when Trash (170) was released (Heat and Aleksic Miomir] (Sacha), Nicoletta Elmi

Flesh wuld follow a few years later, namely in (Marika / Diastola), Marco Liofredi (Erik / Sis-175 and 178). The Italian version, distributed tolo). Liù Bosisio (Olga), Fiorella Masselli (Large by Alberto Grimaldi’s company P.E.A., was cu-prostitute), Cristina Gaioni (Nicholas’ girl-rated by Dacia Maraini and Pier Paolo Pasolini, friend), Rosita Torosh (Sonia, the prostitute), who supervised respectively the dubbing and

Carla Mancini (Farmer girl), Imelde Marani the dialogue, and employed unprofessional voice (Blonde prostitute). PROD: Andrew Braunsberg
actors with heavy dialectal accents. The board and Carlo Ponti for Compagnia Cinemato -
of censors banned the movie for obscenity due
grafica Champion (Rome); PM: Mara Blasetti;
to the foul language, the bleak depiction of drug PA: Vasco Mafera; PAcc: Maurizio Anticoli.

use, and especially the abundant sex (in cluding Country: Italy / France. Filmed in Passerano Holly Woodlawn’s infamous masturbation with

(Rome) and at Cinecittà Studios (Rome). Run-
a bottle) and nudity.

ning time: 5 minutes (Italian version: 8 min-Pasolini’s Il Decameron had broken the bar-
utes—m. 2448). Visa n. 64264 (3.28.174); Rat-
rier of male genitals on screen in a mainstream ing: V.M.18. Release dates: 11.30.173 (West picture, but Morrissey’s constant resort to Dalle-Germany); 3.17.174 (U.S.A.); 3.15.175 (Italy); sandro’s apollonian body and the recurrent sight Distribution: Gold Film (Italy); Bryanston Pic-of the actor’s pubic area were nothing short of tures (U.S.A.). Domestic gross: 345,023,314 lire.

scandalous in a country that was just getting

Also known as: Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein used to female nudity on screen. Undoubtedly,

(U.S.A.; Germany); Chair pour Frankenstein the presence of Pasolini as a supervisor of the (France); Carne para Frankenstein (Spain, ArItalian version emphasized the transgressive gentina).

quality of Morrissey’s film to the eyes of the cen-Baron von Frankenstein is obsessed with cre-
sors, since the director of Accattone (161) was ating a perfect Serbian race by assembling a pair the target of trials and controversy for his own of perfect male and female creatures from parts work, and the controversial fame that preceded of corpses and having them mate. To do so, he

Andy Warhol’s Factory did the rest.

and his servant Otto seek a head donor with a

The ban caused a sensation, with ample
powerful libido at the nearby brothel: due to a coverage in the media, and the intervention of

1973: Flesh

81

Baron Frankenstein (Udo Kier) contemplates his female creature (Dalila Di Lazzaro) in Paul Morrissey’s Flesh for Frankenstein (1973).

eminent cultural personalities such as novelist most absurd offer I could ever imagine,” Mor-Alberto Moravia. The controversy centered on
rissey commented.3
the film’s artistic quality, and underlined the That such an anarchistic, commercially
backward- minded approach of the censors’

challenging project ever got made gives an idea committees, at a time where the public’s taste of the adventurousness of the Italian movie inand sensibility were undergoing big changes.

dustry of the period, where even the oft- quoted Grimaldi resubmitted the movie in October 172

“fifteen minutes of fame” were sufficient to con-with the new title1 Trash i rifiuti di New York vince a producer to concoct a movie around

(Trash—New York’s garbage) and a number of
something or somebody. But Morrissey actually
cuts and changes: Dallesandro’s nude scenes managed to persuade Ponti to make two movies,
were either cut or altered (and partly obscured) the second one being a Dracula spoof, for the
by way of optical reframings, and new footage
cost of $350,000 each and a shooting schedule
was added in place of the missing scenes. The
of three and a half weeks per film. Despite his movie finally obtained a V.M.18 rating.2
name being amply featured on both films, Andy

The following year Morrissey and Dalle-

Warhol did not put in a penny with his own
sandro came to Italy to shoot a movie with Carlo company, and had practically nothing to do with Ponti and Andrew Braunsberg’s money and
the concept, the filming and the final result.

Andy Warhol’s nominal aegis. The original idea To film the story (deposited at Rome’s SIAE
came through Roman Polanski, whom Mor ris -
offices on January 24, 173, with the title La sey met during a promotional tour in Europe,
famiglia Frankenstein), Ponti and Braunsberg
and who was shooting his movie Che? (172) in
gave the American filmmaker a first- rate tech-Italy. Originally Polanski was to shoot it in 3-D
nical crew to begin with. It included Luigi Ku-but abandoned the idea; nevertheless he and the veiller as the d.o.p., Enrico Job as production producers were toying with the idea of a 3-D
designer (note the exquisite Klimt- like mosaics horror spoof. “Polanski thought that I, for some on the wall of Frankenstein’s lab), pianist reason, would be a natural person to make a 3-Claudio Gizzi (who provided an eerily romantic D film about Frankenstein. I thought it was the score4) and Carlo Rambaldi, who took care of

82 1973: Flesh the extra- gory special effects. The film was shot Margheriti’s recollections are often at odds
with the 3-D process Space- Vision, which Mor-with Morrissey’s, such as when he claimed that rissey employed not only to highlight the gory his American colleague “was afraid that it all excesses, exposing viscera to the camera and so would become too ‘gamey’ and not enough
on, but also for the sex scenes, giving ample

‘film-vérité,’” a statement which clashes with prominence to Joe Dallesandro’s buttocks: “I saw Morrissey’s irreverent intentions. “Paul offered 3-D as the ultimate of all absurdities,” the direc-a certain resistence because he perceived these tor claimed. “Horror movies themselves are ab-things as artificial, because he was used at mak-surd, but 3-D itself is totally absurd.”5
ing another kind of cinema … whereas, with

In addition to the Factory’s homemade su-
great immediacy, Andy understood that this perstar, the cast comprised a varied list of names, double game of … ironic fiction, would allow
including Udo Kier (“Udo always seemed like
him to do all that the characters will do in the he had a face from another planet,” Morrissey
movie … the work I did has remained in the
noted), the debuting Arno Juerging, the stun -
movie; in fact, maybe Andy felt a rush of regret ning Dalila Di Lazzaro and the weird- looking for not having followed me in a couple more

Monique Van Vooren, a former Belgian night-
ideas.”10
club artist and Warhol’s personal friend. At first The Italian filmmaker’s mention of War -
the director sought to rely on the improvisa -
hol’s active participation in the movie (whereas tional method of his earlier films, giving the cast it is a known fact that the artist only visited the carte blanche for their dialogue; but after finding set once and briefly stopped by during the edit-out that this would not work with non–Anglo-
ing, and when asked about his contribution he

Saxon actors like Kier, Morrissey started prepar-simply answered: “I go to the parties”11) makes ing the dialogue day by day, dictating it to Pat one suspect that Margheriti was somewhat ex-Hackett on his way to the studio.6
aggerating his contribution. The core of the Shooting began on March 20, 173. In
movie—its approach to the story and characters, order to obtain Italian nationality, and the enits peculiar and idiosyncratic humor, its suing benefits of law, in official papers the di-directing style (see the long dinner sequences, rection was credited to Anthony M. Dawson,
or Frankenstein’s monologues) are purely Mor-
a.k.a. Antonio Margheriti, with Morrissey as
rissey, and Margheriti’s contribution can there-

“supervisor,” whereas the script figured as the fore be circumscribed to the opening sequence
work of the famed screenwriter Tonino Guerra,

(similar to the one in La morte negli occhi del

“from an idea by Paul Morrissey.” Needless to
gatto) and others featuring the kids, including say, the American director never even met the one where they are scared by bats in the cas-Guerra, whose contribution was limited to the
tle’s cellar and another that appears in the Italian Italian adaptation.

version only, with Marika and Erik feeding the Morrissey minimized Margheriti’s contri-fish in the tank with a severed hand (“That all bution: “He did two second units, one day on
came from me, 100%, and I shot them after prin-each film.”7 On his part, the Italian director recipal photography was completed… ”12). The called:

Italian director went so far as considering the parts with Nicoletta Elmi and Marco Liofredi

I really directed a lot. I got involved because, when the core of the movie. “The children are vital to Paul Morrissey came to Rome to start with Andy the story; the things they see, how they move, Warhol’s Frankenstein, they arrived with four pages the crystals, the surgical instruments hanging of script and they wanted to shoot a 3-D picture the in the air … in my opinion they allow us to show way they had done with movies like Flesh: with a other things that otherwise would have resulted camera standing in one corner running for 10

… a bit ‘Deodato-like,’ very vulgar and violent, minutes without a cut and that’s it! Not the best idea and which this way become ironic, almost when using a technique such as 3-D. Carlo Ponti in-gamely, the ironic presentation of a story.”13 And troduced me to Paul Morrissey because he didn’t yet, the ending (similar in tone to the epilogue want to shoot a period film with costumes, good actors and rich sets with that technique. Ponti is a real of Bava’s Reazione a catena, where the children producer and he wasn’t interested in backing an un-kept playing the gruesome games they had seen
derground film … a lot of the scenes had to be rewrit-adult people play… ) seems the work of Morris-
ten for the script, or entirely invented, and that was sey.

all up to me.8

Margheriti also took care of the special ef-

1973: Flesh 83
fects, such as the “breathing lungs,” made with necrophiliac implications; considering that these pig’s lungs, an idea that came from the director’s scenes are, in their inseparable whole, the means own I diafanoidi vengono da Marte (166), as
by which the author has accomplished his idea, well as some of the gory bits, which too were
it would be fair to say that without them the
shot after principal filming had been wrapped
movie itself would become incomprehensible
and Morrissey was already busy making Blood
and would have no reason for being, particularly for Dracula. “I shot a lot of the special effect given the ambitious nature of the theme, treated scenes with the blood and intestines bursting in with a renewed conception and vitality.”

the direction of the audience… . You can actually A month later the distributor submitted a
see me in Frankenstein: when the male zombie
new version, entitled Il mostro è in tavola, barone destroys himself at the end and rips his intes -

… Frankenstein (The Monster Is Served, Baron
tines out, those are my hands. I prepared and

… Frankenstein), which presented a number of
staged the effect. I have a stiff finger, which I cuts and alterations. Namely:

broke when I was young, which is kind of like a signature.”14

• The scene in the brothel was almost completely Contrary to what has been stated else -
eliminated, leaving only the parts essential to the un-where, Flesh for Frankenstein was not shown inderstanding of the narrative developments;
tact in Italy. It was submitted to the board of cen-

• The scene in which the baron operates on the sors as Carne per Frankenstein in January 174.

sutures of the “female monster” has been reduced to This version (running 2583 metres, that is ap-a mere suggestion and replaced with new ambient scenes;
proximately 4m0s) presented a number of im-

• The love scene between the baron and the “fe-portant differences from the American cut, male monster” has been wholly excised; in a number starting with the line “un film di Andy Warhol”

of points various scenes featuring the children have (a film by Andy Warhol) as a bait and switch.

been added;

The sex scene between Nicholas and the baron -

• A long dialogue scene between the baron and ess while Frankenstein is spying on them behind his assistant has been added;
the mirror was shot in a tamer version for the

• All the love scenes between the baroness and Italian market, with Dallesandro and Van Vooren the butler have been considerably shortened and sim-partially dressed in bed; on the other hand, plified;

Otto’s disemboweling of the maid featured a

• All the most horrifying bits have been removed gory shot of the woman’s open torso, with Otto from the scene of the killing of the housekeeper; commenting “S’è rotta!” (“She’s broken!”) before

• The love scene between the baroness and the she falls dead, which is absent in the U.S. ver-monster has been shortened;

• The whole final sequence (Otto’s death, the sion.

baron’s mutilation and death, the monster’s death) The movie met a similar fate as Trash. Mor-has been completely re- edited in order to remove rissey’s mixture of grotesque humor, sex and
whenever possible the horrific details, leaving only gory effects prompted the committee to deny it what is essential to the understanding of the story.

a visa, since “the scenes of violence of a sexual

• On top of that, there have been substantial nature, the sadistic and severely insane coupling changes to all the dialogue, highlighting the film’s between the baron and the ‘monster woman,’ the caricatural and grotesque tone.

prolonged erotic scenes between the baroness
and her servant Nicholas, the ugly and heavily The latter observation seems to imply that
erotic scenes in the brothel, and the gruesome the grating Italian dubbing, which featured de-attempt at sexual coupling on the part of Otto batable “humorous” additions, was concocted
with the ‘monster woman,’ (all this in an inces-subsequently. For one thing, Frankenstein’s chil-tuous family environment) constitute a grave of-dren Erik and Marika were renamed “Sistolo”

fense to morality.”15
and “Diastola” (after the heart valves, systole and Despite the distributor’s willingness to per-diastole). On some occasions the dialogue is
form cuts, the committee banned the film in ap-completely different from the original: for in-peal too. The motivation, however, for once stance, in the first dinner sequence, in the En-aimed at safeguarding the movie’s artistic in-
glish version Frankenstein and the baroness talk tegrity, stating that “in its unitary conception it about their parents, from which we realize they features scenes of eroticism interspersed with are brother and sister; in the Italian one they dis-others of delusional and bloody sadism with
cuss about their children’s sadistic habits, such

84 1973: Lisa as torturing small animals. Needless to say, the 8. Peter Blumenstock, “Margheriti—The Wild, Wild scene’s absurdist humor gets lost. Similarly, the Interview,” Video Watchdog #28, May / June 15, 57.

9. Marcello Garofalo, “La tecnica e gli effetti. Le interfilm’s most famous line, Frankenstein’s oft-viste celibi: Antonio Margheriti 2,” Segnocinema #85, May quoted “To know death, Otto, you have to fuck

/ June 17, .

life in the gall bladder”—a low blow to one of 10. Ibid.

Morrissey’s most hated movies, Bernardo Ber -

11. Talbot, “Monsters for Morrissey,” 23.

tolucci’s Ultimo tango a Parigi (172)16—be -

12. Blumenstock, “Margheriti—The Wild, Wild Interview,” 57.

comes, in the Italian version, “Per vincere la par-13. Garofalo, “La tecnica e gli effetti,” .

tita con la vita, giocala col morto!” (To win the 14. Blumenstock, “Margheriti—The Wild, Wild Inter-game of cards with life, play it with the dead!”)17
view,” 57.

The Italian dubbing is also over the top, making 15. The censorship data are taken from Curti and Di Rocco, Visioni proibite—I film vietati dalla censura italiana Frankenstein’s lines often sound much more de-

(dal 1969 a oggi), 240–245.

mented than in Kier’s quiet delivery; Otto, who 16. Marlon Brando’s original line in Bertolucci’s film in the original version is totally submissive to was: “You don’t know death until you fuck life up the ass.”

the baron, becomes rather arrogant; Olga utters 17. Literally, “giocare col morto” means “to play with guttural verses. The “various scenes featuring the dummy player.”

the children” that were added actually amounted to the “fish feeding” bit and a brief shot of the Lisa e il diavolo (Lisa and the Devil)

kids spying on the final massacre.

D: Mario Bava. S and SC: Mario Bava, Al-

The new version was 2448 metres long (ap-
fred Leone (international version); Giorgio proximately 88m13s). The substantial amount

Maulini, Romano Migliorini, Roberto Natale
of manipulations (including a new title devised

[and Francesca Rusicka] (Italian version); DOP: to emphasize the movie’s essence as a spoof )

Cecilio Paniagua (Technicolor); M: Carlo
granted Il mostro è in tavola, barone … Franken-Savina, conducted by the author; E: Carlo Reali; stein a visa, albeit with a V.M.18 rating.

PD, CO: Nedo Azzini; SD: Rafael Ferri; AD: The movie was eventually released in Italy

Lamberto Bava; C: Emilio Varriano; AC: Gianni
one year later, in March 175, to mediocre busi-Modica [Giovanni Canfarelli Modica]; MU:

ness. Italian posters misspelled Frankenstein as Franco Freda; Hair: Adalgisa Favella; SE: Franco

“Frankstein.”

Tocci. Cast: Telly Savalas (Leandro), Elke Sommer (Lisa Reiner), Sylva Koscina (Sophia Lehar), N

Alessio Orano (Max), Gabriele Tinti (George,
oTeS
the Chaffeur), Kathy Leone (Lisa’s Friend), Ed-1. Italian censorship law demanded that a movie uardo Fajardo (Francis Lehar), Franz von Treu-banned by the board after two sets of proceedings (first berg (Shopkeeper), Espartaco Santoni (Carlo),
degree and appeal) could be resubmitted again to the board only under a new title and with enough changes that Alida Valli (Countess); uncredited: Andrea Es-would make it a “different movie” from the previous ver-terhazy (American Tourist). PROD: Alfred
sion.

Leone for Euro America Produzioni Cinemato -

2. For a detailed report of the movie’s censorship vi-grafiche, Leone International Film (Rome), cissitudes, see Roberto Curti and Alessio Di Rocco, Visioni proibite—I film vietati dalla censura italiana (dal 1969 a Roxy Film (Munich), Tecisa (Madrid); PM:

oggi) (Turin: Lindau, 2015), 157–16.

Fausto Lupi (La casa dell’esorcismo: Faustino 3. Paul Talbot, “Monsters for Morrissey. The Making Ocaña). Country: Italy/West Germany/Spain.

of Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein & Dracula,” Video Watchdog Filmed in Barcelona, Toledo and Madrid (Spain)

#28, May/June 15, 22.

and at Villa Frascati (Rome). Running time: 5

4. Gizzi would later reach fame as an easy listening soloist with the pseudonym Jean- Pierre Posit. In 178
minutes (international version); 87 minutes (m.

he released an instrumental electronic record with 2370, Italian version), Visa n. 63474 (11.10.173).

Romano Musumarra under the moniker Automat, in Release date: 5..173 (Cannes Film Market),
which he played the MCS70 synthesizer created by Mario 11.25.174 (Spain). Also known as: El diablo se Maggi.

5. Talbot, “Monsters for Morrissey,” 25.

lleva los muertos / El diablo se lleva a los muertos 6. Ibid., 24.

(Spain), Lisa och djävulen (Sweden), Besatt av 7. Ibid., 25. What is more, in the Italian titles Dalila djevelen (Norway).

Di Lazzaro is credited “for the first time on screen” which La casa dell’esorcismo, a.k.a. House of Ex-was not true, having already appeared in some films, in-orcism (Re-edited version) D: “Mickey Lion”

cluding Frankenstein ’80 and Il tuo vizio è una stanza chiusa e solo io ne ho la chiave. On top of that, Srdjan Zelenovic

[additional scenes: Alfred Leone, Lamberto is credited as “Aleksic Miomir.”

Bava]. SC: Alberto Cittini, Alfred Leone; Ad -

1973: Lisa

85
ditional cast: Robert Alda (Fa-
ther Michael), Carmen Silva

(Anna). Running time: 1
minutes (m. 2500); Visa n.

66007 (2.11.175); Rating:

V.M.14. Release date: 4.2.

175 (Italy); 7..176 (U.S.A).

Distribution: Trans europa

(Italy); Peppercorn- Wormser

Film Enterprises (U.S.A.);

Domes tic gross: 0,3,354
lire.

Note: Rodrigo’s “Con-
certo of Aranjuez” directed by

Paul Mauriat (Philips Record

L 6444–504).

Toledo, Spain. Struck by
an ancient fresco depicting the
devil, American tourist Lisa

Reiner leaves her group and
gets lost in the town’s narrow
alleys. After a meeting with a
man named Carlo, who seems
to recognize her, Lisa gets a lift
with the wealthy Francis Lehar
and his wife Sophia. However,
their car breaks down and
stops in front of an old villa.

While the driver George tries
to fix the vehicle, the trio is
hosted by the owners, a blind

Countess and her son Massi-
miliano, who invite them to
spend the night in the man-
sion. Lisa seems to be living a
strange nightmare, recalling

Striking Spanish poster for Lisa e il diavolo (1973). Art by Francisco her love from a past life. Soon

Fernandez Zarza- Pérez, a.k.a. “Jano.”

the guests are killed one by
one, and the events seem orchestrated by the Migliorini, Roberto Natale and Maulini’s girl-butler Leandro, who resembles the image of the friend Francesca “Chicca” Rusicka (who had the devil in the painting. Eventually Lisa finds out original idea for the story but, being a non pro-that she is a dead ringer for Elena, the woman fessional, preferred to remain uncredited),1 the loved by Massimiliano; he keeps her skeleton in director concocted an elaborate story that his bedroom and even kills his mother in order to touched such themes as eternal return and the
keep Lisa with him. But the devilish Leandro circularity of destiny. The original story, La casa manages to get rid of him too. The next morning del diavolo (House of the Devil) started with an Lisa wakes up in the empty and dilapidated villa, American tourist feeling ill in front of a fresco and returns to normal life. But on the plane home in a chapel, which portrays a devilish scene, and a grim surprise awaits her…

according to Natale the fresco was Bava’s idea.2

For his second movie in a row with Alfred

Shooting for the film, provisionally titled

Leone, Mario Bava was given carte blanche by

Il diavolo e i morti (The Devil and the Dead), the Italian- American producer, and set to work took place mostly in Spain, from early Sep -
on a much more personal project than Baron
tember to late November 172, with an impres-

Blood. Together with Giorgio Maulini, Romano
sive cast that featured Elke Sommer, Telly

86 1973: Lisa Savalas, Sylva Koscina, and Alida Valli, in addi-opera the recitative precedes the air or the ention to the Spanish Eduardo Fajardo and the
semble pieces, Bava pursues, without paying Vene zuelan Espartaco Santoni, plus a handsome much attention to what happens around him, a
young newcomer, Alessio Orano, who gained
frenzied, accurate reverie on death… .”4
fame after Damiano Damiani’s film La moglie

But there are many more references, either
più bella (170), in which he co- starred with his relevant or simply possible, woven into the future wife Ornella Muti. Leone’s dream cast was fabric of the film. According to Lamberto Bava, even more ambitious, as the producer had ap-some lines of dialogue were lifted verbatim from proached Louis Jourdan (for the role that went Dostoyevsky’s novel The Demons; Leandro’s
to Santoni) and Bette Davis and Anthony Perkins, monologue, with its reference to ancient history respectively, to play the Countess and her son.

and Greek mythology, brings the story into a

Born as a summation of Bava’s conception
territory akin to Jean Ray’s Malpertuis, to which of the Fantastic, Lisa e il diavolo encompassed Lisa e il diavolo can be compared for the theme diverse themes, influences and references
of the memory of an ancient status that rises in throughout. The central theme was not new:

characters that are only apparently human. Like Italian Gothic had explored the boundaries be-Euryale the Gorgon in Ray’s novel, Lisa—whom
tween this world and the afterlife, and the tor-in the final shot we see dressed and coiffed in ment of souls that are trapped in a limbo where ancient Greece style—is a detached, passive, they are forced to live the same passions again enigmatic character. Once again in Bava’s cin -
and again had been the subject of such works as ema the theme of the double is the key to enter Danza macabra and Nella stretta morsa del the story: Lisa is the doppelgänger (or the rein-ragno, whose romantic intensity is akin to Bava’s carnation?) of Elena, the woman loved by Mas-film.

similiano (Alessio Orano), who had killed her

With brilliant, thought- provoking intui -
after discovering her affair with his stepfather tion, Bava scholar Alberto Pezzotta hypothe -

Carlo (Espartaco Santoni), and preserved her
sized an affinity between Bava’s film and Pierre dead body on the nuptial bed. On top of that,

Klossowski’s 165 experimental novel The

Bava draws again from his beloved Jean Coc -

Bapho met.3 The paradoxical, nonlinear story
teau: Lisa’s awakening in the villa immersed in told by the French author, about the “eternal re-vegetation recalls a famous moment in La Belle turn” experienced by the souls of Templar et la Bête (146).

knights devoted to a disturbing young idol (the More prosaically, Lisa e il diavolo is remi-titular Baphomet), indeed has similarities with niscent also of a well- known episode of the TV

Lisa e il diavolo’s tangled plot. Whereas Klosseries The Twilight Zone, “The After Hours,”

sowski revisited Nietzsche and Sade in the light written by Rod Serling and directed by Douglas of psychoanalysis, and focused on the

Heyes. In the episode, a young woman named
dissolution of the self and the affirmation of sim-Marsha White (Anne Francis) experiences a dis-
ulacra, in Bava’s film each character has its own turbing misadventure at a department store and simulacrum, a life- size puppet that will serve—
finally remembers that she is not a person of
as the butler Leandro (Telly Savalas) explains—
flesh and blood but a mannequin that has briefly for a performance.

come to life for a short holiday among humans.

In addition to that, Klossowski’s convo-

Not a far- fetched source, incidentally, given that luted, difficult prose can well be a written ho-the inspiration for the ending of Terrore nello mologue to Bava’s style, which here is extremely spazio (165) came from another episode of Rod calligraphic and self- conscious. Reviewing the Serling’s TV series, “Third from the Sun,” from a movie in Positif, Emmanuel Carrère wrote: “By
short story by Richard Matheson. The plot has the deforming the visible—the horribly broken lines same mechanism, and the events that poor Lisa
and the blue- green colors make up a monstrous (Elke Sommer) experiences, with characters that space, vaguely haunted, which is a signature in continually allude to her previous life and treat itself—, by giving a mediocre piece of music (the her like a different person, serve as prelude to the Concierto de Aranjuez) a tragic resonance, an
final revelation: on an airplane piloted by the devil, unexpected softness, by organizing a cyclo -

Lisa meets the other protagonists of the story, thimic mise- en-scène that moves constantly and eventually acquires the notion of herself. In from a prosaicness charged with latent horror
the film’s last image, she limps to the ground, to the most disheveled poetic flights, like in the lifeless, as if she was a mannequin. Her time as

1973: Lisa 87
a tourist among the living is over, just like that father cared about more than the screenplay. As of Anne Francis’ character in Serling’s story.

for the story, it was fragile, with plot holes. Such Whereas in Baron Blood Bava seemed con-an intricate story needed a good revision and
tent to rely on his own past as a safe way to deal some more ideas: there were things that did not with a simple horror story, here he reprises his add up at all.”7 What is more, some parts, like main stylistic traits and visual tricks in an at-Massimiliano’s visits to Elena’s bedroom, are lazy tempt to build a formally coherent universe:

rehashes of the dialogue scenes between Nor -
ghosts sliding as if on ice as in La goccia d’acqua; man Bates and his “mother” in Psycho, and the
children playing with balls as in Operazione character is basically a reprise of the man- child paura; faces appearing behind windows as in I
psycho figure Bava had employed to better use

Wurdalak; the insistent use of zooms and focus-in Il rosso segno della follia.

out-of-focus shots; and, most of all, the contin-Despite the inconsistencies, the narrative
uous blurring between the animate and inani-
confusion and the formalistic self- complacency, mate, which characterized such works as 6

Lisa e il diavolo represents a key moment in donne per l’assassino and Il rosso segno della follia Bava’s filmography and in the realm of Italian and here becomes the film’s core.

Gothic. Firstly, leaving aside the made- for-TV

However, compared with Bava’s master-

La Venere d’Ille (co-directed with Lamberto, pieces of the previous decade, Lisa e il diavolo—
shot in 178 but broadcast in 181), it is the last hailed by many as the director’s greatest achieve-movie the director conceived and filmed with
ment—is a singularly overindulgent work,
an eye to the stylistic elements of Italian Gothic characterized by a visual profligacy that ulti-films made during the previous decade. Else-
mately goes at the expense of elegance. As Pez-where these traits were inexorably harmed and
zotta notes, “the movie is marked by blatant hybridized, especially in the shabbier subprod-signs of fatigue. The style is less controlled and ucts made around the same time, whereas in the creative than in the past. The zooms, never so average genre products they gradually gave way many as noted by Luc Moullet, accompany, with
to other, extraneous sources, such as the upcom-an obstinacy that has something masochistic in ing Exorcist-inspired thread.

it, not only the moments of terror, but almost For Lisa e il diavolo Bava—who in his fol-every close- up, and each thing that appears on lowing works would fully immerse himself in a
screen for the first time: thus they engage a ten-contemporary setting, with Cani arrabbiati and sion that ends up idling, depriving everything the middle- class ghost story Shock—chooses a of its meaning. So much so that eventually one diametrally opposite approach to the Gothic
does not even perceive the zoom, unlike in the genre as he had done with Baron Blood, and
director’s previous films. The sloppy moments
reprises the most typical elements of Italian are countless: overly lengthy bits … shots that Gothic: the propensity for morbidness, from the start or end with the camera framing meaning-implicitly Oedipal relationship between the less objects … soft- focus and slow- motion flash-characters played by Alida Valli and Alessio backs; blood (red paint) dropping on the lens… .

Orano to the latter’s necrophile obsession; the Even the bravura shots (the characters are reference to melodrama; the emphasis on the
always reflected in the most unexpected sur-
haunted house setting and the baroque attention faces… ) are so emphasized, reiterated and nar-to the décor; the preponderance of weak male
ratively meaningless that they become cloying.”5
figures; the theme of the female double and the Honestly, it is hard to disagree. Fellow di-femme fatale who leads her lovers to death, will-rector Riccardo Freda, who had always been an
ingly or not; the manipulation of space- time co-admirer of Bava’s work, pointed out the abuse
ordinates.

of the zoom on the part of his friend in the Not that Lisa e il diavolo is impervious to
movie. “The exorcist’s house [author’s note: the infiltration of the present, both in the eroti-Freda, who had seen the reedited version of the cism and in the mise- en-scéne of violence that film, La casa dell’esorcismo, is referring to the characterizes the murders in the second part.

Countess’ villa] was portrayed in every shot with The love scene between Sylva Koscina and four or five zooms, and at that point the film lost Gabriele Tinti was filmed by Lamberto Bava:

its effectiveness because of the addiction to that

“My father was very puritan, I a little less; but effect.”6 Even Lamberto Bava admitted: “Lisa e there was a limit to decency. Moreover, that se-il diavolo had a wonderful setting—which my
quence has nothing to do with the movie.”8 The

88 1973: Lisa scene also exists in a more risqué version, shot plays a playful, almost childlike attitude, like a by Leone with two stand- ins, which can be kid who breaks his toys to see what is inside: the found as an extra in the DVD release. Bava’s son sequence of Massimiliano’s death, as he sees his also filmed Koscina’s death scene.

revived mother (whom he had just killed) com-

Compared with his previous Gothic movies,
ing at him, recoils in terror and falls headlong Bava does not even bother to scare the audience, out of the window, is not the revenge of a but he fully embraces restlessness as the privi-revenante a bit less scary than the one in La goc-leged vehicle for the Fantastic. The core of the cia d’acqua (the director employs the same trick film is memory, the surfacing of an awareness
of having Alida Valli slide onward), but Lean -
of one’s own condition linked to the notion of a dro’s umpteenth mockery, as the butler maneu-destiny that repeats itself cyclically, overcoming vered the dead woman’s boy like a puppeteer
the barriers of time; and the real horror is that from behind.

one’s self is revealed as illusory—a feeling only Ultimately, there is not a single innocent
fleetingly experienced by Dr. Eswai (Giacomo
character in the movie. “They’ll pry into our

Rossi Stuart) in Operazione paura’s most cele-
lives and we’ll all be guilty,” says Massimiliano brated scene.

to Francis (Eduardo Fajardo), and at a certain The Fantastic imposes itself with the
point the protagonists start killing each other strength of evidence, against all appearances, like in Danza macabra, or, indeed, Reazione a
and Bava challenges the logic of the story by
catena. But the latter film’s moralistic sarcasm considering space and time as arbitrary notions, gives way to a disenchantment that arises from destined to fall like shedded skin as soon as re-the confrontation with the volatility of existence, ality as we know it displays the first cracks. After and a resigned helplessness in the face of the stepping off the bus in Toledo, in the movie’s mockeries of an inescapable destiny. Like the
first scenes, Lisa enters a labyrinth of alleys that, characters in so many horror movies to come,
through the judicious use of the zoom lens and Lisa and her companions in misfortune are al-the tracking shot, seem to appear and disappear ready dead, and they don’t know it. And yet the behind her; Carlo is at the same time alive and awareness they ultimately achieve does not lead dead, a real person and an inanimate puppet, as to an acceptance of their state or to inner peace, Bava replaces Espartaco Santoni with a dummy
but to a depletion. The soul, or whatever it is, in the span of a shot / reverse shot; in the final flies away from the body like helium from a bal-scenes, Lisa awakes in the villa’s bedroom, loon. The end.

magically invaded by greenery as if centuries

Lisa e il diavolo looks like it was conceived
had passed, and recognizes a wax mannequin
as a serious project, or at least more cultured with Massimiliano’s features, submerged by veg-and self- conscious than it would be expected etation like the busts and statues that dot the from its makers and its destination. Accordingly, overgrown garden; then she finds herself in the Bava had his cast listen to Carlo Savina’s music Toledo square she had left the previous day, get-on the set, in order to have them achieve a ting lost; and the seemingly endless aircraft cor-sleepwalking- like acting—an unusual concern
ridors in the epilogue exude the same dread as for a director less known for his ability with ac-the series of identical rooms in Operazione tors than for his visual tricks. The ending, where paura.

Lisa and the other simulacra are carried away

Gradually, each coherent explanation falls
by the devil on a plane, seems an up- to-date ver-apart, but above all it is the moral of the story sion of the final procession in Ingmar Bergman’s that eludes the viewer. Unlike Danza macabra,

Det sjunde inseglet (a.k.a. The Seventh Seal, where the souls of Elisabeth and her misfortu-157), and suggests cumbersome metaphysical
nate companions relived endlessly their own
implications—and even bizarre ones: Satan con-
death as an otherwordly supplice, and despite
trols the sky as well… ?—for such an average
the sulphureous presence evoked by the title, in horror film with a commercial destination. But Lisa e il diavolo there is no tangible sign of moral Lisa e il diavolo’s tormented souls are in turn the path or punishment. Everything happens ac-victims of the director’s biting irony: notoriously cording to the will and the whims of the devil, superstitious, accustomed to playing with his
who plays with the characters’ lives in his own own reputation as a fearful and mild fellow, Bava liking just like he does with cards, like a magi-exorcises the metaphysical temptations, and cian, during the opening credits. Bava’s devil displays down the hubris by exposing the ridicule.

1973: Lisa 8

And so, he counterparts the eerie music box that to Father Michael, who has come to exorcise her, portrays the totentanz of Death and the souls, and events from Lisa e il diavolo form the series and from which Leandro is inseparable, with the of flashback at the film’s core. Needless to say, amusing funeral procession with the butler car-the additional scenes are terrible, with Sommer rying the body of the chaffeur (Gabriele Tinti) vomiting green soup and toads and uttering on a wheelbarrow, like disposable waste: one of plenty of four- letter words. The ending was also those moments where the movie seems to make
changed, with Alda’s character sneaking into the fun of itself. Bava’s simulacra- dummies, like the abandoned villa to exorcise Elena’s skeleton and human insects of Reazione a catena, are not even facing hordes of snakes: eventually the demonic granted post- mortem dignity.

spirits are eradicated and a flash of light, wind After its disastrous appearance at the 173
and an explosion suggest that the mansion has

Cannes Film Market, Lisa e il diavolo underwent been cleansed. The new cut also included some
vicissitudes as troubled and unhappy as those
risqué footage featuring Sommer and a more
of its protagonists. It was submitted to the Italian gruesome version of the killings.

board of censors in November 173, and was

The resulting hodgepodge, signed “Mickey
given a V.M.14 rating: interestingly, this copy alLion,” was at least commercially viable. Leone legedly ran 2370 metres, that is approximately always maintained that he and Mario shot the

86 minutes and 25 seconds, several minutes less additional scenes, even though the director ab-than the international version. It was released stained from filming the blasphemous parts. On in Spain by Maesso, in a truncated form, as El the other hand, Lamberto Bava is adamant on
diablo se lleva los muertos, which premiered in the paternity of the new footage: “Some stuff in Barcelona in November 174 and in Madrid in

La casa dell’esorcismo was directed by Leone,

March 175: this cut contained a gorier version whereas other scenes, I taught him how to make of Koscina’s death scene, but sex scenes were
them, technically speaking.”10
heavily truncated, and part of the ending was

La casa dell’esorcismo was submitted to the
cut out.

Italian board of censors in January 175: the The movie was never released in Italy in its
committee, when asked for a new rating, com-
original form. On December 26, 173, The Ex-
pared the new version with the old one and de-
orcist was unleashed overseas to a shocked au-
cided that it was indeed “a different movie, in dience, and the wave of its extraordinary success terms of the story, made using a number of clips soon reached the Old World. Alfred Leone, well from the old film, with the addition of several aware of Lisa e il diavolo’s shady commercial
new sequences, interpolated with a new audio
perspectives, decided to jump on the bandtrack that is effectively descriptive of the new wagon. “He came to my father and said, ‘Why
narrative conception” and gave the film a V.M.18
don’t we add some exorcism scenes?’ and gave
rating due to the “many and horrifying scenes
him three or four ideas,” Lamberto Bava re -
of violence as well as other macabre and grue-
called. “My father didn’t know what to say at
some ones, the exaggerated foul language and
first, and replied: ‘I don’t care about this thing.

many scenes featuring female nudity in lascivi-If you want to do it on your own, for the Amerous attitudes… ”

ican market, it’s fine by me, I’m even sending When asked about La casa dell’esorcismo,

Lamberto to give you a hand… ’ and so he sent
in a scathing May 176 interview, Bava was me to assist Leone—that is, to prevent him from adamant: “La casa dell’esorcismo is not my film, fucking it all up.”
even though it bears my signature. It is the same Leone’s intervention—with the uncredited
situation, too long to explain, of a cuckolded fa-contribution of art director Nedo Azzini and of ther who finds himself with a child that is not a certain Alberto Cittini, credited as co-his own, and with his name, and cannot do any-
scriptwriter—basically destroyed the original
thing about it.”11 To the director, the débacle of movie and turned it into an Exorcist rip- off by Lisa e il diavolo was one of the most bitter dis-concocting a new framing story featuring an ex-appointments in his career, but unfortunately
orcist (Robert Alda), and transforming the film’s not the last: his following film, Cani arrabbiati, discourse on reincarnation and eternal return
was to follow an even worse fate, ending up un-into an out- and-out possession tale. In the new seen for two decades after the producer went
version, aptly titled La casa dell’esorcismo, Lisa bankrupt. Once again, the devil had put his tail is possessed by Elena’s spirit and tells her story on it.

0 1973: La morte NoTeS
souri à l’assassin (France), Die Mörderbestien (West Germany), A Máscara da Mulher Fan-1. Pezzotta, Mario Bava, 116.

2. Roberto Natale, quoted in Manlio Gomarasca and tasma (Portugal).

Davide Pulici, “Il talento di Mr. Bava,” 15.

Note: Although credited, Carla Mancini

3. Pezzotta, Mario Bava, 118.

does not appear in the film.

4. Emmanuel Carrère, “La Maison de l’exorcisme,”

Early 1900. Franz von Holstein mourns over

Positif #1, November 177, 72. Note how Carrère’s style purportedly mimicks the film’s baroqueness.

the body of his sister Greta, with whom he had 5. Pezzotta, Mario Bava, 118.

an incestuous affair, until the day she met a ma-6. Riccardo Freda, Divoratori di celluloide (Milan: Edi-ture stranger. Greta turns up again as the victim zioni del Mystfest, Il Formichiere, 181), 100. In the book, of a carriage accident: she is assisted by a young Freda mistakenly refers to the film as Operazione paura.

couple living nearby, Walter and Eva von Ravens-7. Lamberto Bava, quoted in Manlio Gomarasca and Davide Pulici, “Il talento di Mr. Bava,” 15.

brück, and is cured by Dr. Sturges, who is im-

8. Ibid.

pressed by an amulet she carries on her neck.

9. Ibid.

Sturges, who is carrying on experiments to revive 10. Ibid.

the dead, is dispatched by a mysterious killer, and 11. Mario Bava interviewed, in Giuseppe Lippi and Lorenzo Codelli (eds.), Fant’italia. Emergenza, apoteosi e so is Gertrud, the Ravensbrücks’ maid. Greta se-riflusso del fantastico nel cinema italiano (Trieste: Ed. Fes-duces both Walter and Eva, but when the latter tival Internazionale del film di fantascienza, 176).

finds out about Greta’s affair with her husband, she walls her alive in the crypt. However, Greta La morte ha sorriso all’assassino (Death returns from the dead and provokes Eva’s demise.

Smiles on a Murderer)

Next are Walter’s father, who turns out to be D: Aristide Massaccesi. S: Aristide Massac-Greta’s former lover, and Walter. Inspector Dan-cesi; SC: Aristide Massaccesi, Romano Scandari-nick finds out that Franz von Holstein was a ato, Claudio Bernabei; DOP: Aristide Massaccesi necromancer, and was perfecting a method to res-

(Telecolor); M: Berto Pisano, conducted by the urrect the dead, based on an ancient Inca ritual…

author (Ed. C.A.M.); E: Piera Bruni, Gianfranco Shot between November and December

Simoncelli; PD, CO: Claudio Bernabei [and Eve-

172,1 under the working title 7 strani cadaveri lyn Melcherich, uncredited]; MU: Maria Grazia

(Seven Strange Corpses),2 Aristide Massaccesi’s Nardi; SO: Franco Rucci; C: Guglielmo Vincioni; La morte ha sorriso all’assassino is a weird AD: Romano Scandariato; AC: Gianlorenzo
hodgepodge of various themes and references

Battaglia. Cast: Ewa Aulin (Greta von Holstein), that stands out as one of the most bizarre exam-Klaus Kinski (Dr. Sturges), Angela Bo (Eva von ples of the decade’s Gothic. It was produced by Ravensbrück), Sergio Doria (Walter von

Franco Gaudenzi, a business consultant who

Ravens brück), Attilio Dottesio (Inspector Dan-worked in the film business and also dabbled
nick), Marco Mariani (Simeon, the Butler), Lu-
with production. Massaccesi had met him
ciano Rossi (Franz, Greta’s Brother), Giacomo
through a friend, production manager Oscar

Rossi Stuart (Dr. Von Ravensbrück, Walter’s Santaniello, and their collaboration resulted in Father), Franco [Fernando] Cerulli (Prof.

the Western flick Un bounty killer a Trinità Kempte), Carla Mancini, Giorgio Dolfin (Maier, (172), directed by Massaccesi but signed by Ballet Dancer); uncredited: Evelyn Melcherich

Santaniello—one of several uncredited directing (Gertrud, the Maid), Tony Askin [Antonio As-jobs Massaccesi took on before his official first chini] (Reanimated Corpse), Oscar Sciamanna
feature, often recycling unused footage—and the (Party Guest), Pietro Torrisi (Dr. Sturges’ assis-bawdy Sollazzevoli storie di mogli gaudenti e tant). PROD: Franco Gaudenzi for Dany Film
mariti penitenti (172, signed as “Romano Gas -

(Rome); PM: Oscar Santaniello; PS: Massimo
taldi”). Unlike his previous ventures with Gau-Alberini, Sergio Rosa. Country: Italy. Filmed at denzi and Santaniello, this time Massaccesi Palazzo Patrizi, Castel Giuliano (Rome), Villa chose to sign the movie with his own name—an

Parisi, Frascati (Rome) and at Elios Film una tantum occurrence in his career, before (Rome). Running time: 2 minutes (m. 2520).

adopting a number of pseudonyms, including

Visa n. 6262 (6.20.173); Rating: V.M.18. Release the notorious “Joe D’Amato”—as a sign of the
date: 7.11.173; Distribution: Florida Cine-confidence he had in the result.

matografica. Domestic gross: 70,0,000 lire.

The story takes place in a period setting,

Also known as: Death Smiles at Murder (U.S.A.), and borrows the premise from Joseph Sheridan

La muerte sonríe al asesino (Spain), La mort a Le Fanu’s Carmilla: the mysterious Greta enters

1973: La morte ha sorriso

1

U.S. lobby still for La morte ha sorriso all’assassino (1973), featuring Klaus Kinski.

the home and the lives (not to mention the beds) and pleasure but ultimately gives them horrible of the aristocrat von Ravensbrück spouses after deaths. Similarly, Greta’s face suddenly turning a carriage accident. Then the script (by Massac-from beautiful to decaying before her victims is cesi, Romano Scandariato and Claudio
the umpteenth example of the duality of the fe-Bernabei, the latter merely a typist according to male as both seductive and repulsive, since the Scandariato3) adds a number of elements taken
early examples in I vampiri and La maschera del from the works of Edgar Allan Poe, namely The
demonio.

Black Cat (Greta is walled alive in the basement, The mixture of varied influences was not a
and a cat comes out of the tomb) and The novelty, but La morte ha sorriso all’assassino is Masque of the Red Death (Greta appears as an
nevertheless more audacious (if not more felic-uninvited guest during a masked ball, just like itous) than many of its peers in mixing refer -
the Red Death in Prospero’s castle). Like with ences to literary masterworks with nods to con-many Gothics of the previous decade, an elusive temporary trends and demands. First of all, and literary source was brought up: an article in the similarly to what happened with Giorgio Fer-January 173 issue of Playmen mentioned a nov-
roni’s reprisal of I Wurdalak in La notte dei di-elette by a “Herbert Peuckardt” which, according avoli, Greta is not a vampire, but a living dead; to the article, had also been the basis for one of what is more, her character pays homage to the Marlene Dietrich’s first films,4 but Scandariato period’s renewed interest in the occult and eso-recalled: “I don’t think we took inspiration from terism, with the allusions to an ancient Central anything in particular: the story came from American ritual and the mysterious amulet Aristide, but it was more or less one page.”5
which Greta carries on her neck, and the subplot In accordance with one of Italian Gothic’s
about Dr. Sturges’ necromantic practices.

most significant characteristics, the male figures In addition to that, Massaccesi injected
are weak, submissive, scarcely virile, and all fall conspicuous doses of sex and violence to the
prey to a lethal woman, who promises them love recipe, while keeping in tune with Italian

2 1973: La morte ha sorriso Gothic’s primary themes: Greta is a revenante
puzzle just at the very end. Likely dictated by who returns from the grave to kill those who
the rush in filming rather than by the makers’

loved her in life, starting with her incestuous interest in experimenting, it is nonetheless an brother; like many other fleshly ghosts that pre-effective move. Massaccesi (who also acted as
ceded her, she infiltrates into her victims’ subd.o.p. and cameraman) manages to keep the conscious, by perturbing their sexuality and story lively with an abundant use of wide- angle flaking off their defenses: in doing so, in homage shots, which, paired with Berto Pisano’s eerie, to the central role of eroticism in Italian genre fuzz guitar- based score, suitably make up for the cinema of the decade, she retaliates on both scarcity of means.

sexes. Whereas in Camillo Mastrocinque’s ver-

According to Claudio Bernabei the movie
sion of Le Fanu’s novel, La cripta e l’incubo was shot in just seven or eight days, but a more (164), the lesbian passion between the vampire likely figure would be two or three weeks. Some and her victim was alluded to but not shown ex-scenes that were not in the script were impro-
plicitly, here it climaxes in a sapphic sex scene vised on the set, such as the one set in the with full frontal female nudity.6 According to

“changing room” with veils and cobwebs, mean-

Scandariato, the erotic element was not as em-
ing that time has passed, as Scandariato recalled.

phasized in the script: “We had inserted the idea Others were achieved through decidedly prag-of Ewa Aulin who identifies with Death, which
matic means: for the one where Luciano Rossi
ended up teasing everybody. There was the is attacked by a cat, after a number of unsuccess-scene in which he goes to bed with Aulin, who
ful attempts, Massaccesi achieved the wanted ef-turns into a skeleton in his arms. We also in-
fect by literally throwing the feline against serted what we called ‘the lesbian act,’ but it was Rossi’s face.

just a matter of looks, there was no ‘act.’ Whereas The film’s main asset is the casting of the
in the end they shot those risqué scenes.”7
then-23-year-old Ewa Aulin as Greta, in one of The director did not spare the gore either:

her last film roles. The days of A- grade pictures in the carriage accident sequence the unfortu-such as Col cuore in gola (167, Tinto Brass) and nate coachman ends up transfixed by a shaft and Candy (168, Christian Marquand) were gone,
with his intestines exposed; the maid receives a and after the divorce from the English writer
fatal gunshot to the face; a character has his face John Shadow, the Swedish actress was grow-slashed open with a razor, while another one has ing so dissatisfied with her film career that she his eye gouged out by a cat. The low- budget, soon retired and married a landowner, Cesare
merely 150 million lire, did not allow for con-Paladino, and had a daughter with him, Cris-
vincing special make- up effects, but even tiana.
though they are often crude- looking in an H. G.

If Aulin’s ravishing looks and innocent air

Lewis way (with Massaccesi becoming familiar
suit perfectly her enigmatic character, Klaus with the baby veal intestines—the so- called pa-Kinski—saddled with one of his customary spe-
jata—he would use in one of Antropophagus’

cial appearances, inflated as a main role for the most infamous bits), the gore scenes have the
credits—does what he is usually required to,
same over- the-top quality as the ones in the sexy looking pensive, handling medical instruments, horror comics of the period. In addition to that, scribbling numbers on a chalkboard, and barely the subplot centered on the mysterious killer
uttering a word. He is offed way too early in the who dispatches several characters allows for picture, in a scene that is more chilling for its hand- held POV scenes that blatantly pay refer-aftermath: one of Dr. Sturges’ experiments, a re-ence to the profitable gialli thread. According to animated corpse, comes briefly to life before

Scandariato, “there was much more suspense in
being terminated once and for good by the un-
what we had written, it was much more giallo,
known murderer. As Massaccesi recalled, “Kin-
and until the end you didn’t realize who was
ski did everything just for the money. You called there behind the camera POV that approached
him for two days, gave him lots of dough … a
during the murder scenes. Then, unfortunately, true prostitute, pure and simple. But I must say many things were changed out of necessity.”8
that he always gave you something more, be-

The most unusual aspect of Massaccesi’s
cause he really got into the character, maybe be-film is its almost abstract narrative construction, cause of an inner vein of madness, not even in which liberally upsets the chronology and allows a lucid way. He was fascinated of playing a half-the viewer to put together all the pieces of the lunatic in my film, and gratified by the idea of

1973: La morte negli occhi

3
acting over the top in a movie. So it was really scene) that the board of censors demanded be cut, for a pleasant working with him.”10
total of 10 meters (approximately 21 seconds), before giving the film a V.M.18 rating.

The rest of the cast comprises familiar faces

7. Gomarasca and Pulici, “La morte ha sorriso all’as-such as Giacomo Rossi Stuart, Sergio Doria sassino,” 15.

(seen in L’iguana dalla lingua di fuoco and in Ro-8. Ibid.

molo Guerrieri’s La controfigura) and recurring 9. Aulin and Shadow got married in Tijuana on March character actors such as Fernando Cerulli, 21, 168. The couple had a son, Shawn, born on June 15, 16, and the following year Aulin starred in Shadow’s Marco Mariani and the weird- looking Luciano
debut as a director, the experimental Microscopic Liquid Rossi, the latter in one of his typical demented-Subway to Oblivion (170). They divorced in 172.

looking appearances. Rossi’s career waned in the 10. Gomarasca and Pulici, “La morte ha sorriso all’as-late Seventies: among his last roles were a couple sassino,” 13.

11. See Sorridere alla morte, extra on the Italian of Lucio Fulci films—Luca il contrabbandiere

Cinekult DVD of La morte ha sorriso all’assassino.

and Paura nella città dei morti viventi, both 180—and his final appearance was in Ermanno

Olmi’s Lunga vita alla signora (187). Plagued La morte negli occhi del gatto (Seven
by mental illness, he died in 2005. Angela Bo

Deaths in the Cat’s Eyes)

was one of the many starlets of the “De-D: Anthony M. Dawson [Antonio Mar -
camerotics,” and her short career comprised gher iti]. S: based on the novelette Corringa by such works as Canterbury proibito (172, Italo Peter Bryan; SC: Antonio Margheriti, Giovanni

Alfaro) and Quando i califfi avevano le corna

Simonelli; DOP: Carlo Carlini (Technicolor, (173, Amasi Damiani). Rossi’s agent, Tony Techniscope); M: Riz Ortolani (Ed. C.A.M.); E: Askin, played a small role, the reanimated Giorgio Serralonga; ArtD: Ottavio Scotti; SD:

corpse that Dr. Sturges is operating on, a last-Roberto Granieri; CO: Mario Giorsi; MU:

minute choice on the part of Massaccesi, who

Marisa Tilli; Hair: Giancarlo De Leonardis; AD, was afraid that Kinski’s realistic acting style 2ndUD: Patrick Wachsberger; SO: Pietro
would have had dangerous consequences for the

Spadoni; Mix: Fausto Achilli, Sandro Occhetti; unfortunate extra.11

C: Sergio Martinelli; AE: Alessandro Ceran -

The movie did scarce business in Italy,
tonio; Additional dialogue (English version): Ted partly due to its regional distribution, as no im-Rusoff. Cast: Jane Birkin (Corringa), Hiram portant distributor agreed to pick it up due to Keller (Lord James MacGrieff ), Françoise
its unknown director. Massaccesi would return

Cristophe (Lady Mary MacGrieff), Venantino
to the horror genre six years later, with Buio Venantini (Father Robertson), Doris Kunts -
omega.

mann (Suzanne), Anton Diffring (Dr. Franz),

Dana Ghia (Lady Alicia), George Korrade [Kon-

NoTeS
rad Georg] (Campbell), Serge Gainsbourg (Po-

1. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, lice inspector), Alan Collins [Luciano Pigozzi]

shooting began on November 13, 172. Interestingly, Mas-

(Angus), Bianca Doria (Janet Campbell), Franco saccesi was to use the a.k.a Michael Wotruba. The outdoor Ressel (Priest), Alessandro Perrella (Policeman), scenes were filmed at Palazzo Patrizi in Castel Giuliano, Bruno Boschetti (Policeman with mustache);
near Bracciano, whereas the indoor scenes were shot at Villa Parisi in Frascati, one of Italian Gothic’s recurring lo-uncredited: Tom Felleghy (Man at Funeral), Silcations.

vio Klein (Undertaker). PROD: Luigi Nannerini

2. The working title 7 strani cadaveri was eventually for Starkiss s.r.l.; Falcon International Film changed by the distributor, in order to follow the thread (Rome); Roxy Film (Munich); Capitol Films of films with the word “death” in the title, such as Luciano Ercoli’s gialli La morte cammina coi tacchi alti (171) and (Paris); PM: Tommy [Thomas] Sagone; PSe:

La morte accarezza a mezzanotte (172). Scandariato would Maurizio Biasini, Giancarlo Nannerini. Country: have preferred the more allusive L’angelo finisce dove com-Italy / West Germany / France. Filmed at Castle incia il diavolo (The Angel Ends Where the Devil Begins), Massimo in Arsoli (Rome) and at Incir- De a quote from Pope Paul VI.

3. Manlio Gomarasca and Davide Pulici, “La morte Paolis Studios (Rome). Running time: 5
ha sorriso all’assassino,” in Manlio Gomarasca and Davide minutes (m. 2585). Visa n. 61830 (2.6.173); Rat-Pulici (eds.), Joe D’Amato. Guida al cinema estremo e del-ing: V.M.18. Release date: 4.12.173; Distribution: l’orrore. Nocturno Dossier #78, January 200, 15.

Jumbo. Domestic gross: 21,556,000 lire. Also

4. Ibid., 13.

known as: Seven Dead in the Cat’s Eye (U.S.A.), 5. Ibid., 15.

6. Ewa Aulin and Angela Bo’s sapphic interlude was Les diablesses (France); Sieben Tote in den Augen one of the two (the other being Bo and Doria’s lovemaking der Katz (West Germany, 12.7.173); Siete muertos

4 1973: La morte negli occhi en el ojo del gato; La muerte en los ojos del gato bed, and the faithful servant Angus is murdered (Spain, 4.1.174); Sept morts dans les yeux d’un near the family chapel. The police investigate, but chat (Canada); Sete Mortes nos Olhos do Gato

Corringa begins to suspect that the culprit might (Portugal); Sete Mortes nos Olhos de um Gato
be her undead mother, who has turned into a

(Brazil); Kauhujen kappeli; Kauhujen verinen
vampire, since her body has disappeared from the kappeli; Kauhun verinen kappeli (Finland).

coffin. Other deaths ensue, and Corringa eventu-Scotland, early 1900. Corringa arrives at ally finds herself face to face with the murderer…

Dragstone castle, owned by Lady Mary MacGrieff Following the ill- fated Nella stretta morsa
and her son James, to stay with her mother Alicia, del ragno and an aborted thriller project written Lady Mary’s sister. The manor is inhabited by a by Ernesto Gastaldi and to be produced by Carlo series of weird characters, who seem to be at odds Ponti, Gli agghiaccianti suoni del silenzio (The with one another: the eccentric James, who mur-Chilling Sounds of Silence), Antonio Margheriti dered his little sister as a kid, keeps a gorilla; Dr.

returned to the Gothic genre, albeit this time Franz, Mary’s lover, has an affair with the young with quite a different attitude. The evocatively bisexual housekeeper, Suzanne, who in turn is at-titled La morte negli occhi del gatto (Death in the tracted by the newcomer; Father Robertson, a vis-Cat’s Eye), shot in February and March 172,1
iting priest, is understandably upset by the strange was not a ghost story but a period murder mys-atmosphere of the place. Corringa is frightened tery with a supernatural red herring, that made to hear that the family castle is plagued by a horit closer to the director’s own La vergine di rible curse: if a MacGrieff is killed by a relative, Norimberga, as well as to other Gothic mysteries he or she will turn into an undead vampire. Soon of the past decade, such as Horror (163, Alberto after Corringa’s arrival, Alicia is smothered in De Martino) and La lama nel corpo (166, Elio

German lobby card for La morte negli occhi del gatto (1973), featuring Doris Kuntsmann (left) and Jane Birkin.

1973: La morte negli occhi

5

Scardamaglia). Still, inevitably, the result accom-bit, in order to minimize the excessive macabre modated elements of the Argento- esque giallo, and horror elements which would have dis-resulting in an animal’s name in the title (even turbed people more than entertained them. This more explicitly in the Anglo- saxon Seven Deaths was the kind of movies Antonio made. They
in the Cat’s Eyes, which adds a number as well were not meant to be artistic, they were just en-in true Argento fashion) and in gory razorblade tertaining. With these movies what you see is
murders, with throats cut open and blood what you get.”5
sprayed all over. In addition to that, as he had Not that the human cast was without its
done in Contranatura, the director gave reason-points of interest: Jane Birkin, in the lead, was ably ample room to eroticism, which caused it
still surrounded by the same aura of scandal that a V.M. 18 rating in Italy.

had accompanied the Italian release of Je t’aime According to the credits, the film was

… moi non plus, the hit single she sang together scripted by the director and his friend Giovanni with her then- lover Serge Gainsbourg, charac-Simonelli from the “novella” (novelette) Cor -
terized by explicit sexual lyrics and published in ringa by Peter Bryan, a fact that Margheriti Italy with the warning “vietato ai minori di 18
stressed in interviews.2 Corringa was actually anni” (Forbidden to those under 18 years old).

the working title; however, as with other Italian The song was censored by the Italian national

Gothic films, the real existence of the alleged lit-broadcasting service Rai (Lelio Luttazzi, the host erary source is debatable. Was this the same of the program “Hit Parade” was even forbidden Peter Bryan who signed Hammer’s The Hound
to mention the title and the spot it had reached of the Baskervilles, The Brides of Dracula and in the charts), and on August 28, 16, the single Plague of the Zombies, among others? However,
was seized by order of the authorities because there is no trace of the original novelette, which of obscenity. In a nice publicity stunt, Margheriti makes one suspect that it was all a fabrication managed to cast Gainsbourg as well, in a bit role on the part of Margheriti and Simonelli, also
as the inspector on the case: the French singer considering that the latter had been a prolific appears in less than a handful of scenes, carrying pulp writer in the 150s, before he became a
a stick, and his lines are often delivered off-scriptwriter.3 The script kept at the CSC does screen, a sign that his scenes were shot in a rush.

not mention Bryan’s story and is credited to Margheriti even claimed in an interview that

Margheriti and Simonelli.

Gainsbourg himself asked him to play a cameo

Whatever the truth, the writers concocted
while visiting Birkin on the set: “He came to
a pastiche that benefits from extraneous ele-

Rome and one evening at dinner he asked me,
ments which seem to hint at its spurious origin:

‘Why can’t I play a part too?’ and I said, ‘Sure, the presence of a gorilla (an orangutan in the why not?’ and so I changed the role of the inscript) as an unlikely red herring seems a self-spector for him, adding a few lines; I must say conscious nod to Edgar Allan Poe’s short story he was rather good, short, believable as a pain The Murders in the Rue Morgue or, even more
in the ass type, a bit stiff…. ”6
fittingly, Ralph Spence’s play The Gorilla, Less inspired was the casting of the male
whereas the revelation of the murderer’s identity, lead, Hiram Keller, who was enjoying the last
without giving too much away, is in tune with a gleamings of the short- lived popularity brought typical tendency in gialli of the period. Another to him by Fellini—Satyricon (16). Working
nod to Poe is the titular cat, a key presence in with a German co- production, Margheriti cast the story, and the imperturbable witness of the the veteran Anton Diffring, in one of his usual whole chain of murderous events: as Margher -
stiff- upper-lipped scoundrel roles, and the beau-iti’s son Edoardo recalled, “Another important tiful Doris Kuntsmann, who the same year character in the film was Mushi, one of An -
would play Eva Braun in Ennio De Concini’s
tonio’s cats, in a prominent and omnipresent

Hitler: The Last Ten Days (173). Rounding up
role; at times he acted even better than many
the cast were a number of Italian actors, such as regularly credited actors.”4 As the presence of Venantino Venantini, Dana Ghia and Margher-the feline underlines, the movie is spiced with iti’s friend and regular Luciano Pigozzi, in his irony, which gives it a somehow lighter tone
usual turn as the designated victim.

than Margheriti’s earlier Gothics. As Simonelli If the plot is more than a bit silly, and the
recalled, “The irony was intentional, without al-murderer rather easy to spot, the director man-lowing it to become too much, but just a little aged to make things look compelling, at least

6 1973: Il plenilunio visually. The opening scene starts with the out-didn’t use any optical systems at that time, which standing image of a spurt of blood over a spider’s would have made the whole atmosphere very
web as someone is being murdered off- screen, weird and dreamlike.”7 Margheriti was not sat-and then proceeds, via an exquisite focus isfied with the gorilla either: “In my opinion the change, with a long take from behind an iron
orangutan, which was in the original story, was gate, following the murderer’s actions—a Bible a mistake, and if we’d managed to replace it with is picked up, a body is locked in a trunk—under something else, the film would have surely ben-the cat’s attentive eyes. It is a really impressive efitted … on the other hand, if that is the story, beginning, showing that—when he was not busy
it is useless to try and make a different movie: shooting a scene with three cameras at the same the only option is to improve upon it as far as time—Margheriti was capable of a stylishness
possible… ”8
worthy of Bava. And, like Bava, he knew how to Simonelli and Margheriti collaborated
embellish a so- so script with enough eye candy again on a number of works, including the West-to make it worth viewing, such as rooms and
ern comedy Whiskey e fantasmi (174), the film faces bathed in bright reds and greens, or scenes noir Controrapina, a.k.a. The Rip- Off (178) and shot through veils, cobwebs or other semi-the adventure story La leggenda del rubino transparent surfaces. In addition to that, a malese (185).
couple of moments—a Bible burning in extreme
close- up in a fireplace, a razor lifting a latch—

NoTeS
blatantly predate as many moments in Tenebre

1. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, (182) and Suspiria, hinting that perhaps shooting began on February 7, 172.

Argento knew this movie well.

2. “It was born from an English story written by Peter Besides paying homage to Bava (the scene

Bryan, which I and my trusted Simonelli tried to make a where the coffin is found ripped open from the little less dusty, a bit more modern and captivating; the inside, as if destroyed by the body buried inside story was titled Corringa, which was the female protagonist’s name.” Garofalo, “La tecnica e gli effetti,” 11
it, recalls the aftermath of Barbara Steele’s res-3. “I was writing crime novels with another guy, who urrection in La maschera del demonio), Mar -
is now a director too, Gianfranco Parolini. We’d write crime gheriti managed to squeeze in his beloved minia -
novels, print them ourselves, we’d do everything. I would tures: the night scenes at the cemetery are shot write three, maybe four a month because we had two bi-weekly publications.” Giovanni Simonelli, interviewed in on a studio set, with the castle in the background Murder, He Wrote, extra in the Blue Underground DVD
being a miniature surrogate of the original. He of Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eyes.

even allowed himself a reference to his own I

4. Edoardo Margheriti, La morte negli occhi del gatto, lunghi capelli della morte (164), also shot at the www. antoniomargheriti. com.

castle Massimo in Arsoli, in the scene where

5. Giovanni Simonelli, interviewed in Murder, He Wrote.

Corringa and Suzanne take a walk in the park,

6. Garofalo, “La tecnica e gli effetti,” 11. In the Italian a long take that recalls a similar moment in the version, Gainsbourg is dubbed by voice actor and earlier film. In addition to Carlo Carlini’s scope comedian Oreste Lionello, the Italian voice of Woody cinematography, La morte negli occhi del gatto Allen, with jarring effect.

7. Blumenstock, “Margheriti—The Wild, Wild Inter-benefits from the décor (by Elio Micheli), which view,” 47.

becomes a character on its own. On the other

8. Garofalo, “La tecnica e gli effetti,” 11.

hand, Riz Ortolani’s score was not one of the

9. “You always had to keep up with Antonio and un-composer’s best, and recycled a theme from Il
derstand what he really had in mind. Otherwise he would merlo maschio (171, Pasquale Festa Campanile).

go off on a tangent and you’d lose him,” Simonelli recalled.

“Anyway, we got along quite well, and although we were According to the director, the film under-close friends we didn’t make many movies together. We went the same color issues that had determined argued, sometimes strongly for a whole day or half day.

the failure of the special effects in Nella stretta And then each of us would write by himself according to morsa del ragno. “There was a really beautiful what we had decided. He would take care of the special effects scenes, because, of course, he knew how and where scene, in which a cat visits Jane Birkin at night, to shoot a scene, but we never sat down and exchanged one of the best moments in the film. The cat was opinions or ideas.” Simonelli, interviewed in Murder, He some sort of vampire and it starts to drink blood Wrote.

from Birkin’s neck. Two or three scenes like that suffered immensely. Two different scenes were

Il plenilunio delle vergini (The Devil’s supposed to be printed on top of each other with Wedding Night)

very unusual and vivid colors. Technicolor D: Paolo Solvay [Luigi Batzella] [and Aris-

1973: Il plenilunio

7
tide Massaccesi, uncredited]. S and

SC: Walter Bigari, Paolo Solvay;

DOP: Aristide Massaccesi (Tele-
color); M: Vasil Kojucharov [Ko-
jukaroff ] (Ed. C.A.M.); E: Piera

Bruni, Gianfranco Simoncelli; PD:

Carlo Gentili; AD: Romano Scan-
dariato; AC: Lorenzo Battaglia;

MU: Liliana Dulac; SO: Franco

Ricci, Manlio Urbani; W: Tigano

Lo Faro. Cast: Mark Damon (Franz

Schiller / Karl Schiller), Rosalba

Neri (Countess Dolingen de Vries),

Esmeralda Barros (Lara), Francesca

Romana Davila [Enza Sbordone]

(Tanya), Xiro Papas [Ciro Papa]

(The Vampire Monster), Sergio Pis-
lar (Mark Damon’s double), Gen -
gher Gatti (The Mysterious Man),

Giorgio Dolfin (First Villager at

Inn), Stefano Oppedisano (Second

Villager at Inn); uncredited: Carlo

Gentili (Innkeeper). PROD: Franco

Gaudenzi for Virginia Cine-
matografica (Rome); PM: Walter

Bigari; EP: Ralph Zucker; PS: Mas-
simo Alberini, Sergio Rosa; PSA:

Angelo Santaniello. Country: Italy.

Filmed at Piccolomini Castle, Bal-
sorano (L’Aquila) and at Elios Film

Studios (Rome). Running time: 4
minutes (m. 2264); Visa n. 62028

French poster for Il plenilunio delle vergini (1973). Art by Con-

(3.14.173); Rating: V.M.18. Release
stantin Belinksy.

date: 3.14.173; Distribution: Florida

Cinematografica. Domestic gross: 117,150,000 lire.

be sacrificed during a Satanic ritual. Tania, a Also known as: The Devil’s Crypt; Les vierges de waitress at the inn, recovers the amulet, and man-la pleine lune; Les vierges maudites de Dracula ages to save Karl, who kills the Countess and her (France; 8.7.174); O Castelo de Drácula (Brazil) servants, and dispatches his twin brother. How-Note: In the Italian end credits, Sergio Pis -
ever, just as he is about to leave the castle with lar is credited as “Franz Schiller,” and Rosalba Tania, a grim surprise awaits him…

Neri as “Countess Dracula.”

“That was a movie Mark Damon wanted

Carrying an amulet that protects him from
to do, it was a script he had, it was his creature.”1
evil, Franz Schiller travels to Dracula’s castle in That’s how producer Franco Gaudenzi recalled

Transylvania to seize a magic ring that gives do-the genesis of the evocatively titled Il plenilunio minion over the world, as did the most powerful delle vergini (“Full Moon of the Virgins”). Gau-figures of the past, such as Alexander the Great denzi adamantly acknowledged the film’s Gothic and Caesar. He spends the night at an inn where core, adding: “It was a Dracula movie, but back he forgets the amulet, and once at the castle he is then sexy titles worked.” This might explain why, seduced and vampirized by the Countess
compared with other Italian low- budget horror Dolingen De Vries. Franz’s twin brother Karl arfilms of the period, including the Gaudenzi-rives to the castle to search for his sibling. The produced La morte ha sorriso all’assassino, it

“full moon of the virgins,” which occurs every fifty sounds more conventional on paper.

years, is approaching: by way of her ring, Countess The premise basically revisits the classical

De Vries draws to the castle five virgins that will plot of Harker’s journey to Dracula’s castle, with

8 1973: Il plenilunio a couple of important twists: the hero has a twin female servant (Esmeralda Barros) pours over
brother, and, in tune with the demand for erotiher a pitcher of the substance, and then emerges cism, Dracula is replaced by a ravishing female from the bathtub completely covered in scarlet vampire (his widow, actually), thus giving to
liquid, among dry ice smoke and ethereal lights.

Italian cinema one of its more sensual icons:

It is truly one of Italian erotic cinema’s most Countess De Vries, unforgettably embodied by
iconic moments.

Rosalba Neri.

According to Gaudenzi, Damon was plan-

By applying the theme of the double to a
ning to sell the film to an American company
male character, the script relies on a more classic that was interested in distributing it in the States; type of hero, split into two distinct halves, as the however, the Italian producer never met any as-twin brothers Schiller (not by chance named
sociate of the company, and suspects that after the famous German poet, philosopher and

Damon himself was willing to take the task of
playwright). On the one hand, we have Franz,
releasing Il plenilunio delle vergini in his home the rascal, Romantic type, an impulsive Byro -
country. As for the choice of the director, Gaunian figure, a seducer and a reckless adventurer denzi claimed, “We hired Paolo Solvay, since he who dreams of being a ubermensch and rule the
was often in our office, and there he, Massaccesi world; on the other hand, his book worm brother and Mattei used to talk and come up with ideas Karl, an intellectual who is interested in the oc-for movies.”2 Still, Solvay (real name Luigi cult, recites excerpts from The Raven, labels Poe Batzella, nicknamed “il tranviere,” the tram as “the fashionable writer from the new world,”

driver, among insiders) is credited as the the co-passingly mentions a “Karnstein Museum”

author of the screenplay with Walter Bigari which winks at Le Fanu’s Carmilla, quotes (a.k.a. Walter Brandi, Italian cinema’s first home-Eliphas Levi’s definition of the vampire in Latin made bloodsucker, in L’amante del vampiro), (“Sine vita vivus, sine morte mortuus”) and even whereas the script kept at the CSC (which name- drops the Greek Neoplatonic philosopher
carries the unlikely subtitle Eros Vampiros and Sinesius.

is dated July 27, 1723) bears only Batzella’s Last but not least, Countess De Vries (her-name. Incidentally, the screenplay—very pre-
self the namesake of a character in Bram Stoker’s cisely written, with many technical indications, short story Dracula’s Guest, Countess Dolingen and otherwise quite close to the finished film—
of Gratz) is vaguely patterned over the real- life includes an over- the-top prologue that is not in Countess Erzsébet Báthory, whose notorious
the movie, in which the Countess summons the
deeds had been brought to the screen a number
forces of evil with her ring while in the castle’s of times in the previous years, most notably in halls a savage orgy climaxes in the ritual torture Hammer’s Countess Dracula (171, Peter Sasdy), and throat slashing of a nude woman tied to a
starring Ingrid Pitt, and in a couple of Spanish column. What is more, in the script the Schiller horror films, the Paul Naschy vehicle El retorno brothers are renamed Richard and William Ben-de Walpurgis (173, with María Silva as the son.

Countess) and in the politically charged Cere-

Born in 124 in San Sperate, Sardinia,
monia sangrienta (173, Jorge Grau), where Batzella had moved on to directing in 166 with Báthory was played by Lucia Bosé. But the char-the war melodrama Tre franchi di pietà after a acter was also evoked in Franco Brocani’s ex-nondescript career as an actor. Coming after a perimental oddity Necropolis (170), where
trio of cheap Westerns, Il plenilunio delle vergini Báthory was played by Warhol superstar Viva,
was his first horror movie, although he had in Harry Kümel’s La rouge aux lévres (170),
played the savant in an early Italian Gothic, played by Delphine Seyrig, and most memorably

Roberto Mauri’s La strage dei vampiri (162).

in an episode of Walerian Borowczyk’s Contes

According to the producer, however, the movie

Immoraux (174), with Paloma Picasso.

was co- directed by the director of photography The tendency for literate references puts

Aristide Massaccesi: “Actually they made it tothe script in the same vein as La notte dei dan-gether, he [Batzella] made him reshoot some
nati. Both movies share the same mixture of
things, not the least because Aristide had an im-classical Gothic and lowbrow sexploitation: in portant role in the crew.”4 Damon was so im-the most notorious scene—possibly influenced
pressed by Massaccesi’s work that he recom-
by a similar sequence in Countess Dracula—the
mended him to Roger Corman as the d.o.p. for

Countess takes a sensual bath in blood while her their next project, The Arena (174, Steve

1973: Il prato



Carver), which Massaccesi partly directed as

(real name Enza Sbordone), a refugee from the
well.

“Decamerotics” of the period. On top of that,

The cinematography is indeed one of the
the movie sported a tendency toward the
movie’s assets. Shooting in a real location, the grotesque in its parade of monstrous male char-Piccolomini castle in Balsorano, Massaccesi acters: the wan- looking Gengher Gatti—who
makes impeccable use of hand- held camera collected a scarce number of appearances in a
shots, and gives the movie’s typical adults- only career that seemingly lasted the space of five imagery an aesthetic quality that puts it one step years, including Batzella’s Anche per Django le above the typical erotic fare of the period. The carogne hanno un prezzo (171) and Jorge Grau’s direction is surprisingly witty at times, such as No profanar el sueño de los muertos—plays the
in the scene where Karl (whose wine has been

“mysterious man” who pops up every now and
drugged by the Countess) and his hosts start
then and has the last laugh in the cynical bad laughing uncontrollably, and their madly cack-ending, while Ciro Papa (Frankenstein ’80; Terling faces, shot in extreme close- up, are visually ror! Il castello delle donne maledette) is a con-compared to the grotesque stone faces carved in vincing “monster vampire” with minimal resort
the fireplace; then, in an almost psychedelic to make- up. The use of freakish- looking actors crescendo, the sight of De Vries’ ruby ring and as monsters would reach its peak in the Nazi
a red wine glass dissolve into an abstract tunnel-subgenre, with Batzella distinguishing himself like vision à la 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is one with the casting of Salvatore Baccaro as the tit-of those priceless moments that make Italian
ular “beast” in La bestia in calore (177).

Gothics of the period poles apart from their

Due to its erotic content, the movie had

Anglo- Saxon counterparts.

some trouble with the Italian censors, who de-

Some visual ideas were borrowed from
manded that the sapphic lovemaking sequence
other sources: the Countess advancing toward
be shortened and that “all scenes be eliminated the camera as if she was fluctuating in the air where the man kisses the lower part of the was lifted from Bava, the ceremonial with the
woman’s body.” The photonovel published in the five virgins comes straight out of Twins of Evil magazine Cinestop Attualità (issue #12, May (171, John Hough), while the moment where

173) retained some additional frissons (full De Vries discovers that Schiller is not a vampire frontal nudes, an emphasis on the Sapphic in-since he is reflected in the hall’s huge mirror is terludes), whereas for once the French version a nod to The Fearless Vampire Killers, a detail was identical to the Italian one.

which may also hint at the makers’ tongue- in-cheek approach. The low budget resulted in NoTeS
some ludicrous special effects—such as the ex-

1. Manlio Gomarasca and Davide Pulici, Nude per treme close- ups of real bats to suggest Neri’s Dracula, extra in the Italian DVD Il plenilunio delle vergini transformation into a vampire, and the giant bat (Cinekult).

that appears at the climax—whereas the huge

2. Ibid.

red ruby ring which the Countess uses to sum-

3. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, shooting began on July 31, 172.

mon her victims was another small miracle of

4. Gomarasca and Pulici, Nude per Dracula.

resourcefulness. As Neri recalled, “I had recently 5. Gomarasca and Pulici, 99 donne, 171.

bought a Pomellato ring, you know, those big

6. Ibid.

red stones … and I thought: ‘Why not put a light bulb in it… ? ’ Because, you see, the ring we used Il prato macchiato di rosso
for that sequence had a bulb inside the stone: D: Riccardo Ghione. S and SC: Riccardo
there was a battery somewhere (laughs)… ”5

Ghione; DOP: Romolo Garroni (Technicolor,

Neri (who had crossed Mark Damon’s path

Techniscope); M: Teo Usuelli, conducted by the on the set of Romolo Guerrieri’s Western Johnny author (Ed. R.C.A.), choirs by Nora Orlandi; the Yuma, 166) did not have much to say, neither
song Il prato macchiato di rosso (Ghione-Dalla-about the film, nor about Batzella: “I never un-Baldazzi) is sung by Lucio Dalla; E: Cleofe Con-derstood him. It was like there were two of them, versi; PD: Arrigo Equini; CO: Osanna Guardini; going different directions … and rarely meeting AD: Luciano Palermo; SS: Rosanna Seregni; C:

(laughs). A bit schizophrenic, indeed.”6 The cast Ruggero Radicchi; SO: Umberto Picistrelli; Mix: also included Esmeralda Barros, Maurizio

Fausto Ancillai; AE: Aloisa Camilli; MU: Cris -

Arena’s ex- lover, and Francesca Romana Davila tina Rocca; SE: Giuseppe Pagnotta, Arnaldo

100 1973: Il prato Mangolini. Cast: Marina Malfatti (Nina Gen-enigmatic Alfiero picks up a number of misfits (a ovese), Enzo Tarascio (Dr. Antonio Genovese),
gypsy, a prostitute, a drunk, a pair of hitch- hiking Daniela Caroli (Max’s Companion), Georg Will-hippies) and takes them to the villa of Antonio ing (Max), Claudio Biava (Alfiero, Nina’s and Nina Genovese, a pair of upper class wine

Brother), Barbara Marzano (Gypsy girl), Do-
merchants. Soon the guests notice that something minique Boschero (Prostitute), Lucio Dalla is wrong with their apparently affable hosts: Al-

(Tramp), Nino Castelnuovo (UNESCO agent);
berto is a crazed scientist, obsessed with the cre-uncredited: Tiziana Inzani (Girl in the street), ation of an immortal being, whereas the greedy Giovanni Zappieri (Waiter). PROD: Alfredo

Nina runs the blood smuggling ring, draining Chetta, Aldo Pascucci for Canguro Cinema -
lowlives of their blood which is then shipped to tografica (Rome); PS: Alfredo Sinatra; PSe: Gio-Third World countries. After a delirious orgy, dur-vanni Bruno Bossio. Country: Italy. Filmed in
ing which they are drugged, the guests are offed Castell’Arquato and Fiorenzuola d’Arda and at
by the trio, who employ a robot built by Alberto Centro Dear Studios (Rome). Running time: to suck their blood. The two hippies are about to

0 minutes (m. 240); Visa n. 61372 (11.13.

end up as their unfortunate companions, when

172); Rating: V.M.18. Release dates: 3.2.173
the UNESCO agent shows up and saves the day.

(Italy); Distribution: Drago Film. Domestic gross: A low- budget production filmed in the late

56,364,000 lire.

spring and summer of 172, in the Northern re-

A UNESCO agent discovers that blood is
gion of Emilia Romagna, in the villages of being smuggled abroad, hidden in bottles of wine.

Castell’Arquato and Fiorenzuola (in the province Meanwhile, in a small Northern Italy village, the of Piacenza) under the working title Vampiro

2000, Il prato macchiato di rosso

(“The Red- Stained Lawn”) was Ric-
cardo Ghione’s fourth feature film.

The son of the famous orchestra
conductor Franco Ghione, he had
risen to notoriety in 150, when he
and his associate Marco Ferreri cre-
ated the short- lived newsreel Doc-
umento mensile, which the creators
conceived as “a new cinematic

‘genre.’ Like a cultural magazine, in
each issue it brings together critical
notes, documentation, short stories,
poetry. The contributors are the
best- known filmmakers, as well as
eminent personalities of the Italian
and foreign cultural world, who for
once express themselves through
the cinematic medium.”1

Despite a short and troubled
existence, due to many censorship
issues, Documento mensile was an
extraordinary accomplishment, and
featured contributions from Vit -
torio De Sica and Luchino Visconti

(the moving short documentary

Appunti su un fatto di cronaca, in-
spired by the killing of a 12-year-old
girl in a Roman suburban neighbor-
hood) as well as from novelists
original Italian poster art for Il prato macchiato di rosso (1973).

Alberto Moravia and Carlo Levi.

The incongruous figure on the left, wielding a machine- gun, is recycled from the poster for Svegliati e uccidi (1966, Carlo Liz-Ghi one, with the complicity of
zani).

screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, tried

1973: Il prato 101
to revive the same formula of Documento
device to drain their victims: a tin robot which mensile for a feature film, provisionally titled Lo looks like it just stepped out of some bad 150s spettatore n. 1, which was to be the first in a sci- fi flick.

series of anthologies based on real- life facts and Ghione adds a few references to Nosferatu
featuring non- professional actors. “These films (a scene where Daniela Caroli’s hippie girl cuts can be compared to as many issues of a maga-her own finger like Harker does in Murnau’s
zine,” he and Zavattini pointed out. “Each article film, an eerie dinner in which the owners pro-in each issue will be signed by this or that direc-claim they don’t eat meat, being vegetarians) and tor.”2 The names involved were Carlo Lizzani,
depicts Enzo Tarascio’s character as a demented Michelangelo Antonioni, Dino Risi, Alberto Lat-mad doctor with a lab full of body parts and
tuada, Francesco Maselli, Zavattini himself and weird machinery, who delivers crazy mono-Federico Fellini. Eventually the project for Lo logues and has a fixation with automatons and
spettatore fell apart, and the resulting film be-robots (a nod to the character of Coppelius in came the anthology L’amore in città (153).

Hoffmann’s The Sandman, perhaps?). In A cuore

It took over a decade before Ghione made
freddo, Ghione portrayed the hippies and the
his film debut, and it was a one- of-a-kind effort: wily upper- class couple with the same nihilistic Il limbo (167), written with Luigi Malerba, fea-contempt; here, in full post–168 mode (see Il tured only two- year-old children, and aimed at delitto del diavolo), the joint smoking, guitar portraying a view of life and the world as seen playing, free lovemaking young couple are the
through the eyes of a newborn baby. Regrettably good guys, whereas the villains are rich fascists the film was never released theatrically, and to who listen to Wagner (“I love German music
this day it remains impossible to view. Then
very much, it makes us feel bigger, more impor-Ghione helmed La rivoluzione sessuale (168),
tant … it is undoubtedly a music for a superior an interesting if flawed apologue inspired by the race,” Nina comments), nurture perverted
theories of Wilhelm Reich and featuring among
sexual whims and claim that “only money gives
others a young Laura Antonelli, and A cuore
happiness.”

freddo (171), a grim “hippie vs bourgeoisie”

Beneath the anticapitalistic discourse and
drama starring Enrico Maria Salerno and Rada
the decadent vision of bourgeois family (Nina

Rassimov.

despises her husband and has an incestuous re-

For Il prato macchiato di rosso Ghione re-
lationship with Alfiero), there is a heavy satirical sorted to a plot which mixed elements from the undercurrent at work. Tarascio’s character is Gothic genre, the thriller and a little bit of openly caricaturish, starting with his outstand-science fiction, spiced with ample doses of eroti-ing, gigantic, colorful bow- ties, neurotic behav-cism and served as a political fable of sorts. As ior and incoherent monologues (“I have come
the working title implied, Ghione’s are modern to the conclusion that nature is imperfect. We day vampires, who literally steal the blood from must provide to modify afterwards what nature
the lower classes (prostitutes, tramps, gypsies, has created, the dynamics of automatisms …

hippies) and sell it back to the Third World,
this is perfection!”). He is a man- child who where the ongoing state of war results in con-keeps playing with robots like a grown- up kid tinuous demand for the vital fluid: as Nina (Ma-and keeps a doll house of sorts in the garden, rina Malfatti) explains, “Blood is worth quite and his duets with the drunken tramp (Lucio
a lot, you know? More than oil, more than Dalla) are openly tongue- in-cheek.

gold…. ”

The bare- bones plot, which in parts recalls

The concept of upper- class bloodsuckers,

Alain Jessua’s Traitement de choc (a.k.a. Shock which draws back to I vampiri, found fertile

Treatment, 173), is fleshed out with ample doses ground after the 168 turmoil, from the political of nudity, courtesy of Caroli, Dominque Bo -
allegory of … Hanno cambiato faccia to the biting schero (as a prostitute) and Barbara Marzano.

satire of Il cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco Ghione even stages a psychedelic orgy scene in-ovvero: Dracula in Brianza (175), but the way side a room covered with mirrors whose access

Ghione’s film deals with it is bizarre to say the is shaped like a gigantic vagina—a nod to Niki least. The trio of wealthy “vampires”—Nina, her de Saint- Phalle’s notorious 166 sculpture “La crazy husband Alberto and the former’s brother Hon” (and to Piero Schivazappa’s Femina Ri-Alfiero—are wine dealers who smuggle blood
dens)—to the sound of Teo Usuelli’s outstanding inside wine bottles, and employ a very peculiar score. The out- and-out horrific moments are

102 1973: Riti few and far between, namely a scene where the

Tonino Valerii (Senza scrupoli, 186), although hippies find blood- drained victims amassed in his best work was a collaboration on Marco Fer-an underground cell (a moment vaguely remi-
reri’s outstanding Diario di un vizio (13). He niscent of Bava) and the robot’s gory blood-died in 2003.

draining practices by way of a mechanical suc-
tion pump.

NoTeS

All this is interspersed with scenes showing

1. Riccardo Ghione, quoted in Lino Micciché (ed.), Sto-a UNESCO agent (played by Nino Castelnuovo)

ria del cinema italiano 1949/1953 (Rome: Edizioni di Bianco investigating the blood smuggling ring, which

& Nero, 2001), 8.

makes for a number of blatant plugs for a local 2. m.g., “Il balletto delle ombre,” La Stampa, March 26, winemaker and assorted awkward dialogue bits

153.

3. Alberto Ceretto, “‘Il male oscuro’ a Milano,” Corriere featuring Castelnuovo with local non- actors in d’Informazione, March 10–11, 172. Il male oscuro was later small roles, plus a scene in which a vital clue to turned to a movie in 10 by Mario Monicelli, starring Gi-the solution of the mystery comes in the form
ancarlo Giannini and Emmanuelle Seigner.

of a bottle of Chivas Regal whisky.

The most interesting aspect is the presence

Riti, magie nere e segrete orge nel Tre-
of Lucio Dalla, one of Italy’s most talented cento… (Black Magic Rites, a.k.a. The Rein-singer- songwriters. His acting role in such a carnation of Isabel)

low- budget obscurity seems odd at first, given D: Ralph Brown [Renato Polselli]. S and
that in 172 he participated to the San Remo fes-SC: Renato Polselli; DOP: Ugo Brunelli (East-
tival with one of his best songs, Piazza Grande, mancolor); M: Gianfranco Reverberi, Romolo
and was already a household name. But Dalla’s

Forlai, conducted by the author (Ed. Tickle); E: sparse cinematic career (17 acting appearances Renato Polselli; ArtD: Giuseppe Ranieri; CO:

between 165 and 2008) is littered with such

Wally Boni; MU: Marcello Di Paolo; Hair: Ag-
oddities, from Paolo and Vittorio Taviani’s I nese Panarotto; AD: Raimondo Esposito; SO:

sovversivi (167) to Fernando di Leo’s Amarsi

Maurizio Ferrari; Color technician: Pio Matassi.

male (16), not forgetting Avati’s La mazurka Cast: Mickey Hargitay (Jack Nelson), Rita del barone, della santa e del fico fiorone. Here, as Calderoni (Isabella / Laureen), Raoul [Raoul
the ugly- looking, balding, bearded tramp who Lovecchio] (Trauker, the Occultist), Krysta Bar-has always a bottle of wine at hand, Dalla (who rymore (Christa), Consolata Moschera, William
also sings the pleasant folk- rock titular number Darni (Richard Brenton), Max Dorian (Doctor),
under the opening credits) shows a talent for

Marcello Bonini Olas (Gerg, the Servant), comedy that comes to the fore in the scene Cristina Perrier (Glenda), Stefania Fassio where Tarascio’s mad doctor illustrates to him (Stefy), Gabriele Bentivoglio (Priest), Vittorio his vision of the übermensch: “Man is shit! From Fanfoni (Rocky), Anna Ardizzone (Raquel, the
tall, blond, rangy, you see, he became dark, first victim), Marisa Indice; uncredited: Dunca short, fat, ugly, hairy … and he sweats too …

Balsor, Carmen Young (Mabel). PROD: Renato
like you!”

Polselli for G.R.P. Cinematografica; PM: Mario Il prato macchiato di rosso was given a

Maestrelli; PSe: Gianni Di Clemente, Giuseppe

V.M.18 rating “for the erotic and nude scenes, Bruno Bossio; ADM: Giuseppe Gargiulo. Coun-those of violence to individuals and those contry: Italy. Filmed at and at Castle Piccolomini, cerning the use of drugs” (namely, a sequence

Balsorano (L’Aquila) and at Elios Film Studios where the hippies smoke hashish). After the pre-

(Rome). Running time: 4 minutes (m. 2584);
miere in Fiorenzuola d’Arda, on March 2, 173, Visa n. 6075 (11.18.172); Rating: V.M.18. Release it disappeared into oblivion and surfaced to date: 1.17.173; Distribution: Primula Cine-home video only recently. It was Ghione’s last matografica. Domestic gross: 68,080,000 lire.

film as a director, as his project to adapt for the A man named Jack Nelson buys a castle with
screen Giuseppe Berto’s powerful novel Il male a dark history: 500 years earlier a woman named oscuro, with Ugo Tognazzi in the lead and to be Isabella had been burnt there as a witch, being filmed in September 172, ultimately sank.3 His the lover of Count Dracula. In the castle’s crypts subsequent work was mainly as a scriptwriter in horrible rites are still taking place, though: a sect the erotic genre, for Salvatore Samperi (Fo-of vampires perform sadistic tortures on their vic-tografando Patrizia, 184; La bonne, 186), tims in order to revive Isabella, their high Gabriele Lavia (Scandalosa Gilda, 185) and priestess. Several young women who are guests at

1973: Riti 103
the castle are sacrificed, and among the vampires manor, the return of the repressed past by way there are an occultist named Trauker, the local of a curse, the doppelgänger, the premature bur-doctor, a priest, the disfigured servant Gerg, and ial… ) is purely instrumental, as means to delve even Nelson himself. The last victim about to be into the director’s own erotic obsessions. Always sacrificed is Laureen, Nelson’s daughter and a faithful to his philosophical and psychoanalytic dead ringer for Isabella. Her fiancé, Richard Bren-ambitions, Polselli claimed in interviews that he ton, eventually finds out the truth: Nelson is the wanted to “look for the reason behind the psy-reincarnation of Count Dracula, and his body
chosis that moved people toward this type of
must be destroyed for the curse to end…

films. In fact, when you watch the movie, you’ll Shot between December 171 and January
see that the girl who has stayed at the doctor’s 1721 as La reincarnazione, and released only two house at night sees the vampire with his features.

years later under a title that tried to exploit the The one who was perturbed by the priest, sees
current vogue of the so- called “Decamerotics”—
him again at night as a vampire. In fact, each the sex comedies set in the Middle Ages, one sees the vampire with her own eyes.”2
launched by the success of Pasolini’s films Il De-Polselli would delve even deeper in the ex-
cameron (171) and I racconti di Canterbury ploration of sexual deviations with Rivelazioni (172)—Riti, magie nere e segrete orge nel Tre-di uno psichiatra sul mondo perverso del sesso cento… marked Renato Polselli’s return to the

(173), but compared with works like La verità Gothic genre, after L’amante del vampiro (160) secondo Satana (shot in 170, but released in
and Il mostro dell’opera (shot in 161 but released 172), Riti, magie nere e segrete orge nel Tre-in 164). Once again Polselli built the story cento… looks like a “commercial” project for the around an offbeat erotic variation on the theme director, starting with the presence of Mickey of vampirism and metempsychosis: whereas L’a-Hargitay, who had also starred in Delirio caldo.

mante del vampiro focused on a female vampire

The cast is filled with familiar Polselli faces, such and her monstrous servant/lover, and Il mostro as Raoul Lovecchio (seen also in many Fer nando dell’opera depicted a misogynist bloodsucker
di Leo films), Krysta Barrymore, Marcello who wanted to take revenge on the reincarna -

Bonini Olas, William Darni and Max Dorian.

tion of the woman who betrayed him, here a

According to some sources, scenes featuring whole sect of vampires, on the order of Count

Tano Cimarosa were cut prior to release, but this Dracula himself, perform magic rites on their
is dubious. Production values are surprisingly victims in an extra- dimensional torture cham -
decent for a Polselli movie, even though on the ber in order to revive Dracula’s lover, burnt at lower side of low budget: the film was shot at the stake 500 years earlier.

the Castle Piccolomini in Balsorano in 5 or 6

If Polselli’s earlier Gothics were merely sug-
weeks (according to Calderoni), and it bene -
gestive in their eroticism, and were content with fitted from a score by Gianfranco Reverberi and showing ample female décolletage and the like, Romolo Forlai, which mixed African percus -
here the director takes full advantage of the dif-sion, a groovy bass and female orgasmic cries; ferent climate: the movie looks like a demented the main theme, aptly titled Orgiastic Ritual adults- only comic book brought to life, with a (b/w Black Secret), even came out in a 7" vinyl, gleeful insistence on all things sexual, from credited to South African Combo.3
weird sadistic torture scenes on women (where

That said, the movie borders on the incom-
the victims seem to oddly enjoy their supplice, prehensible, as the basic plot is continually sab-one of Polselli’s favorite leitmotivs) to enthusi-otaged by Polselli’s own script, which leaves astic sapphic interludes, with full frontal female giant- sized plot holes at every turn. There is no nudity and a whole range of starlets ready to take real storyline to speak of, but a series of barely their clothes off, starting with the gorgeous Rita connected scenes: the vampires (who wear red

Calderoni.

costumes and capes that make them look like

Despite the references to his previous work
homologues of the titular characters in the (the idea of an extra- dimensional torture cham-Three Supermen series) abducting and torturing ber was recycled from Il mostro dell’opera), and their nubile victims during the cycle of the full the resort to Gothic clichés such as the burning moon; the other characters wandering around
of the witch, the result does not quite feel as it the castle; and lots and lots of talk—all this be-belongs to the genre. In fact, Polselli’s treatment tween one erotic scene and the next.

of Gothic staples (metempsychosis, the haunted Dialogue scenes go on forever, and the

104 1973: Il sesso actors declaim their lines in an unlikely aulic Polselli appealed, agreeing to shorten the most language that makes them even more jarring.

audacious bits, and on November 11 the censors Equally grating is the comic relief provided by overturned their judgment, stressing the film’s the character of Stefy (Stefania Fassio), a dimwit belonging to the horror genre and giving it a
who claims “I always seem to fall on something V.M.18 rating.

hard,” and who ends up in bed with a female

Released in January 173,4 it did poor busi-
friend and the idiotic caretaker Rocky (Vittorio ness and soon disappeared without a trace. A

Fanfoni), full of nervous twitches but apparently heavily shortened print running only 56 minutes insatiable, in one of the worst threesome sex
surfaced among collectors in the 10s; at the scenes ever committed to celluloid. Polselli even turn of the millennium the film was unearthed
throws in the odd gore bit, such as a stake being to home video by the British label Redemption, slowly driven into Rita Calderoni’s bare chest, under the titles The Reincarnation of Isabel and or a heart ripped out of a victim, but fails to Black Magic Rites.

build any frissons; worse still, the attempts at suspense, such as the scene where Krysta Bar-NoTeS
rymore is buried alive (Polselli’s own self-1. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, homage to L’amante del vampiro), come out pre-shooting began on December 21, 171.

posterous if not utterly ridiculous.

2. Manlio Gomarasca and Daniele Aramu, “Renato If that wasn’t enough, the direction is over

Polselli: il mio cinema blasfemo,” Solamente giallo. Person-the top from start to finish. Polselli employs aggi, luoghi e paure del giallo all’italiana 1950–1979. Noc-plenty of reds and greens in the torture scenes turno Book #7, 61.

3. Orgiastic Ritual was released by Tickle Records (TSP
and lights the actors’ faces with a vortex of col-1308). The cover depicts the film’s most iconic image, the ored lights: far from being the movie’s answer naked Rita Calderoni on the stake, tied to a St. Andrew’s to Bava’s masterful use of color, it merely looks cross. The funk / afrobeat / psychedelic South African like an assortment of cheap funhouse tricks. The Combo (featuring Antonio Bartoccetti from the band Jac-ula on bass) had released another 7” the previous year: editing is epileptic, with continuous cuts to the African Flute / Around the Stars, the main theme from the rhythm of music, in a homemade attempt at psy-TV program “Viaggio tra le stelle.” The soundtrack LP, fea-chedelic effects that soon becomes exhausting, turing 15 tracks with additional music by Massimo since each scene goes on forever, such as the one Catalano and Mauro Chiari, has been released only in late where two women are chased by the villagers

2016 by Cinedelic Records, in a limited edition of 666
copies.

(with Polselli recruiting the local people from 4. That same month, the photonovel version appeared Balsorano as extras, to grotesque effects). The in Cinesex mese #1, under the original title La reincar-odd striking shot, such as two characters staring nazione.

at the camera at the opposite borders of the frame, their faces cut in half to suggest their du-Il sesso della strega (Sex of the Witch) ality, is repeated ad nauseam and soon loses ap-D: Elo Pannacciò [Angelo Pannaccio]. S:

peal. Lastly, the concept of continuity is some-Elo Pannacciò [and Franco Brocani, un -
thing to which the makers seem to be totally
credited]; DOP: Maurizio Centini, Girolamo La
oblivious, as the story repeatedly jumps from

Rosa; M: Daniele Patucchi; E: Marcello Mal -
day to night within the same scene and back
vestito; ArtD: Egidio Spugnini; CO: Osanna again, and incongruences abound: “I cannot Guardini; AD: Salvatore Sicurezza; SE: Luigi stand electric light. I’m going to have a moon Gizzi; AE: Anna Bolli; SS: Marisa Muneratti.

bath,” a character says, leaving the castle’s hall: Cast: Susan Levi [Susanna Levi] (Susan), Jessica but the room is lit by candles, and outside the Dublin (Evelin Hilthon), Sergio Ferrero (Ingrid-sun is shining.

Man), Camille Keaton (Ann), Christopher

Like most Polselli films, Riti, magie nere e

Oakes [Franco Garofalo] (Tony), Donald
segrete orge nel Trecento… had trouble with the

[Donal] O’Brien (Inspector), Gianni Dei (Simon censors. It was submitted to the rating board on Dvoskin), Augusto Nobile (Edward), Maurizio

July 31, 172, and a couple of weeks later, on Au-Tanfani (Nath), Marzia Damon [Caterina Chi-
gust 11, the committee rejected it, motivating its ani] (Gloria), Irio Fantini (Markey, Assistant Indecision as follows: “The movie consists of a
spector), Ferruccio Viotti (Notary Thompson),
rambling series of sadistic sequences, meant to Giovanni Petti [Giovanni Petrucci] (Johnny),
urge, through extreme cruelty mixed with de-

Annamaria Torello (Ingrid), Simone Santo
generate eroticism, the lowest sexual instincts.”

(Thomas Hilthon), Lorenza Guerrieri (Lucy).

1973: Il sesso 105

PROD: Produzione Cinematografica Universa -
lesbian- themed erotic drama La ragazza dalle
lia; UM: Sergio Rosa. Country: Italy. Filmed in mani di corallo (16) and Così … così … più

Sermoneta (Lazio). Running time: 81 minutes
forte (170), before going bankrupt. After his (m. 2202). Visa n. 61744 (1.24.173); Rating: debut as a director, the Western Lo ammazzò

V.M.18. Release date: 10.18.173 (France); 3.20.

come un cane … ma lui rideva ancora (172),

174 (Italy); Distribution: Regional. Domestic Pannacciò founded another company, Univer-gross: 72,16,000 lire. Also known as: Les Anges salia. Il sesso della strega came after an aborted pervers (France).

project, a weird parapsychological yarn titled The elderly sir Thomas Hilthon gathers all

Subliminal (Una splendida giornata per morire), his descendants at his deathbed, and tells them starring Kay Fisher and Gordon Mitchell, about he wants to take to the grave the family’s terrible a girl with telepathic powers who becomes the
secret: the power to transform human cells. After instrument of a vengeance against a former SS
the burial, the notary proceeds to the reading of acolyte. Subliminal was abandoned halfway
his will: the assets will be divided equally among through shooting due to lack of funds.2
all the heirs, including Hilthon’s secretary Simon, Il sesso della strega has vaguely Gothic un-except for Evelin, the deceased’s daughter, who dertones. At first the story seems to move along has been disinherited for her hatred towards her as a typical haunted house mystery, with a num-relatives. But Evelin knows Thomas’ secret: a mys-ber of people gathered for the reading of a will terious serum with which she injects her niece In-at a villa where weird, seemingly supernatural grid to exact her revenge on the family. One of events take place; what is more, it features per-the heirs, Johnny, is murdered, and a police in-haps the looniest case of transformation this side spector shows up to investigate. Johnny’s cousin of Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde (171, Roy Ward Nath is arrested after the murder weapon (a Baker). Still, the script (co-authored, uncredited, heavy mallet) is discovered in the basement. A by Franco Brocani, a painter and avant- garde mysterious young man then shows up at the villa: filmmaker who helmed the obscure but inter-he rapes and tortures two of Hilthon’s nieces, Ann esting Necropolis) throws in disparate elements, and Lucy, and cuts Simon’s throat. The intruder including nods to the Argento- style gialli (the is killed by the inspector’s assistant, and he is re-first murder via a mallet, which turns out to be vealed to be none other but Ingrid, who has unrelated to the others) as well as to adults- only turned into a man thanks to Evelin’s serum. The comics imagery, and even a weird sequence in
surviving heir, Susan, leaves the place, while the a disco featuring psychedelic visuals.

butler and the maid take possession of the Overall, the plot is so difficult to follow that house…

a lot of things are left unexplained long after the When asked by an interviewer about Il
end credits have rolled. What is the significance sesso della strega, Camille Keaton commented:

of the so- called “Javanese fingernails” worn by

“I don’t know what this film is about!” and rethe murderer? Why do the cops leave the villa
called an anecdote that happened during the
without even noticing that there are still two shooting, as the actor who was filming a scene bodies and one demented woman in the bed-with her confessed the same feeling of bewilder-rooms? What is the role of Tony the butler ment about the movie they were both in.1 Those (played with his usual demented exuberance by
feelings are likely to be shared by most viewers.

Franco Garofalo) and his lover, Gloria the maid Indeed, describing Elo Pannacciò’s film is quite (Marzia Damon), on whose crotch the camera
a task, let alone put down a coherent synopsis.

finally zooms, in an ending which literally par-Not surprisingly, since it comes from one of aphrases the film’s title, in a reference to Gustave Italy’s most singular filmmakers.

Courbet’s painting L’origine du monde… ?

Born in Foligno in 123, as Angelo Pannac-

What the film lacks in coherence, it makes
cio, he moved at an early age in Rome, where he up in bare female flesh. Soon after the opening was bitten by the film bug. He studied at Rome’s credits Tony and Gloria are seen indulging in

CSC, and during that period he collaborated on oral sex in the family chapel, next to the grave a few scripts, including Duilio Coletti’s war where their master’s body will soon be buried.

drama Divisione Folgore (154), but never grad-Other sex scenes follow, lovingly accompanied
uated. He resurfaced in the movie business near by Daniele Patucchi’s postribular lounge score, the end of the 160s, and teamed up with direc-including Tony masturbating Gloria by way of
tor Luigi Petrini for a couple of films, the an iron poker (“You push me directly toward the

106 1974: Le amanti end … the agony has started,” she moans), the
plicit eroticism: the Exorcist rip- off Un urlo dalle gender bending murderer raping the characters
tenebre (actually directed in large part by an un-played by Lorenza Guerrieri and Camille Keaton credited Franco Lo Cascio); a remake of La and torturing them with the above- mentioned
ragazza dalle mani di corallo titled Comincerà nails (shades of La notte dei dannati), and an tutto un mattino: io donna, tu donna (178); and abruptly excised threesome. Speaking of which, Holocaust parte seconda: i ricordi, i deliri, la Il sesso della strega had lots of trouble with the vendetta (filmed in 178 but released in 180), board of censors, which requested a number of
which recycled the footage from the unfinished cuts in practically every sex sequence. Unfortu-Subliminal with additional scenes about an or-
nately, Pannacciò fails to make sex erotic, as he ganization of Nazi hunters as well as a new title, shoots the ample nudity and carnal exuberance
in the attempt to cash in on the success of the in an indifferent, tedious manner.

TV mini- series Holocaust (178, Marvin J.

Technically, the film is inept, with lots of

Chomsky). Eventually, his creative output
awkwardly conceived shots featuring people drifted toward hardcore porn, with such titles walking across the surroundings and talking of as the self- explanatory Luce rossa (17), Erotico who- knows-what. The shoestring budget shows

2000 (181) and Fantasia erotica in concerto at every turn: the villa where the story takes (185). Pannacciò died in 2001.

place is actually an old convent (as evident from its typical inner courtyard), and despite the NoTeS
characters having Anglo- Saxon names, car 1. Un’americana a Roma, Camille Keaton interviewed plates and locations are blatantly Italian (the by Manlio Gomarasca. Extra in the Italian DVD of Il sesso movie was shot in Sermoneta, in the Lazio prov-della strega (Cinekult).

ince of Latina). On top of that, the acting ranges 2. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, from catatonic to caricatural: a case in point is shooting began on March 6, 172. Another unfinished Pan-Donal O’Brien3 as the cop on the case, complete nacciò project, also starring Mitchell, was the obscure Il mio demonio nel tuo corpo (My Demon in your Body), with a Columbo-style overcoat. The Irish actor dated late 172 (unless it is yet another title for Sublimi-recalled: “That was a down- at-heel production nal).

indeed. We filmed it near Rome and during the

3. By then O’Brien had changed his given name from shooting I didn’t see two nickels to rub together.

“Donal” to “Donald,” given his film contracts and credits frequently misspelled his name: “On one occasion, I tried In fact, the rumors circulating were alarming.

to cash in the pay check, and they wouldn’t give me the One night, at the restaurant, I dared to ask about money, ’cause the check was for one ‘Donald O’Brien.’ So my wage, and the reply was: ‘Do you want the

I had to go to the Embassy and have my passport corrected, money? It’s already a lot if at the end of the day with ‘Donald’ in parentheses.” Christian Kessler, “Gun-you won’t have to pay for the hotel and the food.’

slingers, Cannibals, and More… : An Interview with Donal O’Brien,” European Trash Cinema #16, March 16.

I almost choked on my spaghetti!”4

4. Manlio Gomarasca, “Una vita da cattivo. Intervista Pannacciò’s subsequent career was as
a Donal O’Brian [sic],” in Manlio Gomarasca and Davide bizarre and elusive as Il sesso della strega.

Pulici (eds.), Eroi & antieroi del cinema italiano. Nocturno Throughout the 170s he kept creating short-Dossier #10, April 2003, 50. O’Brien told a slighly different version to Christian Kessler: “I remember that this pro-lived production companies—such as Film
duction was so cheap we were thrown out of the hotel we Montecarlo Produzione Televisiva and Colos-were staying at. Believe it or not, we realized that each one seum International—which usually lasted only
of us would have to pay for himself! They sure had money one movie, and helmed a handful of low- budget trouble.” Christian Kessler, “Gunslingers, Cannibals, and films, which veered toward more and more ex-More… ”

1974

Le amanti del mostro
chini; PD, ArtD, CO: Amedeo Mellone; MU:

D: Sergio Garrone. SC: Sergio Garrone;

Maia Arié; Hair: Ivana Bernardi; AD: Alessandro DOP: Emore Galeassi (Eastmancolor, Telecolor); Frollano; AE: Bruna Abbatelli. SO: Armando

M: Elio Maestosi, Stefano Liberati, conducted

Timpani; SOE: Enzo Diliberto, Roberto Arcan-
by Stefano Liberati (Ed. C.A.M.); E: Cesare Bian-geli; B: Amedeo Timpani; SE: Carlo Rambaldi;

1974: Le amanti

107

AC: Lino Galeassi; SP: Serto Giannini; SS: Paola In 172, after directing a string of Westerns

Fabiani. Cast: Klaus Kinski (Prof. Alex Nijinsky), and the war movie La co lomba non deve volare, Katia Christine (Anna Nijinsky), Ayhan Işık (Dr.

Sergio Garrone decided to try his hand at an-

Igor Valewsky), Marzia Damon [Caterina Chi-
other commercially viable genre, the horror ani] (Farmer’s Wife), Erol Taş (Tramp), Romano film. He got in touch with an Italian distributor De Gironcoli, Luigi Bevilacqua, Bruno Arié (In-named Sabatini, who introduced him to an ac-
spector), Osiride Pevarello (Feodor Polanski), quaintance, the Rome- based Turkish producer

Amedeo Timpani (The Judge), Pasquale Tos -

Şakir V. Sözen, and suggested he co- produce the cano, Roberto Messina (Farmer, Nijinsky’s first movie. Sözen—the producer of Farouk Agrama’s
victim), Carla Mancini, Alessandro Perrella, crime flick L’amico del padrino—offered the Stella Calderoni. PROD: Amedeo Mellone for
main location, a huge villa on the Bosphorus

Cinequipe (Rome) and Şakir V. Sözen; PM: channel, and proposed the casting of local star Claudio Sinibaldi; PS: Vincenzo Iaccio. Country: Ayhan Işık, who also co- starred in Agrama’s film Italy / Turkey. Filmed in Istanbul, Turkey and at and was concentrating on International co-Elios Studios (Rome). Running time: 87 minutes productions. The project’s main selling point, (m. 2384). Visa n. 64152 (3.22.174); Rating: however, would be the presence of Klaus Kinski.

V.M.18. Release date: 5.28.174; Distribution: According to Garrone, it was during the meeting Morini. Domestic gross: unknown. Also known
with Sözen that the director suggested that, in-as: Canavarin Sevgilisi (Turkey).

stead of making one movie in six weeks, they

Note: Although credited, Carla Mancini,
could make two in eight weeks, for roughly the Alessandro Perrella and Stella Cal -
deroni do not appear in the film.

Ayhan Işık, Erol Taş and Roberto

Messina are not credited in Italian
prints.

Anna, heiress of the Rassimov
fortune, returns to her family’s
sump tuous villa in the countryside
with her husband Alex Nijinsky,
whose impotence affects their un-
happy marriage. One day Alex
finds a diary in which the late Dr.

Ivan Rassimov noted his experi-
ments to discover the secret of life
and death and reanimate dead bod-
ies by way of electrical impulses. Ex-
asperated by jealousy of Dr. Valew -
sky, to whose courting Anna is not
insensitive, Alex further immerses
himself in his work: after being ex-
posed to an electric shock, he devel-
ops a split personality, and goes
around murdering villagers. His
crimes are pinned to someone else,
but Anna and Valewsky find out
that he is the culprit. Nijinsky furi-
ously attacks and kills Anna.

Finally, the conscience- stricken Alex
runs to the village to stop the exe-
cution of an innocent tramp who
has been sentenced to death for his
crimes, and is killed by soldiers as
he climbs the gallows where the
man has just been hanged.

Italian poster for Le amanti del mostro (1974). Art by Morini.

108 1974: Le amanti same budget. Thus were born Le amanti del along the same lines. Besides the afore men -
mostro and La mano che nutre la morte, whose
tioned dog autopsy, the gory scenes are limited production history is singularly troubled and, to the sight of the victims’ bloody faces in the to this day, uncertain.1
aftermath of Nijinsky’s murderous punches, and During shooting in Turkey, problems arose
the nudity is not up to the level of La mano che and the production came to a halt: Garrone was nutre la morte, although Katia Christine has a vague about the nature of the issues, labeling nude scene, unlike in the other movie. Interest-them as “personal matters,”2 but it seems Sözen ingly, the scenes featuring nudity, with the ex-seized the negatives for a while. Perhaps the deal ception of Christine’s, were all shot in Rome, as for making two movies instead of one had not
part of Nijinsky’s attacks. In spite of Garrone’s really been made, and the producer discovered
efforts at creating a suitably Gothic mood, the what Garrone was aiming at only during the
villa where the film takes place is a rather incon-filming? Anyway, when the Italian director was gruous architectural element, and the clueless finally able to resume shooting, Kinski had left, Turkish extras do little to make it believable. In and some scenes—namely most of those in the
addition, the sequences shot at Elios Village sink lab—had to be filmed with a stand- in. Back to the film: the sight of a shabby Western setting Italy, the director shot additional scenes at Elios passed off as 1800s Russia kills whatever mood Film’s Western village (posing as a Russian vil-the director might have hoped for.

lage), again with Kinski’s double. Lastly, during That said, despite Le amanti del mostro and
the editing he came up with a number of tricks.

La mano che nutre la morte’s utter mediocrity, Like many other Italian Gothics, Le amanti
their technical analysis underlines the director’s del mostro features a weak, scarcely virile male ingenuity in their making. First of all, when figure: Dr. Nijinsky’s impotence has mined the scripting the second movie, Garrone was careful marriage with his beautiful wife Anna, and the to concoct a number of very similar scenes to
couple’s return to the woman’s family mansion
the first one. During shooting, to save on the is one last attempt at putting back together the time for lighting and camera placing, he shot
pieces. The recovery of a diary with Dr. Rassiscenes for both films on one location, using the mov’s studies on re- animation seems to take the same camera angles, then moved on to the next: story to territories close to Frankenstein, but the compare, for instance, Kinski and Katia Chris-first experiment (on his wife’s dead dog—
tine visiting the basement where Ivan Rassi -

Frankenweenie this ain’t, and Garrone does not mov’s tomb is located, accompanied by a servant spare the sight of the animal’s viscera) goes ter-

(in Le amanti del mostro) and Kinski taking his ribly wrong and Nijinsky falls victim of a per-guests on a guided tour of the crypt (in La mano sonality split, Jekyll/Hyde type, that turns him che nutre la morte).

into a rapist and murderer. There is a supernat-In addition to recycling the same shots (like
ural angle, though, as it seems that he is actually those of Rassimov’s lab), Garrone used different being possessed by the evil spirit of the late Dr.

takes of the same scene on each film. An ex -

Rassimov—possibly an in- joke dedicated to ample is the second murder sequence in Le actor Ivan Rassimov, the lead in Garrone’s debut, amanti del mostro, when Kinski attacks a love-the Western Se vuoi vivere … spara! (168). The making couple in the woods: in La mano che
plot thickens, so to speak, when an innocent
nutre la morte, it is Kinski’s servant who dis-tramp is arrested and condemned for a double
patches the couple near the film’s beginning and murder committed by Nijinsky, who finally be-takes the woman to his master’s lab. Another
comes aware of his murderous deeds.

similar scene occurs where a drunken Kinski

Compared with the gorier, nastier La mano
picks up a volume which turns out to be Ivan
che nutre la morte, Le amanti del mostro has Rassimov’s diary in Le amanti del mostro: the
strong melodramatic elements, namely the
beginning of the same scene is used in a differ -
scenes devoted to Nijinsky’s infelicitous marital ent context in La mano che nutre la morte. On
life and the subplot about the blossoming love other occasions, Garrone simply re- used the between Anna and the sympathetic Dr. Valew -
same sequence, either with a slightly different sky, and the climax—Nijinsky raping and mur-edit or in its entirety—Kinski, Christine and Işık dering his wife, then desperately running to the having breakfast on the terrace; the village dig-village square where an innocent man is about
nitaries discussing—and came up with totally
to be hanged for the crimes he committed—is
different dialogue, based on the actors’ labials.

1974: L’assassino 10

Ultimately, he even used the same opening where anything is potentially transformable into credit sequence (a montage of footage from a visual attraction.

both films veered in red- and-blue), save for the Both films were submitted to the board of
title—which explains why some credited actors
censors in a very short period of time, but Le don’t actually appear in Le amanti del mostro.

amanti del mostro came out in Italy one month

On the other hand, the Turkish actors are not
later. They sank without trace, also due to dis-credited in Italian prints, and the film figures as tribution issues: Garrone explained that his as-an Italian production, possibly because of the sociate broke the original deal with an inde-financial trouble Garrone underwent with
pendent distributor and offered the movies to a Sözen.3
major company, that understandably refused.4

If La mano che nutre la morte is the more

In Turkey the films were thought to be unfin-
tightly plotted of the duo, Le amanti del mostro ished and considered lost: Işık, who died in 17, is often so shabbily stitched together that some-never saw them. Only in 186 actor- cum-times its only feeble red thread is Klaus Kinski’s producer Yılmaz Duru unearthed La mano che
truly demented performance, Actually, he is on nutre la morte for the Turkish audience (see the screen much less than he seems to be: Gar-entry for the film).

rone likely took precautions by storing a huge number of close- ups of the actor, and in addition NoTeS
to the use of a stand- in (in long shots and/or 1. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, filmed from behind) he resorted to the use of
shooting began on July 23, 173, whereas the filming for POV shots in the scenes where Nijinsky stalks

La mano che nutre la morte started on March 26. The dates the countryside, looking for victims. But when-are debatable since the movies were shot together: it might ever he is on screen, Kinski captures the audi-well be that the July date regarding Le amanti del mostro ence’s attention with his trademark intensity, all refers to the shooting at the Elios Western village.

2. Davide Pulici, Due mostri al prezzo di uno, extra fea-spirited eyes, trembling lips and nervous ges-
turette in the Italian Cinekult DVD of La mano che nutre tures: Nijinsky’s ever- changing moods, with mo-la morte. It must be added that, according to Yılmaz Duru, ments of languor and exhaustion alternated with the foreign cast and crew one day “disappeared,” i.e. they murderous rampages, carry the weight of the
left Turkey without notice to the Turks involved. However, Duru’s testimony must be taken with a grain of salt as he film.

was not involved in the original film.

The result is almost hallucinatory, with

3. An interesting analysis of the different edits by inde-whole scenes built on nothing: an exemplary
pendent filmmaker Roger Fratter can be found in Double moment is the seven- and-a-half-minute-long

Target, extra featurette in the Italian Cinekult DVD of Le sequence where the drunken Nijinsky wanders
amanti del mostro.

4. Pulici, Due mostri al prezzo di uno.

aimlessly throughout his mansion, discovers Rassimov’s diary, plunges into reading it, explores the house’s basement and breaks into a

L’assassino ha riservato nove poltrone
secret lab. Here the story halts, and the direction (The Killer Reserved Nine Seats)

totally clings to the actor’s performance, obses-D: Giuseppe Bennati. S and SC: Biagio
sively stalked by the camera and asked to fill the Proietti, Paolo Levi, Giuseppe Bennati; DOP:

running time with his sole presence—some -

Giuseppe Aquari (Eastmancolor); M: Carlo Sav-
thing similar to what Jesús Franco had done
ina; E: Luciano Anconetani; PD: Mario Chiari;
with him in the sequences of Count Dracula

SD, CO: Enzo Eusepi; AD: Mario Garriba; AE:

(170) with Kinski playing Renfield. It is the tri-Rita Triunveri; APD: Alberto Luciani; C: Emilio umph of atmosphere, based on the dilation of

Giannini; AC: Carlo Aquari; PROP: Adriano filmic pacing and on the interaction of the Tiberi; B: Giancarlo Laurenzi; SO: Manlio Ma-actor’s body with the set pieces (a library, a gara; KG: Nello Adami; SP: Ermanno Serto; W:

cobweb- filled dungeon, an absurd- looking lab Anna Onori; SS: Renata Franceschi. Cast:

full of boiling stills and an abstruse instrumen-Rosanna Schiaffino (Vivian), Chris [Cristea]

tation inspected almost in real time), carried al-Avram (Patrick Davenant), Eva Czemerys (Re-
most to the point of abstraction. It would be
becca Davenant), Lucretia Love (Doris), Paola
something unthinkable in British and U.S. low-Senatore (Lynn Davenant), Gaetano Russo
budget horror flicks, where the over- abundance (Duncan Foster), Andrea Scotti (Albert), Ed -
of dialogue advances the story in endless expos-oardo Filippone (Mystery Man), Howard Ross
itory sequences, and it is the sign of a cinema

[Renato Rossini] (Russell), Janet Agren (Kim).

110 1974: L’assassino Spanish lobby card for L’assassino ha riservato nove poltrone (1974), featuring Rosanna Schiaffino and the grotesque- looking masked killer.

PROD: Cinenove (Rome); EP: Dario Rossini;
the stage, and the guests are offed one by one by PM: Domenico Bologna, Dino Di Dionisio.

a mysterious figure in a grotesque mask that Country: Italy. Filmed at the Gentile Theater
prowls the theater. Every attempt at escaping (Fabriano) and at the Orto Botanico (Rome).

proves useless, as all the doors are locked, and the Running time: 104 minutes (m. 2836); Visa n.

chain of crimes and horrors seems to be related 64565 (5..174); Rating: V.M.18. Release date: to a centuries- old curse…

5.21.174; Distribution: Overseas Film Company.

L’assassino ha riservato nove poltrone was

Domestic gross: 427,544,000 lire. Also known as: Giuseppe Bennati’s final work as a director. A El asesino ha reservado nueve butacas (Spain); 9
former documentarist, Bennati (121–2006)

fores dolofonos (Greece—video title).

achieved a remarkable critical success in Italy Note: Luigi Antonio Guerra, although cred-with his second film Musoduro (153), starring ited, does not appear in the film.

Fausto Tozzi and Marina Vlady, a rural drama

On the evening of his birthday, Patrick Dav-
about a poacher who is unjustly accused of mur-enant invites a few friends to visit the old theater der, which displayed an influence of the Holly-located in the family mansion, which has been
wood Western in the use of rural landscapes.

closed for a hundred years since a massacre took The director’s following output in the 150s was place in it. Patrick’s guests are his daughter Lynn mostly noteworthy, even if often little seen, from with her boyfriend Duncan; his sister Rebecca and the drama Operazione notte (157) to the
her lesbian lover Doris; Davenant’s ex- wife Vivian comedy L’amico del giaguaro (15). In the 160s and her husband, Albert; Patrick’s new fiancée Bennati helmed two more first- rate works: Lab-Kim and a painter, Russell, who is actually her bra rosse (160, released in the States as Red Lips) lover. Another mysterious character, whom nowas the thought- provoking story of a middlebody seems to know, joins the party. As soon as aged man’s relationship with an underage girl, Davenant and his guests enter the place, strange with surprising affinities with Nabokov’s novel things start happening, and Patrick escapes an at-Lolita, published in Italy the previous year; tempt on his life. Soon after Kim is murdered on Congo vivo (162) mixed melodrama and doc-

1974: L’assassino 111
umentary, and used the love story between an

Town, 162; Roberto Rossellini’s Illibatezza in Italian journalist (Gabriele Ferzetti) and a Bel-the omnibus Ra.Go.Pa.G., 163) to nondescript
gian woman (Jean Seberg) in Congo as a pretext genre fare, such as Giuseppe Rosati’s Il testimone to analyze the social and political issues of the deve tacere (174); she would soon retire from independent African states.

acting, her last feature film being La ragazza Coming twelve years after Congo vivo, and
dalla pelle di corallo (176). Renato Rossini, a.k.a.

four after the six- part TV mini- series Marcov-Howard Ross, recalled Schiaffino’s disillusionaldo (170, based on Italo Calvino’s book), L’as-ment toward the movies,3 an attitude common
sassino ha riservato nove poltrone was poles apart to her co- star Cristea Avram (131–18), the from the director’s favorite themes; even though handsome Romanian actor who had relocated
conceived as a commercial project, it was not a in Italy after fleeing from Romania to Paris in work- for-hire job, as Bennati himself got in 166 with his friend Marina Vlady. On the other touch with Paolo Levi and Biagio Proietti to con-hand, the Swedish Janet Agren was enjoying her coct a script. The choice of Proietti was most sex symbol status after such works as Brunello likely suggested by the latter’s work for the small Rondi’s Tecnica di un amore (173) and Ingrid
screen: after starting as assistant director to sulla strada (173), produced by her future hus-Francesco Maselli (in the 162 film Gli indiffer-band Carlo Maietto, whereas the Bavarian Eva
enti, based on Alberto Moravia’s novel), he Czemerys was already falling back to supporting found his way as a screenwriter, collaborating parts after a brief stint of starring roles in the on Maselli’s black comedy Fai in fretta a ucci-early 170s; ditto for Lucretia Love, whose career dermi … ho freddo! (167), starring Monica Vitti would soon fall into obscurity. As for Paola Sen-and Jean Sorel. After adapting Giorgio Scerba-
atore (“The most beautiful body in Rome,” ac-
nenco’s novel I milanesi ammazzano al sabato
cording to Rossini4), she would mostly stick to for Duccio Tessari’s La morte risale a ieri sera the erotic genre, and even briefly surrendered (170), Proietti started working in television, and to hardcore porn in the final part of her career, scripted several very successful mystery TV se-in the mid–180s.

ries such as Coralba, Un certo Harry Brent (170), Usually (mis)labeled as a giallo, L’assassino

Come un uragano (171) and Ho incontrato ha riservato nove poltrone is actually an inter-un’om bra (174, with Proietti responsible for the esting, if not completely successful, rereading of story, and co- scripted by the renowned film the Gothic genre as seen through the prism of
critic Enzo Ungari). Paolo Levi (with whom the decade’s most influential trend. The plot pays Bennati had worked on Labbra rosse and Congo
homage to the Golden Age of mystery, with its
vivo) was also an accomplished writer for tele-British setting and an archetypal situation (ten vision and film, having penned Giorgio Alber-people trapped in a secluded place and dis-tazzi’s outstanding Jekyll (16)1 and Schiva -
patched one by one) that draws from Agatha
zappa’s Femina Ridens, among others. Proietti

Christie’s Ten Little Indians (as well as its lesser recalls the marginal intervention of a fourth known inspiration, Gwen Bristow and Bruce
writer, who remained uncredited.

Manning’s 130 novel The Mystery Host), and is Bennati, Proietti and other financers formed
liberally spiced with elements from the already a cooperative called Cinenova to produce the
declining protoslasher, Argento- style, whose film, and since one of the associates was able to guidelines are spelled according to the rules: the obtain permission to shoot inside the Gentile
aestheticism in the staging of violent deaths, the Theater in Fabriano, a fascinating 1th century misogynist and voyeuristic mood, the ambigu-building, the script (originally titled Faccia di ous attitude toward female homosexuality, the
morte, “Face of Death”: the copy kept at Rome’s inclusion of a number in the title—which on the CSC is dated September 25, 172) evolved with
other hand, and possibly inadvertently, recalls the idea of exploiting such a suggestive setting.

the Italian title of Ellery Queen’s first novel, The L’assassino ha riservato nove poltrone was

Roman Hat Mystery, published by Mondadori
an average- budgeted production, shot in six as La poltrona n. 30 (Seat No. 30). And yet, the weeks2 and with a cast that featured familiar

Gothic’s typical elements emerge forcefully and genre faces and ample female pulchritude, plus take over from the very opening, as the charac-the odd has- been: Rosanna Schiaffino’s declin -
ters arrive at the fascinating yet menacing ing popularity had marked her transition from
theater where the macabre roundabout of mur-
auteur films (Minnelli’s Two Weeks in Another
ders will take place.

112 1974: L’assassino Besides the nods to The Phantom of the
mention Michele Soavi’s Deliria and Dario Ar-

Opera, such as the setting and the characteriza-gento’s Opera (both 187)—becomes a rarefied
tion of the mysterious killer who wears a cape metaphysical space, yet another variation of the and a grotesque mask, Bennati, Levi and Proietti huis clos as well as a “restricted mirror of the pay homage to another, surprising model: Luis
human condition” which, as noted by Spanish

Buñuel’s El ángel exterminador (162). In Buñuel’s film historian Ramón Freixas, echoes the char-film, the guests at an upper class dinner party acters’ moral decay hidden under a beautiful
find themselves unable to leave their host’s lavish and urban façade with its own decadence.5 In a house, and the forced confinement brings to the manner not dissimilar to Margheriti’s The Un-surface their savage instincts and unspeakable naturals—Contronatura, each character meets
secrets. Similarly, in Bennati’s film the victims an end that functions as a retribution for his or are a group of bored and debauched members
her sins: betrayal, greed, sexual aberration, in-of the ruling class, too intent on spitting their cest, murder.

mutual hatred against each other (“You have

In pure Gothic fashion, the haunted house
been hating each other for so long that you don’t becomes a character itself, which speaks in its even remember the reason why,” one of them
own voice (the hisses that come out of tubes and says) as well as indulging in their sexual appetite frighten Doris) and plays a cat- and-mouse game to realize they are in danger until it is too late.

with its inhabitants/prisoners. Its bowels host Their inability to leave (not psychological as in secret passages and traps, its basement turns out Buñuel’s film, but physical, and yet caused by in-to be endless and labyrinthine, and leads to a explicable events) ultimately brings out their sort of extra- dimensional crypt that predates vices, secrets, hypocrisy. In a way, the nine (plus Fulci’s … E tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà, (181), one) despicable protagonists recall the main in a paranormal ending devised by Proietti. And characters of Luigi Pirandello’s 121 play Sei perit may even happen that a door bashed in with
sonaggi in cerca d’autore, a.k.a. Six Characters in a hammer appears intact shortly after, or that Search of an Author: like them, they show up in (in one of the film’s best scenes) the characters a theater without really knowing why, as if sum-hear voices that a tape recorder cannot capture, moned by a superior will, actually looking for which belong to people who lived and died a
the play they have to stage.

hundred years earlier.

What sets apart L’assassino ha riservato

Even time ceases to be an absolute and un-
nove poltrone from the Gothic- tinged gialli of equivocal value: the events happen during the
the early 170s is the decisive turn toward the course of an endless night, like in Danza maca -
supernatural, which becomes an integral part of bra, and here as well the protagonists are forced the story. In doing so, the film touches a number to relive a tragedy that cyclically repeats itself of themes that are typical of Italian Gothic. One with no variants, with Filippone’s “mystery man”

of the “ten characters in search of a death,” the playing a similar role as that of Dr. Carmus in

“mystery man” (Edoardo Filippone) dressed in

Margheriti’s film, luring the victims to their des-Oriental fashion with a Nehru jacket, is actually tiny. Interestingly, the only character left alive, a ghost who drove the others in the place where Vivian, is an ex- prostitute: in an ironic reversal the massacre is doomed to happen: he is like a of the stereotypical rule that only the young vir-stage director who instructs the players and gin will survive, here the only survivor of the pulls their strings throughout their perform-massacre is a declining beauty in her forties, a ance—a theme that is only suggested, but nev-former hooker who is ultimately the purest of
ertheless enriches the story with fascinating un-all.

dertones; and if the murders have a rational Proietti recalled that, while dubbing the
explanation and are committed by a human movie, Bennati seemed a bit embarrassed about
hand, the killer is driven by an otherworldly
the erotic interludes, and tried to justify himself: force.

such material was far from the director’s pre vi -

What is more, the laws of time and space
ous works, even though Proietti was adamant
succumb to other rules, mysterious and unpre-
that “the distributor always recommended the
dictable. The theater where the story unfolds—
insertion of sex scenes, but in this case actually not an unusual location for an Italian horror
there was not much pressure… . It was our idea film: think of Polselli’s Il mostro dell’opera and to focus very much on the theater and a bit on Luigi Russo’s unfinished Paura (172), not to
sex.”6 The need to spice up the proceedings with

1974: Il bacio 113
gratuitous nudity results in some awkward mo-
by briefly replacing the dummy in the back-ments, such as the scene where Lynn (Paola Sen-ground with a real actor. The murderer’s mask, atore), stoned out of her mind, puts on some
which portrays a smiling carrot- haired, balding music, takes off her dress and starts dancing be-man—whereas in the script its features are de-
fore a mirror while wearing only a transparent scribed as those of a “laughing kid”—, is another gown—all this while around her the bodies are
unsettling detail (perhaps a nod to Pirandello’s piling up. And yet the sequence is staged with play, where one of the characters is a fat woman an undeniable taste, as Senatore’s image is re-with unlikely red hair) which explains the flected and multiplied by the two opposing mir-script’s working title.

rors, with an almost psychedelic effect, to the Kim’s murder, on the other hand, plays
sound of Carlo Savina’s titillating lounge score.

with the thin boundaries between reality and

Bennati seems also uncomfortable with
appearance, as the woman recites Juliet’s suicide brutality and gore, so much so that most mur-monologue from Romeo and Juliet and fakes her
ders take place offscreen, except for those of the own stabbing with a retractile blade, but ends lesbian couple, Doris (Lucretia Love) and Re-up dead on stage with a knife in her back in front becca (Eva Czemerys). Even though it plays on
of her bewildered audience: “You never acted so one of the leitmotivs in Italy’s horror and well,” one exclaims. The most outstanding mo-thrillers of the decade—the violence directed to ment, however, is the mystery man’s surprising female private parts, a recurring occurrence disappearance before Patrick’s eyes (and the au-from Cosa avete fatto a Solange? to 5 donne per dience as well) as if by magic, a moment where l’assassino (174), from L’ultimo treno della notte the Fantastic manifests itself unexpectedly and (175) to Enigma rosso (178)—Rebecca’s de -
without any editing cut, during a long take: here mise, by way of a dagger repeatedly stuck in her Bennati’s use of depth of field and offscreen vagina, is suggested but not graphically shown, space is not dissimilar to Bava’s trick of the child and the most blatant bit of gore (the woman’s
transforming into the father in Shock, but played hand nailed to a girder) is rendered with an unfor wonder instead of scare value. It is moments convincing special effect. It is a jarring moment, like that which grant this often overlooked little one that feels like a compromise on the part of oddity a niche among the most interesting the makers in order to give the audience the

Gothic horror films of the decade.

expected quota of sadistic violence, in tune with the punitive attitude toward “immoral”

NoTeS
women that characterized so many gialli. And

1. See Curti, Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1957–1969, 176.

yet the aftermath of the scene has a pictorial 2. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, quality, as the two dead women are discovered
shooting began on January 7, 174.

positioned like two mannequins, in what is per-3. Federico Caddeo, “Hanging with Howard,” featurette haps a nod to 6 donne per l’assassino, where the included in the German BD of The Killer Reserved Nine murderer played with dead bodies in a similar

Seats.

4. Ibid.

way.

5. Ramón Freixas, El asesino ha reservado nueve The overall mood is suggestive and often
butacas, in Antonio José Navarro (ed.), El giallo italiano.

disquieting, and Bennati’s direction is much La oscuridad y la sangre (Nuer, Madrid 2001), 247.

more accomplished than the average genre

6. Federico Caddeo, “Writing with Biagio,” featurette included in the German Blu- ray of The Killer Reserved Nine products of the period, even more remarkable

Seats.

in its rejection of the visual stereotypes in vogue, such as the killer’s POV shots and the penchant for crazy camera angles, in favor of fluid camera Il bacio (The Kiss)

movements and languid pacing. On the other

D: Mario Lanfranchi. S: based on the novel
hand, the director adds subtle unnerving touches Il bacio di una morta by Carolina Invernizio; SC: that display an interesting and cultured ap -

Pupi Avati, Mario Lanfranchi; DOP: Claudio
proach to the fantastique. For instance, an early Collepiccolo; M: Piero Piccioni, conducted by
scene where Doris notices a storeroom man-
the author; E: Luciano Anconetani; PD, CO: nequin that seemingly comes to life recalls Lisa Gian carlo Bartolini Salimbeni; SD: Francesco
e il diavolo, as Bennati plays with the uncertainty D’Andria; MU: Franco Schioppa, Gianni Ama -
between animate and inanimate objects that dei; AMU: Alfonso Cioffi; Hair: Vittoria Silvi, Freud emphasized in his study of the “uncanny,”

Gerardo Raffaeli; AD: Lamberto Bava; 2ndAD:

114 1974: Il bacio Antonio Avati; C: Roberto Gengarelli; AC: and accusing him of uxoricide. The trial would Massimo Pau, Fabio Placido; SO: Franco De Ar-end badly for Guido if Elena did not appear in cangelis; B: Tommaso Quattrini; SE: Guido Mas-court to unveil the mystery…

sari; KG: Angelo Tiberti; ChEl: Riccardo Car-

One of the main literary progenitors of Ital-
alella; SP: Francesco Bellomo; W: Mina Manes;
ian Gothic were the feuilletons, or serial novels, AE: Gabriella Vitale; SS: Egle Guarino. CHOR:

which between the late 1th and early 20th cen-Alberto Testa. Press office: Lucherini, Rossetti, tury provided the audience with forbidden fris-Spinola. Cast: Maurizio Bonuglia (Guido Ram-
sons and complex intrigue, mixing romance,
baldi), Eleonora Giorgi (Elena Vergani, Guido’s melodrama, and horror. The most important

Wife), Martine Beswick (Nara Kotosky), Valen -
writers in the field (called “romanzi d’appendice”

tina Cortese (Elizabeth Blixen), Massimo Girotti in Italy) were Luigi Natoli (the author of I Beati (Eugenio Dazzi), Brian Deacon (Alfonso Ver-Paoli, a 10 novel about a mysterious secret sect gani, Elena’s half- brother), Vladek Sheybal in Sicily), Francesco Mastriani, Emilio De (Concierge), Antonio Pierfederici, Gianni Cav-Marchi, Guido Da Verona. But a couple of no-
ina (Gravedigger), Barbara Romana [Vittoria]

table and very successful female novelists stood Calori, Franca Maresa, Glauco Scarlini, Luigi
out as well: Matilde Serao and Carolina Inv-

Zerbinati, Giovanni Vannini (Doctor), Vittorio ernizio. Born in 1851, Invernizio published her Fanfoni (Nara’s Lawyer), Riccardo Berlingeri,
first novelette in 1876, and wrote 123 books over Gabriele Bentivoglio (Witness #1 at Duel), Ales -
the course of a 40-year career, becoming one of sandro Perrella, Corrado Annicelli, Ed oardo To-Italy’s best selling authors of the early 20th cen-niolo, Macia [Ines] Pellegrini (Myosotis); un-
tury. Often leaning on intricate and far- fetched credited: John Karlsen (Friedrich), Antonio plots, and peopled with clichéd characters, In-Spaccatini (Jeweller). PROD: Sandro Bolchi and vernizio’s novels were characterized by a strong Mario Lanfranchi for InterVision (Rome); PM:

taste for the horrific and the macabre, as proven Pierluigi Ciriaci; GM: Mario Davidde; PS: Pietro by some of her most popular works, Il bacio di Nardi; Pse: Vittorio Fornasiero; ADM: Aureliano una morta (A Dead Woman’s Kiss, 188), La se-Lalli Persiani. Country: Italy. Filmed in Venice, polta viva (Buried Alive, 186), L’albergo del Frascati (Rome) and at Elios Film Studios delitto (Murder Inn, 105), Il cadavere accusatore (Rome). Running time: 103 minutes (m. 2828).

(The Accusing Corpse, 112).

Visa n. 64757 (6.25.174); Rating: V.M.14. Release Invernizio’s oeuvre had been brought to the
date: 8.22.174; Distribution: Euro International screen a number of times since the silent era.

Film. Domestic gross: 123,128,000 lire.

One year after the novelist’s death, La vergine Countess Elena Rambaldi has a natural
dei veleni (117, Enrico Vidali) adapted the epon -
brother, Alfonso, hated by the old Count Ram -
y mous novel, blatantly influenced by Nathaniel baldi and banished from his home. The Count

Hawthorne’s short story Rappaccini’s Daughter; dies of a heart attack on the day he sees Alfonso others, like Satanella (11) and La vendetta di and his sister tenderly embrace. Elena, heir to the una pazza (11) followed. More adaptations
family fortune, meets by chance Guido and falls took place during the heyday of melodrama in
in love with him. They get married and travel on the late 140s and early 150s, with Il bacio di their honeymoon to Venice. There, Guido is se-una morta (14, Guido Brignone), La mano
duced and ensnared by the perfidious dancer della morta (14, Carlo Campogalliani) and La Nara, eager to get her hands on the title and on vendetta di una pazza (151, Pino Mercanti).

the Rambaldi fortune. Nara has no difficulty in Paired with such present- day melodramas as
making Guido believe his wife is betraying him, Raffaello Matarazzo’s Catene (14), it was the by passing for adultery a clandestine meeting be-kind of simple entertainment that audiences tween Elena and Alfonso, who is leaving for were striving for to put the painful post–World America. Then she tries to poison Elena under

War II years behind them, and one which politithe eyes of her drugged and unconscious husband.

cians and the Church approved, as it conveyed

But when Alfonso arrives at the cemetery to give positive values (faith, hope, marital love) as op-one last kiss to his sister, already placed in the cof-posed to the often grim depiction of everyday
fin, he discovers that she is still alive and brings life in Neorealism.

her back to Venice. Guido starts to have glimpses Curiously, melodrama resurfaced in an un-of his presumedly dead wife, repents and leaves likely period, the early 170s, at a time where the Nara, who takes revenge by taking him to court public’s demand focused mainly on sex. The

1974: Il bacio 115
short- lived thread of films following the tradi -
asked only 700 or 800 lire per person, it won’t tion of melodrama or inspired by serial novels be a venture to drag the whole family to the
were perhaps one of the signs of the public’s
movies… . The feuilletons’ fortune is not flashy.

withdrawal after the politically committed late It originates in the suburban areas, in the prov-160s and the type of cinema they spawned; on
inces where nothing happens. It takes shape in the other hand, this return to the roots was char-the boredom of festive afternoons … there is no acterized by a similar emphasis on eroticism and hurry to make profits. The tearjerkers are safe nudity as most popular genre cinema, which
investments.”2 This first wave of period dramas gave way to odd hybrids that uneasily attempted would give way to tearjerking dramas about to mix old style romanticism with modern- day children, which proved even more successful.

shrewdness.

Lanfranchi and Sandro Bolchi’s company

These movies were released between 173

Intervision started working on the adaptation
and 174—interestingly, at a time when the Ital-of Invernizio’s novel around the same time as
ian government was forced to pursue economic

Carlo Infascelli’s Infafilm: Intervision deposited policies and measures in order to drastically
the title at ANICA’s office (ANICA being the
contain energy consumption, after the 173 oil Italian association that represents movie com-crisis.

panies with the government and trade unions),

The first of the thread was Sepolta viva whereas Infascelli deposited it at the Ministry (173, Aldo Lado), based on a novel by Marie
of Spectacle and SIAE (the copyright collecting Eugénie Saffray bearing the same title as Inv-agency), therefore Intervision was unable to use ernizio’s, followed by Luciano Ercoli’s Il figlio the full title, and consequently was forced to de-della sepolta viva (174, signed as “André Col-part from the original story in order to offer bert”), Bruno Gaburro’s I figli di nessuno (174) something different to the audience.3 The result and two adaptations of Invernizio’s novel, Il fully explored the dark and Gothic influences of bacio di una morta (174, Carlo Infascelli and Invernizio’s novel.

Ferdinando Baldi) and Mario Lanfranchi’s Il

Lanfranchi, a stage and opera director, was
bacio. Other projects were announced but not
one of the first to work at Italy’s public broad-filmed or completed: Satanella ovvero la mano
casting company RAI when it finally became a
della morta (Primo Zeglio), La cieca di Sorrento regular television service in 154. Lanfranchi (Ruggero Deodato), La vendetta di una pazza
brought operas to the small screen, and his in-

(Carlo Infascelli), all slated to be filmed starting novative filming style led the way to many tech-in March 174.

nical innovations. He had debuted with the ex-

“Why do theater owners keep asking pro-
cellent Western Sentenza di morte (168, starring ducers for movies based on serial novels?” an

Robin Clarke, Enrico Maria Salerno, Tomas Mil-
article on La Stampa asked rhetorically, conclud-ian, Richard Conte and Adolfo Celi), but it took ing: “Because they understood that they could
him six years to return behind the camera, right have a new audience. In weekdays these movies
after his divorce from soprano Anna Moffo. As
gross next to nothing, and explode on Sundays, the director explained,
because whole families get out of the house.

Nowadays parents are obsessed with the flood

Due to my non- cinematic provenance and Milanese of rubbish centered on sex and violence: the line origin, in order to make movies I had to come up

“forbidden to minors” compromises the choice
with genre stories, and Il bacio was one of those serial of common entertainment, and even risks un-novels that might seduce producers and distributors dermining the unity of the family core, corroded alike. With the complicity of my friend Pupi Avati I during the course of the week by work, school, tried to add a certain imprint to it, by taking from TV. Then the old foxes of the cinema industry

Carolina Invernizio’s novel the cue that I needed so thought cynically: ‘Crying is good.’”1 The thread as to seduce the producers, rather than a story to follow to the letter. I was especially interested in was dictated by economic reasons: it did not re-the morbidity, which was quite evident in the novel sult in box- office hits, but it marked a good in-itself, this morbid tension that had quite impressed vestments for producers and distributors: “These me. To bring to the surface the perverted element in releases are launched not in the traditional this female writer who was considered almost for

‘prima visione’ theaters, with tickets priced 1500
families … and also bring out something I felt living lire, but in ‘terza visione’ venues, located in the in Venice, a certain indecency that circulates in the suburbs and with wide capacity. If a father is city.4

116 1974: Blood Avati, who in Lanfranchi’s words “floated
her first film roles, is ravishing, while Maurizio in Rome” after the débacle of his first two films Bonuglia is wooden as always as the weak- willed as a director, brought to the adaptation a distinct Guido, but the supporting cast is top notch, in-morbid and horrific mood. From the opening
cluding Valentina Cortese as the ambiguous sequence where Alfonso (Brian Deacon) reaches

Madame Blixen, Massimo Girotti as a Duke, and
the cemetery where his half- sister Elena (Eleonora Avati regular Gianni Cavina as the gravedigger.

Giorgi) is about to be buried while in a cataleptic Lanfranchi directed two more feature films,
state, Il bacio fully embraces the genre trappings.

the grotesque comedy La padrona è servita It is indeed one of the few examples of a (176, also scripted by Avati and plagued by cen-narrative that harks back to the standard Gothic sorship problems at its release) and the top-novel, with its duality between the innocent notch crime action film Genova a mano armata
heroine and the belle dame sans merci, the em-

(176, starring Tony Lo Bianco and Adolfo Celi).

phasis on romantic love (also declined in a mor-Lanfranchi then retired from cinema, and
bid way, with the almost incestuous relationship moved to London, where he directed operas and
between Elena and her half- brother, an element stage plays, but earned a living mostly as a lifted from the novel), the occult subplot, the breeder and owner of race horses and grey-far- fetched plot twists, the triumph of good over hounds. In England, one of his dogs was even
evil.

nominated as one of the year’s sports figures.

Some elements, like the premature burial,

“The news was even reported by the Corriere
were already in Invernizio’s novel, whereas della Sera, on the front page and with a photo others (like the Satanic sect in which Elena’s hus-too. It was the one and only occasion when I had band Guido is introduced) are developed or managed to be on the Corriere’s front page; not made from scratch. Compared with the other
because of my directing, but because of my dog.

adaptations of the period, Il bacio benefits from And when I met my publisher friend Franco
a more cultured approach. The insistence on the Maria Ricci at the restaurant, he introduced me occult, which makes the story briefly slip into to the lady by his side saying: ‘This is the only horror movie territory, likely came from Avati, case of a man maintained by a dog!’”5
and the sabbath scene is quite impressively rendered in comparison with the cheap rites seen

NoTeS
in exploitation movies from the same decade;

1. Piero Perona, “Al cinema si piange,” La Stampa, May similarly, the film briefly flirts with the super-7, 174.

natural, in the sequence where Guido spots what 2. Ibid.

looks like the “ghost” of his supposedly dead

3. Ibid.

wife and chases the elusive apparition amid the 4. Renato Venturelli, “Eroi senza pietà. Intervista a Venetian alleys.

Mario Lanfranchi,” in Renato Venturelli (ed.), Cinema e generi 2010 (Genoa: Le Mani, 2010), 115.

In addition to that, Il bacio offers a fair 5. Ibid., 122.

share of eroticism, tastefully presented. The script felicitously reinvents the character of the femme fatale, Nara the dancer, who seduces and Blood for Dracula, a.k.a. Dracula cerca dominates Guido: in Invernizio’s novel she has sangue di vergine e … morì di sete!!!

Javanese origin, whereas Avati and Lanfranchi

D: Paul Morrissey [Italian version: Anthony
make her a Slavic “with something demoniac in

M. Dawson]. S and SC: Paul Morrissey [Italian
her,” as one character observes. Played by the version: Tonino Guerra, from an idea by Paul
stunning Martine Beswick, Nara is one of the

Morrissey] ; DOP: Luigi Kuveiller; M: Claudio
few real maneaters of 170s Italian Gothic, and Gizzi; E: Jed Johnson [Italian version: Franca her obscene dance in a tiny costume whose bra

Silvi]; PD, CO: Enrico Job; ArtD: Gianni Gio-
is shaped like demonic hands groping her vagnoni; MU: Mario Di Salvio; SE: Carlo Ram-breasts is ample proof of the director’s ability in baldi; Hair: Paolo Franceschi; AD: Paolo Pie -
filming musical scenes. Lanfranchi also squeezes tran geli; 2ndUD: Antonio Margheriti; C: Ubaldo the most out of the autumnal Venetian setting, Terzano; B: Piero Fondi; SOE: Roberto Arcan -
which recalls Chi l’ha vista morire? (172, Aldo geli; Mix: Carlo Palmieri; SP: Paolo Pettini; W: Lado) and Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (173) Benito Persico; AE: Loretta Mattioli; SS: Silvia for its mysteriousness and eerieness.

Petroni. Cast: Joe Dallesandro (Mario Balato), The 21-year-old Eleonora Giorgi, in one of

Udo Kier (Count Dracula), Vittorio De Sica

1974: Blood

117

(Marchese Di Fiore), Maxime McKendry (Mar -
shoots him before dying. Mario dismembers Drac-chesa Di Fiore), Arno Juerging (Anton), Milena ula with an axe, and kills him and Esmer alda

Vukotic (Esmeralda), Dominique Darel (Saphi -
with a stake. Now he is the new master of the
ria), Stefania Casini (Rubinia), Silvia Dionisio house.

(Perla), Irina Alexeievna, Gil Cagné (Towns-

On the same day principal shooting for
man), Emi Califri, Eleonora Zani; uncredited:

Flesh for Frankenstein was wrapped, Paul Mor-

Giorgio Dolfin, Stefano Oppedisano, Roman
rissey sent Udo Kier, Joe Dallesandro and Arno Polanski (Man in Tavern).

Juerging to get shorter haircuts, and filming for PROD: Andrew Braunsberg for Com pa -

Blood for Dracula began immediately.1 It would gnia Cinematografica Champion (Rome) [and
last for three weeks as well. This time Morrissey Carlo Ponti]; PM: Mara Blasetti; PA: Vasco abandoned 3-D because of technical issues Mafera; PAcc: Maurizio Anticoli. Country: Italy raised by d.o.p. Luigi Kuveiller: the Spacevision

/ France. Filmed in Villa Parisi, Frascati (Rome), system required a very large lens in order to

Vulci (Viterbo) and at Cinecittà Studios (Rome).

frame three people in the shot, and since the sec-Running time: 103 minutes (Italian version: 8
ond film would not be shot in studio but on lo-minutes—m. 268). Visa n. 644 (5.14.174);
cation in Villa Parisi, in Frascati, due to the Rating: V.M.18. Release dates: 3.1.174 (West Ger-smaller setting it would be practically impossible many); 11.27.174 (U.S.A.); 8.14.175 (Italy); Disto dolly the camera back. Morrissey later partly tribution: Euro International Film (Italy); regretted his decision, but Blood for Dracula is Bryanston Pictures (U.S.A.). Domestic gross: undoubtedly the more stylish of the diptych, due 345,023,314 lire. Also known as: Andy Warhol’s to the director’s ample use of dolly and tracking Dracula (West Germany, U.S.A.), Sangre para
shots, which made the result closer to his Drácula (Spain, Argentina); Du sang pour Drac-original idea.2
ula (France); Dracula vuole vivere:

cerca sangue di vergine! (Italy—al-
ternate title).

Early 1920s. Count Dracula,
who must drink virgins’ blood to
survive, moves from Transyl vania
to Italy with his servant Anton, hop-
ing to find plenty of nourishment in
a Catholic country. In Italy, Dracula
befriends the impoverished Mar -
chese di Fiore, who is more than
happy to marry off one of his four
daughters to the wealthy aristocrat.

Two of Fiore’s daughters, Rubinia
and Saphiria, enjoy the sexual serv-
ices of the estate handyman, Mario,
a proud Marxist. Dracula, who
drinks their blood upon assurance
from Di Fiore that they are virgins,
becomes even weaker, but he is able
to turn the two girls into his tele-
pathic slaves. The youngest and eld-
est daughters, Perla and Esmeralda,
are virgins, but Mario, who has dis-
covered that Dracula is a vampire,
rapes the 14-year-old Perla in order
to save her. Meanwhile, though,

Dracula has drunk the blood of Es-
meralda, turning her into a vampire
and regaining strength. Anton stabs

Paul Morrissey (left), Joe Dallesandro and Udo Kier (in the coffin) the Marchese’s wife, who in turn
on the set of Blood for Dracula (1974).

118 1974: Blood Blood for Dracula is overall a more serious
accordingly, the Italian director wrote his own work despite the contamination of gore, humor
lines on the set. It was his last appearance in a and sex, possibly because Kier’s Count is a more theatrical feature: De Sica died in November
full- fledged character than Frankenstein, and 174. Roman Polanski also turned up in a brief his desperate attempts to preserve himself be-cameo3 in the tavern scene, as a witty gambling come the core of the film. In a way, Dracula is a peasant who outsmarts Dracula’s servant by homologue to Von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde)

playing a trick that the Polish director will in Luchino Visconti’s Morte a Venezia (171),
reprise in a scene in Bitter Moon (11). The
one of Morrissey’s favorite films, and explicitly same sequence also featured an Italian celebrity quoted, albeit humorously, in the opening scene, of sorts, make- up artist Gil Cagné (140–2003), where the Count applies make- up on his face in nicknamed “il visagista delle dive” (the beauti -
front of a mirror that casts no reflection. Scenes cian of divas) for his work with Liza Minnelli, like these convey a sympathy and a warmth that Lana Turner and Bette Davis. The female cast

Frankenstein’s absurd monologues on the
included the gorgeous Stefania Casini (who perfect Serbian race did not solicit, and truly would become Dallesandro’s partner in real life make Morrissey’s interpretation of the character for a while), Silvia Dionisio and Dominique one of the most original and effective, closer to Darel (seen in Giancarlo Santi’s Western Il Herzog’s rereading of Nosferatu (17), or even grande duello, 172).

to the blood- addicted bloodsuckers in Abel Fer-Once again, the Italian version bore the
rara’s The Addiction (16) than to Hammer and name “Anthony M. Dawson” as director, with

Universal’s classics.

Morrissey credited as supervisor. “I also did The meditation on the changing of times,
some stuff on Blood for Dracula, but that was
in tune with the director’s reactionary view of much more organized because, after Franken-contemporary society, comes in the form of stein, Carlo Ponti convinced Morrissey to write grim jokes: in Catholic Italy, supposedly a land a real screenplay and not just a treatment,”4
of “wirgins,” Dracula keeps vomiting the impure Margheriti explained, adding that he directed
blood he has sucked from nubile girls who have scenes with Vittorio De Sica and Silvia Dionisio.

already lost their virginity before marriage.

Again, the Italian director’s words are at odds

“Vomiting looks so great if you have a tuxedo
with Morrissey’s. But this time even Margheriti on!” Kier commented mockingly in regard to
admitted that his input on the movie was min-

Morrissey’s exquisite mise- en-scène of one of imal, not the least because while Morrissey and the movie’s outrageous sight gags, with poor
company were shooting in Frascati, he was busy Dracula running to Villa Parisi’s exquisite taking care of the special effects scenes for Flesh marble- covered bathroom and throwing up
for Frankenstein. And Udo Kier was adamant
freshly sucked blood in the toilet (“The blood that he and the other cast members received di-of these whores is killing me!” he’ll comment in rection only from Morrissey, and stated that he despair, a line worthy of the previous’ film infa-never saw Margheriti on the set.5
mous “fuck life in the gall bladder”). Jokes aside, This time, Margheriti’s credit as director
the director caught the dissolution of family and was mainly a scam on the part of Ponti’s in order patriarchal mores in quite an effective manner, to obtain the benefits provided by law for Italian not to mention the notion of class struggle via films (which would be granted only by credit -
deflowering perpetrated by Joe Dallesandro’s
ing an Italian director). Ponti and Margheriti Marxist handyman, who eventually makes a rev-were later put to trial and accused of “continued olution and becomes the new master of the and aggravated fraud against the State.”6 Accord-house, in an ending that is more subtle and ing to the prosecution, between 173 and 176
ironic than Flesh for Frankenstein’s grim epi-
the producer had unduly received over a billion logue.

and a half lire for movies produced by Cham-

The cast is, once again, pitch perfect: Dalle-
pion, the French- based Les Films Concordia
sandro’s void acting style and Brooklyn accent and the Spanish Cipi (also owned by Ponti) match Kier and Juerging’s over- the-top delivery, which did not have the necessary requirements
and Vittorio De Sica, in a special participation, in order to be classified of Italian nationality.

is delightful as the impoverished Marchese Di

Blood for Dracula was one of such titles, together Fiore, who would do anything to marry his with, among others, Mordi e fuggi (173, Dino
daughters to a weird- looking but wealthy stranger: Risi), Professione reporter (175, Michelangelo

1974: Un fiocco 11

Antonioni), and Margheriti’s Ming, ragazzi!

part, Morrissey moved on to England for an-

(173) and Whiskey e fantasmi. Even though other spoof, The Hound of the Baskervilles Ponti was finally acquitted,7 this might finally (178), this time with far less brilliant results.

explain why Margheriti kept faithful to his version over the years about his own role in Mor-

NoTeS
rissey’s films.

1. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, Both Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for
on April 11, 173.

Dracula were picked up for distribution overseas 2. Talbot, “Monsters for Morrissey,” 25.

by the New York–based company Bryanston

3. However, it is incorrect to state, as some sources do, Pictures, owned by Louis Peraino, who adver-that Polanski was shooting Che? on a set nearby around the same time, as Che? had been released in Italy in De-tised the movies respectively as Andy Warhol’s cember 172, several months before shooting for Blood for Frank enstein and Andy Warhol’s Dracula. Pre-Dracula took place.

dictably, both earned an X rating from the 4. Blumenstock, “Margheriti—The Wild, Wild Inter-MPAA. Frank enstein was a hit, and Peraino also view,” 57.

5. Tim Lucas, “Udo Kier: Andy Warhol’s Horror Star,”

obtained an R- rated version that allowed him to Video Watchdog Special Edition #2, 15.

maximize profits, with a total of $5 million 6. Anonymous, “Nuovo rinvio a giudizio per il produt-earned by the end of 174. Dracula was less suc-tore Carlo Ponti,” Corriere della Sera, February 16, 17.

cessful, despite Peraino’s attempts to cash in on The other accused were Luigi Tedeschi, Giancarlo Pettini the success of Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, (Ponti’s fronts), Giorgio Odoardi and Paolo Ferrari.

7. The prosecutor asked for a three year sentence, but by retitling it Young Dracula and re- releasing an Ponti and Margheriti were acquitted on first degree in Jan-R- rated 4-minute version. In U.K. the movie
uary 181 (Anonymous, “Truffa allo Stato—Assolto Carlo was passed with cuts but did not end up listed Ponti,” Corriere della Sera, January 22, 181); the following as a Video Nasty. The uncut version surfaced in year the sentence was confirmed in appeal (Anonymous,

“Carlo Ponti assolto in Appello dall’accusa di truffa allo England only in 15.

Stato,” Corriere della Sera, May 16, 182), and in 183 by Even though it did not have the same cen-the Supreme Court (P.L.F., “Carlo Ponti assolto dall’accusa sorship troubles in Italy as Flesh for Franken -
di truffa allo Stato,” Corriere della Sera, April 30, 183).

stein, Blood for Dracula had to be slightly trimmed in order to obtain a visa: the board asked the Un fiocco nero per Deborah (A Black Rib-scene where Dracula licks menstrual blood on
bon for Deborah, a.k.a. Deborah, a.k.a. The
the floor (about 7 seconds) to be shortened beTorment)

fore giving a V.M.18 rating. However, the length D: Marcello Andrei. S and SC: Piero Reg-

(268 metres, that is 8 minutes) reveals that noli, Marcello Andrei, Alvaro Fabrizio, Giu -
some cuts had already been made by the pro-
seppe Pulieri; M: Albert [Alberto] Verrecchia, ducer.

conducted by Nicola Samale (Ed. La Galere);

Blood for Dracula was released theatrically

DOP: Claudio Racca (Eastmancolor, Telecolor);
in Italy over one year later, in August 175. The E: Gianni Oppedisano; PD, SD: Elena Ricci Poc-working title Sangue per Dracula (with which it cetto; CO: Silvio Laurenzi; AD: Alfredo Varelli; was referred to just months before its release) 2ndAD: Orlando Pagliari; C: Giorgio Di Battista; gave way to one as demented as the one reserved AC: Carlo Milani; SP: Mauro Paravano; MU:

to Morrissey’s other horror spoof: Dracula cerca Lamberto Marini; AMU: Cristina Rocca; Hair:

sangue di vergine e … morì di sete!!! (Dracula Is Anna Cristofani, Iolanda Conti; SO: Roberto Al-Searching for Virgin’s Blood and … He Died of
berghini, Benedetto Conversi; B: Antonino Pan-

Thirst!!!—note the weak temporal construction) tano, Giuliano Maielli; AE: Nadia Mazzoni, to mediocre box- office. By then, Joe Dallesandro Alessio Mazzoni; SS: Luigina Lovari, Rita Ban-had relocated to Rome and become a recurrent
otti; ChEl: Gaetano Coniglio; KG: Teodorico presence in Italian and European cinema, star-Meme; W: Margherita Mannelli; PM: Francesco
ring in such works as L’ambizioso (175, Pasquale Raffa; Stunt: Sergio Mioni. Cast: Bradford Dill-Squitieri, co- starring Casini), Fango bollente man (Michel Lagrange), Marina Malfatti (Deb-

(175, Vittorio Salerno) and Black Moon (175, orah), Gig Young (Ofenbauer), Delia Boccardo

Louis Malle). Dallesandro’s European career en-

(Mira Wener), Micaela Esdra (Elena), Lucretia
compassed such interesting works as Je t’aime

Love (Ofenbauer’s wife), Adriano Amedei
moi non plus (176, Serge Gainsbourg), La Migliano (Albert Wener), Gigi [Luigi] Casellato Marge (176, Walerian Borowczyk) and Vacanze

(Psychiatrist), Vittorio Mangano, Mario Gar -
per un massacro (180, Fernando di Leo). On his riba, Luigi Antonio Guerra, Raffaele Di Mario,

120 1974: Un fiocco Matilde Dell’Acqua, Rita Lo Verde, Giuseppe

Visa n. 65205 (.26.174); Rating: none. Release Castelli; uncredited: Antonio Anelli (Party dates: .26.174; Distribution: Alpherat. Domestic Guest), Ulla Johannsen (Blonde Party Guest),
gross: 118,687,000 lire. Also known as: The TorAlba Maiolini (Ofenbauer’s friend), Giuseppe
ment (U.K.); El lado oscuro de Deborah (Spain); Marrocco (Party Guest). PROD: Paola Film s.r.l.

Psycho Maniacs (Germany).

(Rome); EP: Paolo Prestano; PM: Diego Spataro; Deborah, the wife of nuclear physicist Michel

PS: Anselmo Parrinello; PSe: Giuseppe Cas -

Lagrange, is unable to have children, and her in-tagna; ADM: Sergio Rosa. Country: Italy. Filmed fertility looms over her marriage. After visiting at Anguillara Sabazia (Rome) and on location
some children’s homes, with the intention of in Rome. Running time: 108 minutes (m. 264).

adopting a child, she gives up because of the complex paperwork. One day, after wit-
nessing a gruesome car accident that
involves a German man and his
pregnant wife, Deborah turns out to
be pregnant. From that moment, she
begins to be followed by a strange
woman named Mira. Michel does
not believe in Deborah and nobody
seems to have ever seen the elusive
woman she describes. As the days
pass Mira becomes more and more
present and, in the end, she and Deb-
orah become friends. Eventually,
though, it turns up that Mira ac -
tually died a few months earlier as a
result of the accident Deborah wit-
nessed. The child she was bearing
now lives in Deborah’s womb…

Often enclosed in the “de-
monic possession” cycle of the mid–

170s, mainly because of its passing
similarities to Rosemary’s Baby—
starting with the title, which openly
hints at Nastro rosso a New York, the

Italian subtitle of Polanski’s film—

Marcello Andrei’s Un fiocco nero per

Deborah1 is actually a subtle ghost
story disguised as a psychological
drama. Featuring no devil figure or
evil child, the movie leaves aside de-
monic possession and deals with
one of the decade’s main staples,
parapsychology. Like Jennifer

O’Neill’s character in Sette note in
nero, the titular heroine played by

Marina Malfatti is a medium, who
in the opening sequence foresees an
accident at the circus during a tra-
peze performance, and a key char-
acter is a parapsychologist, played

(in his only role in an Italian movie)

by Gig Young.

Similarly to other films of the

Italian poster for Un fiocco nero per Deborah (1974).

period, such as Madeleine–Anatomia

1974: Mania 121
di un incubo and Un sussurro nel buio, Andrei’s drama to the Fantastic. Overlong and sluggishly film delves with the anxieties of pregnancy and paced, with overly didactic dialogue (with the the fear of losing a child, a common theme odd Luddite touch: “Automation has driven us
partly because of the growing importance of the to a future without alternatives. The day will debate on abortion in Italy: in 174 a law pro-come when political, economic, and even emo-
posal was made to legalize it, but only in 178
tional decisions will be made for us by a ma-
the parliament passed a law that depenalized it.

chine, even in love, and mankind would have

The movie revolves around Deborah’s mysteri-
lost the most fascinating of all the qualities he’s ous pregnancy, which the doctors label as hys-endowed with, the ability to make mistakes,”

terical as the woman cannot bear children: she Ofenbauer proclaims), the movie ultimately fails tightens a bond with a mysterious young woman, to make the most of its grim, circular twist end-Mira (Delia Boccardo), who lost her baby in a
ing.

car accident, and who becomes some sort of a

Malfatti, sporting a short hairdo very sim-
doppelgänger, with whom Deborah discusses her
ilar to Mia Farrow’s in Polanski’s film, is quite fears and delusions. The disturbing crescendo
convincing, and her American co- stars fare betis orchestrated in much the same way as the
ter than expected: Young, in particular, delivers other “female Gothics” of the period, with poor a good performance as the flamboyant psychic,

Deborah facing a reality that increasingly feels always half- drunk and playing malicious ditties like a nightmare, as no one believes in her preg-on the piano. Despite Malfatti’s popularity in nancy, and nobody else but her can see Mira.

Italy (the actress had recently starred in a suc-Andrei and co- scriptwriters move from a
cessful 4-part TV version of Malombra), the rather original idea, a dying woman “passing”

movie passed almost unnoticed on its theatrical the child she is bearing to another one. Giuseppe release, and disappeared from sight. It resur -

Pulieri, who wrote the original story, claimed faced to home video in the U.S. and U.K. in the that it had been ruined by the producer’s attempt early 180s.

to exploit the “Demonic possession” thread.

Andrei’s subsequent career was nonde-

“The script stayed ten years in the drawer, I even script, with less than a handful of movies in a pestered Raymond Stross into making it, to no
few years, incuding the crime film Il tempo degli avail … they altered the story, threw in all the assassini (175) starring Joe Dallesandro.

usual bullshit: the witches, the sorcerer, the special effects… ”2 The attempts at building a per-NoTeS
turbing atmosphere include a psychic experi-

1. Pulieri’s original story was titled Quegli strani malori ment which goes wrong—an idea scriptwriter
di Eilen, deposited at SAIE’s registers on April 6, 173, but Regnoli reprised in his unfilmed script Qualcosa according to the Public Cinematographic Register, penetra in noi (Le notti di Satana)—and an shooting began on May 13, 174. The script kept at CSC
bears the title Un fiocco nero per Deborah (La quinta sta-eerie sequence at the zoo, where animals go gione).

crazy at Deborah’s presence (a moment which

2. Franco Grattarola, “È arrivato il risolutore. Intervista predates The Omen, 176). But the movie pria Giuseppe Pulieri,” Cine70 e dintorni #7, 2006, 1.

marily aims to be a character study, focusing on Deborah’s conjugal crisis and her growing in-Mania
communicability with her estranged husband

D: Ralph Brown [Renato Polselli]. SC:

(Bradford Dillman, also in his only role in an Ralph Brown; DOP: Ugo Brunelli (Telecolor,

Italian film), thus avoiding the typical excesses Eastmancolor); M: Umberto Cannone (Ed.

of the period, so much so that the board of cen-Tickle); E: Roberto Colangeli; AD: Claudio Fra-sors gave it a “per tutti” (all audiences allowed) gasso; ArtD: Giuseppe Ranieri; CO: Maria Rosa
rating, something of a rare bird for a 170s Catinello; SS: Iolanda Mascitti; AE: Dante Am-Italian movie.

atucci; SO: Alberto Vani; MU: Marcello Di Un fiocco nero per Deborah is pleasant to

Paolo; C: Domenico Giannotti. Cast: Brad Eu-
watch, thanks also to Alberto Verrecchia’s eclec-ston [Ettore Elio Aricò] (Germano / Brecht),
tic score (very much reminiscent of Albinoni’s Ivana Giordan (Katia), Isarco Ravaioli (Lailo), work in places, and echoing progressive rock in Mirella Rossi (Erina), Eva Spadaro (Lisa), Max others), and Andrei’s direction is suitably stylish, Dorian (Dr. Lous), Filomena Desiato (Elderly
with an emphasis on slow- motion, but it fails to woman), Carla Mancini, Giorgio Dolfin. PROD:

be punchy when the story shifts from melo-Renato Polselli and Mushi Glam for G.R.P.

122 1974: Mania Cinematografica (Rome); PM: Bruno Vani; PS:

turns out that Brecht only faked his death, and Francesco Francioso. Country: Italy. Filmed at took Germano’s place in order to drive his wife to Cave Film Studio (Rome); Sound recording at
madness. He succeeds: Lisa cuts Katia’s throat and Otello Colangeli’s “Cinemontaggio” (SO: Sandro kills herself, in front of Lailo and Lous. The shock Occhetti, Bruno Penzo). Running time: 84 min-has Erina miraculously recover her voice and utes (m. 225). Visa n. 6362 (12.18.173); Rating: hearing.

V.M.18. Release date: 8.25.174; Distribution:

“When the dark shadows of the night can-

RCR; Domestic gross: unknown.

cel the world’s view, then from the mysterious Note: Although credited, Carla Mancini
depths of the subconscious the uncontrolled
and Giorgio Dolfin do not appear in the film.

forces of the unconscious are unleashed, and no-Lisa, the widow of the brilliant scientist Dr.

body knows what the boundaries of reality are

Brecht, is still shocked by the traumatic death of anymore.” Thus begins Renato Polselli’s most
her husband, whom she betrayed with his twin
obscure work of the 170s, Mania, which has
brother Germano. Brecht, who had discovered his been unavailable for over thirty years after its wife’s infidelity, subsequently died in a fire in his marginal theatrical release, save for a May 2007
lab, before Lisa’s eyes, while Germano was left dis-screening of the print kept at the Cineteca figured and on a wheelchair. Following the advice Nazionale that took place at the Trevi cinema in of Dr. Lous, Lisa moves to the villa where she once Rome. In September 2016 it surfaced on YouTube, lived with Brecht. There, she meets the embittered to a small but affectionate audience. Polselli fans Germano, the housekeeper Katia, and Brecht’s for-labeled it as “an extraordinary film.” Beauty, as mer assistant Erina, who has been left deaf after they say, is in the eye of the beholder.

a shock. Soon inexplicable and terrifying events Originally to be titled Terrore mania, the
occur, and it looks as though Brecht’s ghost is film borrowed a key plot point (a man fakes his haunting Lisa from the afterlife. However, Lisa’s own death in order to take a contorted revenge new lover, Lailo, is suspicious, and starts to inover the woman who betrayed him) from
vestigate the house’s surrounding. Eventually, it Polselli’s own La verità secondo Satana, but Italian fotobusta for Mania (1974).

1974: Mania 123
turned into a Gothic tale of sorts, which encom-a decomposed body, and so on—all this spiced
passes some of the genre’s staples: the mad doc-with the director’s beloved wild (and, in his own tor, the haunted house, the döppelganger, the in-words, “marvelous”2) color effects, although not decision between a rational and supernatural
so over- the-top as in Riti, magie nere e segrete explanation of the events. All this is concocted orge nel Trecento…

in the director’s inimitable manner.

The basic revenge- from-the-dead plot

For one thing, Polselli’s Dr. Brecht is a turns out to have more than a passing analogy
bizarre modern- day variation of the mad doctor to Riccardo Freda’s Lo Spettro, to the point that type, a brilliant scientist “always full of his own some moments are quite similar: the scene enthusiasm” who is conducting weird experi-where Erina (Mirella Rossi) opens Brecht’s coffin ments that he explains as follows: “With these (located in the basement, in spite of any attempt radiations I can make a bee fly and stop it in at verisimilitude) and finds a maggot- infested, mid- air … the important thing is to center the decaying body in it—an effect Polselli recalled wavelength on which each individual’s nervous
enthusiastically, boasting about his idea to spray system works. In other words,” he adds, perhaps maggots over a human skeleton and claiming
sensing the viewers’ perplexity, “I can apply that he himself was scared by the result3—recalls radio controls on living matter. This means that a similar passage in Freda’s film. Lisa’s descent I can stop the course of any illness in the human into violence and madness, with her vicious as-body,” he concludes, and who are we to object
sault to Katia (Ivana Giordan), recalls Steele to the compelling logic of a Polselli character?

slashing poor Peter Baldwin with a razor. On

The fact that Brecht’s lab is placed in a basethe other hand, the sequence where Lisa finds
ment and consists of some bogus equipment
mysterious footsteps on the terrace vaguely re-props and a spinning device which looks suspi-
calls Bava’s La frusta e il corpo.

ciously like a cement mixer pretty much gives

Ultimately the apparently supernatural
away Polselli’s scant budget from the start. Com-events are explained (in a manner similar to
pared to Mania, Delirio caldo and Riti, magie

William Castle’s The House on Haunted Hill,
nere e segrete orge nel Trecento… were big budget 15) as devices operated by Brecht through a
affairs: this time the director had no “name”

makeshift keyboard panel, which makes the actor to rely on and worked with a cast of only haunted house like a funhouse of sorts—not by
seven people led by “Brad Euston,” a.k.a. Ettore chance a reviewer of the time observed that “it Elio Aricò, an aspiring actor who had previously looks like a ride through one of those ‘fun -
appeared in the director’s Quando l’amore è houses’ that amusement parks’ barkers suggest
oscenità, and provided most of the budget from to couples looking for Grand Guignol–style his own pocket, on the condition of being the
thrills.”4
protagonist. Polselli obliged.1

Yet, Polselli’s use of genre staples is idio-

Most of the film was shot in and around Is-
syncratic to say the least, starting with the abun-arco Ravaioli’s own house, a modest suburban
dance of over- the-top, mind- boggling dialogue villa (already employed by the director in some which sometimes borders dangerously on the
of his previous works, such as Delirio caldo unintentionally ridiculous, and frequently falls and Rivelazioni di uno psichiatra sul mondo per-into it headfirst (“Stay away from this villa! Let verso del sesso) which provided a surrogate for ghosts do the ghosts!”). On top of that, the Gothic films’ typical haunted mansion; the viewer is treated with ample doses of the spe-opening credits’ mention of Mania having been
cialty of the house, those weird, over- the-top shot at Gordon Mitchell’s Cave Film Studio was sadomasochistic bits that are Polselli’s trade -
simply a trick for bureaucratic reasons, as was mark. A scene juxtaposes a fight betwen Lisa
the mention of two C.S.C. actors (the ubiquitous and Irena (which evolves into a lesbian inter -
yet elusive Carla Mancini and Giorgio Dolfin)

lude) with Germano groping and fondling Katia, who do not appear in the film at all.

who’s lying over his wheelchair in the garden; Polselli piles on the typical Gothic para-later on, Irena spies on a lesbian tryst between phernalia with wild abandon: the assorted phe-Lisa and Katia and masturbates with a bottle;
nomena that take place, driving poor Lisa (Eva and Germano takes every opportunity to punish

Spadaro) to madness, include the apparition of the poor deaf girl, preferably with a rope used a madly cackling, silver- painted Brecht; a phan-as a whip and iron tongs. The most hilarious
tasmatic hand with seemingly hot- iron fingers; bit has to be the scene where Germano/Brecht

124 1974: La mano gleefully tramples on the helpless Irena with his NoTeS
wheelchair, a moment worthy of Delirio caldo’s 1. In a 1 interview with Pete Tombs and Luca Rea, murder- cum-masturbation in the bathtub, fol-Polselli claimed that Aricò later cashed checks for seven lowed closely by the scene where the madly million lire that the director had advanced him as a war-cackling Germano traps Lisa and Irena inside a ranty. Having to repay the millions to the bank, Polselli resort of shrinking device (that is, a curved alu-lied on luck, and bet on horse races: he won seven million four hundred thousand lire. (https:// www. youtube. com/
minum sheet maneuvered by an unseen assis-
watch?v= 20lUv0tDYGg&feature= youtu. be)

tant) and watches as the two women are slowly

2. Ibid.

squeezed by its embrace, a moment that recalls 3. Ibid.

the “invisible force” in Il mostro dell’opera.

4. S.c., “Nel tunnel dell’orrore si può anche sorridere,”

La Stampa, August 28, 174.

If Spadaro’s acting constantly borders on

5. The “Brad Euston” who appears in the Turkish crime the hysterical, since her character is given little film Four for All directed by Yılmaz Atadeniz (retitled Quei else to do but scream in despair, Aricò hams it paracul … pi di Jolando e Margherito by the Italian distrib-up savagely in a dual role, in jarring contrast to utor Bruno Vani and credited to “Jerry Mason,” a.k.a.

Isarco Ravaioli’s catatonic performance. A karate Giulio Giuseppe Negri) is not Aricò, but Turkish actor Kazım Kartal.

black belt, the Sicilian Aricò (born in 13) had 6. See Cinesex Mese #10, November 173.

debuted in the 166 Western Per una manciata
d’oro, and enjoyed a brief acting career before leaving the cinema business for good.5 He went La mano che nutre la morte (The Hand
through rough times in his later life, sometimes That Feeds the Dead, a.k.a. Evil Face)

living by his wits. He died of a laryngeal cancer D: Sergio Garrone. SC: Sergio Garrone;
in 17. Polselli claimed that Mania’s invisibility DOP: Emore Galeassi (Eastmancolor, Telecolor); was caused by Aricò’s dissatisfaction with the M: Elio Maestosi, Stefano Liberati, conducted
distribution: according to the director, he took by Stefano Liberati (Ed. C.A.M.); E: Cesare Bian-the existing prints out of circulation and disap-chini; PD, ArtD, CO: Amedeo Mellone; MU:

peared.

Maia Arié; Hair: Ivana Bernardi; AD: Alessandro As the deaf, masochistic Irena, Rossi—a

Frollano; AE: Bruna Abbatelli; SO: Armando

Polselli regular, having appeared also in Quando Timpani; SOE: Enzo Diliberto, Roberto Arcan-l’amore è oscenità and Rivelazioni di uno psichi-geli; B: Amedeo Timpani; SE: Carlo Rambaldi;
atra sul mondo perverso del sesso, as well as in AC: Lino Galeassi; SP: Serto Giannini; SS: Paola the Vani/Polselli hybrid Casa dell’amore … la

Fabiani. Cast: Klaus Kinski (Prof. Nijinsky), polizia interviene—spends most of the film Katia Christine (Masha / Tanja Nijinsky), Ayhan wearing only slippers, panties and an unbut -

Işık (Alex), Marzia Damon [Caterina Chiani]

toned shirt, and the other leading ladies have (Katja Olenov), Carmen Silvia, Stella Calderoni their share of nude scenes as well. However, the (Sonia), Romano De Gironcoli, Alessandro Peronly existing copy is devoid of all the erotic in-rella (Feodor), Erol Taş (Vanya, Prof. Nijinski’s terludes, which nevertheless are featured in the Henchman), Luigi Bevilacqua, Bruno Arié (In-photonovel of the film published in Cinesex spector), Osiride Pevarello (Inn-Keeper), Ame -
magazine.6 One has the feeling that the jaw-
deo Timpani (The Judge), Pasquale Toscano.

dropping opening sequence in which Lisa and

PROD: Amedeo Mellone for Cinequipe (Rome)

Lailo, driving on a lonely country road, are pur-and Şakir V. Sözen; PM: Claudio Sinibaldi; PS: sued by a mysterious car with no driver on it—

Vincenzo Iaccio. Country: Italy / Turkey. Filmed a blatant rip- off of Steven Spielberg’s Duel in Istanbul, Turkey and at Elios Studios (Rome).

(171)—had no other purpose than to replace

Running time: 88 minutes (m. 23); Visa n.

the abundant sex scenes in order to obtain a visa 6410 (3.22.174); Rating: V.M.18. Release date: safely, with the director planning to restore the 4.2.174; Distribution: Regional. Domestic gross: most risqué bits subsequently.

unknown. Also known as: Ölümün Nefesi (Tur -

Polselli would not be so lucky with Quando
key).

l’amore è oscenità, which was banned when first Note: Although credited, Carla Mancini
submitted to the Board of Censors in October
does not appear in the film. Ayhan Işık and Erol 175: it was reedited with the addition of new Taş are not credited in Italian prints.

scenes and a totally new dialogue track, and re-Two newlyweds on their honeymoon, Masha
submitted to the board in 180 as Oscenità.

and Alex, have a coach accident near the mansion inhabited by Prof. Nijinsky, whose wife Tanja was

1974: La mano 125
horribly scarred ten years earlier in a fire which sue. The scenes also works as an unintended
also killed her father and Nijinsky’s mentor, Pro-metaphor on the making of the two pictures, in fessor Ivan Rassimov. Nijinsky is attempting to return assembled with bits and pieces of film store Tanja’s beauty with a series of gruesome sur-transplanted and recycled from one to another, gical experiments, inspired by Rassimov’s works: starting with the very opening credits (see the he operates on young women, abducted by his
entry on Le amanti del mostro for further de-
hulking servant, and attempts to graft their skin tails.)

onto Tanja. Other guests at Nijinsky’s house are That said, La mano che nutre la morte
a prostitute named Sonia, and a young woman,
amply deals with recurring themes of Italian

Katja, who is actually investigating the disappear-Gothic, starting with its evil, Machiavellan cen-ance of her sister, with the help of her fiancé Feo -
tral female character opposed to a weak, feeble-dor. As the guests start disappearing, Masha and willed male figure. In addition to controlling her Alex suspect that something terrible is going on, surgeon husband, persuading him to murder
but the woman—who turns out to be a dead young women so as to regain her lost beauty, the ringer for Tanja—is captured and subjected to a scheming Tanja has sex with her deformed and
gruesome surgery where her face is stitched onto retarded servant, whom she lures by way of a

Tanja’s disfigured one. As she recovers, Tanja stabs tuning fork, just like Barbara Steele’s character Nijinsky and plans to leave with the unaware played a piano motif to alert her groom lover in Alex, passing herself off as Masha. But Nijinsky’s Mario Caiano’s Amanti d’oltretomba (165).

revenge from beyond the grave awaits her…

Eventually, she does not hesitate in dispatching Of the two movies Sergio Garrone shot in
her husband so as to start a new life, taking the Turkey for the Rome- based Turkish producer
place of the “twin” she has sacrificed. La mano Şakir V. Sözen,1 La mano che nutre la morte was che nutre la morte features the umpteenth “black the original story the director had in mind, veiled lady” of Italian horror, and liberally draws while Le amanti del mostro was concocted
from such themes as the doppelgänger (Katia
later—whether Sözen was aware or not of this

Christine plays Nijinsky’s wife and a dead ringer is anyone’s guess—to exploit the cast and loca-to her) and the partially disfigured face, half-tion.

beautiful and half- horrific, which Tanja exhibits According to the director, the basic idea for
just like Barbara Steele’s ghost character in the film was some sort of “Frankenstein story,”

Amanti d’oltretomba. On the other hand, poor
but La mano che nutre la morte actually owes

Nijinsky is one of the most unfortunate mad
more to the surgical sub- genre inaugurated by doctors in Italian Gothic: not only he is totally Georges Franju’s Les yeux sans visage (160) and submissive to his wife’s will, a closer relative to Jesús Franco’s Gritos en la noche (161), and is Dr. Du Grand in I vampiri than to Franju’s closer in spirit to the Italian Gothics made in Genessier, but he is also possibly impotent (as the early 170s, with its emphasis on eroticism Kinski’s character in Garrone’s twin film) and and its taste for the macabre and gore. As for the ends up deceived, betrayed and (literally) sex factor, Garrone included the obligatory les-stabbed in the back.

bian scene between Stella Calderoni (Rita’s Like Le amanti del mostro, the film features
sister) and Marzia Damon (real name Caterina
scenes shot at the Elios Western village in Rome, Chiani, seen also in other sexy Gothic flicks of with Osiride Pevarello and other little- known the early 170s, such as Byleth and Il sesso della Italian actors, such as Antonio Timpani and strega), that was slightly shortened (by  meters, Bruno Arié. Alessandro Perrella, credited in about 1 seconds) by the board of censors in
both films, appears only here; on the other hand, order to give the film a V.M.18 rating.

it is likely that some of the cast names (such as Carlo Rambaldi provided the effects for the

Romano De Gironcoli and Pasquale Toscano)

surgical scenes, whose crudeness rivals Spanish were actually made up, as was the case with horror films made around the same time, for the some Italian versions of Turkish co- productions.

morbidness and insistence on the details in spite La mano che nutre la morte was submitted
of the poverty of means. Garrone’s camera to the board of censors five days after its com-lingers on the close- ups of Kinski (or, more fre-panion piece (on March 7) and obtained a visa
quently, his double) carving with his scalpel on on the same day, but was eventually released one the victims’ thighs, lifting ample portions of skin month earlier. The Turkish version came out
and using them to replace gruesomely burnt tisonly in 186, seven years after Ayhan Işık’s pre-

126 1974: Nuda mature death in 17, thanks to the efforts of Domestic gross: 56,364,000 lire. Also known as: actor- cum-producer Yılmaz Duru (133–2010),

Les Nuits perverses de Nuda (France).

who had bought the negatives from Sözen and

While driving through the countryside late
released it for Tuğra Film with the title Ölümün at night, on his way to visit a patient, Dr. Benson Nefesi (Breath of Death). Duru re- edited a 77-finds a crashed car with a young woman named
minute- long version (crediting himself as co-Susan hanging out of it. The doctor puts Susan director in the process!) and added additional in his car and drives for help to the nearest house, music by Arif Melikov. This version is cut with which turns out to be a mysterious castle. He is some gore footage missing, and it is oddly, greeted at the door by a woman named Evelyn
slightly re- edited, with the lesbian scene shifted who looks exactly like Susan, and who invites
to a later point. Moreover, the characters’ names them both to stay for the night. Then it’s Susan were anglicized in the dubbing (Nijinsky became who wakes up and enters the castle, where she

Marshall, Masha became Martha, Vanya became
finds a man named Peter who is a dead ringer for Johnson), except for Ayhan Işık’s, who was Benson. The two visitors are involved with mirror turned into Turkish and renamed Han Bey (!).

images of themselves, while time and space seem-The actor was dubbed by Ersan Uysal while ingly cease to obey the ordinary rules. It turns out Katia Christine’s voice was provided by Ayşin
that their actions are driven by Satan himself…

Atav.

If the title was not enough, the opening

Ölümün Nefesi was released on video in
image of Nuda per Satana is emblematic of the

German for the Turkish community, and broad-
evolution of Italian Gothic in the early 170s: a cast on Turkish television. Local film historian slow- motion shot of Rita Calderoni running in Kaya Özkaracalar organized a screening of the
the woods at night toward the camera, amid
movie in 2001 during the Ankara Film Festival.

eerie lights, and dressed only with a light night-gown that leaves her body exposed to the cam-

NoTe
era. It looks like an almost perfect reworking of one of 160s Italian Gothic’s clichés—the hero -

1. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, shooting began on March 26, 173. Interestingly, La mano ine pursued by some menacing and invisible
che nutre la morte was registered only in November 178, force at night, in a hostile environment, an five years after its making.

image that had its archetypal antecedent in the opening scene of Riccardo Freda’s masterpiece, Nuda per Satana (Nude for Satan)

Beatrice Cenci (156). All this with the addition D: Paolo Solvay [Luigi Batzella]. S and SC:

of full frontal nudity, a move that turns the sug-Luigi Batzella; DOP: Antonio Maccoppi (Tech-
gestive into explicit, the erotic into voyeuristic.

nicolor, Techniscope); M: Alberto Baldan

The effect is strangely compelling: on the

Bembo (Ed. S.A.A.R.); E: Luigi Batzella; AD:

one hand, the shot’s iconic power is sabotaged Michelangelo Ricci; SO: Antonio Forrest; C: by the exploitative resort to nudity; on the other, Giuliano Grasselli; AC: Luciano Ronconi; CO:

the attention to light effects and formal presen-Simone Chapoutier; MU: Ultimo Peruzzi. Cast:

tation feels like a surplus, a justification for a Rita Calderoni (Susan Smith / Evelyn), Stelio
film that borders on hardcore porn but has still Candelli (Dr. William Henry Benson / Peter),
the need to present itself with a certain formal James Harris [Giuseppe Mattei] (The Devil), Re-aplomb. By walking on the thin edge between
nato Lupi (Butler), Iolanda Mascitti (Servant
erotic horror and pornography, Nuda per Satana Girl), Luigi Antonio Guerra, Barbara Lay
follows the same path as other horror films of (Brown Coven Member), Augusto Boscardini
the period, tempted to jump to the other side of (Naked Man), Alfredo Pasti (Naked Man); unthe fence but still retaining some prudish reser-credited: Gota Gobert (Blonde Coven Member).

vation, and also recalls the adults- only comics PROD: Remo Angioli for C.R.C. Produzioni
of the era, which were still on the edge of (but Cinematografiche e Televisive (Rome); PM:

not yet) hardcore.

Michelangelo Ciafré; PSe: Mario Ciafré. Coun -

Filmed in spring 174,1 Nuda per Satana
try: Italy. Filmed at Castle of Monte San Gio -
was Luigi Batzella’s second Gothic effort after Il vanni Campano (Frosinone, Lazio). Running
plenilunio delle vergini. The script is nothing but time: 1 minutes (m. 243). Visa n. 64782 (7.

a potpourri of Italian Gothic’s main themes and 28.174); Rating: V.M.18. Release dates: 10.23.174
narratives, which perhaps is the most evident

(Italy), 1.25.178 (France); Distribution: P.A.B.

symptom of the creative impasse (or indiffer-

1974: Nuda 127
ence, if you please) that characterized most of of this time, and time is silence, here there is no the genre’s efforts. The miles of naked flesh place for memories … please don’t think about
added to its Gothic cloth notwithstanding, the the past or the present, just think about now… ,”

references are so pedantic as to border on philol-or “Time is no longer yours, time is suspended, ogy. Despite the contemporary setting, the and you are eternal prisoners of your own movie has its roots firmly in the circular theme selves.”

of the eternal return, so that the present Batzella throws in the odd optical effect,
becomes a necessary mirror of the past, similarly devises elaborate tracking shots and delights in to L’amante del demonio. The plot revolves tilted camera angles, with sometimes amusing
around the Romantic theme of the doppelgänger
results: during Susan’s exploration of the garden with whom the two main characters are forced
the frame keeps tilting on its axis as if the cam-to confront, firstly via a variation on the theme eraman was sitting on a seesaw. Moreover, he
of the “living portrait” (in a crudely animated has d.o.p. Antonio Maccoppi light every se-bit) and then in person: the encounters give way quence with a mixture of reds and greens that
to a peculiar ménage-à-quatre that is a wild im-look half–Bava and half–Polselli; Calderoni provement over the black- and-white prudery of claimed that the director cast her after watching the previous decade. Like the ghosts of Black-the latter’s Riti, magie nere e segrete orge nel Tre-wood castle depicted in Danza macabra, the
cento… , which the film recalls in parts.

film’s supernatural presences, Evelyn and Peter, Overall, the visual and special effects have
live only when they (make) love; and, like Elis-an endearing amusement park quality to them,
abeth Blackwood and her lovers, they lure new
and recall the so- called “cinema of attractions”

living flesh in order to perform their rituals.

from Méliès onwards. Sometimes the director

Even the locations are the expression of this
even comes up with the odd surreal touch: Ben-

“return of the past”: the “villa” (actually a castle) son’s initial discovery of the villa’s weird inhab-where Dr. Benson (Stelio Candelli) ends up after itants, by opening various doors and discovering a bizarre car accident is the same as in Roberto the occupants intent in bizarre lovemaking acts Mauri’s La strage dei vampiri, and Rita Cal -
and the bad- toothed, grotesque butler (Renato deroni’s wandering in the villa’s park recalls Gra-Lupi), posing like a still- living corpse with a ziella Granata’s night escapades in Mauri’s film.

knife protruding from his neck, looks like a poor What is more, Batzella’s approach to the Fan -
man’s variation of the celebrated sequence of the tastic is the same as its predecessors of the pre-

“Hotel des Folies Dramatiques” in Jean Coc -
vious decade, with a circular narrative and teau’s Le Sang d’un poet (130); the following whole sequences that look like they were devised image of a vertiginously whirling statue’s head on the blueprint of a previous work: most no-might well prove that the Cocteau reference was tably, the sequence where Dr. Benson pursues a not casual on Batzella’s part.

mysterious cloaked figure through the park, The eruption of Fantastic is first and fore-only to find himself facing his own double, is an most at the service of nudity: in a scene Susan explicit reference to Operazione paura’s most fa-is stripped naked before the Devil by an invisible mous bit; on the other hand, the scene in which force, her clothes disappear instantly, and she is Susan finds herself imprisoned in a huge web
left like a modern version of Botticelli’s Venus, and is menaced by a laughable rubber spider
shyly covering her breast and pubic area, which could have been taken from either L’amante del nevertheless is featured prominently throughout vampiro or Il boia scarlatto.2
the film. Her image is superimposed to Satan’s Space and time prove equally malleable and
eye, in a game of shot counter shots that reveal misleading, as when Benson keeps walking away
how this poor devil is less menacing than horny.

from the villa and finds himself directing toward All this considered, even though the result
it, and the sudden transitions from day to night is more enjoyable than such dreck as Riti, magie draw from 160 Gothics’ liquid chronology. The nere e segrete orge nel Trecento… and La san-discourse on time, and on “the illusion of living, guisuga conduce la danza (175), the direction of loving, of dying” is at the film’s centre, and is as clueless as its heroine, because Batzella can-characters keep referring to it in long, stilted di-not find a formal balance and keeps piling up
alogue passages such as “What is a memory? It’s whatever comes to his mind. As a result, the
just a fraction of time, a moment recovered from movie often slips into the ridiculous, and the the vastness of the past, and the past is no longer inane dialogue does not help: while making love

128 74: Nuda with Susan’s double Evelyn, the unaware Dr.

Not that this really mattered to the audi -

Benson says to himself that his patient must still ence at whom the movie was aimed. The many
be in a shock after the accident. Which, incidensex scenes go as far as censorship would allow, tally, is hilariously suggested by the absurd sight but are not particularly enticing in themselves: of a single tire rolling into the frame, possibly a sequence starts with the camera zooming out
justified by the lack of budget: however, one is of Susan’s derrière while she is taking a bath, puzzled by Calderoni’s recollections that it took whereas the heroine’s lesbian approach with a

Batzella all night to shoot it, as he was a very ac-servant girl (Iolanda Mascitti) takes place amid curate director.3 The actress also complained to white veils and see- through curtains, and curi-have been injured in the making of the accident ously brings to mind a notorious dream inter -
scene as well as during the filming of another lude in the anthology comedy Sessomatto (173, side- splitting bit, the spider attack sequence.4

Dino Risi).

The appearances of the Devil (played by

The board of censors initially rejected

Giuseppe Mattei, also seen in Alberto Caval -

Nuda per Satana because of its “continuous ob-
lone’s Zelda) are no less grotesque than those in, scene sequences, some of them even portraying
say, L’esorciccio (175, Ciccio Ingrassia), and lesbian intercourses” (female and especially worse still is the climax, with Satan sitting on a male homosexuality being an aggravating factor throne and holding the naked Susan in his arms, as far as eroticism was concerned). The verdict in a room decorated with two graves from which was partially changed in appeal: the commis-a pair of naked women come out and start danc-
sioners “invited” (a more pleasant way to say
ing, à la Orgy of the Dead (165, Stephen C.

“demanded”) the producer to perform a number

Apostolof ); soon they are joined by two men
of cuts, as follows:

with their bodies colored in white and red (the umpteenth nod to man’s dichotomy), in what

1. A considerable reduction of the scenes of sexual looks like an adults- only version of some Italian intercourse between the doctor and the woman who Saturday night TV show’s ballet, complete with represents Susan’s double, to prevent the description zooms galore.

of suckings and lickings.

All in all, Nuda per Satana is largely inco-

2. A significant reduction in Susan’s nightmare herent when it comes to squeeze a sense out of scene, so that it gets to the attempted strangula-its threadbare plot. At a certain point, the Devil tion avoiding the description of the lesbian intercourse.

gives Benson a medallion whose sides should

3. A reduction of the final scene, before and af-represent man’s two halves, which never get to ter the ballet around the chair, trying to avoid the see one another: Plato’s myth of the androgy -
sequences of the erotic acts of the man on the nous comes to mind, although the philosopher
chair with regard to the woman he has in his employed it to explain heterosexual desire, arms.

whereas Batzella uses it to underline man’s love/hate duality. Still, the Devil’s idea of “a The producer obliged and the movie was
world in which your loves and hates will be to-finally given a V.M.18 rating. It was released in gether at the same time” is pretty hazy, and relate 174, grossing little more than 50 million sults in a loosened inhibition on the characters’

lire in the regional circuit. Even though the copy part, in an eternal limbo where the quest for
submitted to the board of censors was a little less pleasure seems the only thing that matters. No than 1 minutes long, the current prints run
wonder that, in typical Catholic fashion, the
about 82 minutes. However, a version with hard-hero renounces the idea of such a sinful nether-core inserts circulated, and is currently available world and defeats (at least apparently) the curse on a Dutch DVD.5
by destroying the Grimorium which gives Satan

Nuda per Satana marked yet another step
its powers over time and people. And yet the
down in Rita Calderoni’s career. Even though
spell appears to be undefeated, as Benson finds around the same time she appeared in a couple
himself again on the site of the car accident that of important productions, Roberto Rossellini’s gave way to his outlandish adventure, and no-Anno uno (174) and Maximilian Schell’s Der
tices the same medallion on Susan’s neck. Like Richter und sein Henker (a.k.a. End of the Game, Plato’s androgynous, men are doomed to look

175), her subsequent movie roles were mostly
for their hidden counterparts and lose them-
confined to low- budget, obscure affairs such as selves in amazement.

Un attimo di vita (175, Dante Marraccini), Fate

1974: Il profumo 12
la nanna coscine di pollo (a.k.a. Amori morbosi Il profumo della signora in nero (The
di una contessina, 177, Amasi Damiani), Dolce Perfume of the Lady in Black)

pelle di donna (178, Alessandro Santini) and

Polselli’s own Torino centrale del vizio (17, D: Francesco Barilli. S and SC: Francesco
signed by Bruno Vani). Calderoni claimed that

Barilli, Massimo D’Avack; DOP: Mario Masini
this last experience was so disheartening (the (Technicolor); M: Nicola Piovani (Ed. Eurofil-budget was so scant that there wasn’t even an
music); E: Enzo Micarelli; PD: Franco Velchi;
hairdresser on set) that she gave up acting alto-CO: Piero Cicoletti; MU: Manlio Rocchetti; gether.6

AMU: Cesare Biseo; Hair: Renata Magnanti; AD:

As for Batzella, he moved on to a more pro -

Giorgio Scotton; APD: Ezio Di Monte; AsstArtD: fitable and ever sleazier genre, the nazi- erotic, Nello Giorgetti; C: Maurizio Scanzani; AC: Gior-with Kaput Lager—Gli ultimi giorni delle S.S. and gio Urbinelli; AE: Aloisa Camilli; SO: Mario the notorious La bestia in calore, both released Dallimonti; B: Giovanni Fratarcangeli; Mix: Al-in 177 and signed as “Ivan Kathansky.” He then berto Bartolomei; SS: Bona Magrini; DubD: Re-helmed the sex comedy Proibito erotico (178), nato Izzo; Press attache: Lucherini- Rossetti-starring Ajita Wilson and signed “Paul Selvin”)7

Spinola-Giovannini. English version—DubD:

and an Eurociné-produced adventure film,

Christopher Cruise; voices: Gene Luotto (Ros-

Strategia per una missione di morte (17), writ-setti), Ted Rusoff (Roberto), Edmund Purdom
ten by French film historian Alain Petit and star-

(Andy). Cast: Mimsy Farmer (Silvia Hacher-
ring Richard Harrison and Gordon Mitchell,
man), Maurizio Bonuglia (Roberto), Mario
also signed “Ivan Kathansky” (whereas the Scaccia (Mr. Rossetti), Orazio Orlando (Nicola), French version is credited to “A.M. Frank,” that Jho Jenkins (Andy), Nike Arrighi (Orchidea),
is Marius Lesoeur), his last official screen credit.

Daniela Barnes (Young Silvia), Alexandra Paizi According to some sources, Batzella appears to (Miss Cardini), Renata Zamengo (Marta, Silvia’s have had a hand in another Dick Randall pro-Mother), Ugo Carboni (Sect Member), Roberta
duction, Mie jue qi qi, a.k.a. Challenge of the Cadringher (Antique Dealer), Sergio Forcina,

Tiger (180, Bruce Le). He died in 2008, aged 84, Gabriele Bentivoglio (Shop Boy), Luigi Antonio in his hometown of San Sperate, in Sardinia.

Guerra (Chemical Worker), Carla Mancini

(Elisabetta), Donna Jordan (Francesca Vin -
cenzi); uncredited: Renato Chiantoni (Luigi, the NoTeS

Porter), Margherita Horowitz (Mrs. Lovati), 1. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, Aldo Valletti (sect Member), Attilio Viti (Silvia’s shooting began on March 25, 174.

father in photograph). PROD: Giovanni Berto -

2. A variation of the same scene can be found also in lucci for Euro International Film (Rome); GM:

Riccardo Freda’s last film, Murder Obsession.

3. Franco Grattarola, “Le occasioni di Rita,” Cine70 #11, Aldo U. Passalacqua; PS: Attilio Viti; PSe: 2008, 17. According to the actress the movie was shot in Francesco Vetrano; ADM: Rolando Pieri; Asfive or six weeks.

stADM: Silvana Olasio. Country: Italy/France.

4. Rita Calderoni interviewed in the TV program Strac-Filmed at Incir- De Paolis (Rome). Running time: ult, 200.

101 minutes (m. 2777). Visa n. 64151 (3.22.174); 5. The first hardcore insert comes during Benson’s initial exploration of the castle: upon opening a door, in Rating: V.M.18. Release date: 3.2.174; Distribu-the softcore edit he briefly glimpses a man fondling a tion: Euro International Film. Domestic gross: woman’s breasts, while in the explicit version a small orgy 582,674,000 lire. Also known as: Le Parfum de
ensues, featuring two girls and a heterosexual couple (2:21
la dame en noir (France); Das Parfüm der Dame
min.); later on, the shower and dream scene are expanded and Rita Calderoni and Iolanda Mascitti are replaced by in Schwarz (West Germany); Poseidas del demo-two body doubles (1:08 min. and 3:06 min. respectively); nio (Mexico).

after the whipping scene, the black girl is penetrated with Silvia Hacherman, the young director of a
a candle (51 sec.); during the love scene between Benson chemistry lab in Rome, has been deeply marked
and Evelyn, brief hardcore footage is inserted (2:13 sec.); by a childhood trauma, having caused the death lastly, during the final ballet/orgy the two naked girls that came out from the coffins have a lesbian intercourse, then of her mother Marta. Even though she seems to
one of them turns to Peter and Susan (2:48 min.). Overall, be able to lead a peaceful life, she still feels sexu -
the Dutch hardcore cut runs nine minutes longer.

ally inhibited with her boyfriend Roberto. One 6. Ibid.

evening, during a dinner with Roberto’s friends, 7. Released on DVD in the U.S. on the Mya label as Eros Perversion (not to be confused with Ron Wertheim’s film Silvia is impressed by the words of a professor of of the same name).

African sociology, Andy, about black magic cults,

130 1974: Il profumo which are still practiced in Africa by cannibal happen: a mysterious girl settles in Silvia’s house; sects that lead their victims to suicide. Gradually, her neighbors, acquaintances, and even Roberto Silvia’s memories come back to haunt her, like the seem to behave strangely; and Silvia starts to image of her mother, dressed in black and intent think that she is being persecuted. Eventually she on putting on perfume in front of the mirror.

plunges into madness, and apparently kills her From that moment on disturbing facts begin to
mother’s lover Nicola, Roberto and her zealous neighbor, Mr. Rossetti. Finally she
commits suicide by throwing herself
from the terrace. Her body is recovered
and placed in a secret tunnel under-
neath Rome. There, dozens of people—
including Andy, her neighbors, friends
and Roberto—gather around her body
and feed upon her. The secret sect
really exists…

Born in 143 and raised in a
family of artists (he is the nephew of
painter Cecrope Barilli) in his home-
town of Parma, Francesco Barilli took
his first steps in the movie business as
an actor, when he showed up in a
small role in Antonio Pietrangeli’s La
parmigiana (163). “Pietrangeli wanted
to shoot some scenes in my parents’

own house … but it was too small and
there was no room for the dolly, so
they eventually opted for another
villa,” he recalled. “But Pietrangeli
came over to dinner with my family,
and we talked and talked and
talked—I was crazy about John Hus-
ton, and just kept talking about his
films—until he eventually asked me
to be his assistant on set, and even
gave me a small part.”1

Then came Barilli’s big break:

the leading role in Bernardo Berto -
lucci’s sophomore effort Prima della
rivoluzione (164), a critical success
that made young Francesco one of the
most promising actors of his genera-
tion. Around the same time he also
starred in Camillo Bazzoni’s uncanny
experimental sci- fi short L’urlo (163).

But Barilli wanted to be a filmmaker
instead: he ended up in Cinecittà,
working as Bazzoni’s assistant in the
latter’s feature film debut, a Western
starring Steve Reeves titled Vivo per
la tua morte (168). Barilli recalled
the experience as follows: “That

West ern was one of the most comical
movies ever made. It was like being

Italian locandina for Il profumo della signora in nero (1974).

on the set of Blake Edwards’ The

1974: Il profumo 131

Party (168), believe me! I saw things I thought On a productive, stylistic and narrative
could not happen when you are making movies.”

side, Il profumo della signora in nero distin-After another film as Bazzoni’s assistant
guishes itself from the typical horror genre re-

(Commando suicida, 168, starring Aldo Ray),
leases: not only it was made by a director with Barilli tried his hand at scriptwriting, and auteur ambitions, with a first- level cast and top-penned a couple of screenplays with Massimo
notch technical values, but it bends only par -

D’Avack. The author of an impressive volume
tially to commercial conventions, and does not on movies and literature and a talented young
allow itself to be labeled within a particular fiction writer, D’Avack had already co- authored trend. Over the years Barilli’s film has often been a number of interesting scripts, including Al-misleadingly called a giallo, which it is not; even berto De Martino’s Roma come Chicago (168),
though its theme and mood are deeply imbued

Romolo Guerrieri’s Un detective (16) and Al-
with the period when it was made, it falls into fonso Brescia’s pseudo documentary Nel
that category of the Gothic which David Punter labirinto del sesso—Psichidion (16). He would called “paranoid texts.”

then embark on a career as a novelist, and ended According to Punter, this branch of the
up among the finalists at the prestigious Premio Gothic is characterized by three main elements: Strega with Si sa dov’è il cuore (186), whose style

“The shift towards the psychological, the in-
the renowned Fernanda Pivano favorably com-
creasing complexity of verification, the emphasis pared to such Postmodernist masters as Donald
on the ambivalence of persecution.”2 The main

Barthelme and Kurt Vonnegut.

characters, facing a world that progressively Barilli and D’Avack had similar tastes in lit-takes the shape of a nightmare, feel like the vic-erature and movies, and were an effective script -
tims of a persecution whose ultimate goal eludes writing pair. “We got along very well. I had the them, and carry out a detection that will bring ideas, he put them on paper. Massimo wrote
them to discover a truth hidden within them-
very well and had a wonderful ear for dialogue.

selves. In a way, this “return of the past” is the He had fun working with me, because I really
same that characterizes classical Gothic, where went over the top. I came up with such weird
it takes the shape of vampires or revenants, but ideas… . It was a perfect match.” Their efforts it brings to a different approach to the element were made into two cult movies: the giallo, Chi of the “uncanny,” since the horrors that take l’ha vista morire? and the violent adventure film form on the screen have an inner genesis. The

Il paese del sesso selvaggio (172, Umberto Lenzi), supernatural becomes merely an insinuating born as a rip- off of A Man Called Horse and
suggestion, an option that is briefly touched but eventually the progenitor of one of Italy’s most never fully embraced, and which is born and
notorious subgenres of the decade, the Third
dies within the protagonists’ tormented subjec-World cannibal film.

tivity.

Finally, for Barilli came the time of his di-

That is the case with Silvia (Mimsy Farmer),
rectorial debut. Once again he co- wrote the the enigmatic protagonist of Barilli’s film, whose script with D’Avack. The starting point was the descent into madness takes place in full daylight, horror genre, a profitable venture at that period, in the hot summer, in sunny contemporary and one that could grant him a safe distribution Rome.3 It seems the exact opposite of a Gothic deal in Italy and perhaps abroad as well. How-ambience; and yet the ghosts and shadows that
ever, what became Il profumo della signora in
lurk underneath the apparently calm surface of nero started in a quite unique way: “You see,

Silvia’s ordinary bourgeois life gradually take there were these two scripts I’d written: one was shape, between a tennis match and a dinner with the story of a schizophrenic woman, while the
friends, while the streets and buildings take on other was about a cannibal sect based in Geneva a menacing air, and even the smiling elderly

… there were these bankers who used to meet
gentleman next door starts looking suspicious
in the city sewers at night and eat people. When and sinister.

I brought these two scripts to Euro Productions, In dealing with a female perspective, Il pro-they told me: ‘OK, let’s make the movie. But
fumo della signora in nero embraces the contem-we’re going to stitch the two scripts together!’

porary evolution of the 1th century “female

… I really liked both stories, so I told myself: Gothic,” centered on heroines who, despite their

‘Well, that’s quite a challenge. Let’s see what I strong and independent surface, turn out as can do with it!’”

fragile and defenseless damsels in distress, just

132 1974: Il profumo like their Romantic predecessors; what is more, ing. There is no trace of the stylistic sloppiness they are afflicted by psychosexual taints: the “re-of the contemporaneous low- budget Gothic turning past” that generates terror is a traumatic films, plagued with zooms and shaky mise- enevent hidden in the subconscious, which comes
scène. Each scene is very carefully designed:

to the surface in the moment when the heroine

Barilli builds the suspense with patience, and loses touch with her certainties and defenses, takes care of the set- pieces, props and costumes and finds herself at the center of unexplicable with a painterly eye. An example is the nosy
events—unless they are read under the paranoid neighbor, Mr. Rossetti, played by Mario Scaccia, perspective of a conspiracy against her.

always impeccably dressed, with his bow- tie and The hidden secret in Silvia’s past—her
white shoes.

mother’s murder—returns to persecute her
through objects and apparitions that may be just Oh, those shoes! You wouldn’t believe how much the product of her own imagination, or may be
time it took me to find just the right shoes I wanted, chamoish leather, white, an English model! The cos-the work of a sect that pushes its victims to sui-tume designer probably ended up hating me, as I was cide. In giving voice to its protagonist’s inner-such a pain in the ass … (laughs) … I literally drove most self, Barilli’s film undermines a linear nar-them crazy! But, you see, if in the U.S. you write a rative progression (which had already been script which says: “On a wall, we get to see a number sabotaged in 160s Gothic: think of Danza of stuffed birds which ominously pop out of the dark macabra, for instance) and turns it into an in-because of the light coming from a window. A crow’s decipherable voyage to the center of the mind.

eye shines in the dark etcetera,” or: “Outside, in the The linear perception of reality is constantly rain, a pink Buick is parked… ,” nobody changes a broken by a chaotic, distressing coexistence of single word. The script is Gospel, period. Here in past and present.

Italy, when producers read the script, they say: “Gee, Similarly, the male figures undergo a fur-that’s cool!,” then the day you are about to shoot the ther mutation, compared with the previous scene with the rain and the pink Buick … there is no decade’s counterparts, and the weak and inade-Buick in sight! “What about that damn car?!?” “Hey, who cares about the car, let’s get to work… ” (laughs) quate hero gives way to ambiguous, hostile I mean, you are making a movie and you keep asking figures: on the one hand we have Roberto (Mau-yourself why do you waste your time writing a script, rizio Bonuglia), Silvia’s boyfriend, who frus -
given that on the set everything has to be changed at tratingly tries to have sex with her but clashes the very last minute!

against his fiancée’s frigidness; on the other we have the brutish Nicola (Orazio Orlando), the

Barilli’s visual talent shines in the choice of substitute for an absent father figure who brings the story’s main setting, an elegant building in to the surface Silvia’s Oedipal traumas by vio-piazza Mincio, in Rome’s Coppedé district, first lating her amid the remnants of her old apart-seen in Mario Bava’s La ragazza che sapeva ment, in one of Italian cinema’s most uncom-troppo (163) in the scene where Nora Davis
fortable and painful rape scenes, perhaps (Leticia Román) arrives by taxi at the deserted horror’s answer to a famous moment in Rocco e
apartment, and later re- used by Dario Argento: i suoi fratelli (160, Luchino Visconti).

it is the library where Eleonora Giorgi enters, The “complexity of verification” mentioned
again after a cab ride, in Inferno (180). In truly by Punter refers to the formal structure of para-Gothic fashion, the building becomes a char -
noid texts, which are built so as to make as plau-acter in its own right from the exquisite opening sible as possible an obviously unreal world. In sequence, in which the camera rises up from a

Il profumo della signora in nero, the dualism be-fountain in the middle of the square and pans
tween the unlikely story and the realistic context to a balcony where Silvia’s elderly and affable in which it takes place gives birth to a complex, neighbor is watering flowers, in an idyllic and faceted narrative, that moves along the tracks of yet illusory portrayal of Silvia’s quiet and soon-a difficult, painful detection: viewers grope in to-be-shattered universe.

the dark just like Silvia, forced as they are to see Barilli never denied the enormous influ-the world through the eyes of the heroine’s de-ence of Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (165) and
viated subjectivity, and the pieces of the puzzle Rosemary’s Baby on his work. Il profumo della
make sense only at the end.

signora in nero pays many references to the Pol-The movie’s refined visual style has a vital
ish filmmaker: for one thing, the photograph
part in creating a reality on the verge of collaps-that appears under the opening credits, depict -

1974: Il profumo 133
ing Silvia as a child with her father and hinting clichés by exaggerating them to the limit of at her unresolved incestuous issues, recalls the grotesqueness.”6 And indeed Barilli highlights one in the closing sequence of Repulsion, and in his character’s bizarre traits, from the nosy Mr.

fact there seems to be an ideal red thread be-

Rossetti to the sinister street- sweeper who leafs tween Polanski’s film and Barilli’s. Both deal through bodybuilding magazines, not to men-with a fragile woman on the verge of madness,
tion the well- dressed African professor who po-and the characters played by Catherine Deneuve litely discusses black magic and cannibalism as and Mimsy Farmer have many things in com-if it were just another mundane small talk. Sim-mon, starting with an obscure childhood trauma ilarly, the director stages empty and frivolous they removed from their memory and the fear
society rituals that have a ridiculous and yet of sexual contact with the opposite sex. “The
frightening side to them, and range from sé -
reference to Repulsion was intentional,” as Barilli ances held by black psychics to mysterious col-admitted; “I took that picture, by the way. The lective gatherings in Rome’s underground. Ul-man you see in the photograph, playing the fa-
timately, these rituals are all generated by the ther, was Attilio Viti, an organizer who worked same ennui. Barilli’s sarcastic, detached look de-with Bernardo Bertolucci, Anghelopoulos and
picts with acute wit the spiritualist fashion of so on.” Some claims point at Robert Altman’s
the period as well as the bougeoisie’s politically Images (172), another portrait of a woman (Su-correct façade of Third Worldism.

sannah York) succumbing to madness, as a pos-

The main asset of Il profumo della signora
sible influence: however, Images was released in in nero is the ambiguity of the heroine’s perse-Italy only in mid–175, over one year after Barcution. Unlike the orthodox Gothics, there is no illi’s film.

dialectic between the protagonist and the antag-Barilli develops one of Gothic’s character-
onist, but an overwhelming disproportion that
istic situations, in which “a suspicion of paranoia turns into a conspiracy—most likely a nod to
on the part of the protagonist is accompanied

Rosemary’s Baby. In Silvia’s cloudy and unreli -
by a development in the expressionist charac-
able vision anyone could be an enemy, and it is teristics of the world through which [she]

the continuous suspension of truth that holds
moves.”4 Hence, the palace where Silvia lives
the narrative. Then, ultimately, Barilli ends the turns into a haunted house that little by little is film with a twist that gives concrete form to the peopled with presences from the past. A central heroine’s fears, after giving us the illusion that leitmotif in the film is the doppelgänger, the ma-it was all the product of her paranoia. At the terialization of the “return of the repressed” that same time, he broadens the perspective from the haunts the brain. In Il profumo della signora in individual to the global. A conspiracy does in-nero it is embodied in Silvia’s alter ego: a little deed exist, and Silvia has been pushed to suicide girl, a bit like Alice (explicitly evoked in the by a sect devoted to ritual cannibalism, that cuts scene where Silvia reads Lewis Carroll’s book), across all social classes and hides in the hum-but primarily a nod to Truman Capote’s short
drum, apparently mundane reality of today’s so-story Miriam,5 who summons Silvia from the
ciety.

other side of the mirror. The girl is played by the Besides its undeniable horrific power, the

8-year-old Daniela Rachele Barnes, the daughter extraordinary final scene—a blasphemous can-of Britta and Walter Barnes, and soon to become nibalistic communion, celebrated in the mil-popular in Italian cinema under the name Lara
lenarian subterraneans of the Eternal City, at the Wendel. “Oh, to find the right girl was a night-Caracalla thermae7—suggests also a thought-
mare! Dear me, I may have screened hundreds
provoking message. Civilized countries are and hundreds of little girls! I visited all the Ger-plagued by a barbarism that has come from the
man schools in Rome because, you see, I wanted Third World (Africa is a recurrent theme in the a girl who would not look Italian at all. Daniela film), a plague that can be read as a retaliation Barnes had done a film with Di Leo, I think.

on the part of the “Wretched of the Earth” (to Anyway, then she ended up doing softcore flicks quote Frantz Fanon’s famous 161 book which
like Maladolescenza…”

provided a psychologic analysis of the effects of According to a famous definition by Leslie
colonization) toward the post- colonial Western Fiedler (in his pioneering tome Love and Death society, whose capitalistic “hunger” has turned, in the American Novel), the Gothic mode is “es-literally, in hunger for human flesh—a political sentially a form of parody, a way of assailing angle even more explicit in Barilli’s original

134 1974: Terror!

story, which took place in Geneva’s high finance 8. Written by Questi and Franco Arcalli, Arcana is the environments. The “return of the past” at the
surreal tale of a Southern woman (Lucia Bosé) who earns her living as a modern day witch in Milan, exploiting peo-core of Gothic here also conveys subtle political ple’s superstition for commercial purposes, with the help and apocalyptic undertones: the satiated nor-of her son (Francesco Degli Esposti) who actually has su-malcy of Western civilization is just an illusion, pernatural powers. While not a Gothic horror film per se—
and behind the façade madness has spread and
and therefore not discussed in this volume—Arcana paints taken power—a theme very similar to Giulio
an impressive portrait of the irrational roots beneath modern- day urban society, and the eruption of the irra-Questi’s extraordinary, if unclassifiable, Arcana tional, removed or forgotten with the end of the rural cul-

(172).8
ture and the abandonment of traditions, but ready to Coming at the end of a movie so languidly
return to the surface with disturbing effects. Badly distrib-paced and suggestive, the climactic cannibal uted at the time of its release, it quickly disappeared, badly damaging Questi’s career as a director.

feast is a punch in the stomach, incredibly raw 9. “I have a story for you: there was a big calf liver, this and intense: the woman’s trunk is pulled open
big [mimes]. One of the extras was despised by the whole and eviscerated, and the sect members (all wear-crew because he was a Fascist; anyway, he just wanted to ing transparent raincoats: yet another of Barilli’s stay on shot whenever possible. I called him and said: ‘Lis-surreal visual touches) take turn grabbing ten, why don’t you eat this big liver right in front of the camera? I’m going to make a close- up of you!’ [laughs]

chunks of raw meat which they take away and

And he did eat that raw liver, all of it! Just to have a close-devour in a frenzy, like wild animals before a up in the movie! However, I had to cut that shot—it was dead prey. After the cannibals’ fury has been just too gory.” Curti, “Francesco Barilli interview.”

satiated, the director dedicates the last shot to Silvia’s desecrated, lifeless body—alone in a cold Terror! Il castello delle donne male -
silent crypt, forgotten by all, and yet still worthy dette (Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks) of the filmmaker’s pity.

D: Robert H. Oliver. SC: Mark Smith,

Il profumo della signora in nero had some

William Rose, Roberto Spano [and Mario
trouble with the board of censors, which re-

Francini, uncredited]; DOP: Mario Mancini
quested a number of cuts (for a total of 8 metres: (Technicolor); M: Marcello Gigante (Ed. MAS];

16 seconds overall) before granting a V.M.18 ratE: Enzo Micarelli; PD: Mario Ciccarella; MU:

ing; however, one member voted against the Giovanni Amadei; Hair: Stefano Trani; AD: granting of the visa to the film. The cuts per-Renzo Girolami; C: Emilio Varriano; AC: Gian-
tained to the love scene between Silvia and Ro -
lorenzo Battaglia; PM: E. Rancati; SD: Giuseppe berto, a sex encounter between Silvia’s mother Pappalardo; SOE: Tonino Cacciottolo; Mix: Re-and her lover, and Nicola’s attempted rape of Sil-nato Cadueri; SS: Marina Grimaldi. Cast:

via. Interestingly, the board did not have any-Rossano Brazzi (Count Frankenstein), Michael
thing to object on the graphic gore of the can-Dunn (Genz), Edmund Purdom (Prefect), Gor-
nibalistic ending (passingly referred to as “rather don Mitchell (Igor), Loren [William Russell]

macabre”). As the director admitted, “it was the Ewing (Goliath), Alan Collins [Luciano Pigozzi]

ending that sold the film abroad.”

(Hans), Xiro Papas [Ciro Papa] (Kreegin), Si-
mone Blondell [Simonetta Vitelli] (Maria), Eric NoTeS

Mann (Eric), Robert Marx (Koerner), Laura De

1. Roberto Curti, “Francesco Barilli Interview. Cinema Benedittis (Valda), Boris Lugosi [Salvatore Bac-Between Brush Strokes,” Offscreen Vol. 15, issue 12, Decem-caro] (Ook), Christiane Royce [Christiane
ber 2011. (http:// offscreen. com/ view/ francesco_ barilli_

Rücker] (Krista), Margaret Oliver (Paisan
interview.). Unless noted otherwise, Barilli’s statements Woman), Alessandro Perrella (Doctor), Bob Fiz
come from this interview.

2. David Punter, The Literature of Terror. Volume 1: The

[Roberto Fizz] (Paisan), Annamaria Tornello

Gothic Tradition (London: Routledge, 16– 2014), 138.

(Raped Girl), Aristide Caporale (Gravedigger), 3. According to he Public Cinematographic Register, Nicola Palumbo (Agent), Mike Monty (Paisan),
shooting began on July 16, 173.

Rossella Ferrero (Paisan Woman), Ozzie Raghet

4. Punter, The Literature of Terror. Volume 1, 123.

5. Miriam was adapted for the small screen by Biagio (Almut), Walter Saxer (Warner). PROD: Dick

Proietti, as part of the TV series Il fascino dell’insolito, and Randall and Oscar Brazzi for Classic Film In-broadcast in 180.

ternational; EP: G. Robert Straub; PM: Ciro 6. Leslie Fiedler, Love and Death in the American Novel Papa; PS: Sergio Merolle, Emilio Cannaroli; PSe: (New York: Stein & Day, 160), 452.

Egidio Ippoliti, Rossella Ferrero. Country: Italy.

7. The catacombs’ entrance shown in the film is actually the train station at the central Piazzale Flaminio, yet an-Filmed at Borgo di Castello di Rota and Palazzo other example of Barilli’s extraordinary eye for locations.

Patrizi, Castel Giuliano, Bracciano (Rome). Run-

1974: Terror!

135
ning time: 8 minutes (m. 2468). Visa n. 63500
the details surrounding the making of Terror! Il (11.17.173); Rating: V.M.18. Release dates: 2.1.

castello delle donne maledette are shady if not 174 (Italy); January 175 (U.S.A.); Distribution: contradictory. For a long time the movie has

Nettunia Film (Italy); Aquarius Releas ing / Box-been the object of an argument over the true
office International Pictures (U.S.A.). Domestic identity of the director, Robert H. Oliver, which gross: 51,004,000 lire. Home video: Something
is definitely more thrilling than the movie itself.

Weird (DVD, U.S.A). Also known as: Terror Cas-

Over the years different conjectures have piled tle; The House of Freaks; The Monsters of Dr.

up. Some hypothesized it was a pseudonym for

Frankenstein; Dr. Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks the Spanish actor Ramiro Oliveros, whereas oth-

(U.S.A.); Frankenstein’s Castle (U.K.), Le château ers claimed that the name concealed the Italian de l’horreur (France); El castillo de las mujeres co- producer Oscar Brazzi, or the director of malditas (Spain); Die Leichenfabrik des Dr.

photography Mario Mancini (who signed the

Frankenstein (West Germany); Frankensteinin
equally obscure Frankenstein ’80). Another hirviöt (Finland).

school of thought credited the direction either Note: In the English version, Mitchell,
to Randall himself, or to co- scriptwriter William Ewing, Collins and Papas are listed as “Franken-Rose, another American in Rome, and the di-
steins Monsters.” In the Italian version, Chris-rector of an elusive giallo-horror hybrid of un-tiane Rücker is credited as “Krista Roker.”

certain origin, La casa della paura (a.k.a. The In the countryside near Count Frankenstein’s

Girl in Room 2A, 174), also produced by Ran-
castle, a caveman who has survived from the pre-dall.

historic age is captured and killed by the villagers.

The enigma seemed to be solved by a paper

Frankenstein uses the body to test his theories on from the Ministry of Spectacle, deposited at re- animation: after conducting a brain transplant, SIAE (Italy’s copyright collecting agency) on
the scientist brings the creature (whom he rebap-April 21, 176, which certifies that “Robert H.

tizes Goliath) back to life and keeps it concealed Oliver” is a pseudonym of Mario Mancini, but
in a cell. But Frankenstein’s freakish assistants direct testimonials point otherwise. According Igor, Genz and Hans, who provide the Count with to Gordon Mitchell, “The director was Robert
the dead bodies for his experiments, are jealous Oliver, an American, whose wife later married
of the new creature. Mary, Frankenstein’s niece, Sinatra!”1 Actress Simone Blondell recalls: arrives at the castle with her boyfriend Eric and

“What I remember is that the director spoke Enher friend Krista for a brief stay. Genz discovers glish, he wasn’t Italian.”2 Assistant cameraman Ook, another Neanderthal man who is mysteri-Gianlorenzo Battaglia flatly denies it was Man -
ously alive and well, and uses him to kidnap the cini directing, but adds: “I believe the American beautiful and uninhibited Krista, who has a liai-director left the movie because of disagreements son with the Count and has kindled a glimmer of with the producer, and so Mario finished it on passion in Goliath’s brain. The creature escapes his own. I’m not 100% sure though!”3
and kills both the Count and Ook; the police guide The U.S. born Robert Harrison Oliver was
the furious farmers to the castle, and the crowd in fact the director of a dubbing facility in Mu-sets the place on fire…

nich, and had a past as a functionary of the Miss One of the trashiest horror movies pro-Universe beauty contest. He was indeed the ex-duced in Italy in the 170s, Terror! Il castello delle husband of Barbara Marx, who later became
donne maledette bears the mark of the notorious Frank Sinatra’s fourth and last wife, and he was Dick Randall, real name Irving Reuben (126–
a good friend of Randall’s. Oliver was also cred-16), an extraordinary globetrotter producer
ited as co- producer (together with Robert responsible for such trashy low- budget exploita-Straub, Terror! Il castello delle donne maledette’s tion flicks as The Wild, Wild World of Jayne executive producer) and co- scriptwriter (with Mansfield (168, Charles W. Broun Jr., Joel Holt, Dag Solis) in the U.S. version of Lo strangolatore Arthur Knight), Lo strangolatore di Vienna and di Vienna, The Mad Butcher.4 Which might pos-Casa d’appuntamento. For about a decade, start-sibly mean that the document deposited at SIAE
ing from the late 160s, Randall was based in
would be the umpteenth trick in order to obtain Rome, where he produced such titles as Quante

Italian nationality and law benefits, unless volte … quella notte, L’amante del demonio, and Mancini’s role on the set was more like a co-this bizarre variation on the Frankenstein story.

director of sorts. Incidentally, Mancini was an-As with many other Randall productions,
other recurring presence in Randall productions,

136 1974: Terror!

and served as d.o.p. on Eva, la venere selvaggia produced by Harry Novak around the same

(168, Roberto Mauri), Casa d’appuntamento
time. The proximity to Z- grade U.S. horror flicks and The Girl in Room 2A.

can be found in the predictable references to the That said, the movie’s rowdy tone bears
ever- present theme of Frankenstein as the mod-Randall’s signature, and clearly differentiates the ern Prometheus (“Somehow it doesn’t seem to
result from Italian Gothic, past and contempo-
be right to fool with the laws of God.” “No, my raneous. The story (which moves from a prem -
dear, I disagree: science gives privilege to a few ise that brings to mind Freddie Francis’ Trog,

… we must never stop learning. I am sure that

170) apes Universal Gothic, with a monster

God meant it that way.”). Even the direction’s mash not dissimilar from those found in Erle C.

pragmatism is at odds with the style of the Kenton’s films or, without moving too back -

Gothic horror films made in Italy during the
wards in time, in certain adult horror comics of same period, which often border on the abstract the decade. In fact, the horror icons are placed and are characterized by resorting to mood and in a context that openly aims at sexploitation, camera movements.

not unlike the American homologous works

On top of that, the excessive bawdiness
makes the result closer to
other Randall productions,
such as Lo strangolatore di Vi-
enna or even Casa d’appunta-
mento, which featured for no
apparent reason a Humphrey

Bogart lookalike (Robert Sac-
chi) in the lead. The examples
are countless: Frankenstein’s
constantly horny dwarf assis-
tant (Michael Dunn) gropes
a freshly exhumed female
corpse’s bosom, and shows
caveman Ook (Salvatore Bac-
caro) how to fornicate with an
abducted peasant girl (“Watch
me, I’m going to teach you the
pleasures in life!”); the hunch-
back chef (Ciro Papa) has an
affair with the butler’s (Luci -
ano Pigozzi) wife; and, last but
not least, Frank enstein’s castle
is full of secret peepholes
through which the servants
spy on the beautiful female
guests as they take a bath or
are in inti mate conversations
with their boy friends, just like
in the German sexy pocha des
directed by the likes of Franz

Antel.

That the movie was most
likely produced for exporta-
tion, is proven by some blatant
howl ers and in- jokes, which
would pass unnoticed to an

American audience but not to

Italian poster for Terror! Il castello delle donne maledette (1974). Art an Italian one: in Frank en -
by Carlo Alessandrini a.k.a. “Aller”.

stein’s diary one can spot such

1974: Terror!

137
amusing notations as “salutame a soreta” (“Say was noticed by some casting director for his pe-hello to your sister for me,” in Neapolitan dia -
culiar appearance. His misshapen, almost animallect, with a blatant double meaning) and “un
like features, characterized by a heavy jaw, toast al prosciutto, bacon e wodka (sic!!)” (“A jutting nose, low protruding brow and hands
toast with ham, bacon and vodka”). Someone in
with big fingers, caused by acromegaly, made
the crew was clearly having lots of fun. What is him ideal for outlandish roles, such as the titular more, incongruities abound: 1th century peas-character in La bestia in calore, where he used ants sport blue jeans, and the Creature (Loren the pseudonym Sal Boris. Baccaro played in over Ewing) wears an embarrassing rubber cap to

60 movies, the last being Dino Risi’s Dagobert simulate the aftermath of cranial surgery.

(184) before his untimely death in 184, after a The cast is every trash connoisseur’s de -
thyroid surgery. He was only 52.

light. Randall and Oscar Brazzi assembled a Filmed in late 172/early 173,7 Terror! Il
mixture of has- beens, exploitation regulars and castello delle donne maledette was submitted to out- and-out freaks that must be seen to be be-the Italian board of censors in late 173: the Ital-lieved. Brazzi managed to get his brother Ros -
ian title (“Terror! The Castle of Cursed Women”) sano, far away from the days where he was Italy’s was an infelicitous choice, since Don Weis’ Ghost biggest movie star after Freda’s Aquila nera, to in the Invisible Bikini (166) had been released play Frankenstein. Not the greatest of actors, in Italy as Il castello delle donne maledette merely Brazzi (who dubs himself in English) defines ri -
a couple of years earlier. It predictably earned a dicu lous with his portrayal of the titular scien -

V.M.18 “for the environment of terror and vio-
tist. Gordon Mitchell (as Frankenstein’s manserlence, as well as for the macabre atmosphere in vant Igor) was sneering toward his co- star: which the whole story takes place, and finally

“Brazzi produced the film. His brother Rossano because of the abnormality of the characters and is the main lead, I had got to know him already the situation alike,” and was released in early in Gariazzo’s Il giorno del giudizio. There he 174 to a well- deserved oblivion. On the con-played a sheriff, but he resembled just as much trary, it found a minor cult status in the United a sheriff as I resemble a pope!”5 Another survivor States (where it was distributed by Harry Novak) of a past glory, Edmund Purdom (a Randall reg-when it aired on the “Elvira’s Movie Macabre”

ular, from L’amante del demonio to Juan Piquer series in the early 180s.

Simón’s Pieces, 182), is as wooden as ever as the Prefect.

NoTeS

Alongside the three male leads, Randall

1. Christian Kessler, “Maciste und die Spaghetti aus and Brazzi gathered a number of lovely ladies, dem Weltall,” www. christiankessler. de. The German lan-headed by the gorgeous blue- eyed Simonetta
guage interview was published in a slightly different (and Vitelli, a.k.a. Simone Blondell, and a quartet of sometimes not completely faithful) English translation in supporting actors that justified the movie’s the Video Watchdog magazine. Christian Kessler, “Gordon Mitchell. Atlas in the Land of Cinema,” Video Watchdog American title, Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks:

#48, 18, 46. Thanks to Gary Vanisian for the new trans-the omnipresent face of Italian Gothic, Luciano lation from the original German text.

Pigozzi; the bald, hulking Ciro Papa (credited 2. Simone Blondell, private email with the author, Sepas the author of the script kept at the CSC library tember 2016.

under the title Il castello della paura6); the di -

3. Gianlorenzo Battaglia, private email with the author, September 2016.

minutive Michael Dunn, who had moved from

4. In this regard, director Guido Zurli commented: Off- Broadway stage plays and auteur cinema to

“Who knows! Perhaps [Oliver and Straub] took over later Z- grade exploitation; and the ace in the hole, on, and bought the movie … anything could happen with

“Boris Lugosi” a.k.a. Salvatore Baccaro as the Dick Randall (laughs)… . Actually, the story is mine and the script was written by me and Gicca [author’s note: Enzo neanderthal man Ook, complete with club and

Gicca Palli].” Franco Grattarola, “Intervista a Guido Zurli—
fur coat à la Fred Flintstone.

Il dissacratore dei generi,” Cine 70 #10, 2008, 34.

A hairy, rugged, Lombrosian extra who

5. Kessler, “Maciste und die Spaghetti aus dem Weltall.”

popped up in down- at-heel productions, Bac-

6. The 114-page long script is copyrighted Classic Film International (Rome) and dated December 16, 172. Frank -
caro was born in 132 in the Molise village of enstein is misspelled “Frankestein” throughout the script.

Roccamandolfi. He was an ex- florist who worked 7. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, near the Incir- De Paolis studios in Rome and shooting began on December 18, 172.

138 1975: Il cav. Costante 1975

Il cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco

Costante Nicosia, a Sicilian immigrant who
ovvero: Dracula in Brianza (Young
made money in Brianza with his brand of tooth-

Dracula, a.k.a. Dracula in the Provinces)

paste, leaves for a business trip to Romania.

D: Lucio Fulci. S: Lucio Fulci. SC: Pupi

There, he is seduced and vampirized by Count

Avati, Bruno Corbucci, Mario Amendola, Lucio

Dragulesku, a descendant of Count Dracula.

Fulci; Dial: Enzo Jannacci, Giuseppe Viola; Upon returning to Italy, Costante finds himself DOP: Sergio Salvati (Eastmancolor, Staco Film); attracted to blood, and is afraid he has become a M: Bixio- Frizzi-Tempera [Franco Bixio, Fabio homosexual. After unsuccessfully attempting to Frizzi, Vince Tempera] (Ed. ZITA); E: Ornella
get rid of the curse he believes his relatives have Micheli; AE: Bruno Micheli; SS: Roberto Gian-put on him, Nicosia undergoes a series of sexual dalia; ArtD: Pier Luigi Basile; CO: Massimo encounters, in the hope of finding a cure to his Lentini; AD: Victor Tourjansky, Giuseppe Pol -
state. Meanwhile he becomes more and more de-
lini; C: Franco Bruni, Enzo Tosi; AC: Maurizio manding toward his employees, and finally has a Lucchini, Bernardo Valli; MU: Maria Luisa Tilli; brilliant idea to satisfy his thirst: he founds a Hair: Luisa Piovesan; W: Bertilla Silvestrin; SO: blood bank and has his workers give their blood Mario Ottavi; B: Marco Donati; SP: Gianfranco
for money…

Massa; KG: Luciano Micheli: ChEl: Eugenio Rai-

Right after wrapping principal shooting on
mondi; PM: Duilio Caltabellotta, Mario Gen-
the Western I 4 dell’Apocalisse (175), Lucio Fulci tilini. Cast: Lando Buzzanca (Costante Nicosia), started working on a new project, of a very dif-Rossano Brazzi (Dr. Paluzzi), Sylva Koscina ferent genre: a return to comedy, mixed with a (Marilù, Costante’s wife), Moira Orfei (Bestia demystifying approach to horror clichés, in the Assatanata), Christa Linder (Liù Pederzoli), John vein of Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein. Shot in Steiner (Count Dragulesku), Francesca Romana
eight weeks between March and April 175, Il

Coluzzi (Wanda Torsello), Grazia Di Marzà cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco ovvero: Dracula (Prostitute), Antonio Allocca (Peppino the in Brianza1 (a nod to Lina Wertmüller’s habit of Hunch back), Grazia Spadaro (Aunt Maria),
using similarly endless titles) starred Lando Buz-Franco Nebbia (Meniconi), Michele Cimarosa
zanca, in his third and last collaboration with (Salvatore Cannata), Giampaolo Rossi (Brother-the director.

in-Law), Ciccio Ingrassia (Salvatore, the Wizard The script sports an array of diverse names:

of Noto), Valentina Cortese (Olghina Fran chetti), Bruno Corbucci and Mario Amendola were a

Franca Martelli (Gia), Mauro Vestri (TV Journal -
well- oiled team of comedy scriptwriters, whereas ist), Ugo Fangareggi (Battai, the Count’s servant), Pupi Avati was gradually finding his way as a

Carlo Bagno (Head Worker), Renato Malavasi
filmmaker with such peculiar and grotesque (Arnaldo), John Bartha (Concierge), Barbara
comedies as La mazurka del barone, della santa Musci (Georgia), Gianfranco Bocca (Colombo),
e del fico fiorone and Bordella (shot in 175 but Belsana Arfenone (Nicosia’s assistant); uncred-released in early 176). On top of that the dia-ited: Dori Dorika (Night Club singer), Ilona logue was revised in order to make it more spon-Staller (Janka), Aldo Valletti (Plane passenger).

taneous, especially regarding the use of North -

PROD: Coralta Cinematografica (Rome); PM:

ern lingo, by Enzo Jannacci and Giuseppe Alfonso Donati; UM: Ennio Di Meo, Franco

“Beppe” Viola, respectively a popular songwriter Mancarella, Romualdo Buzzanca. Country: Italy.

whose ironic demeanor had characterized his

Filmed in Brianza, Merano and at R.P.A. Elios
acting stints, such as in Marco Ferreri’s out-Studios (Rome). Running time: 101 minutes (m.

standing absurdist drama L’udienza (172), and 2768). Visa n. 67018 (8.31.175); Rating: V.M.14.

a sports journalist and humorist. In addition

Release dates: 8.31.175; Distribution: Titanus.

to co- authoring a number of songs—includ-Domestic gross: 40,484,803 lire. Also known as: ing Tira a campa,’ included in the score of Muérdame Sr. Conde (Spain; 8.31.181).

Lina Wertmüller’s Pasqualino settebellezze

Note: the songs Vampiro S.p.A. and Lady

(176)—Jannacci and Viola had worked together

Pamela (Nebbia- Bixio- Frizzi-Tempera) are sung on a number of scripts, most notably Mario by Franco Nebbia.

Monicelli’s Romanzo popolare (174), starring

1975: Il cav. Costante

13

Ugo Tognazzi, Ornella Muti and

Michele Pla cido.

Pupi Avati’s contribution to
the screenplay has been wildly
overestimated over the years,
much to Fulci’s chagrin. The di-
rector was adamant that Avati
wrote only a few pages, namely
the trip to Romania (but not the
encounter in the night club,
which Fulci claimed as his own
creation). Even thought the
theme of sexual ambiguity and
grotesque eroticism are the core
of many Avati films, from Bor-
della (about a male prostitute
brothel) to La casa dalle finestre
che ridono, the many allusions to
homosexuality—from Costante’s
dance with a male customer in
the nightclub to his sexual en-
counter with the bisexual Count

Dragulesku and his effeminate
male friend Sperandeu, and

Nicosia’s subsequent fear of hav-
ing become “a fag”—must be as-
cribed to Fulci himself, who had
developed the theme of the dis-
covery of one’s own sexual am-
biguity in one of his best thrill -
ers, Una lucertola con la pelle di
donna.

It is interesting to note how

Italian poster for Il cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco ovvero: Dracula the Italian farces on vampirism
in Brianza (1975). Art by Averardo Ciriello.

adopted a political approach.

Whereas Tempi duri per i vampiri (15, Steno) producing the toothpaste “Pasta del Colonnello”

depicted the bloodsucker as a remnant of the

(a nod to one of Italy’s most popular toothpaste past in a country undergoing an economic brands, “Pasta del Capitano”), but is still strug-boom, Fulci’s film analyzes the master/workers gling to make himself accepted as “one of them.”

dynamics, in the wake of the 170 “Statuto dei Therefore, he is an outsider well before becom -
lavoratori” (Workers’ Statute), which finally reg-ing a vampire; like Robert Neville in Richard
ulated labor law and established rights never be-Matheson’s I Am Legend, he is the different one, fore codified, after the strikes, struggles and the anomaly, despite his attempts at hiding his protests that characterized the previous decades origin.

and especially the “hot autumn” of 16. On the On the one hand, the script plays on the
other hand, … Hanno cambiato faccia had also
stereotype of the virile Southerner, Buzzanca’s analyzed vampirism as a metaphor for power,
pièce de resistance; on the other, it investigates in the light of Marcuse’s work, with a bleak hu-the individual’s fear of the way society perceives morous vein.

his image, and the attempts at becoming one and This time, however, and with quite a smart
the same with the moral (and judging) majority, move, the audience is invited to identify with in a similar way as the previous Fulci- Buzzanca the vampire. Costante Nicosia is a successful
comedy All’onorevole piacciono le donne (172), businessman, an industrialist who has emigrated where the focus was on Catholic sin. In Co -
from Sicily and made a fortune in the North by stante’s case, his drama rises from a duality that

140 1975: Il cav. Costante recalls such Victorian characters as Dr. Jekyll.

the septuagenarian Prime Minister during his

His attempts at integration range from aesthetic term in office. Interestingly, in a neat reversal of (he dresses in fashion and inhabits a house fur-conventions, it is in his beloved Northern Italy nished with stylish, modern objects, in stark
that Nicosia is surrounded by monsters and contrast with the old- fashioned apartment freaks, from the hunchback employee Peppino
where his relatives live) to behavioral ones (he to his octogenarian virgin maid, whereas the
tries to move and speak like Brianza people, and Count—partly modeled upon the character of
gives generous tips like he believes the rich do), the homosexual Count von Krolock in The Fear-and even involve the sexual sphere: like his less Vampire Killers—is an effete character ac-Northern industrialist peers, Nicosia keeps (and companied by beauties.

maintains economically) a lover, whom he treats The vampirization—which is the result of
as his own property. And yet he cannot detach

Costante’s homosexual seduction on the part of from his roots—the burden of family, the cult
the Count—has a weird effect on Nicosia. At
of the deceased, the superstitious beliefs—which first he is scared of the implications, and his haunt him and come out at every step, prevent-quest (devoted to check his own masculinity)

ing his mimesis with the surrounding world and has the effect of making him aware of the real society.

nature of the world and people who surround

The first part plays like an amusing modern-
him. As a capitalist vampire, once he has become day variation of Jonathan Harker’s trip to Tran-aware of his thirst for blood, he also becomes a sylvania in Bram Stoker’s novel. For one thing, ruthless businessman, what he always wanted
here it is Costante who acts like Stoker’s superto be but failed to because of his good- natured stitious peasants, giving way to his Southern

Southern essence.

good luck practices, such as carrying horseshoes Eventually Costante detaches from his
in the pocket and spreading salt in the aircraft’s roots: he stops giving away money to to Peppino, pilot cabin. The view of Communist Romania
who allegedly brought him good luck, fires his is as funny as it is bleak: Costante has brought a good- for-nothing relatives, rejects the trade suitcase full of female garments, in the hope of union requests (all of them bloodsucking para-seducing the local beauties, but finds himself in sites in their own terms), and eventually draws a squalid night club whose only other occupant blood from his employees with the excuse of a
is another Italian traveler (Franco Nebbia), sip-blood bank, thus exploiting them twice, both as ping mineral water with bicarbonate (the only
workers for his enterprise profit, and as human drinkable item in the place), who has been stuck beings for their blood. As in Jean- Paul Sartre’s in the country for weeks because of the local bu-short story The Childhood of a Leader, where
reaucracy and is reduced to wearing the female Lucien’s one- time sexual encounter with a ho-panties he, like Costante, had hoped to trade for mosexual poet is followed by him becoming a
sex. The scene in which the two men, out of res-powerful member of the élite, Cavalier Costante ignation, dance together in the deserted dance Nicosia has finally become what he so desper-floor, surrounded by rapacious waiters, is a ately pursued. The transformation is complete.

priceless moment which sums up the union of

Considering that Buzzanca had played a
bitter humor and socio- antropological observa-trade unionist in Luciano Salce’s excellent potion of the best Commedia all’italiana.

litical comedy Il sindacalista (172), Fulci’s film When Costante arrives at the castle of
offers a pointed commentary of class struggle

Count Dracula,2 he becomes a willing victim of through the director’s mordant anarchist vision.

power’s blandishments. The Count (John Steiner) After Tempi duri per i vampiri’s Dracula cha cha, welcomes him in the company of three gorgeous
it is up to yet another song to function as a sign and very uninhibited girls (one of them is an
of the times: sung by Franco Nebbia, Vampiro
uncredited Ilona Staller) and treats him to a S.p.A. has lyrics that go as follows, “I have a slo-

“Transylvanian dinner” whose participants have gan that works in any circumstance / give blood to attend in the nude. At the end of the ensuing to your master, don’t let him without it by any orgy, an imbibed Costante, surrounded by
chance.” The director’s world view is as grim as naked women, yells “Forza Italia!”—the name
the one he depicts in his horror movies: in a so-of the political party founded by Silvio Berlus-ciety where everyone is trying to suck each coni in 14. It is an unintentionally prophetic other’s blood, only the ruthless survive—and
bit that predates the notorious orgies hosted by rule. The ending (which includes a nod to Rose-

1975: Frankenstein 141
mary’s Baby, as Nicosia finds out that his new-as a butler and sex slave of sorts, preparing born son in a pram sports vampire fangs) pokes coffee for the guests and boiling hot water for bleak fun at the so- called “Compromesso storico”

extreme S&M practices.

(Historical compromise), the much rumored al-

With a total box- office grossing of about
liance between the Italian Communist Party one billion lire, Il cav. Costante Nicosia demoni -

(PCI) and the Christian Democrat party (DC)

aco ovvero: Dracula in Brianza did not do as well that was in talks since 173 and eventually be-as expected. Buzzanca was a declining name by
came factual in 176, and which led to an in-
then, and homemade horror spoofs did not en-
crease in far- left terrorism, resulting in the kid-counter the audience’s favor, as proven also by napping and killing of DC leader and Prime

Armando Crispino’s Frankenstein all’italiana.

Minister Aldo Moro. In Fulci’s film, Nicosia per-However, it remained one of the director’s fa-
fects a “union compromise”: the workers give
vorite films.

their blood in exchange for a modest rise in their pay, and the capitalist exploits them even more NoTeS
than before. Power always triumphs in the end.

1. The working title was Il cavaliere del lavoro Costante The gags are aplenty, and diverse in range.

Bosisio indemoniato, ovvero Dracula in Brianza.

Some are clever jokes (the association between 2. The scenes in the castle were filmed near Merano, in vampirism and a dental hygiene product is quite Trentino Alto- Adige.

amusing in retrospect), others are more blatantly at the service of Buzzanca, who is typecast in Frankenstein all’italiana—Prendimi,
one of his usual virile Southern characters, and straziami, che brucio di passion!

focus on Nicosia’s superstition, a hint of his diffi-

(Frankenstein Italian Style—Take Me, Tor -
culty in blending with the North and a revealing ture Me, as I Am Burning with Passion!)

sign of his Southern roots. Buzzanca is not a

D: Armando Crispino. S and SC: Massimo
subtle performer, but his energy is remarkable Franciosa, Luisa Montagnana; DOP: Giuseppe
in his duets with both Rossano Brazzi (well-cast Aquari (Telecolor); M: Stelvio Cipriani, con-as Nicosia’s physician- cum-confidant) and Cic-ducted by the author (Ed. C.A.M.); E: Angela
cio Ingrassia. The latter duo strike sparks on Cipriani; ArtD: Mario Molli; CO: Adriana
screen in Ingrassia’s only scene in the movie, as Spadaro; MU: Pino Ferranti; Hair: Corrado the “Wizard of Noto,” a charlatan psychic who

Cristofari; AD: Franco Longo; C: Carlo Aquari; is supposed to cure Nicosia from the evil eye—

AC: Filippo Neroni, Maurizio Mascoli; AE: Tina a moment constructed like one of those old Mastrolillo, Claudio Orecchia; Construction beautiful sketches that Fulci used to pen for co-managers: Alfredo Talusi, Alfredo Pacini; As-
medians like Totò or Franco & Ciccio, allowing stArtD: Mauro Passi; SE: Sergio Chiusi, Basilio the actors to rely on improvisation. As in Non si Patrizi; SO: Goffredo Potier; SOE: Luciano sevizia un paperino, magic is seen as the expres-Anzellotti; Mix: Romano Pampalone; SS: Flavia
sion of a backward culture, but played for Vanin. Cast: Aldo Maccione (The Monster), Gi-laughs. Fulci even throws in some in- jokes, such anrico Tedeschi (Dr. Frankenstein), Ninetto as the scene where Costante is upset by the sight Davoli (Igor), Jenny Tamburi [Luciana Tam-of his basketball team players taking a shower burini] (Janet McLynne), Anna Mazzamauro
in the locker room, with close- ups of the naked (Maud), Lorenza Guerrieri (Alice), Alvaro Vitali male butts, an ironic reference to All’onorevole (Priest), Alessandra Vazzoler (Singer at wed-piacciono le donne.

ding), Aldo Valletti (Wedding guest); uncredited: Despite the presence of some luscious-Alessandro Tedeschi (Wedding guest), Maria
looking women, the sex scenes are played for

Tedeschi (Wedding guest). PROD: Filiberto
grotesque effect, from Nicosia’s assault on his Bandini for R.P.A. S.A.S. (Rome); PM: Claudio
wife’s (Sylva Koscina) buttocks (a moment fea-

Grassetti; GM: Carlo Cafiero; PSe: Vivien tured prominently in the Italian locandina), to Boden. Country: Italy. Filmed in Bomarzo
his disastrous encounter with a nymphomaniac

(Viterbo) and at R.P.A. Elios Studios (Rome);
upper class man- eater (Valentina Cortese) who Running time: 6 minutes (m. 2623); Visa n.

craves sex with “monsters” and recites verses of 6747 (11.1.175); Rating: V.M.14. Release date: D’Annunzio’s poems; lastly, and more memo-11.23.175; Distribution: Euro International Film.

rably, the protagonist visits a monstrous domi-Domestic gross: 25,863,000 lire. Home video: n.a.

natrix (Moira Orfei), whose elderly husband acts Also known as: Stringimi forte che brucio di

142 1975: Frankenstein Dr. Frankenstein (Gianrico Tedeschi, left) and the Monster (Aldo Maccione) are about to perform a transplant in Frankenstein all’italiana (1975).

passione (Italy—Alternate TV title), Franken -

Armando Crispino’s eighth and final film—
stein a la italiana (Spain), Casanova Franken -
in an all- too-brief career that counted among stein (West Germany; 7.23.176), Plus moche que others the outstanding gialli L’etrusco uccide an-Frankenstein tu meurs (France).

cora (172) and Macchie solari (175), and the Dr. Frankenstein returns to his castle with
nunsploitation drama La badessa di Castro his fiancée, Janet, but the wedding is interrupted (174)—was commissioned by producer Filib-by the Monster, who wreaks havoc in the place
erto Bandini, with whom Crispino was working
before falling victim to a rejection crisis. Franken-on a series of TV ads. Originally entitled Frank -
stein decides to put him back in shape with the enstein diventa nonno (Frankenstein Becomes
help of his assistants: Maud, Alice and Igor the Grandpa), Massimo Franciosa and Luisa Mon-hunchback. The experiment succeeds, but the tagnana’s script was a farce blatantly “inspired”

Monster flees across the countryside. Upon cap-by Young Frankenstein that ripped off as many
turing it, Frankenstein and his assistant discover elements as possible from the model.

that the Monster has an insatiable sexual urge, Despite being largely centered on one of
and Maud takes advantage of it to satisfy her ap-the recurring gags in Brooks’ film—the mon -
petites. Alice (who is in love with Frankenstein) ster’s enormous schwanzstucker—the result is
attempts to have the Monster seduce the stillonly mildly vulgar, but more on the side of a
virgin Janet, so as to win back the doctor’s heart, harmless, silly sex farce, with none of the polit-but she ends up raped by the creature instead.

ical undertones of Lucio Fulci’s Il cav. Costante After finding the Monster in Janet’s bed, Franken-Nicosia demoniaco ovvero: Dracula in Brianza.

stein decides to perform surgery on his creature As noted by Crispino’s biographer Claudio
and transplant the latter’s penis onto himself, but Bartolini, the director attempted to develop the the intervention is a failure, and both are left im-humor on three different levels: the verbal gags potent as a result. It will be Igor’s turn to satisfy range from vulgarity and double- entendres to the women of the house.

more refined “short-circuits between the scien-

1975: Frankenstein 143
tist’s words and the images that the camera starring in a couple of films directed by Claude brings to our attention,”1 such as the opening Lelouch (Le Voyou and L’aventure, c’est l’aven -
scene where Frankenstein describes the surture), is a caricatured monster that pales in com-roundings to Janet: “Sweet country, pleasant parison with Peter Boyle’s creature in Brooks’

place. Happy people, tied to the land,” under
film, and Davoli—Pier Paolo Pasolini’s favorite shots of barren fields populated with skeletons actor—is miscast as Igor. The charming Jenny
of peasants and oxes. A second level pertains to Tamburi and Lorenza Guerrieri are a joy for the the visual gags, which play on repetition and on eyes, but are given little to do except looking the character’s ineptitude. Bartolini points to a great in négligées, whereas Anna Mazzamauro
third level, symbolic comedy based on the mix-
is less effective than in Luciano Salce’s Fantozzi ture of genres, which is “by far the one in which (175). Electrician- turned-actor Alvaro Vitali—

Crispino is more at ease, thanks to his knowl -
a recurring face in Italian erotic comedies of the edge of genre cinema… . In the confluence of
decade after his early roles in Fellini’s films—
genres lies in fact the demystifying strength of makes an all- too-brief appearance as a cross-a film which spoofs not only two pre- existing eyed priest who has trouble picking up com-texts … but a whole production system which,
munion wafers during Mass. Aldo Valletti (one
in 175, had already started to show its cracks, of the four libertines in Pasolini’s Salò o le 120
and toward which Crispino started to express a giornate di Sodoma, and an easily recognizable severe disillusion.”2
extra in a number of Italian films of the period) The main problem with the movie is that
here is given a few lines and even shows his bare most of the gags just don’t work, starting with butt.

the parody of the Gothic imagery and the Frank -

Submitted to the board of censors in No-
enstein myth, that gives away the sloppiness and vember 175, Frankenstein all’italiana had a first, hastiness with which the film was made. The
very brief release at the end of the year and was

“castle” is an embarrassing miniature, and the immediately withdrawn. It stayed in a limbo for sets—replete with papier- maché bats on strings, several months and was re- released in a re -
secret passages and mumbo jumbo lab stuff—
edited, shortened version in mid–176, after the are slapdash. The actors are left to deal with tire-producers unsuccessfully attempted to have the some vaudeville bits that seemingly go on V.M.14 rating revoked, with the title Prendimi, forever (the best, or least worse, might be the straziami, che brucio di passion!,3 to poor box-breakfast scene, with the Monster hiding under office performance. The critics were ferocious: the table, stealing food, and ogling at legs, with-

“Eighty minutes of screening, at the average out anyone noticing), Addams Family–style vi-price of 25 lire a minute. An enormity for this sual puns (such as Frankenstein’s car having a amateurish display of vaudeville … which came
skeleton as a hood ornament), and a few surreal out last year in only one city. They tucked it away bits (Igor purchasing the gallons of blood immediately. Upon watching the new version,
needed for Frankenstein’s experiment at a bar
we cannot imagine anything worse.”4
attended by vampires).

As Jenny Tamburi recalled, “That was a

As with a number of other farces of the pe-
bloodbath, literally… . It was an amusing film, riod (see for instance Marino Girolami’s 177
and the actors were all very good—Gianrico

World War II spoof Kakkientruppen), Crispino

Tedeschi was absolutely great—but it just didn’t does not sway away from the macabre and gory,
do well at the box office, perhaps because it was albeit played for fun, such as a scene where a cat badly distributed by Euro International.”5 The steals the Monster’s tongue. Another marginally director himself was trenchant about the results: interesting factor is the use of Bomarzo’s Parco

“Frankenstein all’italiana was undoubtedly a dei Mostri (seen in Il castello dei morti vivi) in compromise dictated by necessity, if not a mis-the scene where the Monster ends up at a pros-
take. It’s the only one of my films that was born titute’s shack and his “hidden qualities” are re-from a script in which I did not take part at
vealed.

all… . Honestly I think I can say that the movie The cast is oddly assembled: Tedeschi, a
was not completely shameful, at least in the first renowned stage actor with a British aplomb, part.”6
tries to give as much dignity as he can to his It was an unexpected and sad endnote to
character, while Maccione, a gifted comedian
the filmography of an interesting, eclectic and who met a certain popularity in France after
often overlooked filmmaker. Crispino was

144 1975: Il medaglione sucked down by the spreading economic crisis

Film, Magdalena Produzione (Rome); GM: Al-
of Italian cinema, and was not able to make any fredo Nicolai; PS: Michele Germano, Claudio
more films. This also resulted in the shelving of Cuomo; PSe: Giuseppe Ercolani; AP: Raffaele
the third part in his giallo trilogy, Apparizioni—

Donato; ADM: Piero Speziali, Claudio Lazzari.

originally titled Verrà un demone e avrà occhi Country: Italy. Filmed in Spoleto (Perugia), Villa d’argento (There Will Come a Demon and It Will Parisi (Frascati), Palazzo Chigi (Ariccia) and Have Silver Eyes)—a story that mixed mystery

London, and at Safa- Palatino Studios (Rome).

and supernatural with plenty of very violent and Running time: 5 minutes (m. 2466). Visa n.

gory scenes: it reached an advanced pre-6638 (4.17.175); Rating: V.M.18. Release dates: production stage in late 176/early 177 before 5.22.175 (Italy); 3.176 (U.S.A.); Distribution: being aborted. Crispino died in 2003.

I.I.F. Domestic gross: 178,075,227 lire. Also known as: El medallón ensangrentado (Spain);

NoTeS

Emilie, l’enfant des ténèbres; Possédée (France).

Still upset by the death of his wife, who 1. Claudio Bartolini, Macchie solari. Il cinema di Ar-plunged in flames from a window of their house, mando Crispino (Milan: Bloodbuster 2013), 17.

2. Ibid., 181.

TV documentarian Michael Williams leaves from

3. A TV print carries yet another alternate title, London to Spoleto, Italy with his little daughter Stringimi forte che brucio di passione.

Emily and the nanny, Jill Perkins, to shoot a movie 4. M. Po. [Maurizio Porro], “Mostruosa creatura,” Cor-on the presence of the devil in art. He is par -
riere della Sera, June 16, 176. Incidentally, the article misspells the title of the rerelease as Prendimi, saziami che bru-ticularly interested in a painting kept in an 18th cio di passione.

century villa where a tragic event happened two 5. Gomarasca and Pulici, 99 donne, 14.

hundred years earlier. The painting—which

6. Bartolini, Macchie solari, 184.

repro duces a scene eerily similar to the end of William’s wife—is said to be the work of Satan.

Il medaglione insanguinato (Perché?!)

Helped by the beautiful Joanna, with whom he

(The Night Child, a.k.a. The Cursed Medal-
starts a relationship, Michael starts working on lion)

the documentary, but finds out that a technical D: Massimo Dallamano. S: Franco Marotta,
flaw has ruined the footage that portrays the Massimo Dallamano, Laura Toscano. SC: Anto-painting. Against the advice of the elderly countess nio Troisio, Raoul Katz, Tonino Cervi; DOP:

Cappelli, who implores him not to deal with that Franco Delli Colli (Eastmancolor, Telecolor); M: cursed item, Williams dedicates himself to his Stelvio Cipriani (Ed. Grandi Firme della Can-work undaunted, but his skepticism will have zone); E: Antonio Siciliano; PD: Luciano Puc -
tragic consequences: Jill, who is unhappily in love cini; CO: Liliana Galli; AD: Franco Cirino; with him, is murdered, and Joanna almost ends

2ndAD: Riccardo Sesani; AsstD: Raffaele Do -
up dead too. It turns out that Emily, who is mor-nato; C: Arcangelo Lannutti; AC: Giancarlo Gi-
bidly attached to her father, is the reincarnation annesi, Enrico Priori; APD: Pasquale Germano;
of the little girl whose end is depicted in the paint-MU: Dante Trani; Hair: Rosa Luciani; AE: ing…

Franca Silvi, Giuseppe Cino, Ugo Morelli; SO:

Although often superficially associated

Luciano Wellish [Welisch]; B: Armando Bon-
with the thread inspired by (or ripping off) The dani; SP: Paul Ronald; SS: Beatrice Banfi; Mix: Exorcist—a comparison the movie itself tries to Franco Ancillai. Optical effects: Biamonte-solicit with a final epigraph quoting none other Cinegroup; Painting: Antonello Geleng. Cast:

than Pope Paul VI, who explicitly mentioned

Richard Johnson (Michael Williams), Joanna
the devil during a general audience on Novem-

Cassidy (Joanna Morgan), Evelyne Stewart [Ida
ber 15, 172, claiming: “From some fissure the Galli] (Jill Perkins), Nicoletta Elmi (Emily smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God… .

Williams / Emilia), Edmund Purdom (The Doc-

He is the occult enemy who sows error and dis-
tor), Riccardo Garrone (Police Inspector), Dana grace in human history”—Massimo Dallamano’s

Ghia (Emily’s Mother), Eleonora Morana
only out- and-out Gothic film (originally to be (Countess’ Maid), Lila Kedrova (Countess Cap-titled La bambina e il suo diavolo [Emily], The pelli); uncredited: Aristide Caporale (Nazareno), Little Girl and Her Devil—Emily) actually takes Massimo Dallamano (Man at Airport), Tom Fel-quite a different path from its peers.

leghy (Michael’s Boss at BBC). PROD: Fulvio

Similarly to Marcello Aliprandi’s Un sus-

Lucisano, William Reich for Italian International surro nel buio (176), the movie centers on a re-

1975: Il medaglione

145
volt of the sons against the fathers, which here Whit more a merciful incarnation of Death, Dal-becomes violent and destructive. The script (by lamano leaves poor Emily at the mercy of evil

Dallamano and the husband- and-wife team of
forces. Unlike Aliprandi’s film, which plays with Franco Marotta and Laura Toscano) revolves
the indecision between the actual existence of a around the drama of a little child, Emily (Nico-supernatural presence, Il medaglione insan-letta Elmi), morbidly jealous of her widower fa-guinato never puts the Fantastic element into
ther, the English film- maker Michael Williams question—as proven by the pleonastic flash -

(Richard Johnson), who has traveled to the Um-
backs that identify Emily as the reincarnation brian town of Spoleto for a documentary about
of a witch, another element that draws back to demonic art and is fascinated by a painting that early Italian Gothic—but uses it in an interesting is said to have been painted by the devil.1
way, to highlight the sense of inevitability and In addition to the element of the painting,
announced tragedy that looms over the story
and in general of art as a means to let the darker from the early scenes, climaxing in a “downbeat side of human nature loose, Dallamano depicts
double- death tableau recalling the 171 Hammer the clash between past and present through the film Hands of the Ripper,” as Jonathan Rigby typically Gothic theme of the traveler in a noted.3 The incestuous implications (which at
foreign land, facing a mystery whose solution
times predate Bava’s Shock) are surprisingly dar-conceals his own fate, not dissimilarly to Pupi ing for today’s standards, and were the main

Avati’s masterful La casa dalle finestre che ridono.

reason behind the V.M.18 rating on the part of The script also echoes early classics such as the Italian Board of Censors, although the final Mario Soldati’s Malombra (142),
openly quoted in the scene where

Countess Cappelli (Lila Kedrova)

sees Emily’s ghost play the piano
and hide her love letters inside it, as

Marina di Malombra’s ancestor Ce-
cilia did.

Debatably described by some
as “part Bava, part Freud,”2 Il me -
daglione insanguinato actually em-
ploys the style and language of
melodrama—soft-focus images, fig-
urative mannerisms, tourist foot -
age—and comes off like a perverted
rereading of the contemporaneous
tearjerkers centered on unhappy or
sick children, such as L’ultima neve
di primavera (173, Raimondo Del

Balzo), Il venditore di palloncini

(174, Mario Gariazzo) and Bianchi
cavalli d’agosto (175, Raimondo Del

Balzo), all of them starring the
blond Renato Cestié. In many ways,

Nicoletta Elmi was the dark half of
the doomed kids played by Cestié,
and her eerie looks, her red hair and
subtly malevolent freckled features
made her the ideal choice in a num-
ber of gialli and horror movies made
in those years.

Whereas Il venditore di pal-
loncini embraced a metaphysical ap-
proach to the tale, by making the

Italian poster for Il medaglione insanguinato (Perché?!) (1975).

balloon vendor played by James

Art by Tino Avelli.

146 1975: Le orme epigraph introduces a blatant morality warn-Baby Death and Emily’s Studio) released by ing.

Cinevox Records; it did mediocre business in

Formally, Il medaglione insanguinato is an
the director’s home country. It was Dallamano’s accomplished film, like all of Dallamano’s works.

second- to-last movie. He then directed La fine Franco Delli Colli’s cinematography is elegant, dell’innocenza and the crime film Quelli della with a predominance of cold blues, greys and
calibro 38 before his untimely death on Novem-
violets that emphasize the decadent, autumnal
ber 14, 176, at 5, of a pancreatic tumor.

atmosphere (shooting took place in the fall of 1744), suitably enhanced by Stelvio Cipriani’s NoTeS
music score. The overall mood brings to mind

1. It was actually the work of Antonello Geleng, who Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, perhaps the would become one of Italy’s greatest art directors.

film’s major influence, as noted also by critics at 2. Calum Waddell, “A fistful of Dallamano,” booklet for the time of its release.5 The director (who briefly the U.K. DVD of The Night Child released by Arrow.

appears in the airport scene, as the man who

3. Jonathan Rigby, Euro Gothic. Classics of Continental comments on Joanna Cassidy’s beauty) makes

Horror Cinema (Cambridge: Signum 2016), 320.

4. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, ample use of his trademark hand- held long filming began on October 28, 174.

takes, achieving dynamic results, and empha-

5. R.P., “Demonio pittore macabro a Spoleto,” Corriere sizing the beautiful Umbrian settings, such as della Sera, April 25, 175.

Spoleto and the nearby monumental Ponte delle

6. Some sources list the film as an Italian / British coproduction, but in fact the companies that officially pro-Torri; in an early scene Dallamano even uses
duced it were Italian.

Auguste Rodin’s famous sculpture “The Bur -
ghers of Calais,” set in London, to introduce the first flashback, cutting from Rodin’s hovering Le orme (Footprints, a.k.a. Footprints on the faces to the angry mob that populate Emily’s vi-Moon)

sions—a testimony to the director’s eye for keen D: Luigi Bazzoni. S: from the short story
visual ideas. The erotic interludes are also han-Las Huellas by Mario Fenelli; SC: Mario Fenelli, dled expertly, showing one of the main charac-Luigi Bazzoni; DOP: Vittorio Storaro (Techni-
teristics of Dallamano’s cinema, which imbued
color); M: Nicola Piovani (Ed. Nazional Music); such works as Le malizie di Venere (16), Das E: Roberto Perpignani; PD, CO: Pierluigi Pizzi; Bildnis des Dorian Gray (170), Innocenza e tur-MU: Giancarlo Del Brocco; Hair: Iole Cecchini; bamento (174) and La fine dell’innocenza (176).

AD: Umberto Angelucci; SD: Corrado Ricercato;

Still, the apt direction cannot overcome the

C: Enrico Umetelli, Gianfranco Turini; AC: script’s many shortcomings and recycled ideas.

Giuseppe Alberti, Mauro Marchetti; SP: Agenzia The wide- angle flashbacks featuring badly Pierluigi; AE: Piera Gabutti; 2ndAE: Carlo Bar-made- up extras are disappointingly banal, the tolucci; Color technician: Ernesto Novelli; MU: mystery subplot about Jill’s murder does not re-Giancarlo Del Brocco; Hair: Jole Cecchini; SO: ally hold up, done away as it is with a couple of Pietro Spadoni; Mix: Renato Cadueri; SE: Carlo rushed explicatory flashbacks, and the dialogue Ventimiglia; SS: Alma Luzzati; Press attache: ranges from banal to grating. Johnson, in full Lucherini- Rossetti-Spinola. Cast: Florinda
physical decline, is pathetically miscast as the Bolkan (Alice Crespi / Alice Campos), Peter love object of three unhappy women.

McEnery (Henry), Klaus Kinski (Prof. Black-

As a number of Dallamano’s films, Il me -
mann), Lila Kedrova (Mrs. Helm), Nicoletta daglione insanguinato was conceived primarily

Elmi (Paola Bersel / Paola Burton), Caterina Bo-for the foreign market6 and benefitted from pop-ratto (Boutique Owner), John Karlsen (Alfredo
ular names in the cast: producer Fulvio Lu-Laurenti / Alfred Lowenthal), Esmeralda Rus-
cisano’s money allowed for the casting of Rich -
poli, Evelyn Stewart [Ida Galli] (Mary), Myriam ard Johnson, who had played the lead in Ovidio

[Miriam] Acevedo (Alice’s Supervisor), Rosita

Assonitis’ eerie Chi sei? (174), and Joanna Cas-Toros [Torosh] (Marie Leblanche), Luigi [An-
sidy, seen in Stuart Rosenberg’s The Laughing
tonio] Guerra; uncredited: Franco Magno

Policeman (173) and John Flynn’s The Outfit

(Member of the International Congress), Feri -

(173). The movie was originally released in Italy dun Çölgeçen (Hotel Concierge). PROD: Lu-as Perché?! (“Why?!,” possibly a nod to Chi sei?) ciano Perugia for Cinemarte S.r.l. (Rome); EP: before reverting to Il medaglione insanguinato, Marina Cicogna; PM: Paolo De Andreis; PS: as proved by the 7" soundtrack record (featuring Alessandro Mattei; PSe: Gabriela Butti; ADM:

1975: Le orme

147

Fiorella Bologna. Country: Italy.

Filmed in Kemer and Phaselis (Tur -
key), EUR, Rome and at Safa Pala -
tino (Rome). Running time: 6 min-
utes (m. 2620). Visa n. 65760 (12.12.

174); Rating: V.M.14. Release date:

2.1.175; Distribution: Cineriz. Do-
mestic gross: 202,505,676 lire. Also
known as: Primal Impulse (U.S.A.—
video title), Huellas de pisadas en la
luna (Spain; 6.28.178); Spuren auf
dem Mond (West Germany); Mare -
ridt bli’r virkelighed (Denmark);

Mardröm blir verklighet (Sweden);

Slady (Poland); Mardrøm blir virke-
lighet (Norway—video title); Apa-
gogi ston planiti Z (Greece—video
title).

Alice, an interpreter, is haunted
by a recurring nightmare in which an
astronaut is abandoned on the moon
by a scientist named Blackmann—
actually a scene from a science fiction
movie, which she’d seen years before,

“Footprints on the Moon.” Alice is
shocked to find out that she has had
a blackout and does not remember
anything at all about the last two
days. The only clues are a postcard
from a seaside resort named Garma
where she does not remember ever
having been before, a missing earring
and a yellow dress, covered with
blood, that she finds in her closet.

Alice travels to Garma to find out
what has happened. Once there,
everybody seems to know her, and
further clues point out that she
indeed has spent the two days there,
under the fake name Nicole. Alice
meets a little girl named Paola, who
tells her she was looking for a myste-
rious house on an island. Eventually,

Alice finds out that her blackout was
triggered by the memory of an event
in her past, when she was abandoned
by her young lover Henry, which she
connected to the scene of the movie

Italian locandina for Le orme (1975).

she saw…

One of Gothic’s fundamental elements is
kinds of misadventures, but also the descents
the subjective dimension through which reality into the depths of paranoia and madness of is filtered: not only the explosions of feelings Edgar Allan Poe’s characters. A famous poem
that characterized the virtuous heroines of by Emily Dickinson reads: “One need not be a
late 18th century novels, the victims of all chamber to be haunted, / One need not be a

148 1975: Le orme house; / The brain has corridors surpassing /
turns into the livid lunar surface that haunted Material place.”

the woman’s dreams. Are they merely mental

One of the most interesting and original
projections, or real presences (nurses, police variations of the so- called “female Gothic,” re-officers) which the schizophrenic woman asso-
visited in a psychoanalytic way, is Luigi Bazzoni’s ciates with those in her nightmares? The film

Le orme. It is a movie with auteur ambitions,
ends enigmatically, with the image of the moon, which only marginally flirts with popular cina symbolic reference to the heroine’s tormented ema, and does so in a strikingly original way, duality, while a laconic inscription informs us bowing only in minimal part to the genre’s con-that Alice has been locked up in a psychiatric ventions, and opting for a style and atmosphere hospital: like the astronaut in the movie, she has that are quite different from the paths of Italian been abandoned for good, and her life will com-cinema, past and present. Nevertheless, Baz -
plete the ending of the film which she missed.

zoni’s film is influenced, in its theme and mood, It is a stark and perturbing ending, which, while by the period it belongs to, and falls into the stressing the protagonist’s madness, does not
realm of the “paranoid texts” analyzed by David dissolve the tale’s ambiguity.

Punter.

The script was allegedly based on the short

Similarly to Francesco Barilli’s Il profumo
story Las Huellas, by the Italian- Argentinian della signora in nero,1 but with a more subdued Mario Fenelli, who attended film school in narrative somehow akin to Robert Altman’s Im-Rome in the 150s and became close friends
ages, Le orme centers on a contemporary descen-with Manuel Puig, also enrolled at the CSC. He dant of the Gothic’s fragile heroines, whose ap-and Puig wrote two scripts together, but Fenelli pearance of an independent woman hides a core
enthusiastically supported Puig’s early writings, of traumas buried in her subconscious. With a
and encouraged him to become a fiction writer
brilliant intuition, Bazzoni evokes the heroine’s instead of a filmmaker.2 Together with Néstor
schizophrenia in the shape of snippets from a

Almendros, Severo Sarduy, Juan Goytisolo and
black- and-white science fiction B- movie, com-Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Fenelli was part of plete with a mad doctor of sorts (Klaus Kinski, the group Los Cinco de Oro (“Golden Five”)

on screen in the film- within-the-film for a cou-which unconditionally supported Puig’s work
ple of minutes tops), which gradually takes over for publishing.3 Bazzoni and Fenelli had also col-reality, and assumes the traits of a conspiracy laborated on a number of short films, such as Di against her.

domenica (163) and Immagini cortonesi, and on Both Le orme and Il profumo della signora
the director’s giallo, Giornata nera per l’ariete, in nero give new depth to the theme of the dou-based on a novel by D.M. Devine.

ble, an embodiment of the “return of the re-

Fenelli and Bazzoni scattered the story with
pressed” that haunts the chamber / brain. Flor -
psychoanalytic references (the neuropsychiatric inda Bolkan is an Alice, by name and by fact,
hospital of Kustnatz, where Alice is confined, is whose uneven, difficult route to fill a hole in her a reference to the Swiss village of Küsnacht, memory leads to the discovery of her alter ego—
where Carl Gustav Jung died), and hinted at a

Alice herself, who, wearing a red wig and a yel-prominent issue of the period, antipsychiatry.

low dress, turns into the unfriendly, elusive By comparing Alice’s final recovery into a Nicole—whose footprints the heroine retraces,
mental institution to the fate of the astronaut in one of the film’s many elegant subtexts.

left to die on the moon by an evil scientist, the Through the looking glass, Alice comes across
movie seems to hint at the necessity of a more her unresolved trauma, the fear of abandon and humane, empathetic way to cure mentally ill pa-loneliness: the fortress of independence and self-tients, a theme explored in a direct way in such affirmation she built around herself finally col-works as Nelo Risi’s Diario di una schizofrenica lapses, and her repressed insecurity leads to an (168).

act of violence, just like with Susannah York’s The film’s strength lies in its visual choices: character at the end of Images.

the story takes place between the marble, geo-

Paranoid texts are based on the ambiguity
metric buildings of Rome’s EUR district and an of persecution, and Le orme is no exception. In elusive Middle- Eastern resort by the sea (the the movie’s final scene, Alice is chased and cap-imaginary Garma, recreated in Turkey), both
tured on the beach by two astronauts who in-
poles apart from the usual Gothic settings. And congruously appeared there: the sunny shore
yet the Mediterranean landscapes of Le orme be-

1975: Le orme 14
come a striking catalyst for the typical Gothic Blu Gang e vissero per sempre felici e ammazzati novel material: the journey and the arrival in a (173, starring Jack Palance), that showed what strange (and therefore hostile in itself) land; the an interesting and underrated filmmaker he was.

imposing, out of time haunted house, here a di-Le orme received critical praise at the time of its lapidated luxury hotel in Liberty style, which release: the renowned Giovanni Grazzini wrote
bears traces of the previous, elusive occupant; that “following Dario Argento’s exploits, Italian the presence of architectural ruins (an ancient cinema can count on another director who buried village) as a catalyst to repressed memo-knows how to make a thriller… . The movie nails ries and feelings.

you to the chair, keeps you awake, sows in doubt Bazzoni employs Vittorio Storaro’s lumi-and curiosity, and eventually does not make you nous, gorgeous cinematography—which at
regret the time and money spent.”6 However,
times brings to mind echoes of Resnais’ L’année with just 202 million grossed, it was a box- office dernière à Marienbad—to portray Alice’s mental disappointment.

void from the very beginning among the square

Bazzoni’s final work was the multimedia
shapes and the blinding whiteness of her apart-visual- audio event Roma Imago Urbis, which
ment in Rome’s EUR district; the mysterious yel-underwent a sad and paradoxical fate. Con -
low dress stands out like a warning of the ceived in the 180s, it consisted of fifteen films woman’s suppressed desire, in turn opposed to

(one hour each) about Rome as a unique exam-
the warm and exotic Garma. The director here
ple in the history of man, the cradle of modern draws from Sigmund Freud’s famous definition
civilization and the place where the ideas of of the subconscious as “the inner foreign coun-State, religion, church, history and law took try” as opposed to reality, the “outer foreign shape; it was developed with the assistance of a country.” But the movie deals with other intrigu-scientific committee (which included film di-
ing suggestions. In addition to Alice’s sexual rector Carlo Lizzani and art critic Giulio Carlo trauma, it explores modern- day alienation (see Argan), co- produced by Rai and shot in 24 dif-the protagonist’s work in a highly competitive ferent countries between 187 and 12. Ennio
environment) and subtly hints at apocalyptic

Morricone wrote the music and Vittorio Storaro questions (the congress where Alice works as an took care of the cinematography: as Franco Nero interpreter focuses on the possibility for man to explained, “Vittorio said he’d do the film on one survive to world annihilation).

condition, if they hire Luigi Bazzoni for the en-Shot in nine weeks between Rome and
tire program.”7 The budget was 3 million euros, Turkey in spring 174,4 Le orme benefits enor-and the project also included a series of mono-mously from Florinda Bolkan’s committed
graphs with Storaro’s photographs, printed by
performance as Alice. “It was a fascinating ex-the State Mint. The episode Immortality, which perience in which I immersed myself psycho-premiered in New York in 12, was labeled by
logically and physically, and I even lost eleven the magazine American Cinematographer as a
pounds’ weight,” the actress claimed. “If shoot -

“beautiful visual poem about the ancient ing hadn’t finished in time, I’d ended up getting world.”8 The project was officially pre miered in seriously ill. I already lost my sleep. In the end, Italy at Rome’s Pantheon, in 14, in a worldwide it proved that actors’ real nature is masochism.”5
broadcast, at the presence of the then President Le orme was Luigi Bazzoni’s fifth and last
of the Italian Republic Oscar Luigi Scalfaro.

feature film as a director. Born in Salsomaggiore Then it disappeared. It resurfaced at the section Terme, near Parma, in 12, Bazzoni was the
of Roman art of the Metropolitan Museum in
elder brother of cinematographer and director

New York, but was not broadcast on Italian tel-Camillo, Vittorio Storaro’s mentor. Formerly an evision until April 2012, one month after Baz-assistant director to Mauro Bolognini, on such zoni’s death, at the age of 82, in his home village important works as Il bell’Antonio (160) and La of Salsomaggiore. One of the few who remem-viaccia (161), during his wavering career Baz-bered him was his old friend Francesco Barilli, zoni had touched the mystery with his striking in a moving column for the magazine Nocturno
debut La donna del lago (165, co- directed with Cinema.

Franco Rossellini) and Giornata nera per l’ariete.

He also directed a couple of odd Westerns, NoTeS

L’uomo, l’orgoglio e la vendetta (167, a version 1. Barilli only saw Le orme in 2011, at the Trieste Science of Mérimée’s Carmen starring Franco Nero) and

+ Fiction festival: he called it “an intriguing, elegant,

150 1975: La pelle suggestive film, very courageous and peculiar, very well murderer. Following Helmut’s sudden death and
shot and with a beautiful photography by Vittorio Storaro.”

the mysterious disappearance of the professor’s Francesco Barlli, “In Nero,” Nocturno Cinema #116, April body, Silvia is abducted. The culprit turns out to 2012, 4.

2. Suzanne Jill Levine, Manuel Puig and the Spider be Helmut, who faked his own death in order to Woman: His Life and Fictions (Madison WI: University of carry out his experiments with re- animation, with Wisconsin Press, 2001), 2.

techniques borrowed from the Nazis; his aim is 3. Ibid., 182.

to make a living body have intercourse with a

4. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, shooting began on April 2, 174.

dead one and breed a new living organism, and

5. Anonymous, “La Bolkan a Milano: ‘Sono maso -
the chosen victim is Silvia. The police stop Helmut chista,’” Corriere della Sera, January 2, 175.

just in time, but Silvia is still under the influence 6. Giovanni Grazzini, “Sulle orme tragiche della memo-of the mad doctor’s will…

ria,” Corriere della Sera, February 23, 175.

An obscurity in its own home country,

7. Tom Lisanti, Pamela Tiffin: Hollywood to Rome, 1961–

1974 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015), 20.

Alessandro Santini’s little- seen La pelle sotto gli 8. American Cinematographer, Vol. 75, 14, 72.

artigli is yet another example of the way the Gothic paraphernalia were reprised and re-La pelle sotto gli artigli (The Skin Under worked in the early Seventies, in order to ac-the Claws)

commodate ample erotic elements, according to

D: Alessandro Santini. S and SC: Alessan-
a recipe that had found its ideal fertile terrain dro Santini; DOP: Luigi De Maria (Techni-in the adult comics of the period. With its mad color—Techniscope); M: Francesco Santucci
hodgepodge of diverse elements, Santini’s script (Ed. Fly Record); E: Otello Colangeli; AD: Fer-looks like it was lifted almost verbatim from
nando Balmas; CO: Osanna Guardini; MU: Ul-
such paperbacks as Oltretomba—not an unlikely
timo Peruzzi; AC: Luciano Ronconi; SO: Ignazio occurrence, since scriptwriters often recycled Bevilacqua; SS: Ferdinando Merighi. Cast: Gor-unfilmed stories by selling the material to don Mitchell (Prof. Ernst Helmut), Geneviève
adults- only publishers.

Audry (Dr. Silvia Pieri), Tino Boriani (Dr. GiThe basic premise is yet another variation
anni Dani), Ettore Ribotta (Commissioner Ri-
of the Frankenstein tale, one of the most fre -
naldi), Agostino De Simone (Brigadier Tacconi), quent blueprints for erotic- tinged horror flicks Renzo Borelli (The Porter), Mirella Rossi (Pros-during the decade, not the least because of the titute), Franco Rossi, Ada Pometti; uncredited: sensation caused by the first heart transplant Mike Monty (Medical examiner), Goffredo Tri-performed on December 2, 167, by Christiaan
firò (Himself). PROD: Produzione San Giorgio

Barnard. As in Frankenstein ’80, with which San-Cinematografica. GM: Vincenzo Matassi; PM:

tini’s film has some elements in common (in-

Elio Ottaviani; PS: Tullio Dramis. Country: Italy.

cluding the presence of Gordon Mitchell as the Filmed at Cave Studio (Rome). Running time:

mad doctor) the story is set in the present day; 85 minutes (m. 231). Visa n. 65550 (12.3.174); however, this time the doctor’s experiments on Rating: V.M.18. Release date: 5.10.175; Distribu-artificial life have an even nuttier goal, which tion: Produzione San Giorgio Cinematografica.

leads to a trashy variation on the theme of Domestic gross: 1,827,400 lire. Also known as: necrophilia. Dr. Helmut’s Promethean search is Semillas de sangre (Spain); La piel bajo las uñas focused on the possibility of having the dead

(Spain).

impregnate the living, and even more: “I want

Rome. A mysterious man, who has dug up
to reach the breeding between two clinically
a dead body in a cemetery, savagely murders a
dead beings, so that even if one day a nuclear prostitute. The police find traces of decomposed explosion should destroy all humanity, we could human flesh under the victim’s fingernails. Soon still store some dead specimens capable of re-another murder follows, and the victim is found producing.” This leads to a demented climax in hacked to pieces in a suitcase. Meanwhile, a which Silvia (Geneviève Audry), lying on the
tender romance blossoms between Dr. Gianni mad doctor’s operating table, is surrounded and Dani and his colleague Silvia Pieri. Both work at groped by sex- crazed re- animated corpses.

a private clinic run by the friendly Dr. Helmut, The script never clearly explains how Hel-who claims he has perfected a method to preserve mut’s method works: aside from talk of a mirac-body parts and increase life expectancy. The in-ulous serum, we must be content with the sight vestigations are conducted by commissioner Ri-of Gordon Mitchell applying some kind of elec-
naldi, who suspects Dani of being the mysterious tric tool near the heads of his victims, who are

1975: La pelle 151
conveniently undressed on an operating table
from the start, as Gordon Mitchell’s peculiar fea-in the mad doctor’s basement, and performing
tures, angular jaw and large nose can be easily a hypnotic ritual which deprives them of their detected under the mask in the opening scene
will. On the other hand, a typical Gothic theme—
at the cemetery, where the mad doctor digs up
the double—is only marginally touched upon in
a corpse, Dr. Hichcock- style, and carries it away the end, and the final revelation that Silvia is a for his unspeakable experiments.

dead ringer to the doctor’s deceased wife, whom The fact that the opening exhumation,
he apparently wants to revive, comes out of the which supposedly takes place at night, happens blue at about one minute before the word “The
in broad daylight without any day- for-night End,” and sounds like a silly throwaway to say filter is an early clue of La pelle sotto gli artigli’s the least.

overall amateurishness, which the remainder of In order to give a pseudo- scientific basis to the film proceeds to confirm. The story’s alleged the mad doctor’s re- animation techniques, the trash value is badly let down by its flat direction script throws in a reference to the Third Reich’s and somnolent pacing, not to mention its shoe-experiments which predates the so- called Nazi-string production values. The movie was al-erotic subgenre: Helmut explaims that he has
legedly shot at Gordon Mitchell’s Cave Studio
perfected his technique from the Nazis, after

Film, the cheapest in Rome, and the sets are
discovering shocking surgical footage upon his poor beyond belief: the police station is placed arrival in Berlin at the end of the war with in an anonymous basement, the clinic where

South- African troops. Not a novelty, though: La Mitchell lectures his colleagues on the necessity vergine di Norimberga had introduced a Nazi
to preserve human life is basically an empty subplot as the explanation for the mystery, and room, and so on. Continuity errors are the norm adults- only comics such as the controversial (in a scene, the commissioner lights the same

Hessa (published from 170 to 172) had already cigarette twice), and the plot stumbles on with dabbled with the Third Reich’s atrocities in quite no regard for narrative coherence, allowing an unpleasant way.

room for utterly gratuitous interludes.

More significantly, La pelle sotto gli artigli One such is the scene in which Silvia and
hybridizes the Gothic motifs with elements of

Gianni visit a painter friend, whom Silvia labels the giallo by trying to pass off as a whodunit of as “the Superman of color.” It is Goffredo Trifirò, sorts, centered on a mysterious Jack the Ripper–
a self- taught Sicilian artist who exposed his like figure in black gloves and shades who kills works at the 172 Biennale in Venice, as himself.

prostitutes and unfortunate young women in

Trifirò enjoyed a short- lived popularity, due less and around Rome, while the chain- smoking cop to of his art than to some publicity stunts that on the case gropes in the dark for most of the depicted him as a “playboy painter,” such as the running time. But the suspense is non- existent, alleged love stories with movie starlets1 or the as the murders invariably occur off- screen, and news that an American customer had paid for
the only gory moment has the first victim turnone of Trifirò’s paintings by giving him his wife ing up in the nude and holding what are sup-in exchange for six months.2 In the movie, posed to be her exposed viscera—read: slaugh-Trifirò sits comfortably on a sofa between two terhouse’s waste of the day; the same lousy trick naked models that were posing for his paintings is repeated near the end where Mitchell pretends (which, incidentally, portray palm trees and veg-to tuck some viscera into a dead woman’s torso.

etation, not human bodies… ). He and his guests Another nod to gialli is the villain’s very
have a chat while the bored- looking girls just first appearance, his face covered with a black stay on the sofa, reading magazines and not even nylon mask, which brings to mind the faceless
bothering to cover themselves in front of the vis-entity of 6 donne per l’assassino. The script tries itors. The sequence, totally extraneous to the hard to persuade the audience that the shy, well-plot, looks like an awkward plug that possibly mannered and workaholic Dr. Gianni, who
allowed the filmmakers to scrape up some clumsily courts his colleague Silvia (“I’ll put my bucks.

lips where you just put them … and it’ll be like The director’s own script sports some of

I’m kissing you” he says, while smoking her the worst dialogue ever committed to celluloid: same cigarette) in a syrupy romantic subplot, is when the killer approaches a prostitute and has actually the culprit. But the camouflage all too her get in his car, the girl’s introductory line is obviously gives away the killer’s identity right

“Be nice! Let me see what color your eyes are

152 1975: La pelle and I’ll show you what color my panties are!”—

(164) and La valle dell’eco tonante (164) and which, incidentally, she does. Later on, when the Ruggero Deodato’s Zenabel (16); her last film commissioner is told that the dead prostitutes role would be in Fabrizio Taglioni’s abysmal ad-had fragments of decomposed skin under their
venture/crime flick Gli uccisori (177). As the nails (hence the title), he wisely comments: “I commissioner, photonovel regular Ettore
can’t believe that a putrefied corpse picks up Ribotta (a recurring presence in the fotoromanzi whores and then kills them!” Even worse are the published by Lancio and Grand Hotel) has per-attempts at philosophical mumbo jumbo: “When
haps the most relevant role in a nondescript film we travel on a crowded train, we don’t want any-career, which consisted mainly of small parts in one to get on. In fact, we’d like people to get off.

such rubbish as La bambola di Satana (16,

Life is a miracle, but so is death,” Silvia claims Ferruccio Casapinta), Paolo Lombardo’s Dagli
in a scene. After such pearls of wisdom, one is archivi della polizia criminale and Ordine firmato tempted to read the opening credit sequence as in bianco (175, Gianni Manera). Similarly, this a metaphor of sorts: it takes place at a children’s was former photonovel star Tino Boriani’s third outdoor puppet theater, where Pulcinella is bat-and biggest role, after bit parts in Luigi Bazzoni’s tling a skull- faced Death puppet. A thinly dis-L’uomo, l’orgoglio e la vendetta and Vittorio guised, symbolic commentary on the never-Caprioli’s excellent Splendori e miserie di ending moral struggle between Good and Evil,

Madame Royale (170). It was also his last movie perhaps? Never mind: the final twist, which role to date.

comes totally out of left field, is guaranteed to La pelle sotto gli artigli had no small trouble have anyone’s jaw drop in disbelief and bury any with the Italian board of censors. On first in-attempt at critical re- evaluation.

stance, in November 174, it was denied the visa, If Santini did not care much about plot,
the board’s motivation being that “it is a contin-pacing and filmmaking, he was very much pre-
uous display of shameless female nudity in a
occupied with piling up as much nudity as pos-
context of conscious and absurd sadism which
sible, including a squalid night club scene where offends any sense of modesty.” On appeal, the
an African stripper performs some wannabe
commission demanded that the scene where the
tribal dance for a scant and very bored audience, second victim strips naked before the killer be and having the second victim perform an en-

“sensibly cut,” and consequently gave the film a thusiastic striptease in front of her killer (“You V.M.18 rating. It was released theatrically in know I like all that is sex … it’s true, I’m a spring 175, and soon disappeared into obliv-nymphomaniac, but you’re a lecher!”)—not to
ion.4
mention the sight of the mad doctor’s dungeon, La pelle sotto gli artigli was Alessandro San-scattered with chained nude women (one
tini’s third film as a director. A former produc-hanged upside down to a St. Andrew’s cross)

tion manager whose career consisted of obscure which openly flirts with sex comics’ sadistic im-items such as the erotic flick Questa libertà di agery.

avere … le ali bagnate (171), Santini remains Gordon Mitchell overacts as expected and
one of Italian cinema’s most obscure and over-
sports his customary mad grin; when interlooked figures. His real place within Italian pop-viewed by Christian Kessler, he recalled an acular cinema can perhaps be somewhat clarified
cident which took place during shooting: “In the by a news article dated early 177, about the up-end there is a scene, where I try to strike dead a coming trial against the members of a couple of girl with a stone, but the police shoot me. Un-phony production companies, “Cinema TV
fortunately the stunt boy messed up this scene.

2000” and “Globarfilm.”

He lost control over the car and drove over the According to the article, “Hundreds of per-actress! I even tried to snatch her from the car, sons were deceived by a group of skilled crimi-but in vain. This story then brought her into
nals who used to perfection the insidious hospital for months, thus we had to use a stand-weapon of the mirage of fabulous earnings in
in to finish the shooting.”3
the world of movies, television and photonov-

The American ex- bodybuilder is the only
els.”5 The plan had taken shape in August 171, noteworthy presence in a cast of third- rate sup-in various Italian cities, through newspaper ads, porting actors. The female lead Geneviève posters on buses, and so on. The ads announced Audry had appeared in a handful of movies, in-job offers for movie extras in “important Italian-cluding Tanio Boccia’s Il dominatore del deserto American productions,” often related to Spa -

1975: La pelle 153
ghetti Western. The swindlers were setting up
polizia interviene. Polselli had also authored the phony auditions, and asked money to their vic-script for Questa libertà di avere … le ali bagnate, tims to “cover the expenses.” During the screen and two of his regular actresses worked with
tests, the camera rolled with no film inside.

Santini: Mirella Rossi appeared in La pelle sotto Those who protested were sometimes sent to
gli artigli as the first victim, and Rita Calderoni the sets of some down- to-heel productions as would co- star in Santini’s subsequent work, extras, in order to divert suspicion. That the Dolce pelle di donna (178). There has been spec-swindlers managed to cheat about 500 individ-
ulation that Vani and Polselli were somehow inuals is telling about the fascination that cinema volved in the making of La pelle sotto gli artigli; still exerted on many Italians.

however, there is no actual evidence of this.

The head of the organization was Gaetano

Polselli’s involvement in the scam is any-

Ferri, who, together with Oddone Furia, pre-
one’s guess, but some episodes are telling: sented himself as the head of the production

Polselli himself admitted that Mania was made
company. Among the eleven accused there was
thanks to the financial efforts of leading man Alessandro Santini, as the director: “He claimed Ettore Elio Aricò, a.k.a. Brad Euston; what is he was shooting some films in order to make his more, the article reported that one of the cheated role more believable… . While passing in review aspiring actresses, Consolata Moschera, was told a line of aspiring movie stars, he dwelled his at-to cut her long hair, which she was proud of, for tention on one of them: ‘But you have features the role, “a sadistic component … which was in-worthy of a great actor! I absolutely suggest you tended to make the scam more believable, and
get in touch directly with my colleague Federico which turned into an extra humiliation to Fellini. He will certainly have a role for you!’”6
many.”11 Moschera’s only film role is in Polselli’s Ferri, Furia, Santini and a couple of others were Riti, magie nere e segrete orge nel Trecento…

arrested in February 172,7 and released soon af-The trial ended with three convicted (Gae-
terwards. The trial took place five years later.

tano Ferri, Alessandro Mancini and Oddone

The article mentions the titles of several

Furia); the others were acquitted.12

Santini films, I sette amuleti, Al di là dell’odio, Una forca per un vigliacco (possibly Una forca NoTeS
per tre vigliacchi), Una vergine per Satana. With 1. Ugo Naldi, “Non sono una fabbrica di ‘cuori in-the exception of Al di là dell’odio (which featured franti’!,” Corriere d’Informazione, May 10, 173.

Ferri as an uncredited extra) the others were un-2. Anonymous, “Dà in affitto la moglie per sei mesi in finished,8 which makes one suspect that these
cambio del quadro di un pittore,” Corriere d’Informazione, productions were set up only to collect money, January 14, 174. The article mentions a written deal be-without the intention of actually completing the tween the painter and the American customer (a “Preben Soresen”) signed by two witnesses: one of them is Gordon film (and therefore avoid paying for development, Mitchell. The publicity scam was concocted around the print, submission to the censors board, etc.).

same time as the shooting of Santini’s film, which began Una vergine per Satana, a horror film shot
on December 3, 173
in 171 about a satanic sect devoted to the god-3. Christian Kessler, “Maciste und die Spaghetti aus dem Weltall,” www. christiankessler. de. The German landess Selene and headed by a masked man who
guage interview was published in a shorter, slightly calls himself “Satana,” was co- directed by Bruno different (and not completely faithful) English translation Vani, who had penned Al di là dell’odio, and who in the Video Watchdog magazine. Namely, the above quo-was also among the accused in the trial. What
tation is nowhere to be found in the VW version. Christian is more, the script for Una vergine per Satana Kessler, “Gordon Mitchell. Atlas in the Land of Cinema,”

Video Watchdog #48, 18, 47. Thanks to Gary Vanisian was in turn based on an unfilmed Renato for the new translation from the original German text.

Polselli screenplay, Tilt. One of the would- be-4. La pelle sotto gli artigli was never released to home actors, a Vincenzo Bocarino, recalled that he
video in Italy, and over the years it circulated in truncated was given a Ku Klux Klan- esque hood to put on, TV prints, whereas a couple of Spanish VHS editions exists, titled respectively Semillas de sangre (Seeds of and he was filmed near a girl. “You are perfect Blood) and La piel bajo las uñas (a literal translation of the for this film!” the director told him.10

Italian title).

Polselli himself recycled the existing foot -

5. Paolo Graldi, “Promettevano cinema e celebrità: age for Una vergine per Satana and added to it truffati in 500,” Corriere della Sera, January 10, 177.

6. Ibid.

new scenes, shot in August 176: the result (pro-7. Anonymous, “‘Con noi diventerete tutti divi’ così visionally titled I torbidi misteri della sensualità) hanno truffato un miliardo,” L’Unità, February 25, 172.

was released in 178 as Casa dell’amore … la

8. Una forca per tre vigliacchi (filming for which started

154 1975: La sanguisuga in January 171) was eventually submitted to the board of (Spain); The Leaches Lead the Dance (Aus-censors in June 17. A two- page article on the filming of tralia—video title); O Drakoulas tou kas trou; O

Una vergine per Satana, complete with a number of nude vrykolakas sernei to horo (Greece—video title).

set stills, appeared in the magazine Cinesex (#53, January 172).

Ireland, 1902. Struck by the resemblance be-

9. Alessio Di Rocco, Una vergine per Satana nella casa tween a young actress named Evelyn and his dead dell’amore, www. nocturno. it.

wife Catherine, Count Richard Marnack invites

10. Paolo Graldi, “I divi a pagamento: ci hanno truffati,”

her small theatrical company—which includes

Corriere della Sera, January 16, 177.

11. Graldi, “Promettevano cinema e celebrità.”

Evelyn’s friend Cora, actresses Rosalind and 12. Ferri, however, tried the same scam again, with sim-Penny, and stage hand Samuel—to his castle, lo-ilar results, in the 180s. In 182 he was reported to the pocated on a solitary island. Once there, everyone lice for a similar scam, and in 187 he was arrested for the notices the strange atmosphere and the ambigu -
same type of activity, this time related to the making of ous behavior of the service staff: the jealous house-pornographic films. See Piero Bongini, “Truffa di celluloide,” Corriere della Sera, August 5, 187.

keeper Sybil, the ambiguous butler Jefer, the can-tankerous gardener Gregor; what is more, a legend tells how all the Marnacks have beheaded La sanguisuga conduce la danza (The
their wives before throwing themselves into the Bloodsucker Leads the Dance, a.k.a. The Pas-sea. Eventually a murderous hand strikes repeat-sion of Evelyn)

edly: the first victim is Cora, followed by Penny D: Alfredo Rizzo. S and SC: Alfredo Rizzo;
and Rosalind. The arrival of the police solves the DOP: Aldo Greci (Technicolor); M: Marcello
mystery: the culprit is Sybil, morbidly jealous of Giombini (Ed. Nazionalmusic); E: Piera Bruni,
the Count, who keeps Marnack’s crazed wife hid-Gianfranco Simoncelli; ArtD: Vanni Castellani; den and used her as her killing instrument…

CO: Maria Luisa Panaro; MU: Sergio Angeloni;

Alfredo Rizzo’s work as a director was defi-

Hair: Vincenzo Cardella; AD: Roberto Izzo; nitely shorter and less distinctive than his career 2ndAD: Claudio Bondi; SO: Pietro Spadoni; C:

as an actor. A veteran of vaudeville, Rizzo (10–

Alfredo Senzacqua; AC: Emilio Bestetti; SP: Gi-11) performed on stage with his brother Carlo anfranco Filoni; W: Flora Baldassarre; SS: Luig-as well as other popular comedians, especially ina Lovari; Color technicians: Carlo La Bella, Erminio Macario, and made his film debut in

Nicola Tocci. French version—Dial: Yvon Ger-

13 in Mario Mattoli’s Lo vedi come sei … lo
ault; DubD: André Chelossi. Cast: Femi Benussi vedi come sei?, starring Macario. With over 100

(Sybil), Giacomo Rossi Stuart (Count Richard
film credits, he was one of those reassuring faces Marnack), Krista Nell [Doris Kristanel] (Cora), that regularly popped up in Italian films: he Patrizia De Rossi (Evelyn / Countess Catherine), often played the antagonist in dramas, but his Luciano Pigozzi (Gregor), Mario De Rosa (Jefer, peculiar features were also suited for comedy.

the butler), Barbara Marzano (Miriam, the Fellini cast him no fewer than four times in maid), Caterina Chiani (Rosalind), Lidia Olizzi small but picturesque roles, most memorably in (Penny), Susette Nadalutti (Carol), Pier Paola La dolce vita and Toby Dammit.

Succi, Leo Valeriano (Samuel); uncredited: Luigi But Rizzo turned up also in early Italian

Batzella (Police Inspector), Rita Silva (Mar -

Gothics, most memorably as the stingy impre-
garet), Mike Monty (Fisherman, Gregor’s son).

sario of the female ballet company that finds

PROD: To. Ro. Cinematografica (Rome); PM:

shelter at the sinister Castle Kernassy in Piero Michelangelo Ciafré; PA: Mario De Rosa; PSe:

Regnoli’s L’ultima preda del vampiro (160), a Luciano Pizzorusso. Country: Italy. Filmed at the role he reprised with minimal variations in Il Piccolomini Castle in Balsorano (L’Aquila), Cas-boia scarlatto. In L’ultima preda del vampiro tle of Monte San Giovanni Campano (Frosi-Rizzo was characterized as a dirty old man: in none), Lake Bracciano (Rome) and at Icet De
the scene where the vampire’s victim enters her Paolis Studios (Milan). Running time: 86 min -
impresario’s room, almost frightening him to
utes (m. 2358); Visa n. 66416 (4.2.175); Rating: death, Rizzo is shown flipping through Frolic, a V.M.18. Release dates: 5.10.175 (Italy), 5.25.177

U.S. girlie magazine with pin- up June Wilkinson (France); Distribution: P.A.B. Film. Domestic
on the cover.

gross: 73,36,150 lire. Also known as: Il marchio Somehow this characterization suited
di Satana (Italy—video title); La marque de Rizzo’s work as a director. For his debut he was Satan; L’insatiable Samantha (La sangsue)

saddled with a World War II movie, I giardini

(France—hardcore version); Danza macabra
del diavolo (released in the U.K. as Heroes With-

1975: La sanguisuga

155
out Glory) whose battle scenes became stock
castle, the themes of the doppelgänger and the footage fodder for such Eurociné dreck as family curse, and so on—mostly as an excuse to Convoi de filles (178) and Jess Franco’s Oasis of cobble together some sex scenes.

the Zombies (181). However, for his subsequent The story (apparently concocted solely by
stints behind the camera, Rizzo aimed squarely Rizzo) is a potboiler of elements borrowed from at the sexploitation market, with seven films

L’ultima preda del vampiro and Il castello dei shot between 174 and 178 which
veered between debauched comedy

(La bolognese, 174; Sorbole … che ro-
magnola, 176; I peccati di una giovane
moglie di campagna, 177) and turgid
drama (Carnalità, 174; Alessia … un
vulcano sotto la pelle, 177; Suggestion-
ata, 178). In addition to a very low
cinematic value, these had in common
a constant emphasis on eroticism.

The same can be said about

Rizzo’s only horror film, La sanguisuga
conduce la danza. Even though the al-
luring (and ridiculously absurd) title
features an animal—in the original

Italian title, “bloodsucker” is intended
as “leech”—in pure early Argento tra-
dition, and the posters attempted to
sell the movie as a modern- day
thriller, with the sight of a semi- naked
young woman pointing a gun at the
viewer (another, more intriguing lo-
candina featured a six- armed girl,

Kali- style, holding a flower with two
hands and assorted knives and guns
with the other four), the giallo’s typical
elements are very few and far between.

There is, indeed, a mysterious mur-
derer on the prowl, but the killings
take place off- screen, and we are only
treated to the aftermath, with the
grotesque sight of decapitated bodies
and/or severed heads that are either
very much attached to their bodies or
made with papier- maché, and as un-
convincing as those seen in Sergio

Bergonzelli’s Nelle pieghe della carne

(170). What is more, the crude mise-
en-scène is poles apart from the
giallo’s stylish depictions of death at
work: there is no sign of psychedelic
colors, weird camera angles and elab-
orate set pieces—and, most impor-
tantly, no black- gloved killer in sight.

La sanguisuga conduce la danza is ba-
sically a standard Gothic yarn, which
lazily assembles the genre’s parapher-

The imaginative locandina for La sanguisuga conduce la danza nalia—the period setting, the isolated

(1975).

156 1975: La sanguisuga morti vivi, as the charming Count Marnack (Gi-courtesy of crappy editing: the “sea,” however, acomo Rossi Stuart), smitten by a beautiful stage is none other than the Bracciano lake, with its actress named Evelyn (Patrizia De Rossi) who
typical cane thicketed shores. On top of that, performs in a shabby village theater, invites her when a storm is required to take place, Rizzo
and the whole traveling company to his isolated (and editor Piera Bruni) throw in black-and-castle by the sea. What is more, the place is white stock footage of raging seas and cliffs. It haunted by a family curse, as all the Marnacks is hard to do worse than that.

have ended up slaughtering their unfaithful When something finally happens, and the
wives before committing suicide, generation first decapitated body turns up, one would after generation. And, as Evelyn finds out, she expect the film to finally shift into something is a dead ringer for the Count’s deceased wife.

resembling a pacing, which it doesn’t. Two more The story throws in a little bit of Rebecca for murders follow, and a police inspector (played good measure, as Castle Marnack is run by a
by film director Luigi Batzella) appears out of stern housekeeper who, thanks to Femi Benussi’s nowhere to wrap up the case. The final expla-ravishing looks, is a much more pleasant sight nation occurs Agatha Christie–style, with the for the eyes than Mrs. Danvers, even if decidedly main players sitting round in a room and Femi
more menacing; the other servants are a weird

Benussi delivering a torrential monologue in
bunch, and include a bigoted butler (Mario De
melodramatic fashion, in one of the most uncli-Rosa) and a manservant (the ubiquitous Luciano mactic endings ever seen in a horror movie—

Pigozzi) who’s a peeping tom and sexually black-well, sort of.

mails the housekeeper.

The Italian board of censors objected to the

Having established the basic plot, Rizzo has
erotic content, and demanded some cuts to be
plenty of time to concentrate on the real thing: performed, namely the removal of the lesbian
sex. The small crew includes the dimwitted, un-encounter between Rosalind and Penny, a short-
inhibited Cora (Krista Nell, in a role that basi-ening of the lovemaking session between Evelyn cally reprises the one played by Maria Giovan-and the Count, as well as the encounter between nini in L’ultima preda del vampiro) and a lesbian Cora and the fisherman, and the one where Gre-couple (Caterina Chiani, here credited under
gor has sex with Sybil. The film was given a her real name and not under the pseudonym

V.M.18 rating for the “many sequences of exces-

“Marzia Damon,” and the ebony- skinned Lidia
sive sexual realism and for others that are par-Olizzi), and the director wastes no time in ticularly lurid,” and did very modest business in having each of them take off their clothes. For its home country. The sex scenes were kept in
almost one hour, almost nothing happens except their entirety in the version that came out in for the occasional intercourse: the Count and

France in 177, L’insatiable Samantha (La sang-Evelyn make love, the sex- hungry Cora wanders sue), which also included hardcore inserts.

near the castle and seduces an ugly- looking fish-Filmed in November and December 174,1
erman (an uncredited Mike Monty), the lesbians La sanguisuga conduce la danza was Krista Nell’s spend most of their time in bed; in a ludicrous last film: the Austrian actress (real name Doris scene, they keep caressing each other in the Kristanel), who had debuted in Godard’s Pierrot presence of a naive maid, who then returns to
le fou (165) and had become a welcome pres-
the room she shares with another girl servant
ence in Italian and Spanish cinema, died of and asks the latter to fondle her breasts as she leukemia on June 1, 175, just one month after saw them do. Sex scenes are not a bad thing in the film’s release. She was 28 years old, and actor themselves—unless they are shot with such a

Ettore Manni’s partner in life. She was supposed lack of cinematic talent as Rizzo does: Cora’s en-to play the lead in Rizzo’s film, but due to her counter with the fisherman is especially grating, illness she turned in a secondary part. Femi Be-and their frolicking wouldn’t be out of place in nussi, who was good friends with her, recalled one of those awful Bavarian sex comedies of the how they used to go to the set together, and that period, with dialogue along the same lines (“I Nell justified her swollen lips and pale skin (the have fished a fisherman,” Cora boasts upon re-result of chemotherapeutic treatment), pretend-turning from her escapade).

ing to be undergoing cosmetic injections.2 Nell The film’s ineptitude is jaw- dropping: the
had been cast to play a role in Fellini’s Casanova.

Castle of Balsorano, which provides the exteriThe film was released in VHS in Italy in
ors, is made to appear as if it was on an island, two different editions, one under the title Il mar-

1976: La casa 157
chio di Satana (Satan’s Mark), which is at least NoTeS
more in tune with its mood and essence. The

1. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, VHS release featured the same poster image as
shooting began on November 25, 174.

Jess Franco’s Demoniac.

2. Franco Grattarola, Stefano Ippoliti and Matteo Norcini, “Finalmente Femi Benussi,” Cine 70 e dintorni #2, Spring 2002, 11–12.

1976

La casa dalle finestre che ridono (The
den Fenster (Germany); A Casa das Janelas House with Laughing Windows)

Malditas (Portugal).

D: Pupi Avati. S: Pupi Avati, Antonio Avati;

Northern Italy, some years after World War

SC: Pupi Avati, Antonio Avati, Gianni Cavina,

II. A mad painter, Buono Legnani, has committed Maurizio Costanzo; DOP: Pasquale Rachini; M:

suicide in the countryside near Ferrara, after Amedeo Tommasi; E: Giuseppe Baghdighian;
painting a fresco on the wall of a church which PD, CO: Luciana Morosetti; MU: Giovanni
depicts a variation of the martyrdom of Saint Se-Amadei; Hair: Francesco Musico; AD: Cesare
bastian, tortured by two grinning figures. The Bastelli; C: Giorgio Urbinelli; AC: Antonio local authorities, in the hopes of developing Scaramuzza; APD: Otello Taglietti; Painter: tourism in the area, summon a young artist, Ste-Michelangelo Giuliani; AE: Maurizio Cucciola,
fano, to restore Legnani’s work. Soon Stefano is Piera Gabutti, Viviana Massi; SS: Vincenza haunted by strange and disturbing events. His

D’Amico; B: Rodolfo Montagnani; SOE: Mas-
friend Mazza reveals to him that the village has simo Anzellotti; Mix: Venanzio Biraschi, Enrico a terrible secret, whose details he cannot give Blasi; SE: Giovanni Corridori, Luciano Anzel-away, but some time later he is found dead, ap-lotti; KG: Mario Pizzi; El: Francesco Rachini; W: parently after committing suicide, and Stefano re-Teresa Lai. Cast: Lino Capolicchio (Stefano),
ceives threatening phone calls. Despite the vil-Francesca Marciano (Francesca), Gianni Cavina
lagers’ silence, he finds out that Legnani (Coppola), Giulio Pizzirani (Antonio Mazza),

(nicknamed “the painter of agonies”) used to paint Bob Tonelli (Mayor Solmi), Vanna Busoni
scenes of real torture performed upon his unfor-

(Teacher), Pietro Brambilla (Lidio), Ferdinando tunate models by his two mad sisters, with whom Orlandi (Police Marshall), Andrea Matteuzzi
he had an incestuous relationship. Could one of (Poppi), Ines Ciaschetti (Concierge), Pina Bothe sisters be the elderly woman at whose house rione (Paraplegic Woman), Flavia Giorgi
he is staying? And what is the mysterious “house (Poppi’s Wife), Arrigo Luchini (Grocer), Carla with laughing windows” that somebody mentions

Astolfi (Chambermaid at Boarding House), Lu-
to Stefano? More deaths follow, and Stefano real-ciano Bianchi (Franchini, the Librarian), Tonino izes that the nightmare is not over…

Corazzari (Buono Legnani), Libero Grandi; un-

The concept of a folksy Gothic linked to a
credited: Cesare Bastelli (Car Driver), Gina Bona rural environment in rapid extinction was (Woman Eating Pasta), Pietro Bona (Man at something rarely explored in Italian cinema of Restaurant), Zora Kerova (Waitress), Eugene
the past. Brunello Rondi’s extraordinary Il de-Walter (Priest). PROD: Antonio Avati, Gianni
monio (163) dealt with superstition in Southern Minervini for A.M.A. Film; UM: Sergio Bollino; Italy and portrayed an exemplary case of sexual PA: Alessandro Vivarelli. Country: Italy. Filmed obsession and repression, whereas Bava’s I in Comacchio and Minerbio, Ferrara, Italy and

Wurdalak and Operazione paura depicted su-
at Incir- De Paolis Studios (Rome). Running time: perstitious characters (respectively Gorka’s fam-110 minutes (m. 3000). Visa n. 6815 (8.16.176); ily, and the “witch” played by Fabienne Dali) that Rating: V.M.14. Release date: 8.16.176; Distribu-somehow recalled Italian mores, even though
tion: Euro International Film. Domestic gross: the films were set in foreign countries and in 722,135,201 lire. Also known as: The House of the past times. On the other hand, Ferroni’s La notte Laughing Windows (U.S.A.); La maison aux
dei diavoli and Fulci’s Non si sevizia un paperino fenêtres qui rient (France); Das Haus der lachen-took a more direct approach, and showed that

158 1976: La casa a contemporary Italian environment (or, in the Yet, there had also been unexpected flashes
case of Ferroni’s film, just beyond the border) of grotesque. In the comedy Bellezze in bicicletta could be an apt setting for a grim horror or mys-

(151, Carlo Campogalliani), due to a comical
tery story.

misunderstanding, a pair of dancers (Silvana

Pampanini and Delia Scala), who
are spending the night at an iso -
lated farmhouse, believe that their
hosts are actually a family of mur-
derers. Therefore, “the lights- and-
shade of the house, the knife used
to slice the ham, the shadows and
noises of the countryside—which
by then has started to become a
stereotyped reality in Italian cin -
ema (exactly because agricultural

Italy begins to disappear irresisti -
bly)—scare the two girls and push
them to flee as soon as possible.”1

This is the path that Pupi

Avati followed when making La
casa dalle finestre che ridono, the
first film produced with his com-
pany A.M.A. Film.2 Shot over the
course of five weeks in April and

May 176, on a very low budget in
the countryside around Ferrara,3
with a minimal crew and a cast of
mostly regulars led by Lino Capo -
licchio4 and Francesca Marciano

(in a role devised for Mariangela

Melato), the director’s fifth directo-
rial feature was also his first out-
and-out Gothic horror movie.

Avati had already shaped a
personal approach to the Gothic in
his early films, Balsamus l’uomo di

Satana and Thomas … gli indemo-
niati: both were experiments, pro-
ductively (with the attempt to move
away from Rome and develop a
production center in Bologna, in
the Po Valley) and narratively, with
their emphasis on Fantastic and
magic elements. Avati’s third film,
the grotesque comedy La mazurka
del barone, della santa e del fico
fiorone, further underlined the di-
rector’s taste for offbeat, unusual
and slightly sinister types, as well as
his ear for dialectal language, while
depicting an unusual slice of coun-
try life with the story of a misan-
thropic, atheist Baron (Ugo Tog-

Italian poster for La casa dalle finestre che ridono (1976).

nazzi) who becomes a devout

1976: La casa 15

Cath olic after witnessing (or so he believes) a who are gifted with an abnormal sensitivity to-miracle.

ward the macabre and the mysterious that will

It is starting with La casa dalle finestre che take them to their ruin. The theme of horror as-ridono, however, that the term “Po Valley sociated with art recalls the words of Robert

Gothic” acquires its full meaning in respect to Kiely: “The artist in terror novels is most often Avati’s work. The definition was provided by the depicted as the destroyer, the executioner, the director himself, who explained: “The movie is gatekeeper … the artistic process is seen … as certainly Gothic, or at least it is in tune with my devil’s work.”8 Art is the symbolic place of choice idea of a Gothic tale: it must have a realistic be-to hold the mystery: the fresco depicting Saint ginning… . Then the story progressively takes

Sebastian in La casa dalle finestre che ridono, the on aspects that sometimes have a bearing with
novel in the making in Zeder, the old volume
the probable … and, ultimately, one ends up
that Carlo Delle Piane’s character is trying to sell considering plausible what is absolutely implau-in Tutti defunti … tranne i morti and the whole sible.”5
esoteric library of L’arcano incantatore.

The first and foremost character of Avati’s

In his horror films, which are strictly

Gothic, as well as its most innovative trait, is the related to his non- horror production (often ded-way it is closely linked to a geographically local-icated to his youth years and to the area where ized rural environment: that area of the Emilia he was brought up), Avati draws from an oral

Romagna region which goes from the surround-
tradition of folk tales that forms part of the ings of Bologna to the Po delta. It is quite a truest Italian vision of the Fantastic, as displayed change from the Northern and Eastern Euro -
by such works as the 17th century fairytale col-pean settings of the Italian Gothic horror movies lection Lo cunto de li cunti (1636, Giambattista made in the previous decade, as well as from the Basile) and the 183 short story anthology Nov-urban dimension of 170s gialli and thrillers. As elle della nonna by Emma Perodi. The latter vol-has been noted, “Avati delegates to the Po Valley ume consisted of a number of stories told by an setting a reassuring function and proceeds to
octagenarian granny to her family, gathered be-frighten the audience with a dense network of
fore the fireplace during the cold winter nights Gothic echoes and references that disrupt that in the countryside: the tone, the setting, the innocuous fragment of the world,” so that the
characters showed how Gothic’s typical themes
former acts as a “jarring container and sound
and characters (ghosts, vampires, werewolves)

board”6 to the latter: an antithetical relationship were also present in the Italian tradition, and that shows how, to the director, anxiety and fear indeed benefitted from a pragmatic, trivial ap-come from the search for paradox and un -
proach, which subtracted horror to the stale settling antithesis.

conventions of the bourgeois Romantic tradition The genre’s typical elements are therefore
and brought it back to the people, to the land, revisited not from an aristocratic perspective, to known and easily identifiable places.

but from a rural, peasant- like one. The haunted The idea for La casa dalle finestre che castle or villa, typical of the Gothic novel, here ridono came from a story Avati heard as a child is replaced by country farmhouses or home-about the exhumation of the skeleton of a priest steads; the story is set in the recent past (the im-in the little village of Sasso Marconi, which re-mediate post–World War II years); and the col-
sulted in a shocking discovery, even though the lective memory is the keeper (and the source)

final, extraordinary twist owes in part to of an untold horror—legends, riddles, unsolved Georges Bernanos’ 135 novel The Crime. Avati
murders, mysterious experiments—whose rec-
himself recalled another episode that helped
ollection is handed down in piecemeal fashion
him focus on the idea for the movie.

through word of mouth, oral tales, rumors, gossips, fairytales, popular songs. The most chilling I, my brother Antonio, Cesare Bastelli [author’s note: Avati’s a.d.] and two or three others were at a small example is the Brazilian lullaby (“As flores do train station in the Polesine area. We were waiting.

amor, Flores lindas do meu jardim, para vocês… ”7) Then the train arrived, it stopped and a little man sung by the elderly bedridden lady, which be-with white hair, elegantly dressed, got off. Instead of comes the leitmotif of unspeakable horrors.

walking, he dragged his feet and came forward slowly Avati’s protagonists are outsiders to this en-with a little purse in his hand. His name was Boccac-closed, secluded world: young city artists, cini and he spoke in a thin voice … he really was a painters or writers (like Gabriele Lavia in Zeder) movie character. We drove him to his dilapidated

160 1976: La casa Shooting the opening scene of La casa dalle finestre che ridono. Among the crew, we can see Gianni Cavina, Bob Tonelli and Lino Capolicchio (the first three on the left), Francesca Marciano (center, in the distance) and Pupi Avati (second from right) (courtesy Luca Servini).

house in the woods. A place with liberty decorations those who dare too much and venture into at the entrance and on the façade. Upon entering this places, either meta phorical or real, which they house, with this little old man dragging his feet and don’t know, will surely be punished.12
speaking with a stridulous voice, we felt an intense This is not to say that horror movies, con-fear. There started the idea for the movie, the idea of temporary or past, were totally absent in Avati’s a host who leads somebody into a house. It was an film universe. The director himself acknowl-encounter closely related to the Gothic genre, with edged as influences Dreyer’s Vampyr (132) and, the train stopping and the only passenger getting off for the grammar of fear, H. G. Clouzot’s Les di-and toward us… . We then used Boccaccini’s house as the main location. It is the house where Stefano aboliques. In addition to that, La casa dalle fines -
moves in the film.10
tre che ridono pays toll to contemporaneous Italian gialli: Avati complained that he had to add An early draft of the script, Blood Relation
gruesome close- ups of stabbings (with ample

/ La luce dell’ultimo piano, dated back to the use of ox blood) due to distribution needs; nev-early 170s, co-written by Antonion Troisio; it ertheless, the result is chilling, due to the way was to be produced by Alfredo Cuomo, who
the director filmed these inserts, in low- angle then backed out. Avati took up the old script
shots and with the knives descending directly
after the financial flop of Bordella and made sev-toward the camera. However, it is impossible to eral important changes to the main characters
reduce Avati’s Gothic to one of the threads in and the story, with outstanding results.11 The di-vogue at that time. La casa dalle finestre che ri-rector displays a taste for storytelling, a compla-dono moves away from the mechanics of the jeu
cency in arousing surprise and marvel, a subtle de massacre according to Argento, certifying the mockery of his own audience (that he likes to
singularity and the authorial essence of a cinema string along, smiling about his own tricks) that which, instead of leaning on visual excesses, de-has lots in common with Perodi’s anthology.

votes itself to a programmatic reticence, and

Moreover, Avati’s film is characterized by a often assigns the main uncanny function to macabre moral ending that is akin to folk tales: sound rather than to image: think of the eerie

1976: La casa 161
tape recording of Buono Legnani’s feverish altar boy (Pietro Brambilla15), a perpetually grin-voice, that freezes the blood of the protagonist ning Renfield type. At the same time, these types and the viewer alike.

certify the proximity of Avati’s vision to the Moreover, a morbid voyeuristic feel—
grotesque of so many commedia all’italiana bound not to eroticism but to the sacred, the
films, not to mention Fellini’s circus- like uni-unknowable, not a surrogate of pleasure but an verse, for the choice of faces and bodies that are extension of knowledge—characterizes the art
weird, unusual, not photogenic at all. The mon-of Buono Legnani, the “painter of agonies,” fostrous is also evoked in the form of a natural en-cused on the attempt of fixing on the canvas the vironment that suddenly reveals disturbing and moment of death, or perhaps the ecstasis of mar-frightening traits, such as the sound of the rats tyrdom: what a difference of perspective, com-locked in the coffin at the funeral of Stefano’s pared to Pascal Laugier’s pretentious Martyrs
friend (a nod to Lovecraft’s short story The Rats (2008)! According to French film critic Frank
in the Walls, perhaps?) and the snails in the Lafond, “Legnani’s voyeurism and his morbid
fridge in the dilapidated house where Stefano
impulses, which will eventually lead him to sac-moves after he has been driven out of the hotel rifice himself with fire, are linked to a process where he was staying; incidentally, like Harker’s of contamination: the blood of victims and the trip to the Dracula castle, the transition from colors of his palette (which is symbolically re-the relatively safe inn to the monster’s lair brings placed by the painter’s own arm) seem to merge the hero closer to the core of the mystery and to in the time of an almost mystical ecstasy that al-perdition as well.

lows the birth of a work of art.”13

In the Gothic according to Avati, female

The rural and period setting (approxi-
figures are a world apart, impenetrable, attrac -
mately the late 140s / early 150s) serves also tive and cruel. Alien and aerial, dreamed and
to give a disturbing reading of Italy’s socio-yet feared, bearers (or impersonations) of death, cultural reality, filtered through a peripheral, like Olimpia in Le strelle nel fosso, and even the oblique perspective. The dilapidated abandoned sweet Anne Canovas in the ending of Zeder. In
hut in the countryside where Buono Legnani
this respect, La casa dalle finestre che ridono is painted his masterpieces, with its incongruous undoubtedly the point of arrival in the portrayal laughing mouths painted around the windows,14
of the female unheimlich in Italian cinema. Here, which seem to laugh at the horror the place has normal, attractive female characters are destined witnessed over the years, is a modern equivalent to oblivion (the “easy” schoolteacher with whom of the ruins in Gothic novels, and represents the Stefano goes to bed) or martyrdom (her substi-end of the rural civilization, as well as a memory tute, the angelic- looking Francesca), destroyed to be removed. The mirage of economic well-by elderly, matronly figures whose ferociousness being that came to the surface in the immediate is equalled only by their voracious appetites.

post–World War II years is embodied by the am-

There is no trace of the beauty that got the
bitious, bizarre, diminutive mayor Solmi (Bob
previous decade’s Gothic heroes lost under its Tonelli), who dreams of turning Buono Legnani
spell: and yet the focus of the anxiety that Buono into a famous figure like the naive painter An-Legnani’s monstrous sisters convey is exactly
tonio Ligabue (18–165) so as to bring fame
their abnormal, greedy, repeatedly underlined
and money to his little village. Ultimately, though, sexuality. The incestuous relationship that Solmi too is seen as an outsider in such a suspi-linked them to their painter brother, the ve -
cious and retrograde small- town environment—
nereal diseases contracted during the Brazilian just like Stefano, who takes an opposite path
stay (the exotic becomes a symbol of perdition, from the many young people who leave the a typical belief in the closed- minded village country for the city.

mentality), and especially the explosive mixture Through the casting of grotesque and de-of sexual ambiguity, repression and Catholic
formed physical types, Avati depicts a mon -
symbology that characterizes the figure of the strous daily parade of freaks, who look like parish priest, are all elements that form a picture pathological manifestations of a sick micro -
of creepy and contradictory feminity, sterile in cosm. Dwarfs, lunatics, cross- eyed intellectuals, its maternal, oppressive opulence, familiar yet and dimwitted thugs are once again the coun-extraneous.

tryside equivalent of certain figures of the If, as noted, in the countryside the parish

Gothic literature and film, such as the retarded priests were “ambiguous figures, separated from

162 1976: La casa the world of the living and able to put in com-exhilarating atrocious mockery which they don’t munication this and the other world,”16 the priest want to share with us: that is the case with the of La casa dalle finestre che ridono is the chilling demented grin of Buono Legnani’s skeleton in
link between the mythical “grande Mouna”

formaldehyde in La casa dalle finestre che ridono, evoked in Fellini’s Casanova (176) and the the crystalline laughter of the ghosts of the Catholic sexophobic sense of guilt. At the same young lay- sisters Laura and Giulia in L’arcano time, it is also a disturbing Pagan totem: the final incantatore, the irrepressible sneer in Don Luigi revelation is a moment of blinding, Lovecraftian Costa’s toothless mouth at the moment of res-terror, which recalls the idea of “unmasking”

urrection, and Alessandra’s enigmatic smile be-found in the climax of short stories such as The fore her husband, who brought her back from

Whisperer in the Darkness or The Dunwich Hor-
the realm of the dead like Orpheus in Zeder. It ror, where the apex of horror is given by the sud-is not by chance, then, that the belief in a mys-den disclosure of an unforeseen identity (and
terious, pre–Conciliar God is sided with esoteric reality) hidden under ordinary appearances.

temptations and allusions, in a disturbing mix-Such a shocking unmasking is paired with the
ture of Catholicism and pagan roots. Horror, to disgusting revelation of an ugly, senile sexuality, Avati, is a matter of faith.

but Avati had previously alluded to such an ambiguity, coloring it with a distinct Surrealist NoTeS
touch, in the flashback that shows Legnani—in
the absence of a female model who agrees to

1. Stefano Della Casa, “Memoria di un cinema tra utopia e ghetto,” Cineforum # 2, novembre 10, 38.

pose nude for him—paint a sensual naked

2. A.M.A. Film (the initials stand for Avati- Minervini-woman, whose face has the masculine and far

Avati) would produce of all Avati’s works up to 183. It from Apollonian features of the painter himself.

would also finance movies by other directors, such as The resort to an imagery linked with the

Berlinguer ti voglio bene (177, Giuseppe Bertolucci, sacred, either deformed or with its meaning starring Roberto Benigni) and Lamberto Bava’s debut Macabro (180).

overturned, is one of the main traits of Avati’s 3. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, approach to Gothic. Legnani’s fresco is a blas-shooting began on April 12, 176. The indication of the phemous version of the martyrdom of Saint Se-Incir- De Paolis Studios in Rome in the credits was merely bastian, and the film’s most horrific figure is a bureaucratic.

4. Originally cast to play the protagonist in Profondo priest, as will be the case with Zeder and L’arcano rosso, Capolicchio was one of the most recognizable faces incantatore. This is strictly connected with the of Italian immediate post–168 cinema, with such works director’s relationship with death and the after-as Metti, una sera a cena (16, Giuseppe Patroni Griffi) life, which, in his own words, is intense and aland Il giardino dei Finzi Contini (170, Vittorio De Sica).

most morbid as the one depicted in Henry Capolicchio accepted the role after receiving a phone call from his wife, who had read the script one night when she James’ short story The Altar of the Dead. And
could not get to sleep: “She told me she had just read the the same can be said of his characters, who con-most frightening story ever. So I read it too, and realized tinually seek a way to communicate with the
that it was a kind of Gothic that had been never done be-dead, through unlikely magicians (Balsamus),
fore.” Claudio Bartolini, “La casa dalle finestre che ridono: la paura,” in Adamovit, Bartolini, Servini, Nero Avati, 71.

séances (Thomas … gli indemoniati) or blood

5. Ruggero Adamovit, Claudio Bartolini, Il gotico sacrifices, and keep horrid fetishes of the de-padano. Dialogo con Pupi Avati, Le Mani, Genova 2010, ceased (if not their whole body in formalde-138.

hyde… ) in the illusion to keep in contact with 6. Ibid, 107.

7. “Flowers of love, beautiful flowers of my garden, for them, and make them return to life. The afterlife you… ”

is constantly evoked, be it a result of the coun-8. Robert Kiely, The Romantic Novel in England (Cam-tryside traditions (“Death, which today is un-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 172).

thinkable, in that time and culture was instead 9. Lo cunto de li cunti, or Pentamerone, inspired two considered thinkable; death was brought back
adaptations: Francesco Rosi’s C’era una volta (167) and Matteo Garrone’s Il racconto dei racconti—Tale of Tales to a knowable scope”17) or the sign of a subter-

(2015).

ranean anguish emanating from the Catholic in-

10. Claudio Bartolini, “La casa dalle finestre che ridono: stitutions themselves, as is the case with the ruth -
la paura,” in Adamovit, Bartolini, Servini, Nero Avati, 70.

less researchers hired by the Vatican in Zeder.

11. Ibid., 78. Alessio Di Rocci, Fabio Pucci, “La luce dell’ultimo piano,” Nocturno Cinema #175, July 2017, 1.

Eventually the dead return, but not like 12. Pupi Avati about the ending (SPOILER ALERT): Lazarus in the Gospels. They laugh and laugh,

“The arrival of the police was not in the script. We added as if they had seen something we don’t know, an the final shot, with the hand leaning on the tree—my hand,

1976: La lupa

163
incidentally—because the distributors were afraid that the Aullidos de terror (Spain); La louve sanguinaire; ending would be too negative. They wanted there to be the La louve se dechaine (France); La mujer lobo
hope that someone might save Stefano. But actually Stefano (Mexico); Ulvekvinden (Denmark)

dies.” Bartolini, “La casa dalle finestre che ridono: la paura,”

6.

Daniela, the daughter of Count Corrado

13. Frank Lafond, Le cinéma de la peur selon Pupi Avati, Messeri, was raped when she was 15, and that terin Frank Lafond (ed.), Cauchemars Italiens. Volume 1: Le rible experience caused her to hate all males.

Cinéma fantastique, L’Harmattan, Paris, 2011, 154–155.

What is more, she has inherited a family curse, 14. The painted mouths were the work of Avati’s brother Antonio.

and turns into a werewolf during nights with a 15. Brambilla, Ugo Tognazzi’s nephew, had appeared full moon. When her newlywed sister Irena also in Bordella, and would be also in a couple other Avati arrives from the United States with her husband pics, namely Jazz Band and Cinema!!! That same year he Fabian, Daniela seduces her brother- in-law and played one of the Neofascist killers in Carlo Lizzani’s San tears him to pieces. After being hospitalized, she Babila ore 20: un delitto inutile.

16. Adamovit, Bartolini, Il gotico padano, 68.

kills a lesbian patient with a pair of scissors and 17. Ibid., 101.

escapes, leaving more victims on her trail. The meeting with the kind, understanding stuntman

La lupa mannara (Werewolf Woman)

Luca Mandini, with whom she falls in love, seems D: Rino [Salvatore] Di Silvestro. S and SC:

to finally cure Daniela, but their idyll is tragically Rino Di Silvestro; DOP: Mario Capriotti; M:

broken when Luca is killed by three thugs. Mad Coriolano Gori (Ed. Nazionalmusic); E: Angelo
with anger, Daniela exterminates the gang and

Curi; ArtD: Arrigo Breschi. English version: escapes in the woods of Sales. There she is located DubD: Tony [Anthony] La Penna. Cast: Annik
by Commissioner Monica of the homicide

[Anne] Borel (Daniela), Howard Ross [Renato
squad…

Rossini] (Luca Mondini), Dagmar

Lassander (Irena), Tino Carraro

(Count Corrado Messeri), Elio Za-
muto (Prof. Traven), Frederick

Stafford [Friedrich Strobel von

Stein] (Commissioner Monica), Os-
valdo Ruggieri (Fabian), Andrea

Scotti (Arrighi), Felicita Fanny

(Doctor in car), Isabella Rosa, Giu-
liana Giuliani, Anna Mallarini,

[Maria] Renata Franco, Salvatore

Billa (Gas station attendant—

Rapist), Pietro Torrisi (Alvaro—

Rapist), Vito Domenighini, Pino

[Giuseppe] Mattei (Daniela’s vic-
tim—The Would- be rapist in car),

Willy Pepe; uncredited: Umberto

Amambrini (Policeman), Rino Di

Silvestro (Doctor). PROD: Diego

Alchimede for Dialchi Film (Rome);

PM: Bruno Evangelisti. Country:

Italy. Filmed in Rome. Running time:

100 minutes (m. 2727). Visa n. 6726

(2.12.176); Rating: V.M.18. Release
dates: 3.18.176 (Italy); June 177

(U.S.A.). Distribution: Agorà (Italy);

Dimension Pictures (U.S.A.). Do-
mestic gross: 187,164,04 lire. Also
known as: Daughter of a Werewolf;

Naked Werewolf Woman; She-Wolf;

Terror of the She Wolf (U.S.); Legend
of the Wolf Woman (Australia);

Danish poster for La lupa mannara (1976).

164 1976: La lupa Rino Di Silvestro’s body of work was one
scenity, and reviewers condemned the play’s of the wildest and most extreme within Italian anti–Semite spirit.4
low- budget cinema of the 170s, for its no-Filmed in September 175,5 La lupa man-
holds-barred mixture of sociological and psy-
nara was originally titled La licantropa, a title chological aspirations and the sheer exploitation that according to the director was more scien-value of the results. Born in Rome in 132, from tifically exact for “a tragic, terrifying pathology, a Sicilian family, Di Silvestro took his first steps much discussed by Cesare Lombroso.”6 Di Sil-on stage, teaming up with a nobleman by the
vestro emphasized in interviews his attempt at name of Giovanni Maria Russo Camoli, Prince
making a “serious” film about lycanthropy: of Cerami,1 for a number of would- be avant-

“When there is this monthly gravitational force, garde plays they co- wrote and directed. In the like the menstrual cycle, this incredible explo -
early 170s Di Silvestro moved on to cinema,
sion of endoreactive energy due to a psychic su-working as a ghost writer prior to making his
pernatural event, it reawakens the psychic ma-
debut as a director.

terial in us, which is also affected by the moon’s Since his film debut, the women- in-prison-gravitational force. These stimuli which produce cum-crime-film hybrid Diario segreto da un unpredictable and incurable toxins within each carcere femminile (173), Di Silvestro explored of us create a high tide in our body,” the director the darkest side of genre cinema, from the erotic explained vehemently when describing his take
giallo Prostituzione (174) to the Nazi- erotic Le on the subject, which he had spiced with refer-deportate della sezione speciale SS (176), up to ences to the folklore and to Gothic horror tales.

his output in the Eighties, with the Christiane F.

“I included this pathologically devastating event rip- off Hanna D.—La ragazza del Vondel Park
within the context of the famous and popular

(184). The common denominator of Di Silve-
legend of the werewolf. So that’s why the title stro’s work was eroticism, invariably declined in was La lupa mannara. A strong, clear, decisive a lurid, sordid way, with ample room for the of-title as cinema was meant to be at that time. You fensive, the pathological, the shocking.

couldn’t be very intricate or bizarre, because this Such a tendency had already been in evi-kind of film had to go straight to its fascination, dence in his stage work: his first play, Op, bop, the amazement of the spectator… . It wasn’t easy pop, ip, staged at Rome’s Teatro delle Muse, combining legend and psychiatric and patho-lasted for eight days before the theater closed it logical culture: on the one hand I had to balance down, whereas his version of Céline’s L’église the film’s marketability and on the other its im-lasted only one night. The worst fate, however, portant, cultural pathological essence.”

happened to Cerami and Di Silvestro’s adapta-

In discussing the movie, Di Silvestro erro-
tion of Shakespeare’s Coriolano. In March 170, neously claimed that it was the first to be cen-in Milan, the police intervened and suspended
tered on a werewolf woman: in fact, the theme
the theatrical performance: the female protag-
had been explored on the big screen as early as onist, Antonella Dogan, was completely naked
in The Werewolf (113, Henry MacRae), a one-
on stage, and covered only with cellophane. The reel film based on the short story The Were-play (which featured, among others, Umberto
wolves, by Henry Beaugrand. Starring Clarence

Raho) had gained notoriety since its first show-Burton, Marie Walcamp and Phyllis Gordon and
ing, and was described as “a trivial doggerel” fea-released by Universal Studios, it was about a
turing “apology of Nazism and racism, exal -

Navajo woman (Walcamp) who becomes a
tation of crematoriums and homosexuality,
witch and teaches her daughter (Gordon) to offensive lines toward some government per-transform into a wolf in order to carry out sonalities and the Pope” as well as “all sorts of vengeance against the white men. It is now con-scurrilous noises,” and was labeled as a “defiant, sidered a lost film. In addition to that, there had wretched mess.”2 It also included the slaugh ter -
been famous movies that dealt with a sex- related ing of a live chicken on stage, whose blood was female pathology, such as Jacques Tourneur’s
poured over the naked actress’ shoulders (and

Cat People (142) or Jean Yarbrough’s She-Wolf ended up on a female member of the audience
of London (146). Anyway, Di Silvestro’s work is as well during the preview), and a “porcelain
unique in its way of blending diverse elements Parliament” represented by four water- closets into one over- the-top sexploitation potboiler.

with Italy’s main parties’ symbols on them.3 Di The story has its share of Gothic reminis-Silvestro and the actors were denounced for ob-cences. Young Countess Daniela is obsessed

1976: La lupa 165
with the figure of her ancestress, who not only commentary of sorts on the declining fortunes
was her dead ringer but according to a legend
of Italian genre cinema. On the other hand, could turn into a female werewolf in the nights Daniela’s vengeance on the rapists, which takes of full moon. Hence the jaw- dropping opening place in a junkyard where she (inexplicably) sequence, where Annik Borel is seen dancing in tracked them, looks like a mad homage to Fer-the nude amid bonfires, sporting a werewolf
nando di Leo’s films.

makeup that must be seen to be believed, with

Overall, even though the director claimed
ample fur, canine nose and pointed, giant- sized he had depicted Daniela as a victim in a male-nipples protruding from her chest. The doppel-
oriented society, adding that “in her beastly es-gänger theme is also emphasized by way of a
cape, in her fight against time and the authori -
portrait of the woman which Daniela is said to ties, against a society which is completely ad -
have discovered but is never actually shown in verse to such a personality, every contact with the movie.

a man brings out her criminal instinct,” the Soon Di Silvestro departs from the genre’s
eponymous werewolf woman is yet another em-
staples. The theme of bestiality hiding under the bodiment of Italian Gothic’s deadly dangerous
surface was possibly inspired by Walerian seductresses, who lure the male and kill him:

Borowczyk’s La bête (175), and a scene has therefore, the sexual humiliations she undergoes Daniela face her ancestress, who is dressed in are all the more debatable in their cheap ex-an 18th century costume and wig that is sup-
ploitation value.

posed to recall Lisbeth Hummel’s character in

Di Silvestro had no formal training as a di-

Borowczyk’s film (yet the result looks more like rector. Even though his films were not techni-the Fairy with Turquoise Hair in Pinocchio).

cally poor as those by some of his peers, and at Soon, however, La lupa mannara turns into a
times even featured attempts at stylistic precios-succession of erotic encounters that almost inity—see the low- angle tracking shot which pre-variably end up in crude splatter scenes that recedes Daniela in the first scene in the Western call the cheap adults- only comics of the period village—his visual choices display naive and with their pairing of (often violent) sex and gore.

often deranged rereading of stereotypes, as well After her desire is awakened by the sight
as heavy- handed symbolism and emphatic use
of her sister making love with her husband, of film language. The overabundance of close-whom she spies on while masturbating, Daniela
ups, zooms and camera angles result in a con-
lures the man into the woods, seduces him and
stant tendency toward the unintentionally
slaughters him, before falling into a feverish state ridiculous. Take Daniela’s hallucination in which that forces her father (Tino Carraro) to hospi-she sees an iguana crawling between her legs, a talize her in a clinic. This would not be an Italian Freudian symbol hammered home in a most ob-erotic film if such clinic hadn’t at least one noxious way; the characterization of the rapists, nymphomaniac patient (see also Di Leo’s La bes-dressed as macho bikers with denim jeans, leather tia uccide a sangue freddo), whom Daniela stabs jackets and shirts open on their bare chests, as with scissors, fleeing from the clinic and leaving crude an epitome of masculine virility/brutality more victims on the way.

as ever; or the sequence where the professor

About one hour into the film, though, Di

(Elio Zamuto) discusses Daniela’s pathology Silvestro drastically diverts from the established with the commissioner while playing billiards, body count scheme, and turns the third act into and using the balls to better explain the concept.

a miniature rape- and-revenge tale, as the tender Incidentally, the dialogue (“Seems we’re sur-love story which blossoms between Daniela and
rounded by the occult”) plays on a similar riff a gentle stuntman called Luca (Howard Ross) is as Udo Kier’s scene in Suspiria, but the mono-tragically broken by the eruption of a trio of logue touches the topic of metempsychosis in a thugs (including such recurring genre faces as laughable way: “When the spirit of a dead person Salvatore Billa and Pietro Torrisi) who gang-penetrates somebody that’s obsessed, the latter rape the girl and kill her lover—all this while a follows the destiny of that reincarnated spirit.”

hard- boiled commissioner (Frederick Stafford) The most revealing bit in this sense is the
investigates the killings. The fact that these ill- fated idyll betwen Daniela and Luca, filmed scenes take place mostly in a deserted Western as a tearjerker melodrama, complete with the
village (where Luca apparently lives as a care-couple kissing on the beach in the sunset to the taker of sorts) makes them an unintentional sound of syrupy music, and featuring such awk-

166 1976: Un sussurro ward moments as Luca throwing himself through

Di Silvestro’s subsequent works were not
a fake window on a movie set, landing on a mat-nearly as successful but stuck with the director’s tress, getting up and kissing Daniela, which look obsession: the little- seen Baby Love (17), shot like they belong to a Mel Brooks parody. Scenes entirely at Castle Piccolomini in Balsorano, was like this show at once Di Silvestro’s utter coma sex fable spiced with hardcore bits, followed mitment to the story, his lack of irony, and his by the mild erotic comedy Bello di mamma hopeless ineptitude as a filmmaker.

(181, starring Philippe Leroy and Jenny Tam-

As for the choice of the leading actress, the
buri), and the sleazy Hanna D.—La ragazza del
beautiful yet somehow disquieting- looking Vondel Park (completed by Bruno Mattei). His

Annik (Anne) Borel, often in full frontal nude final film was 185’s The Erotic Dreams of scenes, Di Silvestro recalled: “I received hun-Cleopatra, never even released theatrically in dreds of photos of every typology, also from in-Italy. Di Silvestro died of cancer in 200.

ternational agents. I was struck by Annik Borel, a Swiss girl who happened to be in Italy. I real-NoTeS
ized that something was exploding within her,

1. After his experience with Di Silvestro, prince Cerami in her psychic and cultural background… . I gave disappeared from the artistic world, even though he reher a number of ‘strong,’ almost devastating mained a rather well- known figure in the Roman high so-screen tests to be certain that I had found my ciety. His only other credit was a script (co-written with

‘werewolf woman’ … She told me: ‘I’m living in Giò Stajano) titled Biancaneve e i 7 sadici (Snow White and the nightmare of this film.’” Borel was actually the 7 Sadists), dated 177. In 17 he claimed he was writing a book called Il manuale del genio: come si diventa French, born in 148 in Besançon; she had ap-genio in 15 sedute (The Genius Handbook: How to Become peared in such dreck as Blood Orgy of the Shea Genius in 15 Lessons). Victor Ciuffa, “Sono principe, Devils (173, Ted V. Mikels) and The Last Porno cerco casa in un castello,” Corriere della Sera, January 18, Flick (174, Ray Marsh), and Di Silvestro’s film 17.

2. L. Bar, “Nudo e sangue,” Corriere d’Informazione, remained the crown jewel in her career, which

March 14–15, 170.

ended soon after with a couple of nondescript

3. Another article reported that the abrupt interruption sex flicks, Pavlos Filippou’s Black Aphrodite was followed by a bustling scene, as part of the audience, (177), where she starred alongside Ajita Wilson, composed of Neofascists, started shouting “No to commu-and Jean- Marie Pallardy’s modern- day retelling nist repression!” whereas other spectators applauded the police, and a young man climbed on the stage and started of the Odyssey, L’amour chez les poids lourds hugging and kissing the actors. Anonymous, “Sospeso uno (178), in the small role of a transvestite.

spettacolo osceno,” Corriere della Sera, March 15, 170.

The rest of the cast was an odd bunch, fea-

4. [Giovanni] Mosca, “Il nudo espiatorio,” Corriere d’In-turing prestigious stage actor Tino Carraro, sexy formazione, March 16–17, 170

5. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, starlet Dagmar Lassander, and Frederick Staf -
shooting began on September 8, 175.

ford in his penultimate film: his last movie re-6. Interview with Rino Di Silvestro, extra in the U.S.

leased theatrically in Italy was Melchiade Co-

Raro Video Blu- Ray. All Di Silvestro’s declarations are letti’s Sfida sul fondo, co- starring Lassander, taken from said interview.

which came out a month after Di Silvestro’s film.

7. M. Po. [Maurizio Porro], “Licantropa porcacciona,”

Corriere della Sera, June 16, 176.

Stafford died in a plane crash in 17.

Even though it passed almost unnoticed in

Italy, and was predictably ridiculed by critics,7

Un sussurro nel buio (A Whisper in the

La lupa mannara did surprisingly good box of-

Dark)

fice abroad. It was distributed theatrically in the D: Marcello Aliprandi. S: Nicolò Rienzi,

States (by Dimension Pictures), Canada and Maria Teresa Rienzi; DOP: Claudio Cirillo Australia, and developed a marginal cult status, (Technospes); M: Pino Donaggio, conducted by
nurturing the director’s belief that his films “had Natale Massara (Ed. Artisti Associati); E: Gian an international feel about them—they were un-Maria Messeri; PD: Giovanni Soccol; AD: Carlo
derstandable even without dialogue or music,

Montanaro; SD: Francesco Chianese; CO:

just by watching the images. This is what I Francesca Terenzio; C: Oddone Bernardini; AC:

wanted. Films that were hard, cruel, merciless, Maurizio Zampagni; SO: Franco Borni; MU:

like the society which surrounds us, and like the Franco Schioppa; Hair: Sergio Gennari; AMU:

animal instinct which we have within, in that

Massimo Camilletti; SS: Rosanna Seregni; AE:

ferocious dualism between good and evil, one

Antonio Proia; 2ndAE: Aurelio Tirimagni; ChEl: of them inevitably explodes.”

Bruno Angeletti; KG: Luigi Jetto; PropM: Gof-

1976: Un sussurro 167
fredo Massetti; W: Anita Cavallari; SP: Giorgio ception of the dreadful Senza buccia (17), all Schwarz Garibaldi; SE: René; Mix: Danilo Mo-were personal and technically competent works, roni. Cast: John Phillip Law (Alex), Nathalie
and often dealt with the Fantastic, even though Delon [Francine Canovas] (Camilla), Olga Bis-in original and idiosyncratic ways.

era (Françoise), Alessandro Poggi (Martino),

Born in Rome on January 2, 134, from an

Joseph Cotten (The Professor), Lucretia Love

Italian father and an Armenian mother, in the

(Susan), Zora Velcova (Camilla’s Mother), Su-
mid–Fifties Aliprandi left Economy studies and sanna Melandri (Milena), Simona Patitucci
enrolled in Arts Academy “Silvio D’Amico,” to

(Matilde), Adriana Russo (Clara), Margherita
study as a director. After graduation, he started Sala; uncredited: Claudio Cirillo (Detective), working in the theater with Luchino Visconti,

Pino Donaggio (Singer). PROD: Enzo Gallo for
and was the assistant director on Il gattopardo.

Cinemondial S.r.l. (Rome). PM: Viero Spadoni;

For most of the Sixties Aliprandi worked on

PSe: Paola Simonetti. Country: Italy. Filmed in stage, directing dramas and operas: he finally Venice and Mogliano Veneto (Venice). Running
made his feature film debut in 170 with La time: 102 minutes (m. 2772). Visa n. 6833
ragazza di latta (originally Mellonta Tauta, a title (8.10.176); Rating: none; Release date: 8.12.176; inspired by an Edgar Allan Poe short story), a Distribution: Lia Film. Domestic gross: 171,31,126
weird surreal sci- fi fable with blunt political lire. Also known as: Un susurro en la oscuridad overtones which was Sydne Rome’s first film.

(Spain).

Even though he kept working as a script -

A boy named Martino lives in a beautiful
writer (such as on L’arma l’ora il movente, an odd villa in the Veneto countryside with his parents mystery directed in 172 by Francesco Mazzei), Alex and Camilla, his sisters Matilde and Milena, it took four years before Aliprandi got behind and the housekeeper, Françoise. On the surface, the camera again, this time with a very different it looks like a happy family, but their harmony is project, which nonetheless featured similar po-disturbed by Martino’s “invisible friend” Luca, litical overtones. Corruzione al pa lazzo di gius-whom the boy talks to and plays with. Convinced tizia (174), starring Franco Nero and Fernando that Luca is just a harmless figment of Martino’s Rey, was an adaptation of Ugo Betti’s 144 stage imagination, for a while Alex and Camilla play in a contemporary setting. It would be nourish their son’s claims, behaving as if Luca re-Aliprandi’s biggest box office result, but its prox-ally exists; however, some strange unexplainable imity to the then- in vogue crime genre pre -
events lead them to consult a psychiatrist. The vented the film from gaining the credibility professor denies Luca’s existence and settles in the among critics to which it aspired.

villa to watch Martino’s behavior: a few days later, Shot in early 176,1 Un sussurro nel buio,
though, he is the victim of a fatal accident in the Aliprandi’s third film, is another hard- to-pin af-bathroom. But did it really go that way? Martino’s fair: the script, by the husband- and-wife team grandmother blames him for murder, whereas
of Nicolò and Maria Teresa Rienzi, dealt with a Camilla starts to really believe in Luca’s existence parapsychological theme by then in vogue, but
and begs him to leave…

with a more refined approach. The result is an With a body of work consisting of only
unsettling ghost story à la Henry James, about seven feature films, all of them only marginally a rich, spoilt kid whose imaginary brother seems successful or poorly distributed, Marcello to be less a product of the boys’ imagination

Aliprandi (134–17) is an often overlooked
than a real malevolent presence, that causes filmmaker, even by Italian cinema scholars. He creepy accidents and even provokes a mysteri -
certainly was not a genre director, which nowa-ous death.

days doesn’t make his name as palatable as that From the opening sequence, a creepy sub-of, say, Aristide Massaccesi. On the other hand, jective shot of an unseen presence wandering
his films were often too weird and artistically around the misty park surrounding the villa,
compromised to make him a critically well-Aliprandi fully embraces the genre’s mood. And appreciated auteur, even though Aliprandi’s past yet, despite dealing with a typical Gothic premas a theater director and as Luchino Visconti’s ise, the director waters down the film’s horrific assistant granted him respect. Aliprandi defi-potential by blending it with melodrama: Un
nitely didn’t have the gift of timing. His films sussurro nel buio has much in common with the
came out at the wrong moment and thus were
so called “lacrima-movie” subgenre, the tear-
misappreciated or misunderstood. With the ex-
jerking dramas centered on unhappy children

168 1976: Un sussurro that were so popular in the period. That lacrima like to be loved … by any means” is also the still-movies ended up merging with the Gothic and
born child that Camilla (Nathalie Delon) lost; the “demonic possession” cycle—see also Ugo
and the final reconciliation with her distracted Liberatore’s Nero veneziano (178), which starred and likely unfaithful husband Alex (John Phillip the undisputed star of the genre, Renato Ces-Law) climaxes in a love scene that perhaps will tié—says a lot about the way the Italian genre lead to a new pregnancy.

industry worked in those frantic years.

Ultimately, the movie is more significant

In Aliprandi’s film, though, the problematic
for the context in which the story takes place parents/son relationships, a staple of the thread, than for the mild twists of its anodyne script. A is overturned into a tale of child dictatorship sense of disruption, which has also symbolic
and a portrayal of a dysfunctional bourgeois
class meaning, can be detected: Martino is the family, with distracted parents who leave their offspring of a privileged, haute- bourgeois family children’s education to the housekeeper and in-that seems to live in a different era, in a splendid differently oblige to their offspring’s moods and villa, surrounded by luxuries, who give mask
whims.

parties similar to those held by the nobility in Here, the generational conflict between fa-past centuries. To Alex and Camilla, it is as if ther and son—a theme that crossed the genres
time had stopped, and their daily routine, char-in the late 170s—has the ultimate effect of con-acterized by a tangible boredom, makes them
solidating a family in a crisis, and underlies a look like living counterparts to the unhappy not- too hidden pro- life discourse. Luca, the “in-ghosts condemned to live their past again and
visible child” that may or may not be the product again, in films like Danza macabra—although
of Martino’s imagination, and who “would only
the closest thing to blood they can spill are drops of some precious vintage wine.

Aliprandi makes ample use of melo -
drama’s visual staples: soft- focus shots,
style preciosities, tourist footage in

Venice (with echoes of Nicolas Roeg’s
magnificent Don’t Look Now),2 and an
emphasis on the little protagonist’s sub-
jective dimension. The Fantastic angle is
dealt with in an ambiguous manner, so
as to stir uncertainty about the presence
of the little ghost: a balloon is carried
away by the wind, a ball kicked by the
boy during a football game is stopped by
an invisible force (…or perhaps a
stone?), a swing starts rocking by itself,
like in Mario Bava’s Shock.

Mostly, though, the director strives
for a poetic tone that is not always con-
vincing: the best moment in this sense
may be the scene of the “invisible kiss”

Luca gives to Camilla; elsewhere, he
relies on cultivated references, and su-
perfluous embellishments (like the re-
peated use of mirrors) and digressions.

In his review of the film, noted Italian
critic Tullio Kezich praised the bizarre,

Henry James–like atmosphere and Ali -
prandi’s interest for the Fantastic, but
also noted that the director “exceeds in
extravaganzas (including a masked ball
that even recalls Tiepolo’s paintings)

Italian poster for Un sussurro nel buio (1976).

where it would have taken discipline of

1977: Anima 16
choice.”3 Technically, however, the movie is first-pernatural drama, which probably caused it to
rate, with a luscious cinematography by Claudio sink at the box- office, grossing a disappointing Cirillo (who also plays a bit role), an accom-160 million lire. Aliprandi’s next works were a plished score by Pino Donaggio and an exquisite couple of TV movies, Quasi davvero and L’asetting in a luscious Venetian villa.

mante fedele, both shot in 178, followed by the The leads look good, if not totally convinc-disappointing Senza buccia. He returned to the ing: Delon and Law had just worked together in Fantastic with La mano assassina, an episode of Christian- Jacque’s Docteur Justice (175), and the TV series I giochi del diavolo, in 181.

the actor, who had just divorced from Shawn

Ryan—an act that enormously damaged his

NoTeS
work and personal life, closing many doors be-

1. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, hind him in Hollywood—was attempting to reshooting began on February , 176.

build his career in Europe at this point.

2. John Phillip Law recalled that the film “was made be-Aliprandi’s film was the first of two produced by cause of the popularity of Don’t Look Now, it was almost a Enzo Gallo in which he appeared, the other copy… . It had great atmosphere, and it also has some being the interesting psychological thriller L’oc-details that anticipated later successes like The Sixth Sense and The Others.” Carlos Aguilar and Anita Haas, John chio dietro la parete (177), also featuring Olga Phillip Law. Diabolik Angel (Pontevedra/Bilbao: Scifi-Bisera. Joseph Cotten (stepping in for Fernando world/Quatermass, 2008), 158–5.

Rey) is a bit hammy as the creepy, ambiguous

3. Tullio Kezich, Il nuovissimo Millefilm (Milan: Mon-

“Professor” who likes to drink icy cold vodka in dadori, 183), 382.

4. “Aliprandi has grown up. Without according too the bathtub and displays magician skills—an in-much to the fashion of the irrational, he immerses himself teresting character that is perhaps dispatched in the magic with some reference to the inhibition caused too early.

by conjugal traumas and with warm memories of the Ve-Overall, despite its aesthetic qualities,
netian figurative culture. He still lacks a robust personality, which earned it moderate critical praise,4 Un
but he runs the show … with a vibrating imagination, which blends the nightmarish with the playful.” Giovanni sussurro nel buio avoids to be an out- and-out Grazzini, “Luca, fantasma in famiglia,” Corriere della Sera, horror film, but also fails to be a convincing su-September 18, 176.

1977

Anima persa (The Forbidden Room)

Iolanda Fortini (Woman at Casino). PROD: Pio

D: Dino Risi. S: based on the novel Un’an-

Angeletti and Adriano De Micheli for Dean ima persa by Giovanni Arpino; SC: Bernardino

Film (Rome), Les Productions Fox Europa

Zapponi, Dino Risi; DOP: Tonino Delli Colli

(France); PM: Mario D’Alessio; PS: Alberto Pas-

(Technospes, VistaVision); M: Francis Lai, sone, Gastone De Mattia; PSe: Fausto Capozzi;
arranged by Christian Gaubert (Ed. C.A.M.); E: ADM: Roberto Mezzaroma. Country: Italy /

Alberto Gallitti; PD, CO: Luciano Ricceri; AD: France. Filmed on location in Venice and at Claudio Risi; MU: Giulio Natalucci, Alfonso Incir- De Paolis (Rome). Running time: 100 min-Gola; Hair: Giusy Bovino; ACO: Antonio Ran-
utes (m. 2730). Visa n. 6446 (11.27.176); daccio; APD: Ezio Di Monte, Paolo Biagetti; C: Rating: none. Release dates: 1.20.177 (Italy); Carlo Tafani; SO: Vittorio Massi; AE: Anna 3.23.177 (France); Distribution: Fox/Dean Film.

Napoli, Lidia Pascolini; B: Corrado Volpicelli; Domestic gross: 857,364,083 lire. Also known as: AC: Sandro Battaglia; SP: Huguette Roux; SS:

Âmes perdues (France); Alma perdida; Almas

Beatrice Banfi; Press attache: Maria Ruhle; Mix: perdidas (Spain, 7.4.177); Verloren jeugd (Bel-Romano Checcacci; SOE: Renato Marinelli.

gium—Flemish title).

Cast: Vittorio Gassman (Fabio Stolz), Catherine The 19-year-old Tino arrives in Venice to en-Deneuve (Sofia Stolz), Danilo Mattei (Tino),
roll at the art academy. He is a guest at the house Anicée Alvina (Lucia), Ester Carloni (Annetta), of his uncle Fabio Stolz—an engineer at the local Michele Capnist (The Duke), Gino Cavalieri
gas company, married to the blonde and sickly

(Versatti); uncredited: Angelo Boscariol (Man at Elisa, who is submissive in everything to her hus-Casino), Aristide Caporale (Man at Casino),
band. One night, Tino hears strange noises

170 1977: Anima coming from the attic of the building in which was Elisa who caused her daughter to contract
they live. The old maid reveals to him the cause, pneumonia. But where is Beba’s tomb? There is
reluctanctly confirmed by his uncles: there, segre-no trace of it at the local cemetery. Increasingly gated amid his old entomologist tools, lives Fabio’s intrigued, Tino discovers another lie: his uncle demented brother, who had gone mad after caus-does not go to work, but spends his days with
ing the death of his 10-year-old niece Beba, Elisa’s friends, squandering Elisa’s wealth in gambling daughter from her previous marriage, with whom rooms. Finally, one day, Tino finds the attic door he had fallen in love. However, there are conflict-open, and discovers the mystery’s shocking expla-ing versions to the story: according to Fabio, it nation: there is no mad twin at all…

In an interview in the literary
revue L’Europa Letteraria, near the end
of 164, novelist Giovanni Arpino de-
scribed the protagonist of the book he
was working on as “some kind of

Italian Dr. Jekyll.” The resulting novel,

Un’anima persa, published in 166,
reprised the theme of the doppelgänger
from Stevenson’s novelette—the main
character invents himself a demented
alter ego to whom he attributes his own
foibles, weaknesses and pathologies—
and set it in contemporary Turin: a city
with two faces, where the sultry daily
grayness (embodied by the gas factory
where engineer Serafino Calandra ap-
parently spends his working days)

leaves room to the nighthawks who
meet in cafes and gambling rooms on
the hills, or at the bus terminus.

Un’anima persa was a Bildungsro-
man narrated as a contemporary Gothic
tale. Arpino preserved and drained the
typical Gothic narrative structure: the
story, which takes place over the course
of one week, is told by the 16-year-old

Tino, a guest at his engineer uncle’s
house during the week preceding his
graduation exams, and is filtered
through the adolescent’s abnormal sen-
sitivity. Moreover, the writer developed
the main setting, the “haunted house”

where most of the novel takes place—
a labyrinthine, suffocating space which
represents a middle class version of the
mansions that populated the Gothic
imagery—and reinterpreted its mech-
anisms and stereotypes: the Engineer’s
portrait looming uneasily as a me-
mento, and the “forbidden room,” im-
possible to access, where the Professor,
the Engineer’s alleged mad twin, has
apparently been secluded for twenty

Italian locandina for Anima persa (1977). Art by Piero years. Arpino’s characters were also de-ermanno Iaia.

signed according to the typical Gothic

1977: Anima 171
clichés, starting with the schizophrenic Serafino, of an unconscious fear.”3 Hence the intervention

“corroded under his skin and bone by a myste-
of Bernardino Zapponi, a prestigious writer and rious disease”: a vampire who lives off his wife a renowned scriptwriter who had worked with
and dissipates the family heritage gambling at Fellini (Toby Dammit, Satyricon, Roma, Casa -
the roulette tables, and a victim of a world he nova) Juan Buñuel (Leonor) and Argento (Pro-can no longer belong to, if not through a painful fondo rosso), and who was well- versed in the fiction.

genre, as proved by his outstanding 167 short Ultimately, Un’anima persa shares the
story collection Gobal.

Gothic’s typical view of the world as a repository Zapponi brings to light the novel’s morbid
of an ineradicable evil. “I have always been and sinister side: the decaying palace on the
scared,” are Tino’s first words, and “I have no Grand Canal where the story takes place (the
more strength to fight my fear, now I am swim-
house- museum Palazzo Fortuny) and “where
ming in it,” is his conclusion: his is a Bildungsro-the rooms form an intricate labyrinth and the
man that does not bring him to any real growth, opening of each door leads to a new psycholog-a passage to adulthood that does not carry any ical and moral space”4; the prohibition to enter progress but rather an adjustment, not a victory the forbidden room and the mystery it conceals; but only the awareness of the impossibility of the ominous leitmotiv of the steps in the attic winning. The paradoxical story of Engineer Ca-and the piano melody linked to the presence of landra, just like in Stevenson’s tale, reveals the the “ghost child” Beba, whose tomb cannot be
inner monstrosity of the contemporary bour-
located and whose presence/absence becomes
geois society, the horror of waste and the fear of central to the story.

collapse just round the corner.

Zapponi and Risi also introduced novelty

One can see why, ten years later,1 Dino Risi
elements: the references to the German poet
chose to adapt this dark, flawed novel, as in-

Friedrich Hölderlin, whose work Stolz reads and triguing and mysterious as its elusive protago-whose psychic problems somehow recalled his
nist. Firstly, of course, there was the attempt to own; the evocation of Mitteleurope as one of
repeat the commercial success of his previous

Stolz’s favourite themes, which works as a geo-Arpino adaptation, Profumo di donna (175)—
graphic reference to the Gothic tradition; and which he did not manage to do. But there was
the surreal anecdote of the mad Professor’s phomore: other characters depicted by the director, bia, the fear that his features should slip away such as Bruno Cortona (Vittorio Gassman) in
from his face. On top of that, Risi addresses the Il sor passo (162) or Dino Versini (Walter Chi -

Gothic matter by making an extensive use of the ari) in Il giovedì (164), lived above their possi-grotesque, similarly to the method he applied to bilities and pretended to be what they were not; comedy. He films the Professor’s pantomimes,
and those psychological dissociations that were spied by Tino through a peephole, with insistent barely guessed, or hardly internalized, in the wide- angle shots, and turns the voyeuristic ten-previous works here come to the surface and ex-sion of Arpino’s pages into images, by empha-
plode through the film’s main character (re-sizing such details as the madman’s obscenely
named Fabio Stolz) played by Vittorio Gass man.

exposed tongue, and making the Professor a dis-In some ways, Anima persa is a horror- tinged turbing, ghastly clownish figure.

remake of Il giovedì. Meanwhile, as the decade The decision to change the setting from
carried a smell of explosive brought by the Turin to Venice (“An elderly lady with a bad
bombings and the terrorist attacks that plagued breath” as it is defined in the film) left a number the country, Risi’s film showed that “even escap-of critics—not to mention Arpino scholars—
ing from everyday life or shutting oneself up in perplexed, as did the many other changes in the madness’ hedonism cannot be a solution: Dr.

script. “It is as if the story was told by a confab-Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are doomed to the same
ulating, distracted, unreliable witness,” Tullio failure.”2

Kezich wrote, “and the truest significance of From the opening shots, at dawn, on Ven -

Arpino’s novel, a flunked graduation exam, got ice’s Grand Canal, with its barely lit palaces and lost.”5
steamboats carrying ghostly shadows, it is clear In addition to that, Risi and Zapponi lib-that Risi chose to emphasize the Gothic angle
erally changed the names, features and charac-
of the story, working on a narrative structure teristics of Tino’s uncle and the bovine aunt

“similar to either a nightmare or the projection Galla (who becomes Elisa): Stolz, in Vittorio

172 1977: Sette note Gassman’s exquisitely over- the-top imperson-tastic and supernatural overtones and related to ation,6 becomes a talkative aesthete who never the theme of sexual obsession. The result is sur-misses a chance to reaffirm his Austro- Ungaric prisingly in tune with the themes of the Com-ancestry; Elisa, described in the book as plump, media all’italiana of the mid- to-late 170s: in the adoring and obtuse as a big dog, becomes a sad, contemporaneous Un borghese piccolo piccolo
mocked and humiliated prisoner, with the beau-

(177), Mario Monicelli depicts the chilling, tiful features of Catherine Deneuve.7 A commer-monstrous transformation of the typical Italian cial move for co- production needs? Sure, but

“average man” as portrayed by Alberto Sordi,
also a shift in direction. By duplicating the whereas Risi mercilessly observes the death of novel’s doppelgänger theme and the madness
the Italian male’s sexual appetite. This way, he that comes with it, by way of the introduction finds the right key to portray the fear of old age of the mysterious child that the Professor was and physical decline, a theme that marks the
in love with, and who at the end is revealed to works of Italian greatest film- makers of the pe-be none but Elisa, Anima persa dives deep into riod, from Marco Ferreri’s La Grande Bouffe Gothic imagery, and at the same time it moves

(173) to Monicelli’s Amici miei (175), and into an even more disturbing territory than the Fellini’s Casanova.

novel.

Risi and Zapponi would team up again for

Whereas Arpino was interested in inserting
another Gothic tale, again derived from a the pathology of the individual within the every-literary source: the evocative ghost story Fanday life of modern Italy, Risi and Zapponi turn tasma d’amore (181), starring Marcello Mas-Venice into a symbolic setting, an out- of-time troianni and Romy Schneider.

frame to the family theater in which the Professor and his victim/accomplice/plaything culti-

NoTeS
vate their solipsistic obsessions. This way, they 1. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, bring to surface one of Italian Gothic’s most fer-shooting began on April 25, 176.

tile themes: the uncanny linked to eroticism.

2. Aldo Viganò, Dino Risi (Milan: Moizzi Editore, 17), Not only do they give shape to the troubles of 7.

young Tino, who in the novel spied an anony-

3. Ibid.

mous female figure behind a window and here

4. Ibid.

5. Tullio Kezich, “Fatti perversi di gente perbene,” La falls in love with a nude model (Alain Robbe-Repubblica, 177, quoted in Annamaria Licciardello, Luca Grillet’s fetish actress, Anicée Alvina), but they Pallanch (edited by) Arpino e il cinema (Bra: Centro Sper-also deepen the theme of frustrated sexuality as imentale di Cinematografia/Città di Bra/Fondazione Pothe key to penetrate the characters’ madness. In liteama, 200), 3.

6. As the actor would comment, “Acting is not much this sense, a significant scene takes place near different from a mental illness: an actor does nothing but the beginning, when the still- desirable Elisa sharing his personality with others. It’s a kind of schizo-shows Tino the separate bedrooms where she
phrenia.”

and her husband sleep, adding that “he comes

7. An in- depth comparison between the book and the home later, he’d wake me up” as an unrequested film can be found in Luca Pallanch’s excellent essay Arpino, Risi e la paura di crescere, in Arpino e il cinema, 44.

justification for her non- existent sexual life.

After all, Anima persa is a meditation on
the ghosts of Eros, not far from the work of Sette note in nero (The Psychic)

Vladimir Nabokov. Its main characters are a D: Lucio Fulci. SC: Roberto Gianviti, Dar-Humbert Humbert who finally managed to split
dano Sacchetti; DOP: Sergio Salvati (Telecolor); himself into two, and an aged and faded Lolita, M: Bixio- Frizzi-Tempera [Franco Bixio, Fabio that no Quilty has ever managed to steal from

Frizzi, Vince Tempera] (Ed. Rizzoli Film); theme him—both locked in their own private hell, music: Gil Ventura; the song “With You” is sung trapped in the costumes and behind the masks
by Linda Lee; E: Ornella Micheli; ArtD: Luciano they have chosen to wear, desperately clinging Spadoni; CO: Massimo Lentini; MU: Maurizio
to the characters they are condemned to play,

Giustini; AMU: Antonio Maltempo; C: Franco
and ultimately defeated by the fading of desire.

Bruni; AC: Claudio Farinelli, Maurizio Lucchini; In doing so, Risi masterfully grasps and de-ChEl: Alfredo Fedeli; KG: Luciano Micheli; AE: velops the intuition of the frozen, motionless, Mario D’Ambrosio, Bruno Micheli; AD: Roberto
circular time that characterized Danza macabra Giandalla; ASD: Roberta Tomassetti; SO: Raul
and Lisa e il diavolo, here devoid of all the Fan-Montesanti; B: Alfonso Montesanti; SOE: Renato

1977: Sette note

173

Italian fotobusta for Sette note in nero (1977).

Marinelli; Mix: Gianni D’Amico; Props: Gof -

V.M.18. Release dates: 8.10.177 (Italy); March fredo Massetti; SP: Luciano Adiutori; W: Car -

17 (U.S.A.); Distribution: Cineriz (Italy); men Pericolo; SS: Rita Agostini. English ver-Group 1 International Distribution Organization sion—DubD: Tony [Anthony] La Penna. Cast:

Ltd. (U.S.A.). Domestic gross: 54,648,345 lire.

Jennifer O’Neill (Virginia Ducci), Gabriele Also known as: Murder to the Tune of the Seven Ferzetti (Emilio Rospini), Marc Porel (Luca Fat-Black Notes; Seven Notes in Black; Death Tolls tori), Gianni Garko [Gianni Garkovich] (Fran -

Seven Times (U.S.A.); Siete notas en negro cesco Ducci), Evelyn Stewart [Ida Galli] (Gloria (Spain); L’emmurée vivante; Demoniac (France,

Ducci), Jenny Tamburi [Luciana Tamburini]

3.4.181); Sieben schwarze Noten (Germany); (Bruna), Fabrizio Jovine (Commissioner D’Elia), Premoniçao (Brazil).

Riccardo Parisio Perrotti (Melli), Loredana Virginia has had extraordinary gifts as a

Savelli (Giovanna Rospini), Salvatore Puntillo clairvoyant since childhood, when she experienced (Second Cab Driver), Bruno Corazzari (Cane -
her mother’s suicide in Dover while she was in vari), Vito Passeri (Caretaker), Franco Angri -

Florence. While returning by car from the airport sano (First Cab Driver), Veronica Michelini where her husband, the wealthy Francesco Ducci, (Giuliana Casati), Paolo Pacino (Inspector has left on a business trip to London, she has a Russi), Fausta Abelli (Virginia as a Girl), Eliza-vision of a crime which she finds out seemingly beth Turner (Virginia’s Mother), Ugo D’Alessio happened in Ducci’s country villa, a few years ear-

(Art Gallery Owner), Luigi Diberti (Judge).

lier; a young woman has been murdered and PROD: Franco Cuccu for Cinecompany; PM:

buried behind a wall by a limping man. Fran -

Franco Cuccu; PS: Carlo Cucchi; PSe: Marco Gi-
cesco, who was the victim’s lover, is arrested and annoni; ADM: Roberto Penna. Country: Italy.

accused of the crime, and Virginia sets out to clear Filmed in Arezzo, Florence and Siena, Tuscany, him, leaning on her confused vision. Putting to-Italy; Dover, Kent, England; and at Incir- De Pao-gether the pieces of the puzzle, with the help lis Studios (Rome). Running time: 8 minutes
of Francesco’s sister Gloria, her parapsycholo-

(m. 2665); Visa n. 7026 (5.18.177); Rating: gist friend Luca and the latter’s secretary Paola,

174 1977: Sette note Virginia discovers clues that point to Emilio ceives” the murderer’s presence in the audience, Rospini, an ex- equestrian who was implied in a and then meets a gruesome fate (which she fore-mysterious art theft and who seems to be the mur-sees moments before it happens). On a de -
derer in her vision. Eventually, Virginia manages cidedly lower level, Salvatore Bugnatelli’s trashy to have Francesco released from jail. But she finds Diabolicamente … Letizia (175) threw in a little out that her vision did not pertain to the past, but bit of psychokinesis and hypnotic powers in the to the future: the murder she “saw” has yet to hap-story of a college girl (Franca Gonella) who pen, and she herself will be the victim…

wreaks havoc in the bourgeois family she has

The paranormal was one of the most dur -
been adopted by, and proceeds to seduce every-
able obsessions in 170s Italy. Much more than one in sight, servants included, à la Teorema, in the previous decade, the interest in the occult, before the laughable final twist reveals her Oriental philosophies and esotericism was a red agenda.

thread that accompanied a decade characterized Usually labeled as a giallo, Lucio Fulci’s by the emergence of irrational forces as escapist Sette note in nero can more properly be consid-means—a way to leave the everyday violence be-
ered as a “female Gothic” updated to contem-
hind. This tendency was also evident in the arts: porary times, which blends the mystery and the fiction and comic book writer (and occasionally paranormal. The film had a rather complex and
film director) Pier Carpi published a number of controversial genesis that dated back a few years.

popular books about the history of magic, a bi-Fulci claimed that it stayed in develop ment ography of Cagliostro, the occult- themed novel limbo for over a year, since producer Luigi De Un’ombra nell’ombra (174) which he then

Laurentiis was unsure what type of movie to
adapted into the ill- fated movie of the same make out of it.1 Ernesto Gastaldi claimed that he name released in 17, and even a book of al-worked on the original outline, called Penta-
leged prophecies of the late Pope John XXIII
gramma in nero (Black Pentagram) or Sinfonia
which caused a sensation. Adults- only comics in nero (Black Symphony) with the di rector and (such as Oltretomba) often dealt with the theme, producer Alberto Pugliese, about a woman who
spiced with plenty of erotic scenes. The 171 TV
dreams a murder and believes that it will take mini- series Il segno del comando was a sensa-place in real life, but does not realize she is the tional hit, and was followed by other works designated victim. “I was asked to write a syn-along the same lines, such as ESP (173), based opsis and I came up with a dozen pages… . I was on the real- life character of the Dutch psychic paid for the story and then, I don’t remember

Gerard Croiset, and Il dipinto (174, Domenico why, I did not follow the development of the

Campana). Movies as well explored the subject, script and the movie.”2 A script called Incubus albeit often in a superficial way: an example is (Pentagramma in nero), signed by Gastaldi, Ser-Roberto Mauri’s far- fetched psychoanalytic gio Corbucci and Mahnamen Velasco and dated
drama Madeleine—Anatomia di un incubo,

March 172 is kept at the CSC library: however, which includes an absurd scene of a character
it is none other than an alternate early title for (played by Silvano Tranquilli) experimenting

La morte accarezza a mezzanotte (172), so it
bilocation. Nevertheless, scriptwriters and film-might as well be that, unless Gastaldi got con-makers such as Riccardo Freda, Piero Regnoli,
fused, the idea for Fulci’s film actually drew from Demofilo Fidani and Pupi Avati had a deep-the same subject. After all, the two films share a rooted interest in the subject matter. Fidani’s ex-very similar premise, although in La morte ac-
perience as a psychic even inspired the little-carezza a mezzanotte the heroine suffers an seen Il medium (180, Silvio Amadio).

LSD- induced hallucination, in tune with the

Occultism was everywhere, and it is not a
psychedelic trend of the period.

surprise that it gradually contaminated the According to scriptwriter Dardano Sac-giallo: In Dario Argento’s 4 mosche di velluto gri-chetti, he was summoned by producer Luigi De
gio (171), the protagonist (Michael Brandon)

Laurentiis and his son Aurelio to collaborate
has a premonitory dream that accompanies him
with Fulci on a script based on an occult- themed throughout the movie up to the shocking end -
mystery novel, Terapia mortale, published in
ing. In his next giallo, Profondo rosso, Argento 172 by a young novelist (and later a prominent developed the irrational and paranormal angle, film critic and distributor) named Vieri Razzini.

by opening the movie on a congress of parapsy-

Fulci had been working on an adaptation for
chology where a medium (Macha Méril) “per-
some time with Roberto Gianviti, but to no

1977: Sette note 175
avail. And, indeed, a denunciation of start of Initiation au meurtre, and about a couple in production for a movie called Terapia mortale, crisis (Franco Nero and Stefania Sandrelli) who, and with Fulci as director, was deposited at the during a holiday in Tunisia, come across a clair-Ministry of Spectacle, with filming slated to voyant (Gert Fröbe) who had a premonition begin in November 175. However, the project
about a murder taking place in the area—deals
dated back to at least mid–174, and at one point with the theme of marriage as a wasps’ nest, one Barbara Bouchet was to star in it: in an interview of Chabrol’s favorite ways to explore and dissect dated July 174, the actress mentioned that film-the phony charm of the bourgeoisie.

ing would take place in Smirne.3

Sette note in nero offers a similar bitter take Still, the references to Razzini’s novel
on marriage. Whereas other “female Gothics”

(which is not even mentioned in the credits) are of the decade (Il profumo della signora in nero, minimal to non- existent in Sette note in nero.

Le orme) focused on a conspiracy (real or imag-Terapia mortale is a banal and rather poorly ined), linked to the heroine’s repressed past written whodunit about a parapsychologist, trauma, that leads to her mental disintegra-Patrick Gelli, who investigates the mysterious tion, Virginia (Jennifer O’Neill) is an old- style death of a friend, Mark, with whose wife Veron-damsel in distress, who, alone in the castle, inica he is in love. He finds out somebody has
stead of opening the forbidden door, breaks pushed the man to death by way of psychic pow-down a “forbidden wall,” exhuming her hus-
ers and is trying to get rid of Veronica as well.

band’s secret past—literally, his skeleton in the The only reference to the book, besides the closet. She herself becomes the cause of her own theme of parapsychological powers, can be ruin, by condescending to her own curiosity:

found in the character of the “psychic investi-transgression leads to punishment, danger, gator” played in the movie by Marc Porel, who
death. And it is bitterly ironic that she does so is in love with the heroine.

by attempting to affirm her independence: being It was allegedly Sacchetti’s intervention that an architect, she wanted to take the reins and helped Fulci solve some dead ends: “I was called redecorate the house while her husband was on
mostly to add a touch of Argento to a traditional leave.

mystery plot. The ‘touch of Argento’ were the

In a way, Fulci’s film seems to comment on
suspenseful situations in general, the modalities woman’s growing self- awareness and autonomy
of the deaths, especially the victim’s point of as opposed to a male- centered world which ul-view… .”4 The scriptwriter’s words underline timately proves crushing: see also the characters how Sette note in nero’s affiliation to the giallo of the uninhibited Gloria Ducci (Evelyn Stewart) is, after all, marginal, even though the movie en-as well as Luca’s secretary Bruna (Jenny Tam-
compasses references to the director’s previous buri), both much more intelligent and dynamic
work: Francesco Ducci appears to be yet another than most men in the story. Like in Freda’s Dr.

innocent man unjustly in prison, like Jean Sorel’s Hichcock diptych, happy marriage is an illusion character in Una sull’altra, the theme of premo-based on lies, disguise, and role playing: to Vir-nition and the scene in the deserted church ginia, the biggest shock is to find out her hus-bring to mind Una lucertola con la pelle di band’s real nature, and realize that she never re-donna, and the opening death of Virginia’s ally knew the man she married. In the end, Sette mother recalls the murderer’s grisly demise in note in nero turns into a variation of the theme Non si sevizia un paperino. However, the em-of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat (which Fulci phasis on the paranormal gives the plot and will revisit a few years later) seen from the main character a new dimension.

female victim’s point of view, and graced by a On top of that, Sette note in nero sports at
finely crafted open ending.

least three major filmic and literary references.

Another, and even stronger, source of in-

The most immediate ones are Nicolas Roeg’s
spiration is Cornell Woolrich’s 145 novel Night Don’t Look Now and Claude Chabrol’s Les magi-Has a Thousand Eyes, adapted in 148 by John
ciens (a.k.a. Death Rite 175), both centered on Farrow, about a phony psychic who one day the theme of precognition. Roeg and Fulci’s foresees his own death. The sense of dread and films have in common a tragic opening event (a doom of Woolrich’s novel, where ordinary ob-girl accidentally drowning, a woman com mit -
jects are given a sinister resonance, is very ting suicide) and a cynical twist ending, whereas similar to Fulci’s film, which embraces the paraLes magiciens—based on Frédéric Dard’s book
normal from the beginning and, in doing so,

176 1977: Sette note reflects on whether we humans are prisoners of perfect witnesses” who miss the point of what
our own fate or even help it happen. The they see. Her refusal to come to terms with it mystery plot becomes secondary to the growing
leads her to perdition, but Fulci’s camera never feeling of entrapment that the unfortunate hero-stops warning us about such a link: before each ine feels, as the pieces of the puzzle that form vision, the director zooms in on Virginia’s eyes, her vision are gradually revealed not to be and then to what she “sees,” establishing an in-shades of the past but a glimpse of the future, visible red thread. This way, the movie embraces and pile up around her like the bricks of the wall another key element in Gothic, the subjective
behind which the murderer buries his victim.

dimension through which reality is filtered by The script also partly borrows from another the protagonist, and which here is not emotional Woolrich novel, The Black Angel, by making Vir-nor psychological, but paranormal.

ginia an amateur detective trying to clear her As cameraman Franco Bruni recalled, “We
husband from an unjust accusation and by end-
did a frantic use of the zoom in this film… . With ing the movie with the heroine’s loss of her in-Lucio, we usually did a few long shots, many
nocence. It is likely that Fulci knew well the medium shots and many close- ups. We often

American novelist’s work, as Una lucertola con used the tracking shot backwards, to reveal la pelle di donna borrowed the storyline from
things. The camera was moving all the time.

the novelette Nightmare, albeit with an inge -

Whereas in Sette note in nero the zoom was an
nious twist,5 and Una sull’altra reused the basic effect we had to do, because Lucio asked for it plot of Phantom Lady.

explicitly. To me, it was forced, having to under-Fulci often referred to Sette note in nero’s
line it in such a marked way; it was a painful

“perfect structure,” but the plot has its share of duty. Lucio wanted the audience to believe it was naïveté, in the way some facts are taken for like some person’s point of view, he wanted it to granted by the characters (including the police!), be an emotional, introspective effect, not a sim-or the awkward scene where Luca (Porel) con-
ple mechanical trick, an approach. So, we did
vinces two motorbike cops to follow him to exactly half- zoom and half- tracking shot.”7

Ducci’s country house. What is more, the cast is On the other hand, this relentless over-not always up to the task: Jennifer O’Neill’s per-reliance on visual repetition becomes grating
formance is convincing, but Gianni Garko (in a and almost unbearable at times. It is as if the di-role devised for Claudio Cassinelli) doesn’t rector was trying to make the audience feel the hit the right note, wavering uneasily between
same sense of inescapability as Virginia does, forced meekness and artificial creepiness. On
but this way the zoom is deprived of its effec-the other hand, the score (by the trio Bixio-tiveness, and becomes mechanic and monoto-

Frizzi-Tempera) perfectly captures the mood of nous, the exact opposite of what Fulci wanted
the story, with the sinister waltz- time lullaby (re-to achieve. A less explored, but more interesting ferred to in the Italian title, which literally means aspect is the discrepancy between the images as

“Seven Notes in Black”) that becomes the film’s perceived by Virginia (and the viewer as well) diegetic and extra- diegetic leitmotif.

and their significance, and therefore between

The director’s systematic use of zooms is
appearance and truth: for instance, by showing the film’s main stylistic trait and at the same time a close- up of Gabriele Ferzetti’s character, fol-its biggest issue. As Michel Foucault noted, “the lowed by another close- up of limping male feet, language of terror is dedicated to an endless ex-Fulci allows us to believe the latter belong to the pense, even though it only seeks to achieve a sin-person we have just seen, which they do not. It gle effect.”6 Here, Fulci employs the zoom lens is a three- card trick by way of movie camera and as the thread that unites each and every vision editing: and the latter factor is truly the most to the person that experiences them and is ulti-impressive thing about Sette note in nero, so mately their object and victim: what Virginia
much so that Fulci had to keep two script su-
cannot understand is that what she sees (and we, pervisors on set in order to keep track of all the the audience, see as well) are not “objective” vi-complex interlocking of shots needed for the
sions, but they are all from her own subjective movie.

point of view, from the furniture in the room

Another key theme in Sette note in nero is
where the premature burial takes place to the
time. “I hate time: it is our slavery,” Fulci quipped.

sight of the cigarette in the ashtray—in a way,

“We are crushed by time, we cannot stop it. I
she is yet another incarnation of Argento’s “im-hate the idea that tomorrow will come, and I

1977: Shock 177
don’t give a fuck about tomorrow… . If I could, Carthy and Edward G. Robinson). It was also a major in-I would master time, making it move at my fluence on Jess Franco’s script La noche tiene ojos, which later became the movie Les cauchemars naissent la nuit leisure. Stop it when I feel like, make it go on-

(16). Franco would reuse the same plot years later, in Mil wards, backwards… ”8 He would indeed do so,
sexos tiene la noche (182).

in La casa nel tempo; here, he shares Virginia’s 6. Michel Foucault, Language to Infinity, in Language, powerlessness against time: each move she Counter- memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews makes, each step she takes further into the mys-

(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 180), 65.

7. Albiero, Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 217.

tery, is like a clock hand getting close to the end.

8. Michele Romagnoli, L’occhio del testimone (Bologna: But the final irony of the story is turning a time Granata Press, 12), 13.

watch into an extemporaneous deus ex machina:

9. The idea of the revealing carillon, albeit in a when the movie is over, and all is seemingly lost, different context, recalls the climax of Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (134), where the presence of Peter here comes time itself as a savior, with the sound Lorre’s character, hidden behind a door in an apparently of an alarm clock that nails the culprit and un-empty room, is revealed by the tune from his pocket watch.

covers the solution to the mystery. Is Virginia 10. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, still alive, or is she already dead? It does not mat-shooting began on September 13, 176.

ter: once again, time has won, because time always wins in the end.

Shock (Shock, a.k.a. Beyond the Door II) Shot between September and November

D: Mario Bava. Collaboration to the direc-

176,10 with the working title Dolce come morire, tion: Lamberto Bava. SC: Francesco Barbieri,

Sette note in nero was released in Italy only in Lamberto Bava, Paolo Brigenti [Alessandro

August 177, with nondescript (and therefore

Parenzo], Dardano Sacchetti; DOP: Alberto
disappointing) results. The era of giallo was Spagnoli [and Mario Bava, uncredited]; M: I
waning, and such an indecipherable movie, half-Libra [Dino Cappa, Alessandro Centofanti, Wal-
mystery and half–Gothic, almost com pletely deter Martino]; E: Roberto Sterbini; PD, ArtD: void of blood and gore and ultimately downbeat, Franco Vanorio; SD: Pietro Spadoni; CO: Mas-was not the type of stuff moviegoers would run simo Lentini; MU: Maria Luisa Tilly; AD, As-to see. In many ways, it marked the end of a pe-stPD: Nicola Salerno; SO: Pietro Spadoni; C:

riod in Fulci’s filmography, and after the inter-Giuseppe Maccari; AC: Giuseppe Alberti; SP:

locutory Western Sella d’argento (178) and the Giuliana De Rossi; G: Sante Federici; KG: Sergio TV movie Un uomo da ridere (shot in 178, Serantoni; AE: Sandro Bruglio; 2ndAE: Mario
broadcast in 180) a new era would begin for the Recupito; SS: Rossana Rocchi. Cast: Daria Ni-director, marked in deep red with blood and
colodi (Dora Baldini), John Steiner (Bruno Balgore, starting with Zombi 2 (17).

dini), David Colin, Jr. (Marco), Ivan Rassimov (Dr. Aldo Spidini); uncredited: Lamberto Bava

N

(Mover #1), Paul Costello (Obnoxious Man at
oTeS

Party), Nicola Salerno (Carlo). PROD: Turi 1. Robert Schlockoff, “Entretien avec Lucio Fulci,” L’E-Vasile for Laser Film (Rome); AP: Ugo Valenti; cran fantastique #16, 180.

PM: Giuseppe Mangogna; UM: Nando Tibbi.

2. Paolo Albiero and Giacomo Cacciatore, Il terrorista Country: Italy. Filmed at Vides Cinematografica dei generi. Tutto il cinema di Lucio Fulci—Seconda edizione aggiornata (Palermo: Leima, 2004, 2015), 213.

Studio (Rome). Running time: 5 minutes (m.

3. “In a few days I’ll fly to Colombia where, directed 2474). Visa n. 70737 (8.12.177); Rating: V.M.14.

by Mauro Ivaldi, I will shoot L’amica di mia madre … then Release dates: 8.12.177 (Italy); 3.14.17 (U.S.A.); I’ll move to Smirne to shoot a parapsychological film, Ter-Distribution: Titanus. Domestic gross: 16,657,000
apia mortale.” Raffaello Mazzani, “Basta col nudo! Ora si spoglino le attrici più giovani,” Corriere d’Informazione, lire. Also known as: Schock (Transfert-Suspence-July 22, 174.

Hypnos) (Italy); Shock (Spain; 1.1.181); Les dé-4. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 214.

mons de la nuit (France).

5. In Woolrich’s story, a man dreams he commits a Dora, her second husband Bruno and her
murder, only to discover the clues that lead him to realize that he has actually killed a man in real life. Signed with son Marco, from her previous marriage, move to the usual alias William Irish, first published in Argosy, on the country house where Dora often went with

March 1, 141, under the title And So to Death, and later in her husband Carlo, before the latter fell into a the short story collection I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes deep depression crisis and allegedly committed (143), the novelette was adapted for the screen twice by suicide. Strange events happen: Marco alternates the same director, Maxwell Shane, in 147 (Fear in the Night, starring DeForest Kelley, the future Dr. McCoy from moments of childishness with others where he

Star Trek) and in 156 (Nightmare, starring Kevin Mc -
seems possessed by a spirit that drives him to

178 1977: Shock reject his stepfather and rage at his mother. Bruno, Marco, who is now alone in the house … together an air pilot, is often absent, and Dora finds it in-with his father’s ghastly presence.

creasingly difficult to cope with her son’s unsettling Coming after the ill- fated Cani arrabbiati,
behavior. Eventually Dora remembers what hap-
doomed to remain unseen for two decades, and
pened: Carlo did not commit suicide in the sea, the humiliating La casa dell’esorcismo, Mario
but she killed him in a rampage caused by drug Bava’s last theatrical feature film had a rather abuse. Dora kills Bruno and is killed in turn by troubled genesis. It was Lamberto’s insistence to push his father back to directing, after
other projects (such as Baby Kong)

were abandoned, that eventually re-
sulted in Shock being made. The first
version of the script, written by Dar -
dano Sacchetti and Francesco Barbieri,
actually dated a few years earlier:

penned in the early 170s, soon after

Reazione a catena, it was titled Al 33 di
via Orologio fa sempre freddo, and was
loosely based on a crime novel by

Hillary Waugh, L’ospite di notte, pub-
lished in the Gialli Mondadori series

(one of Bava’s favorite bedside read-
ings, which would also provide him
with the short story that formed the
basis for Cani arrabbiati). During 173

Bava did pre- production work for pro-
ducer Fulvio Lucisano, and had Mimsy

Farmer do a screen test for the leading
role, but the project was shelved. Lam-
berto Bava resumed the script and
rewrote it drastically with the help of

Alessandro Parenzo, the latter under
the alias Paolo Brigenti.1 The film en-
tered production in spring 177 and
was shot over a period of five weeks.2

Accordingly, Bava let his son direct
many scenes based on his storyboards.

The definitive title underwent some
changes: Lamberto’s script was titled

La casa 8, but the movie was registered
in the Public Cinematographic Regis-
ter, on April 28, 177, as Suspense (per-
haps a nod to one of Bava’s favorite
films, The Innocents, released in Italy
as Suspense). It finally became Shock—
misspelled Schock on the Italian
posters, which bore the additional sub-
title (Transfert-Suspence-Hypnos).3

Bava’s film seemed to finally ma-
terialize as a late addition to the Exor-
cist-inspired subgenre, given the pres-
ence in a key role of David Colin, Jr.,
who had played a similar role in a suc-

Italian locandina for Shock (1977). Note the title’s misspelling and the clumsy undertitle Transfert-Suspence-Hypnos, absent cessful Satanic horror flick produced
in the film.

by Ovidio Assonitis, Chi sei? (174),

1977: Shock 17
known overseas as Beyond the Door. This led to story’s core—terror hidden in everyday life—

Bava’s film being retitled Beyond the Door II for suggests other similarities as well, and the open-its U.S. release—quite a diminishing fate for the ing images, as the camera wanders through the
director’s swan song. The connection with the
garden, in the basement and around the empty
paranormal was underlined by the cryptic tag -
house, recall the hyperrealistic precision of one line: Transfert-Suspence-Hypnos did not mean
of Anna Maria Ortese’s most beautiful ghost sto-much, but in the makers’ intentions was sup-
ries, La casa nel bosco.7 Ortese, one of Italy’s posed to emphasize the message and convey an
leading personalities in 20th century Fantastic eerie mood.4 Another concession to the ongoing literature, imagined the insurgence of the un-trends was the music score by the jazz- rock known and the supernatural out of minimal combo I Libra, and blatantly inspired by Gob -
cracks in everyday reality (as in the outstanding lin.5 Overall, it made for a rather low- key story Sulla terrazza sterminata), and distilled farewell, given that Bava’s only other directorial the uncanny from the trivial. So does Bava: one work, the made- for-TV La Venere d’Ille, co-of the director’s trademark themes, the inani-
directed with Lamberto the following year, mate which becomes animate, here is embodied
would be broadcast only in 181, one year after from time to time by a ceramic ornament, a his death.

swing, a cutter, a wardrobe.

And yet Shock is something quite different

Horror, in Shock, arises from a momentary

(and much more intriguing) than the ump -
mismatch of reality, and from the unexpected
teenth “possessed child” feature. It is a Gothic perceptions it entails. At first sight, objects seem ghost story devoid of the Gothic pulp, deprived to reveal a disturbing and metaphorical essence: of its most blatant ingredients (transgression, lowly epiphanies, shapeless presences revealed excess) and in which every element is covered
by Bava’s customary out of focus shots, which
with a veil of everyday mediocrity. Compared
last the time of a shot/countershot, and then are with Bava’s previous horror films, it is unusually deleted by the banality of everyday life. But it is inconspicuous, and overall it conveys a sense of precisely at that moment, in that split second emptiness comparable to the one that assaults
when a rose petal becomes a blood stain or a
the eponymous heroine at the end of Lisa e il di-rake takes the form of a hand protruding from
avolo. Gone are the elegant light and color ef-the ground, that reality as we know it is revealed fects, the refined camera movements, the oth-as a fragile, unreliable curtain that protects our erworldly sets of the director’s previous work; senses from what lies beyond. A line of Carmelo but the same can be said about the romantic

Bene’s Salomè come to mind: “How red are these reverie of the typical Victorian ghost story.

petals, they look like blood stains scattered on Such a stylistic and narrative choice is first the tablecloth. But we must not look for symbols and foremost a sign of the times, and a conse-everywhere, as life would become unbearable.”

quence of budgetary restraints: Shock is a low-Bava’s film also encompasses the theme of
budget film, with a handful of actors and only the double, which is led back to the interiority one main location (Enrico Maria Salerno’s villa, of the individual, in accordance with the so-with the actor’s son Nicola playing Carlo, un-
called “paranoid texts” of the decade (such as Il credited). And yet this becomes a poetic, dis-profumo della signora in nero and Le orme), with tinctive sign. Anxiety does not blossom from
which Bava film has some affinities: Dora is both the sublime, but comes out of the ordinary: the a caring mother and a murderer, and the trauma haunted mansion is not a castle or a princely
buried in her subconscious is coupled with a
palace, but an anonymous house in the suburbs; walled corpse in the basement, in a clear nod to Daria Nicolodi’s character is not a triumphant Poe. The amazing sequence of Dora’s erotic princess of evil, but a quiet middle- class house-dream—in which Daria Nicolodi’s hair moves
wife who fixes sandwiches in the kitchen for her around as if caressed by an invisible hand—
friends; and the past that returns to torment her marks the nocturnal metamorphosis of this is not a centuries- old curse, but a squalid drug woman who found refuge from madness in the
addiction.

mediocrity of the damily routine. Whereas in

Lamberto Bava stressed the influence on

Danza macabra Elisabeth Blackwood lived only
the film of Maupassant’s short story Le Horla, when she loved, Dora Baldini, whose sexuality
which suited Bava’s wish to “make a film in has been suppressed by motherhood, lives (and
which the objects were the actors.”6 But the loves) only when she dreams.

180 1977: Suspiria Shock’s tormented protagonist is a far less
ing body. The overall effect is that of a director glamourous replica of La frusta e il corpo’s who wanted to be called out of the game, simply Nevenka, and Bava reprises from his earlier film content on playing the tricks he knew best, for both the image of the spectral hand that caresses a marginal audience, no longer aiming (if he

Dora and her final “guided” suicide. Her “ghost ever did that) at a major audience, and well of love” is embodied, with a striking Oedipal in-aware that his best years in Italian cinema were tuition, in her own son: the red- headed Marco behind him.

(David Colin, Jr.). The umpteenth menacing

The idea of a blissful isolation emerges child figure in Bava’s cinema, Marco is not just without hesitation, in the film and from the film, an instrument of vengeance as Melissa in Oper-and leads to an ending which is a quiet domestic azione paura, but an accomplice and an alter ego apocalypse: once again, like in Reazione a ca -
of Dora’s revenant husband, who revives in him tena, fathers and mothers pay for their sins by and takes over his actions.

the hands of their sons, and death is only a game, Such an identification evokes the ghosts of
more fun than the others.

family and social disintegration that roam across the country. The Oedipal killing had taken the NoTeS
place of the binding of Isaac, both in movies—

1. See Lucas, Mario Bava—All the Colors of the Dark, from Luigi Zampa’s Il mostro (177) to Dino Risi

22, 77–82.

Caro papà (17)—and in real life: the kidnap-

2. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, ping and killing of Prime Minister Aldo Moro,
shooting began on May 16, 177.

one of the “Fathers of the Nation” who had cre-3. Even though the title Schock features prominently in ated the new Constitution in the immediate publicity material (even for the Spanish release), the on-screen title is actually Shock, the same as featured in the Post- War years, on the part of the terrorist group official papers, such as those submitted to the board of cen-Brigate Rosse, in spring 178, was a symbolical sors, as well as in ANICA’s listings.

act of patricide that left the whole country at a 4. On top of that, the Italian poster drew inspiration, loss.

so to speak, from the cover image of the 163 paperback edition of Shirley Jackson’s novel We Have Always Lived in In Bava’s film, even more chillingly, it is the the Castle, designed by William Teason.

mother who is sacrificed, leading once again to 5. Libra recorded the score for the film (their last work the destruction of the family core. The son’s before disbanding) with the following line- up: Carlo Pen-identification with the father leads to a couple nisi (guitar), Alessandro Centofanti (piano, keyboards), of extraordinary moments: the disturbing image Dino Cappa (bass), and Walter Martino (drums). Martino had played with Goblin.

of the kid lying on top of Dora and miming 6. Lucas, Mario Bava—All the Colors of the Dark, 77.

coitus, where Bava plays with the inner gro -

7. Included in the anthology In sonno e in veglia (Milan: tesqueness of children behaving like adults while Adelphi, 187).

making the movie’s Oedipal core explicit; and
the chilling horrific scene where, in the same Suspiria (Suspiria)

shot, the son running toward his mother turns

D: Dario Argento. S and SC: Dario
into his late father, an effect accomplished on Argento, Daria Nicolodi; DOP: Luciano Tovoli
camera, with no cuts, through an outstanding

(Technicolor); M: Goblin [Agostino Marangolo,
use of framing.

Massimo Morante, Fabio Pignatelli, Claudio Si-

After the Academy Award achieved by
monetti] and Dario Argento; E: Franco Frati -

Carlo Rambaldi for his work in John Guiller -
celli; PD, ArtD: Giuseppe Bassan; CO: Pier -
min’s King Kong (176: a film Bava had report -
angelo Cicoletti; MU: Pierantonio Mecacci; edly turned down because he was scared to fly

AMU: Pierino [Piero] Mecacci; Hair: Maria overseas, although it was possibly because he

Teresa Corridoni; AsstHair: Aldo Signoretti; AD: did not want to work with Dino De Laurentiis

Antonio Gabrielli; AsstArtD: Davide Bassan, again after Diabolik), special effects were the Maurizio Garrone; SD: Enrico Fiorentini; As-rule. And yet, Shock resorts to out of fashion, stSD: Massimo Garrone; Set constructor: Aldo
low- profile tricks which draw back to early cin-Taloni; SO: Mario Dallimonti, Federico Savina; ema and magic lanterns, even explicitly in the SOE: Luciano Anzelotti [and Massimo Anzel-scene where an alleged ghostly apparition turns lotti]; B: Corrado Volpicelli; SE: Germano Natali out to be a paper cut- out: in the nightmare se-

[and Fabio Traversari]; C: Idelmo Simonelli; AC: quence Bava uses exactly the same trick to create Riccardo Dolci, Enrico Fontana, Guseppe
the “hands of light” that glide over Dora’s sleep-Tinelli; KG: Mario Moreschini; Gaffer: Alberto

1977: Suspiria

181

Jessica Harper (center) and Barbara Magnolfi (right) in a French lobby card for Suspiria (1977).

Altibrandi; SP: Francesco Bellomo; W: Bertilla gento; PM: Lucio Trentini; UM: Federico Tocci; Silvestrin, Tiziana Mancini; 1stAE: Piero Bozza; PCo: Massimo Brandimarte, Federico Starace;

2ndAE: Roberto Olivieri; SS: Francesca Roberti; PAcc: Ferdinando Caputo, Carlo Du Bois. Coun-Press attache: Nino Vendetti. English version—
try: Italy. Filmed in Freiburg, Munich (Germany dubbing director: Nick Alexander. Cast: Jessica and at Incir- De Paolis (Rome). Running time: Harper (Suzy Banner), Stefania Casini (Sara),

100 minutes (m. 2730). Visa n. 6766 (1.26.177); Flavio Bucci (Daniel), Miguel Bosé (Mark), Bar-Rating: V.M.14. Release date: 2.1.177; Distribu-bara Magnolfi (Olga), Susanna Javicoli (Sonia), tion: P.A.C.-Produzioni Atlas Consorziate. Do-Eva Axén (Pat Hingle), Rudolf Schündler (Prof.

mestic gross: 3,376,22,267 lire.

Milius), Udo Kier (Dr. Frank Mandel), Alida

Note: Mario Bava is given a “Special

Valli (Miss Tanner), Joan Bennett (Madame thanks” credit.

Blanc), Margherita Horowitz (Teacher), Jacopo

The young American Suzy Banner travels to

Mariani (Albert), Fulvio Mingozzi (Taxi Driver), Freiburg, Germany, to enroll in the prestigious Franca Scagnetti (Cook), Renato Scarpa (Prof.

Tanz Akademie. On the night of her arrival she Verdegast), Serafina Scorceletti (2nd Cook), witnesses a pupil, Patty, fleeing from the place.

Giuseppe Transocchi (Pavlo), Renata Zamengo

The girl is later brutally murdered in a friend’s (Caroline), Alessandra Capozzi (Dancer), Sal-house. More horrible and inexplicable events fol-vatore Capozzi (Dancer), Diana Ferrara
low. A few days later the blind pianist, Daniel, is (Dancer), Cristina Latini (Dancer), Alfredo torn apart by his dog, and the Academy is invaded Raino (Dancer), Claudia Zaccari; uncredited:

by worms. Suzy is affected by a strange drowsiness Dario Argento (Narrating voice), Giovanni Di
and unexplained illness. She can only confide in Bernardo (Police Inspector), Daria Nicolodi Sara, Patty’s friend, and both girls try to find an (Woman at Airport). PROD: Claudio Argento
explanation for the strange events, but Sara too for SEDA Spettacoli (Rome); EP: Salvatore Ar-meets an atrocious death. Suzy learns from an

182 1977: Suspiria expert in magic that the academy was founded at testimonies of alleged witches, necromancers or the beginning of the century by Elena Markos, a people who witnessed paranormal phenomena
witch with formidable powers…

in the so- called ‘magic triangle’—the area at the

“I wanted to detach radically from reality,
border between Switzerland, Germany and
and try to embrace a fairytale- like tone,”1 Dario France. Unfortunately, though, despite really

Argento recalled about the genesis of Suspiria, wanting to make acquaintance with one, we a movie whose roots can be traced, perhaps not never met a real witch. All that we saw together surprisingly, in the director’s upcoming second

… were episodes amenable to coincidences, or
paternity, with the birth of his daughter Asia.

to what Jung calls synchronicity.”5

“Her mother and I, who loved each other very

The element that finally made the story gel
much, were developing a perfect dark fairytale was Nicolodi’s idea to use Thomas De Quincey’s to tell her once she grew up.”2
book Suspiria de Profundis, one of the many

During Daria Nicolodi’s pregnancy, Walt
occult- themed texts that piled up in Argento’s Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs house at that time, as the basis for the title.6 “At (137) often came back to Argento’s mind, a cara certain point, as if struck by lighting, she put toon that had bewitched and upset him in equal a hand on the cover, over the last two words, and parts as a child. Around the same time the di-finally the name we were looking for stood out,”

rector had read Frank Wedekind’s 103 novelette he recalled. “It was evident to all that Suspiria Mine-Haha oder Über die körperliche Erziehung
was the right title for my next film.”7
der jungen, where a group of young girls are

Argento wanted to shoot the movie on lo-
trained with severity to the education of the cation, in Freiburg and Munich (although in a
body, as a preparatory stage to mundane life, in-previous version the story was set in Zurich), in side a huge park separated from the outside order to recreate the same mood as the German
world. Both suggestions gave way to the idea of expressionist cinema the director loved so a movie about witchcraft, in which little girls are much, and to which he had already paid homage
menaced and tortured by a witch like the one in in the past, such as with the “via Fritz Lang”

Disney’s film.3
where Roberto Tobias lives in 4 mosche di velluto A vital input came from Argento’s partner
grigio. But he had to drop the original idea of in life, who was also fascinated by the occult.

centering the story on little girls, due not just to Nicolodi’s grandmother, French pianist Yvonne
commercial reasons, but also because of prac -

Müller Loeb Casella, used to tell her a sinister tical problems, as German unions would not
story about her youth, when she enrolled in an allow filming with underage actresses. A much
academy at the border between Switzerland and
more painful choice was the casting of Jessica Germany to perfect her piano studies. To this

Harper as Suzy, a role he promised to Nicolodi, day, the actress maintains that “Suspiria was but was obviously more suited to an American
imagined and written by me, thanks to the fun-
actress for distribution purposes. The decision damental inspiration of my grandmother’s story, led to heated arguments and a deep fracture be-which I transcribed. Then, for the usual quibbles tween them, which eventually resulted in a tem-related to the cinema industry, this story was porary separation.

signed by both of us … it was a rather dramatic Filming for Suspiria began on July 5, 176;
experience, also because, up to the very last mo-it was an adventurous experience, that height-
ment, I did not have the assurance that my role ened Argento’s will to experiment. Some ideas
would be recognized.”4
in the script were dropped, like a complex se-

Traveling around Europe in search for in-
quence shot that followed Suzy at her entrance spiration and documentation for their next proj-to the Academy, introducing all the other charect was also a way for the young couple to collect acters, which the director wanted to look like a some time for themselves; it was a honeymoon

Busby Berkeley choreography. Others that per-
and an adventure as well. As Argento recalled, tained to the visual and sound aspect of the

“We studied the most famous esoteric and al-
movie were perfected and led to outstanding re-chemic texts of the 1th and early 20th century, sults. In order to heighten the mood of dread, we investigated the theories of Rudolf Steiner, Argento asked Goblin to write the music before we visited cathedrals that smelled like incense, shooting started, so as to play it during takes.

libraries that smelled like mold, and many places The addition of Mediterranean folk music ele-that were considered ‘cursed.’ We gathered many ments and instruments, such as the Greek

1977: Suspiria 183
bouzouki (a reference to Elena Markos’ country 170s the director had devised a script, together and to the Neo- Pythagorean school in Athens), with Luigi Cozzi, which transposed Mary Shel-resulted in a wildly original score, that further ley’s Frankenstein into early 130s Germany, just developed the approach the director had already before Hitler’s rise to power, and both 4 mosche introduced in Profondo rosso. Even more chal-di velluto grigio and especially Profondo rosso lenging was the use of an old Kodak low-were open to eruptions of the uncanny. The Ser-sensitivity film, which meant the sets had to be gio Leone- inspired recurring nightmare that
flooded with light, with huge 10,000 watt pro-
haunted Roberto Tobias (Michael Brandon),
jectors all around, whereas for the close- ups which turned out to be a foreboding of the d.o.p. Luciano Tovoli filtered the light through killer’s gruesome demise (and yet another clue velvet panels that lit the actors’ faces with dense of Argento’s love for Cornell Woolrich novels), color stains. The film would then be processed was an early clue that the director was dissatis-via the obsolete Tri- Pack technique, which had fied with the rational cage of the whodunit.

the purpose of creating a self- contained, unre-Profondo rosso represented the breaking of alistic universe dominated by blue, red, green that cage, with the emphasis given to the para-and gold.

normal angle, from Helga Ullman’s early

Despite the abundance of gory and grue-
premonition to the theme of the “return of the some deaths, Argento pledged the board of cen-past,” not forgetting the key role of a haunted sors to avoid a V.M.18 rating, which would have mansion (the “House of the Screaming Child”)

had negative effects on box- office grosses. The and the chill ing presence of an animated puppet board obliged, decreeing that “the theme is un-in one of the movie’s most effective murder real (witches, magic) and the images, even in
scenes.

their thrilling suspense, are affected by such ir-With Suspiria, Argento clothed Italian
reality.” And yet, when the movie came out, the Gothic in a new style, bringing it to an unex-theme of witchcraft was interpreted by some
pected commercial and artistic rebirth, and de-critics as a reference to the current feminist veloped an irrational dimension where every-movement, whose slogan was “Tremate, tremate,
thing, from the set pieces to the color and the le streghe son tornate!” (Tremble, tremble, the music, contributes to the construction of a inti-witches are back!). But indeed Suspiria was, in mately coherent, impervious and self- sufficient a way, also the attempt to detach from a present universe. In a sense, and in full Gothic tradition, characterized by blood and violence, much more the movie is a journey to uncharted territories, real than the bright red one spilled in the direc-parallel to that of Suzy Banner, which starts at tor’s films. In a sense, Suspiria’s detachment the Freiburg airport, whose safety doors open
from reality mirrored the director’s gradual de-to the unknown, but which the script originally tachment from politics: Argento had always synthesized in a discarded prologue (that Ni-been a fervent Communist, and in his memoir
colodi labeled as unnecessary) in the form of
he recalled that he and Nicolodi had a red five-the metaphorical journey of a paper boat in a
pointed star (the symbol of far- left Communist gutter.

parties) on their bedroom wall, but he was The movie had to start with the off- screen voices of shocked like many of his peers by the violence Suzy and her little sister. Suzy told her that she was of terrorism; in Munich, during filming, he and going to Europe to study, and would be away for a Tovoli were close witnesses of a Red Army Fac-couple of years, and she replied, ‘Oh, I’m sorry you’re tion bombing which almost cost their lives.

leaving!’ Meanwhile, the camera frames a very Years later, before starting work on La terza narrow shot of a gutter, like those you see in court-madre (2007), Argento would caress the idea of yards and end up in manholes. While the little girl making a film on the Brigate Rosse, Italy’s most spoke, we saw her hands putting the paper boat in infamous left- hand terrorist group, in order to the gutter and then—meanwhile she and Suzy kept finally settle the score with his past, but eventu-talking—the paper boat started moving faster in this ally abandoned the project.

running water that became more and more whirl ing, Argento’s transition from thriller to horror
whirling, whirling. In the end it was caught in a was also the necessary step along a path that
whirlpool and sucked into it. It was like an omen of what would happen to Suzy.8
gradually detached itself from the rational bri-dles imposed by the former, to an expressive

The house, the living space, regains a pri-
freedom devoid of any boundaries. In the early mary role: “Possessed house, haunted house,

184 1977: Suspiria partly because owned by malevolent characters
pression, and therefore able to decipher phe-

… and partly because a place where a mystery
nomenal reality and discover the hidden mes-
is hidden.” The Tanz Akademie in Freiburg (as sage it conceals. She is a perfect damsel in dis-will be Varelli’s house in Inferno) is not simply tress, virginal and out of time, and with the same a passive agent of dread, but the architectural morbid sensibility as an Edgar Allan Poe hero-emanation of an evil which is no longer confined ine.

to a single villain character, but has become Whereas Italian Gothic was centered on
ubiquitous, universal. Crossed by tunnels and
the female sensual body as an element of attrac-secret passages, they both are living bodies of tion and repulsion, Argento restores purity to brick, wood and stone, that “breathe, mumble,
the bodies, reducing them to a fairytale macabre hide secrets … just like a living organism.”10
dimension, and amplifying the fears of child-

Whereas the manors, the palaces, the ruins of
hood. Suspiria reconnects to an idea of vam-
literary and cinematic Gothic took their evoca-pirism as the prerogative of a senior élite that is tive power from their menacing, moldy, run seen with diffidence and fear, but unlike I vam-down appearance, Argento’s “houses of evil” are piri the accent is not on the social and political an aesthetic triumph, a joy for the eyes, a spec-dimension of horror, but on its individualistic tacle of blinding beauty, bathed in primary col-core: the movie is characterized by a pre- teen ors, Art Nouveau and Art Deco design, the vision where bogeymen and ogres are emana-visual outcome of the director’s post–Expres-
tions of the adult world, as opposed to child-
sionist approach. Their impossible nature is un-hood. Like a fairytale, Suspiria opens with Arderlined by Argento’s tricks: “I wanted to create gento’s narration,15 the voice of a father telling a a game of visual illusions: not by chance I scat-scary story to the listener; a “Once upon a tered in the set pieces many drawings by M.C.

time… ” that takes us not to an idyllic realm but Escher…. ”11
to a ghastly ogre’s lair, and a common element With its impressive sets that look like the-with Argento’s previous gialli, which alluded at atrical backdrops—starting with the monumen-the act of storytelling via the use of a theatrical tal façade of the Tanz Akademie, built at the De space in the early sequences: the theater where Paolis studios in Rome on the blueprint of Roberto apparently kills the mysterious man in Freiburg’s ‘Haus zum Walfisch’ (The Whale 4 mosche, the curtain raising to accompany the House), formerly the abode of Erasmus of Rot-entrance to the parapsychology conference in
terdam—Suspiria reaffirms another source of

Profondo rosso.

Argento’s cinema, which recalls the Gothic ef-

The teachers at the Tanz Akademie are eld-
forts from the previous decade: melodrama. “A
erly and severe spinsters, embodiments of the
mannerist melodrama, if possible, even more
harassing aunt in Jane Eyre, and the climax re-excessive and bombastic than already provided
volves around the encounter with an octogenar-
by opera.”12 The filmmakers of 160s Gothic ian authority figure, partially hindered in her found in the forms inherited from melodrama
movements, who gives punishments to the dis-
the way to give to the audience a kind of never-obedients and insubordinate, and especially the before-seen spectacle: for instance, Asa being curious—a recurrent theme in Argento’s cin -
burnt at the stake in La maschera del demonio
ema. The victims are punished for their curi-
was an extreme rereading of the burning of the osity, like disobedient children who snoop gypsy in Carmine Gallone’s 14 film version of where they are not supposed to. Suzy is only ex-Il Trovatore. Argento went back to the mélo in ternally an adult: in fact, she is an overgrown lit-its etymology, adopting its blend of music and tle girl, naive and asexual, who must take her scenic action, but reinventing and twisting it for bitter medicine like kids have to when they are horrific purpose, a case in point being the open-too sick to go to school; and the splendor of her ing double murder of Pat (Eva Axén) and her
youth is menaced and absorbed by way of spells friend, constructed on a horrific crescendo that and magic potions.

is almost unbearable (“I wanted to push things In a way, Argento remained faithful to his
to the limit, make the audience scream, ‘Stop! I original idea of making a movie peopled with
can’t take it any more!’”).13
little girls. “I only changed the actresses’ chrono-Next to melodrama, there is the recovery
logical age, but their behavior has remained that of the Romantic tradition. Suzy Banner14 is a
of children. The girls speak naively, they are classic ballet dancer: a soul voted to artistic ex-scary, they make faces and don’t know sex.”16

1977: Suspiria 185

What is more, the sets feature elements that are between the escatological nature of the menace purposedly oversized, such as huge doors with
and the grotesque rawness of the acts of higher handles, so as to retain the same perspec-violence. The victims meet their demise at the tive of a child; even Sara’s behavior is that of a hands of very material murderers, who use clumsy kid, as she piles up suitcases in an un-knives and razors like the black- gloved killers stable column, like a little child who plays with in Argento’s earlier films, or are slaughtered by bricks without being aware of the rules (the big animals who become agents of evil (the dog in
suitcase should be on bottom, instead that on

Suspiria, the cats and rats in Inferno, the monkey top… ), with disastrous consequences.

in La terza madre). On the one hand, this fur -

Suzy’s journey then becomes a rite of pas-
ther underlines the irrational core of the author’s sage, and the killing of the “mother witch” allows thrillers, and offers a first look at nature and the her to become an adult. In Argento’s view, the animal universe as a source of dread (see also heroine’s final laughter can be interpreted as a the infamous “maggot rain” scene). On the other, cathartic reaction, but also as a woman looking it reveals the unspeakable contradiction under-back at the obstacle she faced in her journey to lying the Gothic according to Argento, a meta-maturity. “She fought a great battle and won it.

physical tension continually sabotaged by an

And so she goes away without running; she inner pragmatism, or better still the tradition slows down, walks slowly, and smiles, removes
opposed to secular rationality and cinephile ed-the hair and the water from her face … she be-
ucation: “Witches always fascinated me; I don’t comes a woman.”17
believe in the devil, in the movies he always makes Consequently, the theme of the uncanny
me laugh… ”18 Argento himself would confess.

related to the female figure is transformed in a It is a matter of different generations, after radical way. By taking inspiration from Wede -
all. In Lisa e il diavolo Bava exorcised the devil-kind’s novelette, Argento devises a sort of female butler played by Telly Savalas by having him

“concentrational universe” (to use the term suck a lollipop and utter amusing lines: irony coined by Holocaust survivor David Rousset)

was in some measure the result of an inner that contains in itself, a building- hive where the dread caused by the director’s Catholic educa-male presence is secondary if not superfluous.

tion, the fear of facing too big issues for such a The males that roam at the Tanz Akademie are
cheap horror movie. Argento, an atheist and a
either asexual ephebes (the dancer Mark, the

Communist, does not have such qualms: the su-
blond child Albert), foolish and monstrous ser-pernatural is staged as a show, terrible yet fas-vants (the brute Pavlo, labeled as “the Franken-cinating, and one can understand the director’s stein monster”) or eunuchs, as the blind pianist enthusiasm in forging his own mythology in-Daniel (Flavio Bucci): Argento hints at blindness stead of leaning on a pre- existing one (before as a metaphor for castration, as E.T.A. Hoff -

Suspiria the director toyed with the idea of mann did in The Sandman, according to Freud.

adapting Lovecraft’s Cthulhu cycle).

On the other hand, Elena Markos does not have

Suspiria (and, similarly, Inferno) recovers
an ounce of the morbid fascination that Gianna the taste of cinematic Gothic as the result of a Maria Canale or Barbara Steele’s characters ex-past literary tradition, in a plethora of illustrious uded, but is indeed a repulsive old woman, who references, from Thomas De Quincey’s Suspiria
does not even have to conceal her true appear-
de profundis to Wedekind, from the Brothers
ance in order to seduce, since any relation with Grimm to the early Christian writers: the Latin the opposite sex is absent.

quote “Quoddam ubique, quoddam semper,

Argento even managed to recycle the ref-
quoddam ab omnibus creditum est” uttered by
erences to Nazism he had devised for his un-

Udo Kier’s character pays reference to the 5th made Frankenstein project, by setting a couple century Gallic Vincent of Lérins.1 All this, how-of scenes respectively near the Bürgerbräukeller, ever, is filtered through the Seventh art—a nec-the brasserie where Hitler made his failed 123
essary step for an ex–film critic and greedy coup attempt, the infamous “Beer Hall Putsch”

cinephile as Argento.

(the moment where Daniel and his dog pass

Whereas his gialli were the result of an near a crowded brasserie) and in Königsplatz,
elaborate layering of cinematic and literary the site of Hitler’s speeches, where the unfortu-sources, reshaped as to achieve their own form, nate pianist meets a gruesome demise.

the author’s approach to Gothic has been de fined Suspiria is characterized by a stark contrast
as a “Grand-Guignol Surrealist supermarket”20

186 1977: Suspiria which passes its influences through the mincer Legacy (178, Richard Marquand) and Terror
of media and Pop Art. The Brothers Grimm are

(178, Norman J. Warren). However, someone
evoked via Walt Disney’s Snow White and the
briefly considered the idea of a parody, as hinted Seven Dwarfs; Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death by the existence of a scenario registered at the (the dancers rehearse in the Yellow Room, Miss SIAE offices in March 177 by Sergio Garrone

Tanner receives the classes in the Red Room,
and Sergio Chiusi, under the title Suspiriola.

and one of the teachers is named Madame Blanc… ) turns up in the movie by way of the

NoTeS
chromatic memory of Corman’s film adaptation;

Fritz Lang’s spirit is summoned via the casting 1. Dario Argento, Paura (Turin: Einaudi, 2014), 15–
of actress Joan Bennett; and the famous pool

212.

2. Argento, Paura.

scene in Tourneur’s Cat People is recreated, as 3. In his memoir Argento maintains that originally the an anticipation of an idea which Argento even-story had been devised for little girls between 11 and 14
tually discarded, where the witch would turn
years, whereas elsewhere he mentioned an even lower age into a black panther.21
span. “I had thought the story to take place in a school at-But there are also unexpected homages (or
tended by girls between eight and ten years old.” Fabio Maiello, Dario Argento. Confessioni di un maestro dell’ -
borrowings, or thefts?): the menacing eyes that horror (Milan: Alacrán, 2007), 112.

stare at Pat in the darkness, outside the window, 4. Davide Pulici and Marco Cacioppo, “Daria in an unsettling vision of terror that sets the tone Nicolodi: nostra signora degli orrori,” in Manlio Goma -
for the horrors to come (How could someone
rasca and Davide Pulici (eds.) Le tre madri. Guida alla trilogia di Dario Argento. Nocturno Dossier #64, November human be there, suspended in mid- air? Is that 2007, 13.

an immaterial presence, a Magritte- like vision 5. Argento, Paura.

that can exist only in a surreal alternative uni-6. At that time De Quincey’s name had regained a cer-verse?) has its surprising antecedent in the scene tain notoriety in Italy: for instance, in 173 the illustrious where Nino Manfredi finds himself spied upon
literary critic Pietro Citati had praised Confessions of an Opium Eater in the pages of Corriere della Sera, Italy’s most by a mysterious presence in a closet, which turns popular newspaper. Pietro Citati, “I baratri della memoria,”

out to be the little son of the character played Corriere della Sera, August 26, 173.

by Anna Karina, in Franco Brusati’s masterful

7. Ibid.

Pane e cioccolata (174), also photographed by 8. Manlio Gomarasca and Davide Pulici, “Dario Argento: nostro signore degli orrori,” in Gomarasca and Luciano Tovoli. Here, the reinvention of a Pulici (eds.) Le tre madri. Guida alla trilogia di Dario Ar-similar image in a totally different context—
gento., 6. In the script, the little girl (Janet) is actually Suzy’s there, a bittersweet drama on emigration; here, niece, and she puts a miniature doll on the boat. The scene an out- and-out horror movie—shows Argento’s
was supposed to be shot with the Snorkel camera Argento ability at recycling and mastering extraneous
had employed to explore the killer’s fetishes in Profondo rosso.

material, be it plot points and twists, whole se-9. Simone Arcagni, “Architetture della paura. Le quences, or visual ideas.

Haunted Houses,” in Vito Zagarrio (ed.), Argento vivo. Il As a whole, Suspiria stages a neo–Gothic
cinema di Dario Argento tra genere e autorialità (Venice: imbued with a self- awareness that is not yet Marsilio, 2008), 161.

10. Ibid., 164.

post- modernist: instead of simply quoting the 11. Argento, Paura. Namely, the façade of the Academy past, the movie engulfs and reinvents it with a reflected in a puddle during Pat’s escape quotes Escher’s virtuoso style that conceals, as it has been noted, 152 woodcut print Puddle; the tapestry in the room of an “artisan and pre- modern pride”22 worthy of Pat’s friend reprises Escher’s famous birds patterns, Méliès. In this continuing drive to invent new Madame Blanc’s studio has a mural with a cityscape and impossible staircases that recall Relativity (153), and a worlds and ways to show things, especially the trompe-l’oeil bas- relief dissimulates a retracted door that most terrible ones, so as to make them beautiful, leads to Helena Markos’ secret lair. And, last but not least, Argento reached a point of no return in the ex-the Academy is located in “Escher Strasse.”

ploration of an original path to the Fantastic.

12. Roy Menarini, “Tutto l’orrore che c’è. Argento manierista,” in Zagarrio, Argento vivo, 81.

Suspiria grossed over 3,370 million lire in

13. Argento, Paura.

Italy, ranking in the fifth place among the year’s 14. In his memoir Argento spells the name as “Susy top grossing films, and became a hit overseas as Benner.”

well. It was too complex and peculiar a model

15. Argento’s narrating voice at the beginning (an element that will return in Inferno, Tenebre, Phenomena, to give way to a filone, especially given the suf-Opera and Due occhi diabolici) can also be seen as an au-fering state of popular cinema, although it defi-thorial sign, the reaffirmation of the director’s figure as the nitely influenced foreign works such as The master of ceremonies who accompanies the audience on

1977: Tutti defunti 187
their journey, a role Argento had taken on himself since 685 (3.8.177); Rating: V.M.14. Release date: his TV appearances to introduce the mini- series La porta 3.10.177; Distribution: Euro International Film.

sul buio.

Domestic gross: 27,708,450 lire. Also known as: 16. Fabio Maiello, Dario Argento. Confessioni di un maestro dell’horror (Milan: Alacrán, 2007), 112.

Neun Leichen hat die Woche (West Germany).

17. Gomarasca and Pulici, “Dario Argento: nostro sig-Emilia-Romagna, late 1940s. The naive
nore degli orrori,” 7.

Dante is hired by a typographer to sell a book on 18. Maitland McDonagh, Broken Mirrors / Broken legends about the noble families of the area to Minds. The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento (London: sun tavern fields, 11), 12.

their descendants. Dante arrives at castle Zanotti, 19. The original quote, referring to the Catholic where the family head, Marquis Ignazio, has just Church’s teaching, is: “In ipsa item catholica ecclesia passed away. Despite the unfriendly atmosphere magnopere curandum est ut id teneamus quod ubique, quod and the eccentric characters that form the Zanotti semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est.” Reginald Stewart family, Dante is forced to stay—not the least be-Moxon (ed.), The Commonitorium of Vincentius of Lérins (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 115).

cause of the advances on the part of the Marquis’

20. Roberto Pugliese, Dario Argento, (Milan: Il Castoro daughter, the lovely Ilaria. A horrible discovery Cinema (186) 2011), 68.

takes place at the funeral: the butler, Giulio, has 21. Pulici and Cacioppo, “Daria Nicolodi: nostra been killed with a stake in the heart and buried signora degli orrori,” 13. The idea was not explicitly put down in the script, but only hinted at in annotations. What in the coffin in Zanotti’s place. What is more, the is left of it in the finished film is the ceramic panther that chambermaid, Rosa, has disappeared. From there explodes when Elena Markos dies.

on a series of murders ensue: all the members of 22. Alberto Pezzotta, “La modernità imperfetta,” in Za-the Zanotti family are killed one by one, in bizarre garrio, Argento vivo, 87.

and horrible ways, and the murderer seems to follow an old prophecy in Dante’s book, which will Tutti defunti … tranne i morti (All De-lead to the discovery of a treasure. The inept deceased… . Except the Dead)

tective Martini shows up to investigate, but to no D: Pupi Avati. S and SC: Pupi Avati, Anto-avail…

nio Avati, Gianni Cavina, Maurizio Costanzo;

After the out- and-out descent into horror

DOP: Pasquale Rachini (LV-Luciano Vittori);
of La casa dalle finestre che ridono, Avati mediM: Amedeo Tommasi (Ed Eurofilmusic); E:

tated a challenging gesture: “I was a bit nervous, Maurizio Tedesco; PD, CO: Luciana Morosetti;
because I had been labeled as the ‘Polanski of MU: Gianni Amadei, Giovanna Manca; AD: Ce-the Po Valley,’ and I didn’t like this definition. I sare Bastelli; C: Giorgio Urbinelli; AC: Francesco did not want to be imprisoned in the genre for Sterpa; SO: Raffaele De Luca; SOE: Massimo
the rest of my career. As it always happen with Anzellotti; Mix: Venanzio Biraschi; SE: Giovanni me, I tried to get rid of it, and distance myself Corridori, Luciano Anzellotti; KG: Vittorio Ni-through a different proposal that nonetheless
colosi; ChEl: Francesco Rachini; W: Teresa Lai; stayed fully in the genre.”1 Thus came Tutti de-AE: Piera Gabutti; 2ndAE: Carlo D’Alessandro;
funti … tranne i morti, a no- holds-barred spoof SS: Cesare Bornazzini. Cast: Gianni Cavina that mixed together elements from the old dark (Martini), Francesca Marciano (Ilaria), Carlo
house Gothic, the plot of Agatha Christie’s Ten Delle Piane (Dante), Greta Vayan (Hilde), Little Indians and tongue- in-cheek references to Michele Mirabella (Buster), Flavia Giorgi (Le -
the giallo, in an over- the-top, paradoxical, pro -
tizia), Giulio Pizzirani (Giulio), Bob Tonelli [Ar-vocative way—starting with the very title, which iano Nanetti] (Ariano), Luciano Bianchi (Ot-means “All Deceased… . Except the Dead.”

tavio), Carla Astolfi (Isabella), Pietro Bona The whodunit element has had many

(Donald), Ferdinando Orlandi (Typographer),
critics label Tutti defunti … tranne i morti as a Valentino Macchi (Priest), Andrea Matteuzzi
giallo, or a giallo parody of sorts, and yet the (Ignazio); uncredited: Cesare Bastelli (Gravedig-sight gags (such as the demystifying use of ger), Armando Sorrentino (Rosa, the Maid).

giallo’s typical iconography and style—the black PROD: Gianni Minervini and Antonio Avati for
gloved killer, the fetish for weapons, the killer’s A.M.A. Film S.r.l. (Rome); PS: Francesco Guer-POV) only represent the surface of the film, and rieri; PSe: Alessandro Vivarelli; ADM: Raffaello can be read as a footnote to Avati’s discomfort Forti. Country: Italy. Filmed on location in with the knifings he had to add to La casa dalle Casalecchio di Reno (Bologna) and Massa Fi-finestre che ridono in order to make the movie nalese (Modena), and at Incir- De Paolis (Rome).

more commercial. Here, the gory scenes are sur-Running time: 103 minutes (m. 2843). Visa n.

prisingly played straight (see the knifing of the

188 1977: Tutti defunti typographer in one of the early scenes), and and sexual deviation, albeit in a humorous way their unpleasantness add to Tutti defunti …

(the hirsute yet effeminate typographer who tranne i morti’s overall grotesque feel.

puts bright red nail varnish on his fingers; the However, the core of the movie is unmis-character of cousin Donald, “The masturbator”; takably Gothic, whose setting, themes and aesthe nymphomaniac Ilaria); the presence of a
thetics are systematically ridiculed. The genre’s damsel in distress as well as of a proper “dark main staples are all there: the gloomy manor
lady” revealed in the final twist. The plot unfolds (with its own cemetery) where the story takes
like a macabre fairytale for adults, as every death place; the insistence on the “return of the past,”

is structured like a retribution, and each victim with the volume on old popular legends and the is punished for his or her own sins, weaknesses cryptic nursery rhyme that foretells the fate of or idiosyncrasies. Avati deconstructs the ma -
the Zanotti family; the emphasis on monstrosity terial in a comic way, and still manages to make the movie truly scary at times, with
some top- notch macabre images,
such as the growing number of dead
bodies put together, one next to an-
other, on the huge master bed, an
image worthy of Bava at his most cyn-
ical.

All this is once again deeply
rooted in a precise regional and his-
torical environment: Avati’s region,

Emilia Romagna, a land isolated from
the big commercial arteries, and
haunted by old and creepy popular
legends. The time setting is also im-
portant: the story takes place during
an economically depressed period—
the immediate post–World War II
years—and its characters ape the lan-
guage and clichés of the American
movies that were flooding the the-
aters: over 600 U.S. films were re -
leased in the first months after the

Liberation of Rome, and in 146

American films collected 87 percent
of the total grosses. Hence, Avati’s
portrayal of his unlikely heroes, Dante
and the private eye Martini, can be
better appreciated as a spoof of the in-
fluence that American cinema had in

Italian post- war culture, and the com-
edy is the result of the jarring clash
between the way these characters be-
have in accordance to what they
learned from movies and the down-
to-earth reality in which they act. The
ugly- looking, awkward Dante wears
a Humphrey Bogart–esque coat and
hat, behaves like a romantic movie
hero, and his favorite catchphrase is

“Okays”—a blatant mispronunciation
of English language’s most simple say-

Italian poster for Tutti defunti… Tranne i morti (1977).

ing; the dimwitted Martini acts like

1977: Tutti defunti 18
the private detectives he has seen in black- and-complete and totally self- sufficient: Avati’s typ-white B- movies, even though he is comically inically naive, childish, inhibited (or sexually am-capable of making the simplest deduction.

biguous) losers and assorted freaks are united Avati gives his repertoire company full rein,
not only by their defeatist attitude toward life and makes the most of the unusual- looking, ec-and love (“I’m a cuckold, did you know that? All centric stock players, including Michele Mira -
women end up betraying me!” is Martini’s catch-bella—the unfortunate librarian in Fulci’s L’al -
phrase to impress a woman), but also by their
dilà, nowadays a famed TV personality—as the
common physical diversity—with the blatant

Bari- born cowboy (!) Buster, a role originally exception of the film’s female leads, Ilaria (Fran -
devised for Luigi Montefiori and yet another
cesca Marciano) and Hilde (Greta Vayan), both
stab at Italy’s provincial mimicry of American sexually active and provoking, queen bees of
culture. The most memorable of the lot are sorts who choose and dominate their man- child cousin Donald “The masturbator” (Pietro Bona,
servants, tease and eventually exploit them.

another of Avati’s non- actors), who meets one The humor (often influenced by Mel Brooks’

of the movie’s most hilarious deaths, and Bob
comedy style) is surreal, puerile, vulgar, cartoon-Tonelli (as the provocatively named Ariano, ish, absurd, nonsensical, hyperbolic—and most

“Aryan,” actually Tonelli’s real name), who be-of it simply irresistible. The screenplay was co-comes the object of a side- splitting post- mortem authored by Avati, his brother, Cavina and Mau-gag, whereas the film’s most freakish presence rizio Costanzo (later a famed talk show host), is that of the dwarfish maid Rosa, played by a but, as Avati recalled, “Whereas in the script for man in drag (yet another of Avati’s “discoveries,”

La casa dalle finestre che ridono, signed by sev -
a mentally ill little man with a tiny voice by the eral people, most ideas were mine, Tutti defunti name of Arnaldo Sorrentino), in a bout of gen-

… tranne i morti … was written to all effects by der bending that recalls a key character in La many hands… . We did not follow a real method: casa dalle finestre che ridono.

simply, we were trying to outdo each other on

The most significative presence in the cast
who managed to reach the most absurd terri -
is Carlo Delle Piane, a bit part actor who had tory. The more we went toward the bizarre and
debuted at 12 in Cuore (148), co- directed by crazy provocation, the more we had fun.”3 As

Duilio Coletti and Vittorio De Sica. “Coletti and actor Giulio Pizzirani noted, “Tutti defunti …

De Sica asked their assistants: ‘Go, spread out tranne i morti is a movie that wants to find the all over Lazio, and bring me the ugliest boy you grotesque in its own intimate essence. In that can find.’ They checked all the schools, all the period there were not many grotesque movies,
boarding schools, all the summer camps, they
and Pupi’s challenge was unusual within a cin-
went everywhere and eventually Delle Piane ema that used to take itself very seriously.”4 Still, won,” Avati recalled. “They called him ‘the little it is amazing that such a project, so distant from monkey.’ Think of a boy who wins such a the typical paths of Italian comedy, ever got made.

contest: Delle Piane’s film debut happened be-

Tutti defunti … tranne i morti was shot on
cause of this, he was chosen because he was the a low budget, on the hills near Bologna and ugliest.”2

Modena, in the cold winter of 176, with a min-Having been confined for almost three
imal crew that operated inside a real castle: a decades in bit parts (including, among others, fake Medieval manor built in the early 20th cen-Polanski’s Che?) because of his peculiar fea tures tury near the village of Massa Finalese, which and voice, Tutti defunti … tranne i morti was
belonged to a crazy rich old man who owned a

Delle Piane’s first starring role: the actor imme-funeral parlor in Bologna.5 It got a V.M.14 rating diately became one of Avati’s favorite players, because of some vulgar lines and, incredible but and reached a well- deserved notoriety, starting true, because of the hilarious scene where cousin with the 178 TV mini- series Jazz Band: he won Donald begins to masturbate while watching
an Italian Golden Globe for Best Breakthrough

Martini and Hilde making love—a grotesque re-

Actor in 184 with Gita scolastica (183), and the visitation of the typical “peeping tom” moments Coppa Volpi award as Best Actor at the 186
in Italian sex comedies of the period, which Venice festival with Regalo di Natale, one of leads to the character’s hilarious death. The Avati’s finest works.

movie did mediocre business, but represented a Overall, Tutti defunti … tranne i morti is
further step in the author’s peculiar vision of the movie where the author’s microcosm feels

Gothic.

10 1978: Enfantasme NoTeS

4. Ibid., 101.

5. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, 1. Claudio Bartolini, “Tutti defunti … tranne i morti: la shooting began on November 15, 176. In order to conform provocazione,” in Adamovit, Bartolini, Servini, Nero Avati, to Italian laws, which demanded that a film be shot at least 100.

partly inside a film studio, after wrapping principal shoot-2. Abramovit, Bartolini, Il gotico padano, 137.

ing Avati and his brother Antonio shot a few unimportant 3. Bartolini, “Tutti defunti … tranne i morti: la provo-scenes (which they knew they would later cut) at the De cazione,” 102.

Paolis studios.

1978

Enfantasme
search of tranquility. Her solitude is broken only D: Sergio Gobbi. S: based on the novel En-by the visits of the ungraceful maid Armida, but fantasme by Georges- Jean Arnaud; SC: Ugo one day Claudia is approached by a mysterious

Pirro, Sergio Gobbi; Dial: Ugo Pirro; DOP: child orphan, Nino, who asks her for food. When Ennio Guarnieri (Eastmancolor, Telecolor); M:

Claudia’s husband Andrea unexpectedly reaches

Stelvio Cipriani, conducted by the author (Ed.

her, Nino, seemingly jealous, disappears. Claudia, Nazionalmusic); E: Ruggero Mastroianni; PD,
who has become affectionate to the child and CO: Elio Micheli; AD: Francesco Longo; SS: identifies him with her dead son, starts looking Anna Maria Bifarini; C: Renato Ranieri; AC: Anfor him desperately, afraid that he might starve tonio Scaramuzza; SP: Enrico Appetito; MU:

or freeze to death. Andrea, convinced that his wife Franco Schioppa; Hair: Sergio Gennari; CO: has become neurotic, brings over a psychiatrist, Serenilla Staccioli; ACO: Milena Guarinoni; AP

Dr. Sisti. The villagers are concerned and per-D: Mauro Passi; SO: Carlo Palmieri; B: Piero
plexed, and only the hippies who live in an iso -

Fondi; Mix: Gianni D’Amico; AE: Adriana Ola-
lated farmhouse believe in Claudia’s statements.

sio, Elsa Natali. Cast: Agostina Belli (Claudia One day, while Andrea and the villagers are busy Lanza), Stefano Satta Fores (Andrea Lanza), hunting wolves, Claudia is left alone and Nino Sergino [Serge Youssoufian] (Nino), Jean-reappears. Claudia convinces her husband to Claude Bouillon (Dr. Sisti), Gérard Menigou,
meet the orphan in the cemetery chapel where he Antonio Cantafora (Flavio, the Hippy), Brigitte usually hides, but Andrea is found dead, Skay (Flavio’s Wife), Aïché Nana [Kiash Nanah]

seemingly killed by Nino. Claudia’s cottage is (Gypsy woman), Mario Mattia Giorgetti, Elisa
burned down by the kid, who apparently dies in Pozzi (Armida), Lorenzo Logli, Anna Canzi, Enthe fire. The woman returns to town, and Nino
rica Randi, Giovanni Rubens, Giuseppe Nava,
is in the car with her… .

Isabella Guerrato, Mara Palvarini, Mario Mer-

For his fourteenth movie as a director, Ser-
calli, Elena Pantano, Mario Mariani, Giusy gio Gobbi (born in Milan in 137 but a resident Moschella. PROD: Ark Cinematografica (Rome),
of France, where he primarily acted as a pro-

Paris Cannes Production A.A. (Paris); EP: Mario ducer) chose to adapt a mystery novel by the

Saragò; GM: Livio Maffei; PS: Anselmo Par-prolific French writer Georges- Jean Arnaud, rinello; PSe: Antonio Saragò; ADM: Angelo winner of the 177 “Mystère de la critique” prize, Saragò; Cashier: Franco Penna. Country: Italy /
and centered on the encounter between a

France. Filmed on location in Bormio and at
woman, still in mourning for the death of her

Icet- De Paolis Studios (Milan). Running time: only son, and a child who may or may not be a

104 minutes (m. 2850). Visa n. 72187 (8.10.178); ghost.

Rating: V.M.14. Release dates: 11.5.178 (Italy); As Gobbi explained, the Italian title is a

11.8.178 (France); Distribution: Battistelli. Do-wordplay between the French words “enfant”

mestic gross: ,157,000 lire. Also known as: (child) and “fantasme” (ghost) and the verb “en-L’enfant de nuit; Les inconnus aux petit pieds fanter” (to conceive a child),1 and the movie sim-

(France).

ilarly blends different genres in an offbeat, in-Claudia Lanza, who lost her son Marco in
teresting mixture. First and foremost, it is a a car accident for which she blames her husband psychological study, centered on a woman on

Andrea, returns to her cottage in the Alps, in the verge of a breakdown, who desperately clings

1978: Enfantasme

11
to the memory of her dead offspring; it is, albeit disturbing mood, as in the confrontations be-marginally, a drama involving a misunderstood, tween Claudia and the villagers, depicted as embittered child, not dissimilar to the “lacrima-narrow- minded, greedy or downright hostile;
movies” centered on syrupy parent- child rela-and he scatters unsettling touches here and tionships. But it is also an offbeat ghost story of there, such as the character of the witch- like sorts.

housekeeper Armida, who performs a grisly Is Nino—the scared, hostile
and elusive kid that only Claudia
can see—a ghost or a product of her
imagination? Is he a supernatural
presence or the projection of the
woman’s frustrated need for affec-
tion after the traumatic death of her
only son in a car accident caused by
her husband? Or is he a real boy
after all? The clues are contradictory,
and the script (by Gobbi and the
renowned Ugo Pirro) keeps the am-
biguity about Nino’s existence and
nature until the very end, even after
the mystery has seemingly been
solved via a rational explanation.

However, the story moves away
from the horror film clichés, and
opts for a subdued, psychological
approach. “I don’t care if I’m not in
tune with the fashion,” Gobbi stated;

“Enfantasme, if one was willing to
accept certain commercial rules,
could be turned into a product of
the Exorcist thread, or a paranormal
film, Audrey Rose-style. Whereas I
don’t want to be conditioned or stick
to formulas.”2 The result recalls a
quieter, dampened version of Roman

Polanski’s Repulsion, especially since
the last scenes—after the offscreen
murder of Claudia’s estranged hus-
band—leave room to a different in-
terpretation than the one which is
seemingly accepted in the film; it is
also an anticipation of themes de-
veloped, albeit in an explicit Fantas-
tic manner, by Dino Risi’s fasci nat -
ing Fantasma d’amore.

Actually, the direction has its
share of flaws: the depiction of a
comprehensive hippie commune is
a tad banal and possibly suffers from
the attempt at squeezing in a politi-
cal discourse, and the role of a psy-
chiatrist called in to “cure” Claudia
is only marginally sketched. Still,

Gobbi succeeds in building a subtly

Italian locandina for Enfantasme (1978).

12 1978: L’osceno desiderio superstitious ritual by slashing a rooster’s throat Box- office results were poor, though, and critical and spraying its blood in the kitchen to “purify”

reception was mixed. Belli’s star was fading too: it from the evil eye. As the director explained, her next film, Manaos (180, Alberto Vázquez

“What I sought to portray, keeping aside any

Figueroa), was a flop, and she returned to the parapsychological temptation, is the confronta-big screen only in 182, with the comedy Vai
tion between two lonely beings, marginal from
avanti tu che mi viene da ridere, alongside Lino the others, but with a notable potential Banfi.

regarding their feelings… . Whereas the second-Arnaud’s novel was adapted again for the
ary characters—the dead kid’s father, the vil-
screen in 200, with Jean- Paul Guyon’s Sommeil lagers etcetera—are all over the top, only the blanc.

woman and the kid have a linear attitude.”3

Despite all its shortcomings, Enfantasme is

NoTeS
a fascinating film. Shot in five weeks in the 1. Mirella Acconciamessa, “Il cinema francese? È

Alpine village of Bormio,4 it benefits from Ennio morto,” L’Unità, March 16, 178

Guarnieri’s striking cinematography and Rug-

2. s.c. “La Belli madre impazzita in un film- sfida gero Mastroianni’s expert editing. Nino’s first francese,” La Stampa, March 17, 178.

apparition, his pitch- black coat standing out in 3. Ibid.

the snowy landscape, is particularly impressive, 4. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, shooting began on November 14, 177.

and Guarnieri even manages to make passing
references to the extraordinary black- and-white images of photographer Mario Giacomelli (see

L’osceno desiderio—Le pene nel ventre
the scene where the black- coated kids are (The Obscene Desire—The Pains in the
playing outside the church, almost an exact ren-Belly)

dition of one of Giacomelli’s most famous D: Jeremy Scott [Giulio Petroni] [Spanish
works). Scenes in interiors have a pictorial qual-version: Giulio Petroni]. S: Giulio Petroni; SC: ity that hints at Bruegel and Rembrandt.

Piero Regnoli, Giulio Petroni [Spanish version: As Claudia, Agostina Belli gives one of the

S: Joaquín Dominguez; SC: Giulio Petroni]; most convincing performances in her career,

DOP: Leopoldo Villaseñor (Eastmancolor, Tele-
while the excellent Stefano Satta Flores is some-color); M: Carlo Savina (Ed. Nazionalmusic); E: how sacrificed in a small role. The rest of the Marcella Benvenuti [Spanish version: G. Peroni cast features a couple of fading beauties such as (sic!)]; ArtD: Mimmo Scavia; SD: Vincenzo the German Brigitte Skay (the sexy titular hero-Medusa [Spanish version: Aurelio Gallego]; MU: ine in Bruno Corbucci’s Isabella, duchessa dei Sergio Angeloni [Spanish version: and Mercedes diavoli, 16, and one of the many victims in

Guillot]; Hair: Placida Crapanzano [Spanish ver-Reazione a catena) and the Turkish- Lebanese
sion: Mercedes Gomez]; AD: Pedro Rosado;
belly dancer Aïché Nana (136–2014), whose im-

2ndAD: José Peris; C: Manuel Mateos; AC: Sat-
promptu strip- tease at Rome’s restaurant Rugan-urnino Pita; W: Renata Morroni [Spanish ver-
tino, during a wild party, caused a scandal, and sion: Isabel Perales]; AE: Rita Di Palo; SO: Pietro inspired a famous scene in Fellini’s La dolce vita.

Ortolani [Spanish version: Miguel Ángel Polo]; Enfantasme gained some attention from

B: Benito Alchimede; SE: Antonio Molina; SS:

the press, due to Belli’s popularity at the time Maria Luce Faccenna; Mix: Renato Cadueri.

after Dino Risi’s Profumo di donna and Telefoni Cast: Marisa Mell [Marlies Moitzi] (Amanda
bianchi (176, which earned her a David di Do-

Holbrook Orsomandi), Lou Castel [Ulv Quar -
natello Award as best actress), and her roles zéll] (Father Peter Clark), Chris Avram (Andrea alongside Kirk Douglas—in Alberto De Mar-Orsomandi), Laura Trotter (Rachel), Javier Es-
tino’s Holocaust 2000 (177)—and Fred As-
crivá (Fabio), Víctor Israel (Giovanni), Paola taire—in Yves Boisset’s Un taxi mauve (177).

Maiolini (Prostitute). PROD: Cineiniziative Surprisingly, Gobbi’s film was given a V.M.14

S.R.L. (Rome), Triton P.C. (Madrid); PM: Fabio rating because of its disturbing depiction of the Diotallevi [Spanish version: Joaquín Domin -
child and the “morbidness and deviousness of
guez]; PS: Augusto Dolfi; PA: José Rincon; AP: the mother.” In a way, this attitude predated the Carlos Galan, Fernando Vidal Campos. Coun -
attention on film’s “negative educational impact”

try: Italy / Spain. Running time: 8 minutes (m.

that would characterize the work of Italian 266); Visa n. 72161 (7.25.178); Rating: V.M.18.

board of censors during the following decade.

Release dates: 11.4.178 (Spain), 12.28.178 (Italy);

1978: L’osceno desiderio

13

Distribution: SIDA (Italy), Cinema 2000 S.A.

tori a Milano, 163), Petroni then became one

(Spain). Domestic gross: 116,165,22 lire. Also of the leading Spaghetti Western directors with known as: Poseída (Spain).

such outstanding works as Da uomo a uomo

Note: in the opening credits for the Spanish

(167, starring Lee Van Cleef and John Phillip version Lou Castel becomes “Castell,” Laura Law), Tepepa (16, co- starring Tomas Milian Trotter becomes “Troters.”

and Orson Welles), E per tetto un cielo di stelle The beautiful Amanda, just married to the wealthy nobleman Andrea

Orsomandi, arrives at her husband’s ex-
travagant Gothic mansion. There, she
soon finds herself uncomfortable, partly
because of the place’s sinister atmosphere
and scary housekeeper Giovanni, partly
because of her husband’s strange behav-
ior. Andrea is the victim of a centuries-
old curse related to his family, and it soon
transpires that he is killing prostitutes in
order to exorcise it. Amanda, who is
pregnant with Andrea’s child, seeks com-
fort in her friends Fabio and Rachel, but
it turns out that they are part of a
devilish conspiracy against her and her
baby. Only a priest, Father Clark, seems
able to help Amanda. But the demonic
forces are too strong…

“L’osceno desiderio is not signed by
me, it is not mine and therefore I know
very little about it, and what appears in
that film is not of my concern. And I
don’t even think it is appropriate to talk
about the end of popular cinema or
some thing else in relation to it. It is only
an awful pecionata [author’s note:

botched job], of which I am not respon-
sible.”1

Giulio Petroni was always ada -
mant in denying his involvement in this
obscure Gothic film, shot between Italy
and Spain under the title La profezia2
and released to an indifferent audience
in late 178 with a decidedly more
vulgar title, complete with the allusive
subtitle Le pene nel ventre (The Pains in
the Belly, which played on the double
entendre of the word “pene,” also stand-
ing for “penis”) and signed under the
pseudonym “Jeremy Scott.” However,
the movie is indeed the work of Petroni,
one of the most interesting genre film
directors of the previous decade. Hav -
ing started his career with a number of
amiable comedies (La cento chilometri,

15; I piaceri dello scapolo, 160; Una

Striking Italian locandina for L’osceno desiderio (1978). Art domenica d’estate, 162; I soliti rapina -
by enrico De Seta.

14 1978: L’osceno desiderio (168, starring Giuliano Gemma) and La notte
birth to the Antichrist.5 Still, the mood and char-dei serpenti (16).

acters draw back to the Gothic horror films In the 170s Petroni’s career became more
made in Italy during the previous decade. The
erratic: he abandoned the Western (save for opening sequence, which shows Amanda (Mell)

172’s La vita, a volte, è molto dura, vero Provvi-and her troubled husband Andrea Orsomandi
denza? starring Tomas Milian), became the pro-

(Chris Avram) returning to the dilapidated Or-
ducer of his own movies, and took a different
somandi mansion, immediately gives the viewer
path, characterized by the exploration of eroti-a feeling of déjà-vu: despite the present- day set-cism and social satire in such works as Non com-ting, it very much recalls old classics such as L’or-mettere atti impuri (171) and Crescete e molti-ribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock. What is more, plicatevi (173). However, his 175 film Labbra Avram’s character—a nobleman persecuted by
di lurido blu, an intense drama about a woman
a family curse and a serial killer who slaughters (Lisa Gastoni), who has become a nymphoma-prostitutes “to free the world from sin”—is a
niac after a childhood trauma, and is unhappily contemporary variation of the lords of the castle married to a homosexual (Corrado Pani), was
who hid horrible secrets, whereas Amanda is a
a bitter critical failure, condemning the director descendant of the damsels in distress played by to a three- year hiatus. L’osceno desiderio—co-fi-Barbara Steele. Abandoned in a hostile environ-nanced by Petroni himself with his company
ment by a distant (and at first sexually ineffec-Cineiniziative, which went bankrupt soon
tive) husband, and at the mercy of a creepy and after—was an attempt to cash in on the Satanic intrusive housekeeper (the grotesque- looking horror trend, and the emphasis on eroticism

Iberian character actor Víctor Israel), Amanda aimed at the relaxation of the Iberian censors looks like a survivor of a world that no longer after the death of Francisco Franco; the Spanish exists. In Petroni’s slapdash movie such a feeling version, titled Poseída (Possessed), was given the is also evoked by the state of abandon and care-rating “S,” designating movies with an adult con-lessness that hovers on the sets and on the film tent. What happened during the filming is not
itself, despite the director’s occasional attempts clear, but Petroni chose not to sign the movie at giving the movie a stylish mood, via long under his real name.

takes and careful framing and lighting.

L’osceno desiderio had a shady genesis. The

The presence of Lou Castel as Father Clark
script kept at Rome’s CSC, titled La profezia (The (Father Potters in the script) is equally signifi -

Prophecy) is signed by Petroni and “Dean cant and unwillingly symbolic. The Swedish,

Craig,” that is Piero Regnoli, whereas the open-Colombian- born Castel (real name Ulv Quar -
ing titles for the Spanish version Poseída (Pos-zéll) became one of the icons of the new season sessed) credit the original story to the co-of Italian cinema, starting with Marco Belloc-
producer Joaquín Domínguez Riesgo and the
chio’s masterpiece debut I pugni in tasca (165).

script to Petroni, who is also credited with the Castel quickly became the face of revolution, no editing; what is more, in the foreign print the matter whether he played a rebel—as in Liliana director does not hide behind the alias Jeremy Cavani’s Francesco d’Assisi (166, as the epony-Scott. The Spanish cut is some minutes longer
mous saint), Carlo Lizzani’s Western Requiescant than the one available on Italian VHS, and, (166), or Salvatore Samperi’s psychological clocking in at 3 minutes, seem to correspond
drama Grazie zia (168)—or a reactionary, as in to the version submitted to the Italian Board of Damiano Damiani’s Quien Sabe (166). Despite
censors.3 Rumors that the music for the Spanish appearing in auteur movies—such as Rainer version was written by none other than Jesús

Werner Fassbinder’s Warnung vor einer heiligen Franco are not true, as both prints share the

Nutte (a.k.a. Beware of the Holy Whore, 171), same score by Carlo Savina: although in the Marco Bellocchio’s Nel nome del padre (172),

Spanish copy the composer’s name is uncred -
and Claude Chabrol’s Nada (174)—Castel never
ited, thus leaving room for speculation, the ex-reached stardom, and did not care about it istence of a soundtrack album including Savina’s either; he used to give most of his money to the music for L’ingenua (175, Gianfranco Bal-Far Left Maoist party “Servire il popolo” (To
danello) and Petroni’s film dispels any doubt.4
serve the people), and in 172 his political views The story vaguely recalls Rosemary’s Baby,
led to his expulsion from Italy.

as the female lead played by Marisa Mell finds Upon his return to Rome in 175, Castel’s
herself the victim of a diabolical plot to give popularity had dropped, and he accepted roles

1978: L’osceno desiderio 15
in genre flicks of little importance in order to fi-

(“In America there was really need of such a
nance the political cause. Such, obviously, was beautiful baby… ”), reconnects to The Omen,
the case with Petroni’s film, where the actor and feels like a botched job indeed. L’osceno plays an idiosyncratic priest who never wears a desiderio was Petroni’s penultimate work. In cassock and looks more like a trade unionist, al-185 he directed the little- seen Il rivale, and then ways hanging around in a seedy bar. “I remem-dedicated himself to writing, publishing a number that we filmed it in Spain and that I was not ber of books with his own publishing company
paid: they still owe me five million lire,” he re-Dalia, including the autobiographical Le passeg-called. “The producer was a woman, a very se-
giate nelle sabbie mobili (2001) and the vitriolic rious one, who worked at Il Manifesto,6 but… .

pamphlets Le ceneri del cinema italiano (2001) Those were extreme contradictions, which we
and Le ceneri del cinema italiano: tragico aggior-used to live back then. As an actor, to me the namento (2002). He died in 2010.

movie was zero. All the working experience of
that period was like that.”7

N

The way Petroni deals with Castel’s char-
oTeS
acter hints at a not- so-subtle anticlerical mood, 1. Alberto Pezzotta, “‘Non sono mai stato un cinefilo.’

especially with the way the director stages the Intervista con Giulio Petroni,” Segnocinema #121, May/June failed exorcism and the ensuing, grotesque scene 2003.

where the frightened priest runs away to a mis-2. G.Z., “Marisa Mell parla,” Corriere d’Informazione, January 28, 178. According to the Public Cinematographic erable death, running past a prostitute who ad-Register, shooting began on November 14, 177.

dresses him mockingly. According to Spanish

3. The Spanish cut includes some atmospheric passages critic Carlos Aguilar, “the core of the film lies in that are absent in the Italian version: a brief scene of a deliberate identification between Satanism and Amanda in the villa’s garden (26s), a long take of Amanda Catholicism, seen as the sides of the same, re-walking around the chapel (36s). It also features a couple of extra shots before the murder of the prostitute, namely pulsive coin; on the one hand, three lustful Sa-the victim asking “Where the hell did you take me to?”

tanic conspirators … on the other, the adversary and Amanda walking around the park at night (1m07s).

complicity between a shady priest and a theistic The Spanish version anticipates the first diabolical invo-psycho killer, who kills prostitutes with the forcation held by Fabio, Rachel and Giovanni, which takes place just before Amanda’s erotic nightmare (thus giving mer’s philosophical condescension.”8
it more sense). Amanda’s vision of the dead man rising up This nevertheless gets lost in the general
from the coffin is longer (12s) and the scene features a mess that L’osceno desiderio soon becomes, be-visual filter that is absent in the Italian version. Similarly, tween one erotic scene and the next. Mell, Laura Amanda’s vision of Fabio taking off Rachel’s dress (before Orsomandi joins them in a threesome) runs a minute Trotter and Paola Maiolini all willingly take their longer, and the whole sex scene is shown through a jelly clothes off, leaving little room for imagination, filter that makes it look like a nightmare. The Italian cut whether it be Amanda masturbating on the bed
does away with a couple of brief moments near the end: or a threesome seduction sequence featuring

Father Clark’s laughter after reading the prophecy found Amanda’s friends (Trotter and Javier Escrivá).

in the witch’s coffin, and a close- up of Rachel laughing (15s) after Amanda spits the holy wafer in Father Clark’s face.

The subplot involving the prostitute killings is Lastly, the Spanish cut includes a longer version of Andrea’s particularly grating, with an extended scene in death, where it is shown that it is Giovanni who sets him which the victim (Maiolini) asks her murderer
on fire with a tank of gasoline (38s), whereas the Italian what kind of sexual practice he would like to en-cut makes it look like spontaneous combustion. In the script, it is Andrea who sets himself of fire.

gage in with her, a moment more in tune with

4. The CD was released in 2015 on the label Quartet the Spanish “S” movies of the period than with Records (QR188).

the Gothic genre to which the movie is supposed 5. Mell herself name- dropped Polanski’s film in inter-to belong. Incidentally, in the script not only is views: “It is a disturbing story, along the lines of Rosemary’s Andrea immediately revealed as the prostitute

Baby. In the movie, I too am expecting a child, and from beginning to end I appear on screen with a big belly. “ G.Z., killer (whereas in the movie the murderer’s

“Marisa Mell parla.”

identity is kept secret and the scene plays like 6. Il Manifesto is a militant left- wing Italian newspaper some sort of Argento rip- off), but the prostitute’s founded in 170.

embarrassing monologue is missing: such an ad-

7. Manlio Gomarasca, “Professione ribelle. Intervista a Lou Castel,” in Eroi & antieroi del cinema italiano, 44.

dition was probably the kind of thing that made 8. Carlos Aguilar, “Poseída,” in Javier G. Romero (ed.), Petroni disown the movie.

Antología del cine fantástico italiano. Quatermass #7, NoThe apocalyptic ending, which implies that
vember 2008, 283–284.

the Antichrist is going to spread evil overseas

16 1978: Pensione paura Pensione paura (Hotel Fear)

tion of the latter’s lover, but then a stranger kills them both with an ax, and Rosa hides the bodies D: Francesco Barilli. S: Barbara Alberti,
in the basement. A few days later a mysterious Amedeo Pagani; SC: Barbara Alberti, Amedeo
friend of Rosa’s father shows up at the inn, looking Pagani, Francesco Barilli; DOP: Gualtiero
for the man who betrayed them and caused the

Manozzi (Technospes); M: Adolfo Waitzman
death of 15 people: Marta’s lover…

(Ed. C.A.M.); E: Amedeo Salfa; PD: Vincenzo

With Il profumo della signora in nero,

Dazzi; ArtD: Nello Giorgetti; SD: Franco [Fran-Francesco Barilli seemed the next big thing of cisco] Canet; CO: Paola Rossetti; MU: Franco

Italian horror cinema, a young auteur with an

Schioppa; Hair: Sergio Gennari; AD: Ignazio
original, sharp vision of the genre and the ability Acosta; C: Giorgio Aureli; AC: Francesco Stefano to turn his ideas into effective products that Gagliardini, Ramiro Sabell; AE: Anna Maria could please genre fans and critics alike, as Rocca; Props: Roberto Magagnini; SO: Lucio
proved by the unusually favorable response to

Maniscalchi; B: Marco Colantoni; Mix: Renato
such an unpleasant, uncompromising work.

Cadueri; ChEl: Alfredo Colantoni; KG: Luciano

And yet, it took four years for Barilli to return Spina; SP: Angelo Samperi; W: Isolina Bensi; SS: behind the camera. The reason, he explained,

Giulia Fanara. Cast: Leonora Fani [Eleonora was quite simple: “They wouldn’t let me make

Cristofani] (Rosa), Luc Merenda (Rodolfo), the films I wanted to. After Il profumo della sig-Francisco Rabal (Marta’s lover), Jole Fierro nora in nero, for years I’ve been offered scripts (Rodolfo’s lover), José María Prada (Hotel in which somebody ended up eating someone
guest), Lidia Biondi (Marta), Massimo [Máx -
else. (laughs) It was a nightmare: there were sto-imo] Valverde (The Stranger), Francesco Impe-
ries set in the Middle Ages, others were political ciati (Guido), Luigi De Santis (Parish Priest), horror movies in which Commies ate Fascists

Carlo Totti (Second Fascist), Maria D’Alessandro and vice versa … (laughs).”1

(Prostitute), Arnaldo Caivano, Diala Caruso Whereas Barilli wanted to do something

(Prostitute), Wolfango Soldati (Fascist). PROD: quite different:

Tommaso Dazzi, Paolo Fornasier [and Tadeo

I wrote a love story set in Tangier in the 120s, in-Villalba, José Gutiérrez Maesso] for Aleph Cinspired by an old film starring Jean Gabin, Pépé le ematografica (Rome), Alexandra Films S.A.

Moko, mixed with other things. And it was a tremen-

(Madrid); PS: Pietro Sassaroli; PSe: Giulio Dini; dous disappointment, because producers thought we PA: Sergio Forcina; Adm: Oreste Tiraterra; UP: needed U.S. backers. It had to be a big- budget copro-Lucherini, Rossetti, Spinola [Enrico Lucherini, duction, with American actors… . I spent a whole Margherita Autuori, Matteo Spinola]. Country:

year of my life working on that movie, until a day Italy / Spain. Filmed at Bracciano Lake and at Euro International Film bankrupted. Pity, because I Terme di Stigliano, Canale Monterano (Rome).

really wanted to do this film, which was to be called Running time: 100 minutes (m. 2740). Visa n.

Vento rosso (Red Wind). I never sold the script, God 71508 (2..178); Rating: V.M.18. Release date: knows whether I’ll do it or not, someday. As you see, 2.16.178 (Italy); Distribution: Euro International I always had a strange relationship with movies.

Film (Italy). Domestic gross: 82,645,242 lire. Also There are directors who make one film a year, some of them good, other just plain bad. Whereas I want known as: La violación de la señorita Julia (Spain).

to do the films I like: either they give me the money Northern Italy, early 1945. As war is nearing
and let me do my job, or I quit. I know I’m a crazy the end, a few guests are staying at the inn “Pen-guy.

sione delle sirene,” managed by the middle- aged Marta with the help of her young daughter Rosa.

At one point his name was also attached to

Even though she knows that Marta keeps her lover the comedy … E vai con il liscio, writ ten by hidden in the attic, Rosa awaits the return of her Roberto Leoni and Gianfranco Bucceri, which
father, at war as an aviator, and spends her free was eventually directed by Giancarlo Nicotra,
time with Guido, the parish priest’s nephew. One and titled Vai col liscio (176), starring Janet of the guests, Rodolfo, the lover of a mature rich Agren.

woman whose jewels he wants to steal, keeps ha-Another project, closer to the horror genre,
rassing the girl. One night Marta dies accidentally that ended up bitterly was L’occhio.

after falling down the stairs, and Rosa has to take That was one I really cared about. I wrote it to show over the hotel’s management alone. Soon she is people that you can do a movie on a shoestring attacked and raped by Rodolfo with the coopera-budget, and make good money out of it. The idea

1978: Pensione paura

17
came to me because of a guy I knew, who lived in a sisted it would be too expensive. Same old story.

house in Rome that no art director in the world could What is more, I didn’t like the original story of Pen-ever dream of. It was a huge abandoned villa which sione paura that much. But since I needed money, I this hippie had transformed into a beautiful night-said: “OK, let’s do it.” But I liked the idea of this mare. It was haunting, stunning and gloomy at the gloomy hotel where the whole movie takes place, I same time. All windows were sealed
with tape and so on. By the way, I have
used that house on Il profumo della
signora in nero: it’s Mario Scaccia’s
apartment. I wrote L’occhio thinking
of that particular house. It was the
story of a horrible old hag—I wanted
re nowned painter Novella Parigini for
the role—who lives secluded in this
incredible place. One day, looking out
the window, she sees a beautiful
young man passing by. She lures him
into the house and never lets him go.

It was not a completely original story,
as William Wyler had done some -
thing similar with The Collector, but

Stephen King hadn’t written Misery
yet. I showed the script to a producer
and he told me: “Hey, this is going to
be expensive, we need a U.S. copro-
duction!” “Look, it’s a very low- budget
thing, I’m even going to shoot it en-
tirely with a hand- held camera! It’ll
make lots of money….” I had planned
to make it a low- budget, minimalist
horror movie—L’occhio would cost

240 million lire, which was a ridicu-
lous sum—but they wanted Shelley

Winters in the lead… . I couldn’t
believe my ears. So I eventually
dropped the project. Then one day

Patroni Griffi phoned me and said:

“Well, I read your script and really
loved it. I’d like to make a movie out
of it.”2

The chance to return behind
the camera eventually came in 177,
by sheer chance. As Barilli ex-
plained,
in that period I wanted to do L’occhio.

Then one day a producer, Dazzi, came
to me and said: “I want you to make
this film.” And he handed me the
treatment. I read it and said: “Come
on … it’s going to cost a lot of money,
the story is so complex… . Listen, I
have a script which is just perfect for
you, it’s all set inside an apartment,
and we even have the whole set ready
without spending a single lira.” So he

Italian locandina for Pensione paura (1978). Art by Piero read L’occhio, but once again he in-ermanno Iaia.

18 1978: Pensione paura wanted to do something really claustrophobic the of life, in the desperate attempt to continue their way L’occhio was intended to be.

non- existence: these sex- obsessed guests em-body an ugly, desperate sexuality, as if interThe script, originally titled Lago nero, was
course was the only thing that keeps them alive.

written by Barbara Alberti and Amedeo Pagani.

The relationship between Rodolfo and the

It was a gloomy drama set during World War II, middle- aged woman (Jole Fierro) who pays him
in an isolated hotel by a lake, where an underage for his sexual favors is a degenerate variation on girl has to manage the place alone with her the theme of the necrophile passions that turn mother, and must avoid the attentions of a slimy up so often in the Gothic horror films made in gigolo in league with the Fascists. Barilli tried the 160s, and overall the movie is characterized to emphasize the elements of the story he liked by a malevolent, repulsive eroticism, which cli-the most, such as the claustrophobic setting and maxes in one of Italian cinema’s most unpleasant the mystery side, as the young Rosa finds herself rape scenes (in a decade that featured plenty of protected by a mysterious stranger who kills all them). Barilli changed it from the script, adding those who have harmed her. The result is a onethe bit where Rodolfo’s lover lures Rosa in the of-a-kind work, which does not fit into the room where he awaits, and takes part in the rape Gothic, the giallo or the psychological drama, as well, in a grotesque attempt to give some but encompasses all of these, and more.

pleasure to her man, too. It was not the only part As with his debut, Barilli blends references
that the director changed or added during film-to classic Gothic yarns. The imposing titular inn ing, in order to improve upon a script he was
is yet another variation of the Gothic mansion, not happy with, and which he considered “a bit and becomes a character on its own, complete
phony.”3 One of the things that were dropped
with dark corridors suddenly lit by bouts of was the original beginning, which shows the
lighting, forbidden rooms, and menacing crypts.

protagonist (named Viola in the script) swim-

Moreover, it is populated with ghost- like charming in the titular “black lake” and diving to acters, refugees from an apocalyptic world that some sort of “house at the bottom at the lake”

is collapsing all around them—145’s Northern
composed of old furniture—chairs, tables and

Italy, a country plagued by the civil war between the like—, a surreal image which symbolizes her the Fascists and the partisans, amid Allied ideal, lost family nest and, in a way, predates the bombings and Fascists on the run. Like the fig-underwater scene in Argento’s Inferno. The ures in an absurdist stage play, they are waiting

“house at the bottom at the lake” returns in a for something—death—which does not show
key passage of the script and in the ending: one up, but which accompanies their every move,
senses that Barilli’s decision was mostly caused word and thought. There is even a mysterious
by budgetary reasons.

presence in the attic, Rosa’s mother’s cowardly Shooting took place in Manziana, near the
lover (Francisco Rabal), who hides like a rat for Bracciano lake in Lazio (posing as Northern
fear of the Fascists.

Italy), starting late August 177,4 and was not a On the other hand, the movie’s core relates
pleasant experience for everyone involved.

to the so- called “female Gothic,” by focusing on Barilli was very vocal in blaming Dazzi, whose a central character of the weaker sex on the intrusive presence on the set and ill- fated verge of a mental breakdown. Rosa is a damsel
choices as a producer resulted in a tense climate.

in distress, harassed by ruthless individuals who

“On the set of Pensione Paura we often had these do not want her blood, but her body. She is a lit-arguments, because I was being told: ‘We’re not tle girl forced to grow up too soon, and like Il going to shoot this scene, as it’s not in the script!’

profumo della signora in nero’s Silvia, her coming I didn’t even listen. I just placed the camera and of age takes place in the form of a traumatic sex-shot it. And I edited the film the way I wanted ual experience. As in his debut, Barilli explores to.”

the psychoanalytic nuances of the story and its In order to save the day, the director paid
incestuous undercurrent, with Rosa’s adoration great care to the visuals. Barilli’s painterly eye is (and idealization) of her absent father, like evident throughout, with beautiful pictorial im-Mimsy Farmer’s character did. The craving ages such the opening shot of Rosa slowly ad-ghouls that menace Rosa, starting with the slimy vancing on a boat, filmed with a zoom lens gigolo Rodolfo (Luc Merenda) are like vampires through tree branches—an idyllic, deceptive of sorts, who attempt to suck her youth and will image that turns eerie as the camera rises on a

1978: Pensione paura

1
dolly and shows the girl’s arrival in a dilapidated section, as the hotel becomes more and more
landing stage. Whenever possible, the director the reflection of the young heroine’s mind, and managed to emphasize the claustrophobic qualits corners and corridors are charged with menity that struck him when he first read the story: ace and mystery. Tension explodes in a savage
take, for instance, the extraordinary air raid murder scene and its hallucinating aftermath,
scene, where the guests, all gathered for dinner, as Rosa gets rid of the victims’ bodies in the hot are frozen by the sound of the aircraft approach-mud baths of the hotel’s basement (whereas in
ing and the bombs dropped in the distance.

the script she throws them into the lake, to the Some scenes, bathed in deep blues and reds,

“underwater house”). It is an eerie reinvention look patently inspired by Suspiria, but Barilli’s of Gothic’s crypts and subterraneans, and a fur-use of color is more nuanced, even though it
ther element that ties the story to Italian geog-similarly emphasizes the essence of the movie
raphy and culture. At times, the movie looks
as a dark fairytale. This quality is also hinted at very much like Pupi Avati’s early efforts, not by the dialogue (“You are such a scared little girl only because of the common cultural roots (Bar-that I would almost like to tell you a story”) as illi was born in the same region as Avati, and well as by the director’s accurate choice of cos-only a few year later), but also due to its use of tume and set props: during the course of the
the grotesque, as the director had done in Il pro-movie, Rosa’s character gradually dresses more fumo della signora in nero. Take, for instance, and more like an adult woman, having to wear
the depiction of minor characters like the crazed her mother’s clothes; her lost childhood is sym-guest (played by the great Spanish actor José
bolized by the magic lantern by her bed, as well Maria Prada, who died a few months after the
as by the scene in which Rosa and her friend

Italian release) who continually whispers at Guido play shadow puppets on the wall, as if to Rosa’s ear and keeps talking about his dead fam-recover the innocence they both have lost.

ily, or the enigmatic parish priest who plays con-Pensione paura works best in its middle
juring tricks with coins. “I invented that thing Italian fotobusta for Pensione paura.

200 1978: Pensione paura on the set,” Barilli explained. “The actor was a the epilogue despite Dazzi’s insistence that the real- life usurer who lived in Manziana, where movie was finished) attempted to recreate part we were shooting. I saw him doing those tricks of the atmosphere of Il profumo della signora in with a coin during lunch break, so I told him: nero’s sad ending (note the luminaries around

‘Get yourself dressed as a priest and come with the hotel, just like in Silvia’s house) as Rose me.’ In the original script the character was just finally succumbs to madness and isolates herself a priest, whereas I wanted him to be obscene,
from the world, shutting herself in the deserted slimy, repellent… ”

hotel.

Barilli had a strong cast at hand. The movie

The emphasis on a dark and unpleasant
revolved around the porcelain, fragile beauty of sexuality earned Pensione paura a V.M.18 rating, Leonora Fani, whose willingness to take off her and the board of censors demanded some cuts
clothes in front of the camera had made her one to be performed, namely “1) Shortening of the
of the stars of 170s erotic cinema, but who oral intercourse between the protagonist’s proved a good actress in a difficult role. On the mother and her lover; 2) Shortening of the rape other hand, Francisco Rabal was not quite as
scene; 3) Elimination of the oral intercourse be-convincing, whereas Barilli’s childhood friend tween two hotel guests,” for about 18 seconds

Wolfango Soldati (the son of the great writer and overall.6 The film came out in February 178,
director Mario Soldati) turned up in a small role and was a commercial flop. Undoubtedly it suf-as a cruel Fascist.

fered from bad distribution. Barilli commented: The casting of Luc Merenda as the slimy

“You see, the main problem was the producer,

Rodolfo was one of the film’s assets. After his who was inept. I told him not to sell Pensione sudden rise as a star of the poliziotteschi, the paura to Euro (which was about to go bankrupt) French actor was attempting not to be typecast but to some other distributor, which would pay as the tough cop, and Pensione paura gave him
less but would guarantee the movie ample dis-
the chance to play an interesting villain role.

tribution all over Italy. But he didn’t listen to me,

“Luc was just perfect. He thanked me when he
and just when the film was ready, Euro went
saw the finished film, because I’d let him play a bankrupt. That’s why Pensione paura came out
character that was quite different from his usual just in a couple of major towns, like Turin, for a roles. He had this black mustache, hair smarmed couple of days, then it disappeared. I abandoned down … a perfect Italian gigolo of the Forties.”

it to its destiny, because I had had enough of Merenda himself rated Barilli, the film and his quarrelling with Dazzi.” What is more, as the di-female co- star highly: “Eleonora was marvelous, rector observed, who would go and see such a
and so was the director: crazy but intelligent. I grim and downbeat movie, which refused to
tried to make two or three movies with him, inplay according to the rules of the genre?

cluding a remake of Casablanca. I went to Mo-

Pensione paura was also released in Spain,
rocco, to meet some of my father’s friends, advertised as an erotic movie, under the ex-who had money and could be very good co-
ploitative title La violación de la señorita Julia producers, but when they heard that the movie

(The Rape of Miss Julia—note that there is no
was Italian they said: ‘Italians, never!’ And so character named Julia in the film.) It would re-the movie, which had a marvelous script, never main Barilli’s last theatrical feature film as a di-got made.”5
rector, as he mainly dedicated himself to paint-Despite its many qualities, not everything
ing. His next works would be TV movies—such
in Pensione paura works well, and the climax is as Una mattina come le altre (181) and the au-particularly disappointing, a fact Barilli agrees tobiographical Giorni da leone (2002), starring upon. This is not just because the not- so-Luca Barbareschi—and documentaries centered
surprising revelation of the murderer’s identity on places and famous personalities in his home-

(despite the scene where a mysterious figure in town Parma (Casa Barilli, 17; Erberto Carboni, black hat and raincoat massacres Rodolfo and

18; Giuseppe Verdi, 2000; Poltrone rosse—
his lover with a hatchet, the film never tries to Parma e il cinema, 2014), plus the episode Le
pass off as a giallo, anyway), but because of the chiese di legno in the anthology film La domenica introduction of the character played by Máximo specialmente (11), written by Tonino Guerra

Valverde, which leads to a half- baked and unand co- directed by Giuseppe Bertolucci, Marco convincing denouement. However, the film ends

Tullio Giordana and Giuseppe Tornatore. He oc-
with a powerful closing image: Barilli (who shot casionally dabbled as an actor, with convincing

1979: Buio omega 201
results, such as in the interesting low- budget in-starring Tony Musante and Laura Antonelli, which Barilli dependent horror film La casa nel vento dei did not like the least bit: “Let’s talk frankly here, that movie sucks. Instead of a macabre story it looks like a third- rate, morti (2012, Francesco Campanini), which
soft porn version of Death in Venice. It was squalid. And closely resembles his own work. Still, with a it flopped.” Ibid.

legacy of only two movies, Francesco Barilli’s 3. Manlio Gomarasca and Davide Pulici, “L’albergo status as one of Italy’s most talented and original degli orrori,” extra in the Italian DVD release of the film.

filmmakers in the realm of the horror and fan-

4. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, shooting began on August 2, 177.

tastic genre is undoubted, and only heightens

5. Manlio Gomarasca, “Senza compromessi. Intervista the regret for what could have been, had he been a Luc Merenda,” in Eroi & antieroi del cinema italiano, 13.

able to pursue and develop his vision.

6. Further cuts were performed in 186. “Il profumo della signora in nero and Pensione Paura were both cut for N

TV broadcasting. On Il profumo della signora in nero I was oTeS
allowed to operate the cuts myself, whereas Pensione Paura 1. Curti, “Francesco Barilli interview.” Unless noted oth-was butchered without them even asking me.” Curti, erwise, Barilli’s statements come from this interview.

“Francesco Barilli interview.” The uncut version surfaced 2. The script was rewritten by Lucio Fulci, with the colonly in 2007, in the Italian DVD release.

laboration of Roberto Leoni, and became La gabbia (185), 1979

Buio omega (Beyond the Darkness)

sanglante (France; 6.30.182); In quella casa Buio D: Joe D’Amato [Aristide Massaccesi]. S:

omega (Italy; 187 re- release); Sado–Stoss das Giacomo Guerrini; SC: Ottavio Fabbri; DOP:

Tor zur Hölle auf (Germany; 11.14.180); Demen-Aristide Massaccesi (Eastmancolor, Telecolor); cia (Spain; ..185); Para Além da Escuridão

M: Goblin (Ed. Grandi Firme della Canzone);

(Portugal).

E: Ornella Micheli; PD: Ennio Michettoni; AD:

Francesco, an orphan who has inherited a

Donatella Donati; SS: Marco Rossetti; C: Enrico house in the woods and other property, lives alone Biribicchi; AC: Renato Palmieri; SO: Roberto
with the housekeeper, Iris, to whom he is morbidly Alberghini, Marco Donati; BO: Guglielmo
tied. Determined to become the owner of the Smeraldi; AE: Bruno Micheli; MU: Cesare Biseo; place, even though the young man is in love with CO: Mario Paladini; PDA: Franco Gaudenzi; SP:

Anna, Iris has a local witch perform a black magic Giuseppina Di Cola; SOE: Renato Marinelli.

rite on the girl, who is sick at the hospital. Anna Cast: Kieran Canter (Francesco Koch / Frank
dies, and the heartbroken Francesco steals the Wyler), Cinzia Monreale (Anna Völkl / Teodora
corpse from the cemetery. He then proceeds to em-

[Elena] Völkl), Franca Stoppi (Iris), Sam Mo -
balm the body, but is discovered in the process by desto (Cossuto / Mr. Kale), Anna Cardini (Girl a hitchhiker to whom he has offered a ride.

doing jogging), Lucia D’Elia (Lucia, the hitch-Francesco murders the girl and Iris helps him get hiker), Simonetta Allodi (Girl in disco), Klaus rid of the body, which they dismember and Rainer (Doctor), Edmondo Vallini (Detective
dissolve in acid. The young man kills another girl,

#1), Mario Pezzin (Priest), Walter Tribus (Han -
whom he has taken home and seduced next to
dy man). PROD: Dario Rossetti for D.R. Per le

Anna’s body. Meanwhile, a local undertaker in-

Comunicazioni di Massa (Rome) [and Ermanno
vestigates on his own. Francesco agrees to marry Donati]; PM: Oscar Santaniello; PS: Silvio Iris, but reacts violently when she tries to get rid Colecchia; PSe: Ermanno Mardessich; ADM:

of Anna’s twin sister Teodora, who has shown up Maria Spera. Country: Italy. Filmed in Bres-at the villa. After a savage struggle, Francesco kills sanone and Campo Tures (BZ) and at Cine In-Iris but is mortally wounded too. The undertaker ternational (Rome). Running time: 4 minutes
arrives and finds the unconscious Teodora, whom (m. 2585; 255). Visa n. 74247 (10.31.17); Rathe mistakens for Anna…

ing: V.M.18. Release dates: 11.15.17 (Italy); At the turn of the decade, in a country al-6.1.184 (U.S.A.); Distribution: Eurocopfilms.

ready on the way to mass addiction to television, Domestic gross: 153,700,000 lire. Also known as: the last fireworks exploded in the realm of Buried Alive (U.S.A.); Blue Holocaust; Folie Italian popular cinema, under the sign of blood

202 1979: Buio omega and gore. Even though the race to graphic vio-Written by Ottavio Fabbri—the helmer of
lence on screen was inspired by American mod-
the offbeat, thought- provoking comedy Movie
els (such as the Euro cut of Romero’s Dawn of

Rush—La febbre del cinema (176) and a pair of the Dead, courtesy of Dario Argento), the made-interesting documentaries, respectively on F1
in-Italy rip- offs seemed to grab the most sensa-races (Formula 1—La febbre della velocità, 178) tional elements, while evading the other aspects.

and on the tour of singer- singwriters Lucio Whereas American splatter films (Romero,

Dalla and Francesco De Gregori (Banana Re-

Hooper, Craven) were often born as political
public, 17)—the new script reshaped the rela-horrors, a cathartic relief and an expression of tionship between the young protagonist and his a deep malaise, for the Italians they represented malevolent housekeeper, doing away with the
a last remnant of freedom—both thematic and
character of the oppressive mother. The schem-
iconographic—before the meltdown. This was
ing and superstitious Iris became a feral and un-mirrored by comics, where the depiction of sex pleasant presence, surrounded by a cohort of
and violence reached perturbing heights of sav-freaks.

agery, not only in cheap paperbacks such as Sto-However, whereas Guerrini played on the
rie Blu, but also in more refined material such contrast between life inside the protagonist’s di-as Magnus’ Lo Sconosciuto and Necron, and the
lapidated mansion, which looked like a remnant magazine Frigidaire, which included Stefano of the past, and the outside world, Massaccesi Tamburini and Tanino Liberatore’s Ranxerox.

did not have the intention (nor the time) to Italian blood and gore was the last example
focus on such peripheral themes. His goal was
of an average- to-low-budget cinema that still to shock and disgust the audience, as actress
lived above its means, bragging of a wealth it did Franca Stoppi recalled: “When we filmed Buio
not have. The kind of movies where a couple of omega, Massaccesi told us, ‘We’re making a days’ shoot on location in the U.S., resulting in movie to make people throw up. We must make
a 30-second scene under the opening credits,

’em vomit!’ and indeed he succeeded.”3
could still convey a façade of internationality; The over- the-top gore scenes, starting with
the kind of movies that substituted the Circeo the infamous, detailed autopsy which ends with park for the Maluku Islands (Zombi Holocaust,

Francesco (Kieran Canter) kissing and then bit-180, Marino Girolami) or Catalunya for New
ing his dead fiancée Anna’s (Cinzia Monreale)

Guinea (Virus, 180, Bruno Mattei, Claudio Fra-heart, deliver the goods in a way that is still quite gasso); the kind of movies where special make-impressive today, despite the scarce means at
up effect technicians used to compete with their hand: in typical Massaccesi style, the effects were U.S. homologues by using baby calf intestines
obtained by way of animal intestines, pig skin and pig skin instead of latex. The kind of movies, and a sheep’s heart, all graciously provided by in short, which got rid of taboos with irrespon-the nearest abattoir.

sible recklessness, by portraying them on screen Massaccesi’s new incarnation of the so-in their most literal, tangible, prosaic form.

called “cinema of attractions” is characterized Shot in just two weeks in Bressanone and
by the martyrdom of the body, at the expense of Campo Tures, near Bolzano (which makes for a
more subtle anxieties and perturbing elements.

convincing Austrian setting: a taxi driver is paid Unlike the character played by Franco Nero in
in shillings, not lire), in late June/early July 17,1

Il terzo occhio, an antihero worthy of Poe, Fran -
and produced by a certain Dario Rossetti and
cesco is a childish figure, sexually immature, (uncredited) Ermanno Donati, who died a few
who plays with a life- sized human doll, punishes days after filming was wrapped, Buio omega his victims by way of cruel, spiteful retributions marked Aristide Massaccesi’s return to out- and-

(like ripping out the nails that scratched him) out horror, six years after La morte ha sorriso aland finally suffering one himself, when he is
l’assassino. It was a remake of Mino Guerrini’s bloodily injured in the groin.

impressive Il terzo occhio (166) which devel -

Still, Buio omega manages to explore some
oped the original’s most unpleasant bits into a of Gothic’s staples, both in the locations (Anna’s frantic gorefest. Massaccesi and Guerrini were nightly exhumation at the cemetery) and in the close friends and had written a number of un-narrative. The theme of the double is only su-
filmed stories together: “He was a genius, in my perficially touched in the climax, when Fran -
opinion … a loose- living, true genius, an out-cesco comes face to face with Anna’s twin Teo -
sider,” the director recalled.2
dora, and in the shocking twist ending, whereas

1979: Buio omega

203
the duality between animate and
inanimate offers some interesting
moments, as Anna’s lifeless body be-
comes a sad human doll, dressed and
undressed, made- up, hidden in a
closet like an old toy and eventually
burned.

Interestingly, Massaccesi does
not depict necrophilia in a graphic
way (as, say, Paul Morrissey had done
in the infamous “fuck death in the
gall bladder” gag in Flesh for Franken-
stein), but portrays Francesco’s love
for Anna in a romantic, desperate
manner, from the tearjerking early
scene in the hospital (where we learn
that the couple has never had sex) to
the young man’s passionate embalm-
ing of the corpse.

Eroticism is mortuary, depress-
ing, solitary, and never destined to
reach a satisfactory climax. Fran -
cesco’s love object remains pure and
untouched, even when he has total
control of her nude and dead body;
on the other hand, the easy girls he
picks up without even trying to and
who willingly take off their clothes
for him are the victims of ill- fated at-
tempts at “normal” sex, and provoke
his savage fury. The jarring contrast
between romanticism and wall- to-

Italian poster for Buio omega (1979).

wall violence remains one of the keys
of the film’s uniquely uneasy atmosphere: the
tings, and are characterized by their leading scene where Francesco makes love with the character’s self- seclusion, the same choice that hitch- hiker while caressing his dead fiancée’s little Marco and young Rosa take at the end of body nearby recalls a notorious moment in Lisa Shock and Pensione paura: the world is such a
e il diavolo. What is more, Massaccesi also em-scary place that the horror of loneliness is phasizes morbidness and superstition: see the
preferable to any human interaction.

old witch who turns up at the beginning and

And yet there is more than that, as Massac-
near the end, performing a voodoo rite that may cesi adds interesting cinephile nods to the bare-or may not cause Anna’s death and reciting an
bones plot. First there is Hitchcock (openly obscurely ominous doggerel about dead bod-mentioned in posters at the time of the film’s re-ies.4
lease, in a typical gimmick on the part of Italian In some ways, Buio omega is akin to Lam-distributors: “Il film che anche HITCHCOCK
berto Bava’s film debut Macabro (180), and avrebbe paura di vedere!” “The movie that even both movies revisit a kind of middle- class dread Hitchcock would be scared to watch”), and not
concealed in the family, whose symptoms can
merely because of the similarities between be detected in an abnormal sexuality, be it Francesco and Norman Bates. Massaccesi re -

Francesco’s desperate attachment to his fiancée stages almost verbatim the scene in Psycho in Massaccesi’s film or Jane Baker’s (Bernice Ste-where Lila Crane (Vera Miles) discovers Mrs.

gers) necrophiliac passion in Macabro. Both Bates’ mummified corpse in the basement and
movies are ultimately bourgeois dramas that
is attacked by Norman in drag: here it is Teodora take place in ordinary and claustrophobic set-who comes across her twin sister’s embalmed

204 1979: Buio omega body and has to face the furious Iris (Franca
erating table. Some of the acting roles were en-Stoppi). Perhaps it was an expected move, given trusted to non- professionals, such as the elderly the film’s theme. But what about the scene where hag who performs the voodoo rite, and the mor-Francesco and Iris dissolve a dismembered body tician (Sam Modesto), a Venetian entrepreneur
in acid, which reprises a similar one in Le trio who dreamed of becoming a film actor.

infernal (174, Francis Girod), starring Michel The minimal but rather effective cast is Piccoli and Romy Schneider? Or the burning of
headed by the green- eyed, Turkish- American an unfortunate girl in an oven, a nod to Buñuel’s Kieran Canter, the grandson of an opera singer Ensayo de un crimen? Weirder still is the se-who (according to actress Anna Cardini6) lived quence of Francesco and Iris’ engagement party, at Rome’s Hilton hotel with his uncle, a rather where the man is welcomed by a parade of well- known genre film actor; he had previously freakish guests who make a toast to him—a mo-made only one movie appearance, as a Nazi offiment that brings to mind the celebrated “Gobble cer in Lorenzo Gicca Palli’s abysmal Liebes lager gobble one of us” scene in Freaks (132, Tod (176). With the exception of Lonely Lady (183, Browning). On top of that, the morbid, vaguely Peter Sasdy), his following films all fell into the incestuous interludes between Iris and Fran -
realm of hardcore, starting with Pensieri morbosi cesco, with the woman breast- feeding and mas-

(180, Jacques Orth), where he played the lead turbating him, recall a notorious scene between and performed an imitaton of John Travolta’s fa-Andréa Ferreol and Ugo Tognazzi in La Grande
mous dance scene in Saturday Night Fever Bouffe.

(177). In Erotic Flash (181, Roberto Bianchi Anyway, these are not signs of any self-Montero), Canter starred alongside the debuting reflective whim or post- modernist awareness on Moana Pozzi, but his issues in performing sex
the part of Massaccesi and Fabbri, as is the case scenes before the camera resulted in him being in the works of the new generation of American replaced by a body double; he showed up in a
splatter filmmakers; rather, in such a dilapi da -
handful more porn flicks during the decade, intion of ideas (even recycled ones) one can read cluding Carne bollente (187, Riccardo Schicchi), the director’s instinctive ability to manipulate which teamed up Cicciolina and John Holmes,
other filmmakers’ nightmares, as well as a tenand Supermaschio per mogli viziose (187, Giordency to excess and waste which is perhaps the gio Grand), again starring Holmes alongside
last bastion of a way of making movies still tied Karin Schubert, where Canter played the Devil.

to the Boom of the 160s, and to a notion of

His last appearances, both in non- sex roles, were competition that forcibly passes through exhi-in a couple of erotic flicks directed by Frank De bition and ostentation. Similarly to what was

Niro (Pasquale Fanetti), Malù e l’amante and
happening with explicit sex, now it was time for Una donna per tutti (both 11) under the a.k.a.

atrocities and graphic violence.

Mack Kilan (or Kiran).

Buio omega is by no means a formally re-

Cinzia Monreale enjoyed a brief bout of
fined film: Massaccesi (who also acted as d.o.p.) popularity at the end of the 170s, appearing in employed lots of hand- held camera shots, and such films as Vittorio Sindoni’s Per amore di Ce-filmed the scene in real interiors, mostly in sarina (176) and Lucio Fulci’s Sella d’argento.

Francesco’s eerie villa, with a tendency to use She worked with Fulci again on several occa-soft- focus that sometimes seems at odds with
sions, most memorably in L’aldilà, where she
the story itself. And yet the ordinary- looking played the blind Emily, and in the 10s she sets and lack of any formal embellishments con-showed up in another Massaccesi- directed horvey a creepiness that makes the horrors on dis-ror film, Frankenstein 2000—Ri torno dalla play even more effective—not forgetting the morte (11) and in Dario Argento’s La sindrome haunting synth- driven score by Goblin (re-di Stendhal (16).

cruited courtesy of Rossetti, and in the line- up The most impressive performance in the
without Claudio Simonetti and Massimo Mor -
film belongs to Franca Stoppi, who replaced anante), partly recycled in Contamination5 (180, other actress at the eleventh hour. Her career in-Luigi Cozzi) and Virus. Here and there the di-
cluded Peter Skerl’s Bestialità (176) and a hand-rector catches the audience off- hand with some ful of Mattei/Fragasso films, such as La vera unexpected surreal bits, most notably the sud -
storia della monaca di Monza (180), L’altro inden appearance of the dead white baboon (the
ferno (180) and the WIP diptych Violenza in
animal was actually sedated) on Francesco’s op-un carcere femminile (182) and Blade Violent—

1979: Dottor Jekyll 205

I violenti (183). A vegetarian and animal rights nella bara.” (“Body of a cow, blood of a whore. Body in a activist, after giving up acting Stoppi created a bed, cursed blood. Body in a grave, will not make shade.

Body of a dead woman, life will go wrong. If you want it center for the sheltering and protection of aban-to go straight, you have to follow the road. The road of life.

doned pets. She passed away in 2011.

And if it is still dear to you, bring peace in the coffin.”) As the director recalled, in those days a

5. The recycled numbers from the Buio omega sound-V.M.18 rating was held up as a medal to the pub-track in Cozzi’s film are Quiet Drops, Pillage, Rush, Bikini lic, and Buio omega obviously got one (newspa-Island.

6. See Manlio Gomarasca, Omega Syndrome, extra in per ads called the film “vietatissimo”). The board the Italian DVD Buio Omega (Next video).

of censors requested a number of cuts for a total 7. Gomarasca and Pulici, “Buio omega,” 30.

of 1.60 metres (about 43 seconds), namely: “1) 8. It was released in Spain as House 6: El terror continua The scene where the protagonist, while embalm-and in Mexico as Zombi 10.

ing Anna, scoops out several organs from her
body; 2) The scene where the protagonist kills Dottor Jekyll e gentile signora (Dr. Jekyll Lucia; 3) The scene where the protagonist kills Likes Them Hot)

the housekeeper.” Buio omega came out in the-

D: Steno [Stefano Vanzina]. S: Castellano
aters in mid–November: by then, Massaccesi
e Pipolo [Franco Castellano, Giuseppe Moccia], had already shot seven more films during a three

“loosely inspired by Stevenson’s story”; SC: Leo months’ stay in the Caribbeans.7

Benvenuti, Piero De Bernardi, Steno; collabora -

Buio omega performed rather poorly at the
tor to the script: Giovanni Manganelli; DOP: Italian box- office, despite its aggressive promo-Ennio Guarnieri, Sergio Salvati (Panoramic, tional campaign, but was sold well abroad and

Staco Film); M: Armando Trovajoli, conducted
soon reached cult status, under a myriad of by the author (Ed. Clitumno- April Music); E: titles, the best known being Beyond the Dark -

Raimondo Crociani; PD: Luciano Spadoni; SD:

ness.8 The version initially released in the U.S.

Massimo Tavazzi; CO: Maria Rosaria Crimi, as Buried Alive gave the characters Anglicized Elisabetta Poccioni; MU: Gianfranco Mecacci,
names (Francesco Koch becomes Frank Wyler,

Franco Schioppa; Hair: Sergio Gennari, Mirella for instance) and was missing some bits, namely Ginnoto; AD: Giovanni Manganelli; C: Franco
the undertaker’s failed attempt to spy on Fran -

Bruni, Renato Ranieri; AC: Maurizio Lucchini,
cesco at his house, the protagonist picking up Antonio Scaramuzza [and Roberto Benvenuti];
the girl in a disco and the scene of the old witch SS: Marina Mattoli; AE: Pina Triunveri; SP: mumbling the ominous rhymes at him.

Francesco Narducci; SO: Massimo Jaboni; Mix:

The movie was re- released in Italy in 187,

Bruno Moreal.; Dubbing manager: Marcello
under the title In quella casa Buio omega, in the Prando. Cast: Paolo Villaggio (Dr. Jekyll / Mr.

attempt at exploiting the ongoing success of Sam Hyde), Edwige Fenech (Barbara Wimply), Gi-Raimi’s The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II, which
anrico Tedeschi (Jeeves), Gordon Mitchell (Pre-had been released in Italy as La casa and La casa torius), Paolo Paoloni (Professor), Guerrino 2, resulting in a number of spurious “sequels.”

Crivello (Student), Eolo Capritti (Henchman),

Once again the poster featured a reference to the Francesco Anniballi (Henchman), Walter
late Alfred Hitchcock, in the form of a blatantly Wright Williams (PANTAC Top President),
phony quote: “Solo a pensare a questo film mi

Clemente Ukmar (Henchman), Geoffrey Cople-
sento ancora i brividi addosso!” (“Just thinking ston (Archibald Gold), Paola Arduini (Stew-of this film still gives me shivers!”).

ardess); uncredited: Angelo Boscariol (PANTAC

Board Member), Luciano Foti (Class Member),

N

Alfonso Giganti (Industrialist), Giuseppe Mar-
oTeS
rocco (PANTAC Board Member), Fulvio Min-

1. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, gozzi (PANTAC Board Member), Alessandro
shooting began on June 18, 17.

Tedeschi (Professor introducing Jekyll), Luciano 2. Manlio Gomarasca and Davide Pulici, “Buio omega,”

in Joe D’Amato. Guida al cinema estremo e dell’orrore, 2.

Zanussi (PANTAC Board Member). PROD:

3. Franca Stoppi, interview included in the French Neo Medusa Distribuzione (Rome); EP: Renato

Publishing DVD, Blue Holocaust.

Jaboni; PM: Carlo Bartolini; PS: Lamberto 4. It goes as follows: “Corpo di vacca, sangue di bal-Palmieri; UMA: Stefano Spadoni. PSe: Lucia dracca. Corpo dentro un letto, sangue maledetto. Corpo in Nolano; PAcc: Leonardo Curreri. Country: It-una tomba, non farà più ombra. Corpo di una morta, la vita ti andrà storta. Se dritta vuoi che vada, devi seguir la aly. Filmed on location in London at at Incir-strada. La strada della vita. E se ti è ancor cara, porta pace De Paolis Studios (Rome). Running time: 107

206 1979: Dottor Jekyll minutes (m. 240). Visa n. 7334 (8. 25.17); Villaggio followed the Fantozzi films with

Rating: all audiences. Release date: 8.31.17
more of the same, churning out variations on

(Italy); Distribution: Medusa (Italy). Domestic the same basic scheme and revisiting their most gross: 427,000,000 lire. Also known as: Al Doctor exhilarating gags over and over in a series of Jekyll le gustan calientes (Spain; 10.5.181); Dr.

follow- ups and similar projects (which even in-Jekylls unheimlicher Horrortrip (West Germany).

cluded an unfilmed sci- fi comedy, Il vagabondo The counselor of the powerful (and ruthless)

dello spazio, to be directed by Mario Bava and multinational PANTAC, which has invaded the
based on Philip José Farmer’s novel Venus on the world with all sorts of pollutants and products Half- Shell).1 The scheme quickly grew tired, harmful to human health, the evil Dr. Jekyll con-mainly because the other directors were not up cocts a plan to launch a chewing gum that has lethal to Salce’s skills when it came to portray Fantozzi side effects. However, things change radi cally for as an ultimately tragic character, a sad clown him when Jekyll discovers his octogenarian grand-whose faults and defeats are our very own: by
father hidden in a basement lab, and has a taste laughing at him we are laughing at our own mis-of a mysterious serum that should make him even ery. This was soon lost in favor of repetitive sight nastier than before. The potion is actually a gags, mediocre filmmaking and lazy scripts,

“serum of goodness” which turns Jekyll into an which often drew from early classics: Fracchia angelic- looking, placid Hyde, whose only goal in la belva umana (181, Neri Parenti) reprised the life is to make good triumph over bad. Hyde ruins same story as John Ford’s The Whole Town’s Jekyll’s plan to involve the Queen in the launch of Talking (135), Sogni mostruosamente proibiti
the chewing gum; the leaders of PANTAC, un-

(182, Neri Parenti) was a rehash of The Secret aware of his real identity, try to dispatch him. To Life of Walter Mitty (147, Norman Z. McLeod,
save himself, Hyde drinks the antidote and turns released in Italy as Sogni proibiti), and Steno’s into Jekyll again, but is forced to return to his own own Bonnie e Clyde all’italiana (182) spoofed angelic alter ego in order to seduce his secretary Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (167).

Barbara, who has fallen for Hyde. Eventually,

On the surface, Dottor Jekyll e gentile sig-

Barbara too drinks the potion: she and Jekyll con-nora (originally to be titled Il dottor Jekill [sic]

ceive a plan to spray the “serum of goodness” all Junior) is merely an unpretentious comedy that over the Earth, and defeat evil for good…

exploits Villaggio’s taste for exaggerated mimics As he did with his 15 vampire spoof
and nasty childish behavior. Steno and his Tempi duri per i vampiri, twenty years later Steno scriptwriters wisely overturn the Jekyll/Hyde
turned to another classic Gothic character for a duality for comic effect: Jekyll is evil (and there-satire deeply imbued with the sign of the times.

fore perfectly at ease in an inhuman company

The choice of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic which only considers profits), grotesquely ugly, story was not a novelty, though, having provided hairy and horny, and displays a puerile relish in the basis for Il mio amico Jekyll (160, Marino teasing and making mischief (with Villaggio Girolami); what is more, the existence of a 175
here reprising one of his TV characters, the unfilmed scenario signed by Mario Amendola
comically evil Professor Kranz), whereas Hyde
and Bruno Corbucci, Attento dottor Jekyll, arriva is angelic, naive and asexual, speaks in a funny Mister Hyde!, suggests that it was also con -

Venetian accent and wears a blond curly wig that sidered as the subject for a horror spoof in the makes him look like Harpo Marx. Compared
wake of Young Frankenstein. In Steno’s film, the with other Villaggio efforts of the period, Dottor Jekyll/Hyde duality is first and foremost a Jekyll e gentile signora includes very few cine -
vehicle for Paolo Villaggio, Italy’s most popular phile references to its models: a portrait of comedian of the period. The phenomenal suc-Jekyll’s grandfather shows Fredric March in cess of Luciano Salce’s Fantozzi and its follow-Rouben Mamoulian’s 131 film version, and the
up Il secondo tragico Fantozzi (176)—based on transformation scene is rendered via a couple of Villaggio’s books about a sad, awkward and un-quick cross- dissolves showing Jekyll’s hand turn-fortunate accountant who is bullied by his ing hairless.

bosses, colleagues and practically everyone he And yet, Dottor Jekyll e gentile signora is
meets—provided Italian audiences with a
more interesting than it seems at first glance.

working- class antihero whose non- stop humil-Like in Tempi duri per i vampiri, the director sets iations hinted at the dark side of the economic his hero (or rather, the latter’s double) against a Boom.

capitalistic enemy: in the 15 spoof Baron Lam-

1979: Dottor Jekyll

207
bertenghi (Renato Rascel) was
forced to sell his castle to a com-
pany that converted it into a lux-
ury hotel, whereas here Hyde
fights against a vampiric cor -
poration (headed by a Dr.

Strangelove–like type, played by

Walter Wright Williams) whose
acronym PANTAC stands for

“Petrol Aero Nuclear Transport

Acricultural [sic] Chemic [sic]”

and whose only aims are profit
and power. In this sense, Steno’s
film is ideally along the same
lines as other spoofs, such as Il

Cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco
ovvero: Dracula in Brianza, in its
satire of capitalism. “For us, the
ruling class, goodness is a
tragedy,” one character says; and
when Jekyll describes to his but-
ler Jeeves (the reliable Gianrico

Tedeschi) the first symptoms of
goodness, and asks the latter
what type of illness could it be,
the other curtly replies, “Social-
ism.”

That said, the direction is
lazy, with some footage of Villag-
gio running around on location
in London2 to make for the re-
quested “local color,” the sets
look slapdash (Jekyll’s old lab is
particularly threadbare) and the

Italian poster art for Dottor Jekyll e gentile signora (1979).

gags are déjà-vu, as are Villag -
gio’s slapstick antics. However, Steno’s vision of est unhappy endings ever seen in an Italian com-the Jekyll/Hyde duality is interesting nonethe -
edy. The corporation leaders (who escaped the
less. On the one hand, Hyde is usually labeled

“serum of goodness”) exploit its effects to set up as a “faggot” by his enemies, and that same year an economical dictatorship, characterized by

Steno directed one of the first most popular their economic monopole of all consumer
satires of homophobia in Italian cinema, La goods, and exploit the masses, that have now
patata bollente (17), starring Renato Pozzetto, turned into “good customers and good employ-Edwige Fenech and Massimo Ranieri. Still, as
ees.” Hyde and Barbara have become TV per-

Jeeves rightly points out, Hyde’s goodness is sonalities and act as spokespersons for the new

“bigot, puritan, deadly boring,” and similarly, world order, reading news reports where noth -
after drinking the potion, the dark- haired, feline ing really happens and advertising all sorts of and sex- hungry Barbara (Fenech, ravishing as products with the label PANTAC. And the final
ever) becomes pure, virginal, and disgusted by images show workers on strike, protesting besex—and yet the director offers a glimpse of
cause their pay is too high and their working

Fenech’s naked breast right after the transfor-hours are too short, blaming their masters for mation, wisely mirroring Jekyll’s frustration for being “too good.”

the impossibility of having sex with her.

It’s a biting sting at the end, which sums up

What is more, Hyde ends up unwillingly
the director’s cynical view. The movie can there-favoring the triumph of evil, in one of the nasti -
fore be linked to the political undercurrent that

208 1979: Malabimba crosses Steno’s cinema, and which was usually
and at Icet- De Paolis (Milan). Running time: 84
hidden in the form of broad comedy—the odd
minutes (m. 2321)—actually 87 minutes / 6
exception being the grim crime film La polizia minutes. Visa n. 7346 (.21.17); Rating: ringrazia (172). A good example was the satire V.M.18. Release date: .22.17; Distribution: Ste-Il mostro della domenica, starring Totò, in the fano Film. Domestic gross: unknown. Also
anthology comedy Capriccio all’italiana (168), known as: Possession of a Teenager; Posesión de which depicted the generational conflict
una adolescente (Spain; 4.23.181), Komm und
between the “longhairs” and their intolerant fa-macht’s mit mir (West Germany).

thers, but also hinted at the police’s reactionary At the castle owned by the wealthy Caroli
behavior towards the younger generations,
family, a séance is taking place. A medium evokes whereas L’Italia s’è rotta (176) adopted a philis-the spirit of an ancestress, Lucrezia, who attempts tine approach in its depiction of a country in unsuccessfully to take possession of Sister Sofia, (metaphorical) ruins. Here, Steno’s satire targets the nun who looks after the wheelchair- bound the sociopolitical reflux that characterized owner of the manor, Adolfo. The ghastly presence Italian society in the decade, after the decline of then attacks a more gullible prey: the 16-year-old the 168 ideals and the exhaustion of the 177

Bimba, the only daughter of Adolfo’s brother An-

“Movement” which criticized parties and trade
drea. In the following days Bimba’s attitude unions alike and lost its initial spontaneous mo-changes radically, and she unconsciously high -
mentum, not the least because of such events as lights the family members’ sexual and perverse the Moro kidnapping. In this sense, the dys -
vices. Due to her strange behavior, Bimba is en-topian ending of Dottor Jekyll e gentile signora trusted to the care of Sister Sofia. The relationship becomes a fit punchline to a decade where the
between the teenage girl and the nun becomes
rereading of Gothic as means of political more and more affectionate: eventually Bimba,
allegory led to a disenchanted, pessimistic subjugated by Lucrezia’s will, seduces Sister Sofia, vision.

and the evil spirit manages to get hold of the nun’s body. Bimba is saved, but Sister Sofia, upset for NoTeS
having yielded to temptation, commits suicide.

“Doors opening and closing, maneuvered

1. See Roberto Curti and Alessio Di Rocco, “Mario the by invisible and unknown forces; embalmed Wanderer,” in Troy Howarth, The Haunted World of Mario Bava (Parkville, MD: Midnight Marquee Press, 2014), 158
birds that suddenly return to life in the gloomy ss.

crypts where they had stayed motionless for 2. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, centuries; servants as decrepit as the walls of the filming began on July 31, 178.

castle they are imprisoned in; creakings, rattling of chains, dismal night howls, demoniac ‘pres-Malabimba (Malabimba—The Malicious
ences’ are the obligatory outfit for 1th century Whore)

horror stories. An outfit which director Andrew D: Andrew White [Andrea Bianchi]. S and

White did not do without for his Malabimba,

SC: Piero Regnoli; DOP: Franco Villa (Micro-
even though the story takes place in the present stampa); M: Elsio Mancuso, Berto Pisano; ArtD: day.”1 Thus wrote the anonymous pen that re-Giovanni Fratalocchi; MU: Mauro Gavazzi; AD:

ported from the pages of the prestigious Corriere Roberto Silvestrini; AC: Giovanni Marras; SS:

della Sera about the shooting of Andrea Bian -

Mirella Cavalloro. Cast: Katell Laennec [Cornely chi’s film at Castle Piccolomini in Balsorano.2

Pascale Sylvie] (Bimba Caroli), Patrizia Webley Were it not for the columnist frankly ad-

[Patrizia De Rossi] (Nais), Enzo Fisichella (An-mitting the story’s emphasis on sex, the casual drea Caroli), Giuseppe Marrocu [Marrocco]

reader might well have thought of a renaissance (Adolfo Caroli), Elisa Mainardi (The Medium),
of classical Gothic taking place inside the walls Giancarlo Del Duca (Giorgio), Pupita Lea
of one of the genre’s most instantly recognizable

[Pupita Lea Scuderoni] (Bimba’s Grandmother),
locations. But by 17 the Gothic paraphernalia Maria Angela Giordan [Mariangela Giordano]

had been indissolubly hybridized with eroti -

(Sister Sofia); uncredited: Claudio Zucchet cism, a component that was more or less subtly (Party Guest). PROD: Gabriele Crisanti for Fil-present even in the past (see L’amante del vam-marte (Rome); PS: Marcello Spingi, Carlo Papa; piro, or L’ultima preda del vampiro, for instance) PSe: Gianfranco Fornari. Country: Italy. Filmed but which had gradually taken over during the
at the Castle Piccolomini in Balsorano (L’Aquila) course of the decade.

1979: Malabimba 20

Malabimba was the offspring of the prolific
number of sex scenes together, the most noto-

Piero Regnoli, whose output as scriptwriter from rious being Bimba’s deadly fellatio of her the early 170s was often characterized by large crippled uncle Adolfo, who awakens from his
doses of eroticism liberally added to the stories.

vegetative state only to fall victim of a stroke Here, Regnoli took a standard Gothic setting
when reaching orgasm, and the girl’s seduction and premise (the castle, the wealthy family with of the pious Sister Sofia (Mariangela Giordano), a shady past, the séance, the vengeful spirit) and which climaxes in the nun being deflowered by
added disparate elements to it. Firstly, the title the girl’s fist.

nods to the succès de scandale of Pier Giuseppe With such scenes as Bimba masturbating

Murgia’s scabrous teenage drama Malado -
with her stuffed animal toys and lines of dia -
lescenza (177)3 and the script is centered on an logue like “Bimba has a delayed puberty which
underage girl, the maliciously named Bimba,
causes her some sexual morbidity, that’s all!”

who is possessed by the spirit of her ancestress, (after the adults discover the girl’s teddy bear like the heroines of Malombra or Un angelo per with a phallic candle stuck in its groin), it is ob-Satana believed to be. Here, though, the supervious that Regnoli had his tongue firmly in his natural aspect is fully embraced instead of being cheek, and the Catholic symbols (the tempting
the cause of self- suggestion or hypnosis, and the spirit taking the form of snakes which only evil spirit of the deceased Lucrezia (like, say, that Bimba can see; the cross- like shadow of the pos-of Lady Sheila Marlow in Qualcosa striscia nel sessed girl’s arms on the wall) seem to poke fun buio) aims at exposing the hypocrisy of all at Regnoli’s own past as the film critic of the family members: it first manifests during a Vatican- based newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.

séance, in a blatantly obscene way, by pulling On the other hand, the character of Sister open a trousers’ zipper and caressing a man’s

Sofia—essentially a female version of Father private parts, and by exposing a woman’s breasts.

Karras who meets a similar end, sacrificing her-Regnoli nods to the by- then waning Exor-
self after being possessed in turn (via sexual in-cist-inspired thread, imagining a possession that tercourse, it must be underlined) by the evil en-takes on sexual overtones, as in L’ossessa and Un tity—was a nod to the so- called “nunspoitation”

urlo dalle tenebre: the possessed teenager talks subgenre, which was quite popular in that dirty and behaves in an inappropriate, obscene period and included such varied works as way. Not only does Regnoli restage a notorious Giuseppe Vari’s Suor Emanuelle (177), Walerian moment in The Exorcist (the dinner scene where Borowczyk’s Interno di un convento (178), and Regan pees herself) by having Bimba exposing

Aristide Massaccesi’s Immagini di un convento
her private parts in front of the guests, but he (17).

centers the whole movie on the naive 16-year-

Regnoli’s interest in the occult was genuine,
old girl’s transformation from overgrown child though: in the mid- to-late 170s he had worked to ravenous nymphomaniac: in doing so, her in-on some occult- based horror movie scripts toduced obsession seems to infect the whole fam-
gether with his longtime friend Riccardo Freda.

ily, allowing the members’ repressed sexuality Regnoli and Freda had much in common, in-to come to the fore.

cluding their passion for ancient Egypt, esoteri-Not that Regnoli was aiming at any socio-
cism and séances. It is not surprising, then, that logical hidden meaning. Rather than the ump -
at a certain point the director was attached to a teenth stab at Teorema, here we are in full adults-couple of unfilmed projects written by his only comics territory. A case in point is the char-friend: the mysterious Thanat 82 (to be pro -
acter of the sex- hungry, exhibitionist Nais (the duced by a cooperative presided over by Freda
stunning Patrizia De Rossi), a clichéd maneater and based at Regnoli’s house) and Qualcosa pen-who boasts about her sluttiness (“She said I’m a etra in noi (Le notti di Satana).

whore. She was absolutely right, but all women On Malabimba, Regnoli’s script found a
are whores, more or less!”) and pursues Bimba’s much less accomplished filmmaker than Freda:

father (Enzo Fisichella) in a comically obstinate Andrew White, alias Andrea Bianchi. The di-way, sneaking into his bedroom with some pre-
rector of such sleaze classics as Quelli che text and repeatedly exposing herself to him contano (174, also scripted by Regnoli), Nude (“Your eyes are full of my body, you won’t be
per l’assassino (175) and Cara dolce nipote (177) able to avoid thinking of it when you’re alone!”).

does little to enhance the Fantastic mood, The plot is actually a feeble thread that ties a besides some laughable shaky POV shots to

210 1979: Malabimba suggest the supernatural presence, and focuses hardcore porn, even though after the creation
on delivering the goods—i.e. nudity and sex ga-of a proper “red light circuit” specialized in lore. On the other hand, Franco Villa’s photog-screening sex movies (the first “red light” theater raphy is suitably elegant at times, whereas the opened in Milan in November 177, and in 180
score recycles bits from Berto Pisano’s music for the number had grown to 50) the censorship

La morte ha sorriso all’assassino. The cast en-committees were beginning to loosen their grip.

compasses Crisanti regular Giordano, producer

The common practice was to add extraneous in-

Gabriele Crisanti’s then–partner in life, and a serts to the movie, even though a number of di-couple of regulars of cheap erotic productions, rectors, such as Aristide Massaccesi, were De Rossi and Fisichella. The titular Bimba is
already shooting explicit sex scenes for the for-played by Katell Laennec (real name Cornely
eign versions of their movies. Soon the bridge Pascale Sylvie), “a French photomodel at her
would be officially crossed, and in 17 Italian debut on the screen, whom the director Andrew
producers started shooting out- and-out hard -

White discovered in Paris, and found in her the core porn, the first being I porno amori di Eva type he was looking for: an unusual and fresh

(17, Giorgio Mille) and La parte più appetitosa face, but capable, at the right moment, of un-del maschio (17, Lorenzo Magnolia). Tamer
leashing a magnetic satanic attraction,”4 accord-versions were submitted to the board of censors, ing to newspapers. This was to be Laennec’s one in order to obtain the visa, whereas the hardcore and only film role, but the enthusiasm which she cut was the one that ended up in theaters.

displays in her many nude and sex scenes is Regarding Malabimba, director of photog-nothing short of admirable.

raphy Franco Villa denied having filmed hard-

On her part, Giordano recalled how the
core footage specifically for the film: “We never movie was shot in just twelve days, “working day shot explicit sex sequences. If there’s some hard-and night through the weekends… . We shot the
core sequence in the movie it doesn’t come from movie in March 17 and it was freezing. I re-our footage. Maybe it’s been inserted from old member when we came to shoot the scene
porn movies… . They are just inserted se -
where the ghost enters Sister Sofia’s room. Wind quences, there’s not even need of direction.

was howling through the corridors and it was

Faces are not shown, just details of the bodies cold, mouldy and damp. I got very ill that day so anyone could do it.”7 Giordano was also what with all the dust and filth flying every-adamant: “There wasn’t anything that had to be where… . But Gabriele hadn’t taken out any in-censored. I’m talking about what we shot.”8 Still, surance policies on the film and was scared I
no stand- in for Laennec was apparently used for wouldn’t be able to complete it. So I couldn’t go the infamous fellatio to uncle Adolfo. Other h/c to hospital until after everything was finished.

bits included two sex scenes featuring Patrizia That’s why I’m leaning on walls a lot of the Webley with brief graphic details, and two more time—I was so sick, I literally couldn’t stand scenes with Katell masturbating, with close- ups up!”5 The actress claimed she liked the character on her private parts.
very much (“She was like a saint, she sacrifices Andrea Bianchi and Crisanti teamed up
herself to save a young girl”) and commented
again for the gory zombie flick Le notti del on her ensuing works with Crisanti such as Gi-terrore (another Regnoli screenplay, also starring allo a Venezia (17) and Patrick vive ancora

Giordano), while the producer would basically

(180), all characterized by her characters suf-remake Malabimba three years later, with yet
fering grim and gory comeuppances, as follows: another horror/hardcore porn hybrid, La bimba

“Looking back I shouldn’t have done them. But
di Satana, directed by Mario Bianchi (Roberto

I was in love with Gabriele, I would have done Bianchi Montero’s son) and scripted by Regnoli, anything for him. Now I can see how the in-released in 183.

creasingly gruesome ways he had me killed in
them was a reflection of the breakdown in our

NoTeS
own relationship.”6

The copy submitted to the Italian Board of

1. Anonymous, “Terrore ed erotismo per la ‘Mala -

Censors ran about 84 minutes and 35 seconds,
bimba,’” Corriere della Sera, August 17, 17.

2. The credits also list the De Paolis Studios in Milan but a longer version of Malabimba was actually due to bureucratic reasons—not an uncommon occurrence distributed, as was one with explicit sex inserts.

at that time (see also entry for Tutti defunti … tranne i By then the board of censors was still rejecting morti, note 5).

1979: Sensività 211

3. Regnoli had already penned the similarly titled com-Rating: V.M.18. Release dates: .28.17 (Italy), edy Malabestia (178, Leonida Leoncini), and would later 7.11.180 (Spain); Distribution: Alpherat (Italy).

script the erotic drama Maladonna (184, Bruno Gaburro).

Domestic gross: unknown. Also known as:

4. Anonymous, “Terrore ed erotismo per la ‘Malabimba,’.”

Diabla (Spain); L’ultima casa vicino al lago; Kira 5. Alan Jones and Mark Ashworth, “Diva Divina. The (Italian re- release); Devil’s Encounter (U.S.A.—

Mariangela Giordano Story,” in Stefan Jaworzyn (ed.), reissue title); The Last House Near the Lake; Kira: Shock Xpress #2 (London: Titan Books, 14), 70. Gior-The House Near the Lake (U.S.A.), Witch of the dano’s recollection about the movie being shot in March are contradicted by the Public Cinematographic Register, Lake (U.K.).

which lists May 7, 17 as the first day of shooting.

Note: The 186 re- release features addi -

6. Ibid.

tional scenes shot by Alfonso Brescia (uncred-

7. Federico Caddeo, Malabimba Uncensored, extra fea-ited), and the editing is credited to “Jeffrey Bog-turette in the U.S. Severin DVD.

art.”

8. Ibid.

9. The U.S. “unrated” Severin DVD features two cuts, Lilian returns to her hometown after many
one running slightly less than 87 minutes, and another years, to work on her thesis on Medieval history.

clocking in at about 6 minutes and 30 seconds, whereas She moves to the family house, an old mansion
the “X-Rated” version (with hardcore footage) runs 88
by a lake where her mother died when she was a minutes and 13 seconds (without inserts) and 7 minutes and 54 seconds (with the inserts).

child, which is still inhabited by two elderly servants; unbeknownst to Lilian, another young girl named Lilith lives in the house. The village is im-Sensività (The House by the Edge of the Lake) bued with superstition, and the inhabitants are D: Enzo G. Castellari [Enzo Girolami]. S:

still haunted by the memory of an elderly witch José María Nunes; SC: José María Nunes, Leila
named Kyra. Lilian gets acquainted with some

Buongiorno; DOP: Alejandro Ulloa (Eastman-
local youths: she makes love with Julien, and then color); M: Guido and Maurizio De Angelis; E:

Miguel, both descendants of the witch, and passes Gianfranco Amicucci; PD: Corrado Ricercato
out at the moment of orgasm; meanwhile Lilith

[Spanish version: León Revuelta]; ArtD: Jaime
experiences the very same feeling. Soon after, both Pérez Cubero; C: Giovanni Bergamini; AC: Gio-her lovers meet inexplicable deaths, and the vil-vanni Bonivento; MU: Gregorio Mendiri; Hair:

lagers blame Lilian, accusing her of having put a Fernando Pérez Sobrino; AD: Rocco Lerro, Fed-spell over the community. A commissioner inves-erico Canudas; 2ndAD: José Malla, Francisco
tigates, but Lilian discovers the truth thanks to Gutiérrez; AMU: Carmen Menchala, Lina Querol;
an old painter, who reveals to her a secret about AE: Alessandro Gabriele [and Maria Luisa
her past: she and Lilith are sisters, and are men-Pino]; 2ndAE: Roberto Amicucci, Stefano Curti; tally linked. Lilian’s boyfriend Edoardo arrives in SE: Alfredo Segoviano; Carpenter: Agustín Gas-the village, but he cannot save his beloved from a par; SO: Pietro Ortolani; Mix: Gianni D’Amico; terrible destiny…

SS: Isabel Mulá, Maria Pia Rocco; Titles: Alfio Released in Italy in summer 17 between

Menichini. Cast: Leonora Fani (Lilian), Patricia two better- known works, Quel maledetto treno Adriani (Lilith), Vincent Gardenia (Old
blindato (178) and Il cacciatore di squali (17), painter), Wolfango Soldati (Edoardo), Caterina Sensività represents a weird occurrence in Enzo Boratto (Kira), Antonio Mayans (Miguel, the

Castellari’s filmography: his only at tempt at a writer), Marta Flores (Marta), Massimo Vanni
horror movie, albeit a sui generis one.

(Alex), Luis Induni (Manuel), José Sánchez (Jac-As the director recalled, Sensività was born
into), Mónica García, Enzo G. Castellari (De-
from his friendship with a young Spanish aspir-tective), Alberto Squillante (Javier), Francisco ing filmmaker called José Sanchez.

Porcel (Carlos), Bernard Seray (Carlos), Juan

Trujillo (Enrique), Luis Molina (Parish priest), My doctor was friends with this kid, a movie buff, who could not manage to get into the movie biz. So Xavier Sala (Xevi). PROD: Rodolfo Putignani

I told him to send the kid to Safa Palatino, where I for Cinezeta (Rome), Este Films (Barcelona);
was editing a film. San chez was very cute, very polite, EP: Enrique Esteban Delgado; PM: Diego
intelligent, cultured, and so I started teaching him Alchimede [Spanish version: Luis Herrero]. PA: how to write a story, a script, and took him as my as-Jaime Fuentes. Country: Italy / Spain. Filmed in sistant. One day he brought me a story that I had Santa Cristina De Ano, Solius, Pais and Ro -
asked him to write—since he was very good at that—
manyá (Costa Brava, Spain). Running time: 6
and told me he was finishing a script for a Spanish minutes (m. 2650). Visa n. 7266 (4.12.17);
producer, a movie to be shot in Costa Brava. “What’s

212 1979: Sensività it about?” “Well, it’s a story about spiritism… ” “Who’s Sensività is a curious reinterpretation of is-directing it?” “A Spanish guy…” “Please, I’m shooting sues and themes typical of the Gothic, reread in it! I won’t sign it but I’m going to shoot it! I’m coming an erotic key, no doubt designed to exploit the to Costa Brava!” … It was a beautiful holiday…1
relaxation of Spanish censorship. Lilian, who recalls the motorbike riding heroine in André Castellari’s recollections are at odds with

Pieyre de Mandiargues’ 163 risqué novel The
the opening titles, which credit the story and Motorcycle (adapted for the screen in Jack script to José María Nunes (130–2010), a writer Cardiff ’s The Girl on a Motorcycle, 168), loses and director who had been in the movie busi -
consciousness at the moment of orgasm in a fe-
ness since the 150s. In fact, Sanchez only male paraphrasis of what Georges Bataille called appears in the movie as an actor, in a minor

“la petite mort” (“little death”), and unintention-role.

ally provokes her lovers’ demise. She is an inde-The director assembled a capable cast
pendent, reckless mantis, who takes the male to around the female protagonist Leonora Fani,
ruin (“You die and return to life … it’s your own then at the height of her short- lived fame as a nature that protects you from procreation,” says sexy starlet. He chose Vincent Gardenia, with
the painter played by Vincent Gardenia), in an whom he had already worked in Il grande racket interesting variation of the theme of the vagina (176), Wolfgango Soldati, and the Spanish Pa-dentata, which brings to the surface a latent mi-tricia Adriani and Antonio Mayans. He even
sogyny.

played a rather important role, the commis-The core of the movie is centered on the
sioner. Shooting started in August 178, in Costa theme of double, and focuses on the duality be-Brava, but the money ran out and the movie was tween the two main female characters: whereas
interrupted. Filming was resumed a while later, Lilian is civilized and uninhibited, Lilith (named and distributor Rodolfo Putignani, who had after the female demon in Jewish mythology,
invested in the film with his company Cine-who brings disgrace, disease and death) is bestial zeta, came up with the absurd title Sensi vità, and primitive. They are complementary to the
a word that does not even exist in Italian (the point of sharing orgasms, and their final con-correct term would be Sensitività, Sensitiv-frontation leads to a Sapphic embrace which
ity). Castellari, who initially did not want to sign ends with the two halves reuniting into one, also the movie, was told that his name was needed
physically, by means of a bizarre phallus- like in order to gather the necessary funds. He wooden object.

obliged, with the mutual agreement that he The plot bizarrely echoes that of Jess
would take care of post- production, but after Franco’s Doriana Grey (175), and in this regard wrapping the shooting, further issues arose.

there has been some confusion on whether the

“When I started editing the film there were Spanish filmmaker was actually involved in the problems with the distribution and everything
shoot. It was Seray who brought up Franco’s was interrupted for good … afterwards they name: “What I can tell you is that there was continued working on it, I mean Putignani and
often around, and, in certain moments, if he did his associate Curti [author’s note: no relation], not direct it he had to do with it, a very well-and finished it their own way. But my name as
known Spanish director: Jess Franco. Therefore director stayed.”2
it was not very clear what he was doing around Actor Bernard Seray, who played a small
there, suddenly as a producer, or suddenly… .

role in the film, recalled: “There were many Anyway. However, of course, in all the three se-problems during filming … it was a continuous
quences which I did, as my character was very
fight.” The Catalonian actor did not have a par-minor, Castellari directed me.”4 When asked ticularly good memory of the director: “It was about it by this writer, Seray added: “I think he very unpleasant for me, as he offended us and
acted both as co- director and assistant.”5
screamed a lot during shooting. He always had

However, it seems that Seray’s memory
bad words in his mouth, you know? He did not
failed him. The actor claimed that “Part of the realize that, even though the movie was filmed film was shot in the Canary islands, in Tenerife in English, we actors only have a conversation to be exact, even though I don’t remember level only, so if we had a lapse with the script, whether it was in Santa Cruz or in La Laguna,”6
first we had to think in our language how to
but there are no scenes shot in Tenerife in the muddle through and then correct it.”3
film. Jess Franco’s presence on the set seems also

1979: Sensività 213
very unlikely. Antonio Mayans, who would soon
performances are grating, and the Italian dub-
become Franco’s right hand man on a huge bing does not improve upon them. Castellari’s
number of films made after the director’s return turn as the commissioner has some humorous
to Spain, was adamant: “We shot in Barcelona,
moments (such as the character’s fixation with at San Feliu de Guixols, but I do not believe that herb tea), but similarly seems at odds with the Jesús was there shooting with Enzo, to my rest of the movie.

knowledge they did not even know each other,

Castellari’s cut (which survives in an old
and I don’t see Jesús filming scenes with a direc-Swiss VHS release edited by the New Pentax
tor that had nothing to do with his cinema.”7
label) was about 8 minutes long, but the version Castellari’s assistant was most likely José María sub mitted to the Italian board of censors ran Nunes himself, a transgressive, anarchist film-about 6 minutes: it was badly distributed and maker who was a member of the avantgardist
soon disappeared without a trace. The movie

“Escuela de Barcelona,” the group of directors resurfaced a few years later to home video: New who revolutionized Spanish cinema in the 160s.

Pentax Film, the owner of the rights, released a Following the ban on the part of the Spanish
new version titled Kyra la signora del lago, which censorship of his 167 film Sexperien cias, Nunes runs only 77 minutes. Even though Castellari is could not make another movie for nine years,
credited as director, he did not have anything to and returned behind the camera only in 176,
do with it: the radically different edit features with Iconockaut.

new footage shot by Alfonso Brescia which em-

That said, Sensività bears Enzo Castellari’s
phasized the horrific angle of the story at the ex -
style from the opening sequence, with the mo-
pense of the more atmospheric and erotic ma-
torbike race on the beach and in the woods featerial. Gone is the original opening: the film turing Lilian and the young villagers, which starts with a scene which echoes the story of Lil-looks like it was lifted from one of the director’s ian’s mother’s death as told during the movie, poliziotteschi, not the least because of the use of but with a horrific angle, as a woman on a boat slow motion. The latter trick can also be found on the lake is attacked and killed by a mysterious in the soft- focus flashbacks involving Lilian as hand that emerges (à la Deliverance) from the
a child, which look very similar to the intimate waters, while her oblivious little daughter plays scenes between Belli (Franco Nero), his lover
with a toy bike. Cut to: Leonora Fani taking off and his young daughter in La polizia incrimina her helmet after the motorbike race on the beach la legge assolve (173): both films shared the and across the woods, mercilessly cut. Another same d.o.p., Alejandro Ulloa.

laughable attempt at turning the pic into a Castellari comes up with some impressive
straight horror movie takes place after Lilian’s sequences, such as the lovemaking session in the arrival at her old house, as a stand- in for Fani is cemetery, with the silhouettes of the lovers chased (in a very different location) by a hooded lighted from behind and the eerie appearance
figure with an axe, who then proceeds to break of the witch Kyra (Caterina Boratto), first seen the door of the room where the woman is hiding as a face sculpted on a grave, and then as a figure (à la The Shining) but is interrupted by the spying on Lilian and her occasional companion.

arrival of Lilian’s old nanny. The incident is Another remarkable moment is the seduction
never mentioned again in the film, in one of the scene atop a motorbike between Fani and An-film’s many blatant non sequitur moments, but
tonio Mayans. There, Castellari’s visual sensithe axe- wielding figure briefly reappears (and bility brings the movie into territories akin to disappears abruptly) near the end, before Lilian’s Jean Rollin, and gives Sensività an eerie quality encounter with Carlos in the empty warehouse.

which sets it apart from the type of Gothic Brescia’s footage turns up again during the movies made in Italy during that period—high-cemetery scene, when a ghastly hand comes out
lighted by the refreshing use of the Costa Brava of a grave and grabs Lilian’s leg, and in the scene locations, such as the monastery of San Feliu de of Antonio Mayans’ death, where said hand Guixols, standing as Lilian’s house.

drags the young man to his demise. On top On the other hand, the plot relies too often
of that, dialogue scenes are missing (such as Lil-on expository scenes that drag the story down, ian’s encounter with her friends at the park with and on characters that don’t gel at all with the the animal figures), and the fight between story. Sometimes it is a matter of acting: Mas-Wolfango Soldati’s character and the local simo Vanni and Wolfango Soldati’s over- the-top young sters is reduced to a few shots that are

214 1979: Le strelle superimposed with the final catfight between
lotti, Massimo Anzellotti. Cast: Lino Capolic -
the two girls.

chio (Silvano), Gianni Cavina (Marione), Carlo The ending is also heavily altered: in the

Delle Piane (Bracco), Roberta Paladini (Olim -
original cut, after a violent struggle with Lilith, pia), Giulio Pizzirani (Marzio), Adolfo Belletti Lilian breaks the magic symbol into two and

(Giove), Ferdinando Orlandi (Ferdinando Zena-
uses it as a phallus, raping her unconscious sio Vigetti, the Rat Catcher Narrator), Ferdi-sister, then she makes love with her; meanwhile nando Pannullo (Count Pepoli), Pietro Bona
a fire that has started around the two women

(Priest), Tonino Corazzari (St. Bartholomew).

reaches a gas barrel, causing a fatal explosion.

PROD: Gianni Minervini, Antonio Avati for In the abridged version the movie ends abruptly A.M.A. Film (Rome); PM: Gianni Amadei; PSe:

as, after knocking Lilith unconscious, Lilian ap-Alessandro Vivarelli; PSeA: Antonio Bisato.

pears to make the place explode when breaking

Country: Italy. Filmed on location in Minerbio the symbol. Meanwhile, the hand that had once

(Bologna), at the Po Delta, and at Incir- De Paolis again been seen emerging from the lake catches (Rome). Running time: 104 minutes (m. 2867).

fire, and sinks down for good.

Visa n. 72861 (1.13.17); Rating: V.M.14. Release Understandably, Castellari did not like the
date: 3.24.17; Distribution: Impegno Cine-re- edited version at all. “Say, have you seen the matografico. Domestic gross: 24,000,000 lire.

newly shot scenes? With this hand coming out

1801. A ratcatcher stops by a farmhouse, and
of the water … gee, what crap, really unwatch -
during the night he tells a young girl a tale. In the able stuff ! They invited me to a horror movie swamps near the river Po delta, in an isolated festival: ‘Yes, well, but what have I got to do with house surrounded by water and placed on a thin horror?’ ‘You did Sensività… ’ so I go, they strip of land, lived a family of men: the old Giove, screen a print of the movie, and I see it starts the father, and his four sons Silvano, Marione, like that! After six minutes I walked [out of] the Marzio and Bracco. For years no woman had ever theater, horrified.”8
set foot in that farmhouse, after the alleged death of Giove’s wife while giving birth to her younger NoTeS
son. But one night a young woman named

1. Davide Pulici, “Il muscolo intelligente, Intervista a Olimpia showed up: she was a pianist heading to Enzo G. Castellari,” in Manlio Gomarasca and Davide the villa of Count Pepoli after being abandoned Pulici (eds.), Il punto G. guida al cinema di Enzo G. Castel-in the countryside. In a few days the young lari. Nocturno Dossier #66, January 2008, 17.

woman established a friendly relationship with 2. Ibid, 18
each member of the family. Eventually the four 3. José Luis Salvador Estébenez, “Entrevista a Bernard Seray,” La abadìa de Berzano (https:// cerebrin. wordpress.

young men and their father asked Olimpia to com/ 2016/ 01/ 15/ entrevista- a- bernard- seray/).

marry them—which she accepted. The extrava-

4. Ibid.

gant and multiple marriage was celebrated in a 5. Email interview, August 2016.

festival that lasted a day and most of the night.

6. Estébenez, “Entrevista a Bernard Seray.”

7. Private email. Thanks to Francesco Cesari for pro-The next morning, Olimpia was gone and the five viding this bit of information.

men were dead. The ratchatcher finishes his tale 8. Pulici, “Il muscolo intelligente,” 17.

and leaves. The young girl has the features of Olimpia.

Le strelle nel fosso (The Stars in the Ditch) Conceived and shot in summer 178,1 Le

D: Pupi Avati. S: Pupi Avati, Maurizio
strelle nel fosso was born out of Pupi Avati’s re-Costanzo, Antonio Avati; SC: Pupi Avati, Cesare fusal to oblige to the rules of commercial film-Bornazzini; DOP: Franco Delli Colli (Eastman-
making, and was yet another attempt at devel-
color, Telecolor); M: Amedeo Tommasi (Ed.

oping his own vision and themes within a 103); the theme Le strelle nel fosso (Avati-Tom-context similar to that of his earlier movie, the masi) is played by Hengel Gualdi; E: Piera so- called “Po Valley Gothic.” After the success Gabutti; PD, CO: Luciana Morosetti; AD: Cesare of his autobiographical tv movie Jazz Band, the Bastelli; 2ndAD: Fabrizio Corallo; Props: Anto -
director asked for carte blanche, and made his nio Orlando; C: Antonio Schiavo Lena; AC: Gi-new movie on the spot, as if it was a jazz jam.

ancarlo Giannesi; SO: Raffaele De Luca; KG:

He practically improvised Le strelle nel fosso dur-Mario Pizzi; G: Remo Dolci; W: Giovanna Lai;
ing a four-week shoot, working on a minimal

AE: Carlo D’Alessandro; SS: Cesare Bornazzini; budget and on the basis of a thin plot outline, Mix: Venanzio Biraschi; SOE: Luciano Anzel -
with the help of his trustworthy cast and crew.

1979: Le strelle

215

The surreal still- life at the climax of Pupi Avati’s Le strelle nel fosso (1979). From left to right: Silvano (Lino Capolicchio), Marione (Gianni Cavina), Marzio (Giulio Pizzirani), Bracco (Carlo Delle Piane) and Giove (Adolfo Belletti) (courtesy Luca Servini).

As Giulio Pizzirani recalls, “We did not the river Po, a timeless and depopulated area, know anything about the story. Pupi showed up
with old dilapidated country farms and solitary at morning, gave us a sheet of paper and we had houses that look like remnants of a lost civiliza-to study our lines. Sometimes the dialogue lines tion. “It was a pretext to make a movie about
were not call and response, and I recall having death,” the director claimed. “I have a problem to learn very long parts, deadly difficult speeches with death and so I tried to make it beautiful, which later on I would repeat, improvising upon sunny, warm. Besides, there was the peasant them a bit. It was traumatic.”2 Assistant director fable, a territory then still unknown, which had Cesare Bastelli added: “I remember Pupi sitting always fascinated me.”4
on his little chair, in this wonderful place, in the As he partly did in La casa dalle finestre che morning, writing the scene for the day … with
ridono, here Avati draws explicitly from the um-all the actors around, waiting for a sign from bilical cord of the oral folk tales: he adopts a him… . Once I found an injured bird in the metanarrative structure, which revolves around valley and screamed: ‘Pupi, Pupi! I found a sea -
the framing story of the ratcatcher’s tale, and in-gull!’ and he: ‘Keep it there!’ and in a minute he serts other tales and digressions inside it. The wrote the scene where Cavina catches the bird
act of storytelling becomes a way to exorcise
and takes it to the kitchen. All we had were a death, whose presence accompanies every single crate of costumes, that beautiful house in the character in the movie; and yet it cannot but
middle of the waters, a group of actors and focus on the very thing all of them are obsessed friends, and this awesome natural setting.”3
with. The ratcatcher’s (Ferdinando Orlandi) The result is a charming and eerie fairytale
story is in itself an allegory of the acceptance of centered on death, which encompasses Avati’s
the inevitable passing from this earth, on the favorite themes, such as the duality between part of a group of characters who come to terms faith and superstition, and the fascination and with it; on the other hand, the frightening tales fear of the female figure. All this is set in the en-old Giove (Adolfo Belletti) tells to his offspring vironment of the rural Po Valley, in the delta of (because “to be scared of something meant not

216 1979: Le strelle feeling lonely”) are centered on the possibility Buono Legnani; and Bracco (Carlo Delle Piane,
of a return from the afterlife. Such are the terri-in a role Avati had devised for Roberto Benigni) fying story of the dead woman who returns to
is often dressed up as the girl his parents would claim her golden leg which her sisters stole when have wanted (grotesque transvestism recalls, burying her body—a moment worthy of Bava’s
among others, Buono Legnani’s in La casa dalle La goccia d’acqua—or the cleric arising from the finestre che ridono).

waters of the swamp where he had drowned.

As he did in his previous works, the di -

Religion becomes a way to turn away the
rector borrows themes and images from classical dread of passing away. Giove (whose job was to Gothic: Olimpia is named after the character in build tabernacles) is so afraid to fall asleep and E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Sandman, and her erup-not to wake up that he prays to Santa Rosalia
tion in this male- centered universe is similar to (portrayed as a little girl sitting on a throne atop Carmilla’s arrival in Le Fanu’s Car milla, as the a tree); Saint Bartholomew (Tonino Corazzari,
coach (here, an ox- driven carriage) has an acci-La casa dalle finestre che ridono’s Buono Le -
dent near Giove’s house. Still, despite the occa-gnani) is imagined as a blind man who walks
sional eerie and even chilling image (such as the around the countryside at night to take the souls sight of the cleric returning from the dead, a mo-of the righteous with him. Priests become mes-
ment that predates the appearances of the sengers of sorts, figures that can cross the revenants in Zeder), Avati is not interested in boundaries between the world of living and the making a horror movie—whereas he will with
realm of the dead, like the elderly parish priest L’arcano incantatore, which is very similar to Le who stops by Giove’s house every now and then
strelle nel fosso in its setting, structure and in the

“to inquire how the living are doing, and to tell developing of the main themes of death, super-how the dead are doing.”

stition/religion. Here, he allows his actors to im-In typical Avati fashion (see also Zeder),
provise and gives the movie an open, dreamlike death takes the form of a beautiful girl, and the structure, filled with bizarre secondary charac-act of dying is compared to a seduction. Olimpia ters (like the mad, starving Count Pepoli who
adopts a different approach with each of the five spends his time in a boat, guarding his posses-characters, and, in a similar way as Thomas did sions) that again hint at the folk tales from with the “demoniacs” in Thomas … gli indemo-which he took inspiration.

niati, she brings to the surface their desires and The result is perhaps not wholly up to the
fears. As so often in Avati’s cinema, woman is director’s expectations. Le strelle nel fosso has an alien and mysterious creature, impossible to plenty of memorable moments, such as the ex-understand, who haunts the memory of the traordinary pictorial ending with the rain wash-weak losers that are the director’s alter ego: ing the bodies of the dead Giove and his sons

Giove’s wife did not die while giving birth to her on the nuptial feast table, and benefits highly child, but abandoned him and his sons for good, from Franco Delli Colli’s extraordinary cine-as Olimpia will do after their collective marriage.

matography. And yet some of Avati’s choices—

Eventually, the acceptance of death is paired
such as the insistence on the portrayal of Giove’s with a solemn yet ridiculous celebration, vaguely four sons as excessively naive grown- up chil-Fellini- esque, which ends with the image of dren—seem infelicitous in hindsight, as Pizzi -

Giove and his sons sitting dead at a long table, rani himself pointed out: “I found it a bit exces-in a shot that recalls, not by chance, the “Last sive, phony, when I revised it.”5 Critics were not Supper.”

kind either: “Once again Avati’s undoubted tal-Fear of death equals fear (and rejection) of
ent, even though it returns to the Fantastic in-women. Avati’s main characters are childish and spiration of his earliest and best experiments, immature, even when they are big and strong
loses along the way every naturalness and results like the ever- hungry Marione (Gianni Cavina), in an almost always manneristic excitement,”6
and are more than a bit effeminate. The weak
wrote the eminent Tullio Kezich. Perhaps also

Silvano (Lino Capolicchio), whose blood “is due to its puzzling title (“strelle” is the translit-turning to water,” has the porcelain skin of a eration of the dialectal “streli,” which means mademoiselle; Marzio (Giulio Pizzirani) does
stars, hence “The Stars in the Ditch”), the movie all the house work like a good housewife, and
was a commercial flop, and only with time it ac-in a scene he even paints a mural painting that quired cult status.

brings to mind the unforgettable works of Overall, despite its shortcomings, Le strelle

1979: Le strelle 217
nel fosso represents a key work to fully under-2. Ruggero Adamovit, “Le strelle nel fosso: la fantasia,”

stand Avati’s peculiar, and often extraordinarily in Adamovit, Bartolini, Servini, Nero Avati, 130.

3. Ibid., 131.

original, take on the Gothic genre, to which the 4. Ibid., 124.

director would return in 183 with the outstand-5. Ibid., 130.

ing Zeder.

6. Tullio Kezich, Il nuovissimo Mille film. Cinque anni al cinema, 177–182 (Milan: Mondadori, 183), 377–378.

NoTeS

1. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, shooting began on July 10, 178.

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Appendix: Italian Gothic
on the Small Screen

Whereas the Gothic- inspired horror films

This blooming of literary production was
made in Italy during the 70s often drew from destined to mark the made- for-TV works that
lowbrow popular sources, bastardizing and ba-
appeared during the 70s, which often touched nalizing their primary inspiration, the products Gothic themes and managed to attract larger
made for the small screen often took inspiration audiences than their big screen counterparts
from famed literary models, and highlighted the could ever dream. This “golden age” of made-in- depth penetration of Fantastic literature into for-television Gothic can be framed between
the Italian market that characterized the 60s

7, the year of the enormously successful Il and 70s, with the publishing of many popular segno del comando, and the early 80s, where
anthologies dedicated to the works of the most projects conceived in the previous decade (such famed authors in the field. Such a thread had
as Mario and Lamberto Bava’s La Venere d’Ille) been started by I vampiri tra noi (60, edited were finally broadcast. But the face of Italian tel-by Ornella Volta) and Storie di fantasmi (60, evision was radically changing in the meantime, edited by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini).

and there did not seem to be room for Gothic

66 marked the appearance of another best-
anymore.

selling anthology, I mostri all’angolo della strada, also curated by Fruttero and Lucentini, which
collected the most significant stories written Il segno del comando and the
by Howard Phillips Lovecraft. But there were
also series of novels dedicated to the Fantastic birth of made- for-TV Gothic
and the Gothic—such as Il pesanervi (7
titles between 66 and 70, ranging from Italian audiences had been taken off guard

William Beckford to Gustav Meyrinck, from Al-
by the broadcasting of Giorgio Albertazzi’s ex-fred Jarry to André Pieyre de Mandiargues) or
perimental Jekyll in February 6, but the crit-La biblioteca di Babele (75), published by the ical success and the viewing figures of this renowned Franco Maria Ricci under the super-modern- day rendition of Robert Louis Steven-
vision of none other than Jorge Luis Borges—
son’s classic had shown that there could be room and magazines. Among the latter, the short- lived for the Gothic on the small screen.

Horror (first published in December 6), It took a couple of years for a Gothic trend
founded and directed by Pier Carpi and Alfredo to fully blossom, but when it did, it was an out-Castelli, was a thought- provoking mixture of standing success. In Spring 7, the five- part comics, short stories, essays, interviews to TV mini- series Il segno del comando (The Sign writers and filmmakers, all centered on the com-of Command), directed by Daniele D’Anza, kept
mon denominator underlined by the title.

almost 5 million viewers glued to the screen, Horror was published by Gino Sansoni, who with its story of reincarnations, esotericism and also specialized in rereleasing classic horror mysterious dames set in an arcane Rome, sus-novels with lurid titles and covers. On the other pended between ancient and modern, from the
hand, Il giornale dei misteri (7) dealt with

7th century palaces to the excavation for a new such themes as parapsychology, spiritism and
subway line.

ufology, with a popular approach.

The main model of D’Anza’s film was



0 Appendix Claude Barma’s atmospheric Belphégor ou le disappears mysteriously through the alleys of

Fantôme du Louvre (65), a 4-part French mini-Trastevere; in Mérimée’s story a young French-
series based on the novel of the same name by
man travelling to Rome falls for an enigmatic

Arthur Bernède that had been a success when
white- dressed girl who, according to a legend, broadcast in Italy in June 66; but the story would be a ghost wandering in the old town al-owed also to the surreal TV mystery Geminus
leys. But whereas Mérimée opted for a rational (6) directed by Luciano Emmer, about a Pagan denouement, D’Anza offers an open ending (al-cult in the catacombs of modern- day Rome. The legedly chosen among five different ones, and
story (by Dante Guardamagna and Flaminio
changed at the last moment by the director Bollini, later joined by Lucio Mandarà, Giuseppe under pressure from some actors, who thought

D’Agata and D’Anza himself) went through a la-
the original one was not up to the magic atmos-borious scriptwriting phase: eventually it was phere built over the course of the story) which D’Agata and D’Anza who wrapped the final keeps the viewer guessing long after the words draft, and the latter replaced Bollini behind the

“The End.”

camera.

The plot goes back to the themes of the

The suggestive setting in the Eternal City

Gothic novels as well as the th century super-conveyed convincingly the idea of an Italian way natural short stories: doppelgängers (Forster to the Gothic and the supernatural. “There were

“sees” the elusive painter Tagliaferri having his the two of us, Flaminio Bollini and I—summer
very own features, and during the detection he of ’6, late night—coming out of a meeting… .

identifies himself with Byron), the cyclical We were strolling and chatting among the shad-nature of events (including a reference to Niet-owy alleys and barred taverns, with the echo of zsche’s “eternal return” and superman: in his var-our footsteps on Trastevere’s cobblestones,” as ious incarnations, Tagliaferri/Forster is a supe-Guardamagna explained, recalling the story’s
rior being whom the “sign of command” gives
genesis. “Ghosts, we did not see any. But we eternal life), predestination and the inevitability evoked them: meetings Henry James- style, of Fate, ghostly presences.

black- robed monks and gypsies à la Byron, an-

Carla Gravina, the evanescent Lucia, is a
nouncing fatal destinies, more or less Faustian spectral figure who lives only when she loves, artists. A Roman- style mystery? Yes, but we told at the same time elusive and carnal (on her first ourselves that one of our cities, in a Northern apparition, we see her peering half- naked from visitor’s eyes (think of Hoffmann, or maybe behind a door, teasingly apologizing for her Thomas Mann) suddenly takes on a dimension
scant clothing), who recalls Barbara Steele’s that everyday life hides to us. So, we entrusted character in Danza macabra. What is more, adventure and discovery to a modern- day En-D’Anza expertly blends cultured references and glish professor, specialized in the life and works genre staples, Romanticism and feuilleton, of Lord Byron.”

Byron’s sonnets and the Roman folk song Cento

This is exactly what emerges in the film
campane, which functions as a leitmotif to the during a dialogue between George Powell (Mas-story. But there were also elements that drew
simo Girotti), Barbara (Paola Tedesco) and the from Italian Fantastic literature: it has been hero, Professor Forster (Ugo Pagliai), who has noted how the idea of a mysterious square in
arrived in Rome for a conference. Powell boasts Rome whose location is nowhere to be found in
the primacy of England’s ghosts, whereas Bar-
maps was possibly inspired by the short story
bara objects: “I know. But they are not export Avventura a Campo de’ Fiori, included in the
products. The air of Rome is too limpid to ac-
short story collection Le notti romane (60) by commodate certain Northern fantasies.” To

Giorgio Vigolo, adapted for the small screen by which Forster replies: “During the day, perhaps.

Luigi Magni in 83.

But by night, this city seems full of presences, Compared with the haughty TV mysteries
and vibrations.”

produced by Italian television around the The starting point has more than one ele-same time (such as the adaptations of Francis
ment in common with Prosper Mérimée’s short

Durbridge’s novels, some of them helmed by
story The Viccolo of Madam Lucrezia, written in D’Anza), Il segno del comando offered something

846 and published posthumously. In D’Anza’s
more: the charm of an experience which cinema
film, Professor Forster follows a beautiful cannot guarantee, and a renewed sense of won-woman, Lucia (Carla Gravina), who appears and
der unthinkable in the works produced for the

Italian Gothic on the Small Screen


big screen—not to mention the illusion that it becomes at the same time the pretext from would still be possible to escape from a chaotic, which the action moves as well as a “Guest of
troubled present.

stone” (to quote Don Juan) that hovers on the

Ultimately, D’Anza’s film moves in an op-
characters, the holder of a century- old secret hid-posite direction from Albertazzi’s problematic den between riddles and sonnets. It was Byron

Jekyll. Such a resistance to the present day is em-who ensured that the Anglo- Saxon culture as-
bodied in the character of Prince Anchisi similated the myth of the vampire, and it was

(Franco Volpi), who dresses in period clothing him who impersonated the Gothic- Romantic
and is morbidly attached to his family’s ancestral hero, by playing the part of the fallen angel, the traditions: he conveys an idea of an encrusted, restless soul who is destined to wander in a world moldy aristocracy, out of time yet stubbornly
that does not belong to him, tied to a fate already encysted in the present, and is an advocate of written.

that “return to the irrational” which the younger Last but not least, D’Anza’s film explores
generations identify superficially with astrology convincingly the theme of eternal return, de-and fortune- telling. The charm of Il segno del clined in a romantic way: just like the restless comando is also in the recovery of a symbolic
ghosts in Danza macabra, Forster and Lucia are language, tied to objects and places, the same destined to relive forever their love story. “But used also by Freemasonry: a thing is itself and you, Lucia, in which world do you belong?” asks at the same time it is something else.

Forster in the final scene, in a tavern that rep-Television, with its limitation and selfresents the threshold between the two worlds.

censorship due to the medium’s nature and to the

“In the past, in the present … there is no differ-diffusion of the product to a mass audience, alence, you know… ” is the enigmatic answer.

lows viewers to savor that narrative suspension which is lost in contemporaneous movies. The
pacing, as usual with made- for-TV products of the period, is slow and dreamy, meditative and Ghosts of the small screen
relaxed; viewers need their time, they love to be carried away by a plot concocted as a series of The enormous success of Il segno del co-Chinese boxes, where each revealed mystery
mando marked a milestone in the history of Ital-leads to another. The lengthy dialogue scenes
ian television. The picturesque and the Gothic are characterized by an insistence on mood and would occupy a fair slice in the decade’s produc-details, and with a certain solemnity that is tion, starting with the adaptation of The Moon-paired with the blatantly traditionalist aesthetics, stone, Wilkie Collins’s mystery masterpiece.

underlined by the black- and-white cinematog-

La pietra di luna, directed by Anton Giulio Ma-raphy. The present, with its tensions and fears, jano, and adapted with the prestigious collabo-is absent. It is as if the characters—and the ration of Italy’s top mystery novelists, Franco audience with them—move inside a timeless

Fruttero and Carlo Lucentini, was broadcast bubble, that bursts only near the ending, in the in 7. Many more followed, such as the scene where Pagliai and Girotti’s characters, parapsychology- themed ESP (73) starring
wandering underground, find themselves in the

Paolo Stoppa, and based on the life of the Dutch midst of the excavations for the new subway line psychic Gérard Croiset; Il dipinto (74,

(a setting also explored by Fellini for one of the Domenico Campana), about a cop who is in-most beautiful sequences of his 7 film Roma), jured on duty and develops psychic powers; and and modernity suddenly breaks the spell as in

Gamma (76, Salvatore Nocita), about a brain
a rude awakening.

transplant whose results lead to consequences

On top of that, Il segno del comando offers
akin to The Hands of Orlac. Meanwhile, with
an incarnation of the Romantic hero that had
the four episodes of his series La porta sul been lacking in Italian Gothic films: the charac-buio (73), Dario Argento sabotaged the con-
ter played by Ugo Pagliai is a sort of detective of ventions of the thriller genre that were to be the occult, who reaches the truth through art
found in the contemporary adaptations based
and his own esprit de finesse rather than through on the works of novelists such as Francis Dur-reason. The red thread with literary Gothic is bridge—but that is another story.

provided mainly by the surprising use of the fig-The 70s made- for-TV mini- series (the
ure of Lord Byron, who in Il segno del comando so- called “Sceneggiati”) leaned on immutable

 Appendix requirements. First of all, of course, there was weekly magazine Domenica del Corriere). It is
the setting. After the mysterious, evocative again centered on a case of metempsychosis, and Rome seen in Il segno del comando, filmmakers
it tells a tale of love and death: the Baroness’

duly rediscovered the country’s arcane fascina-tragic story (she was killed by her father and her tion. Examples are the Tuscan village of Volterra, husband to punish her for an adultery in the
which looks like it came out of an Arthur year 563) repeats itself 50 years later, when an Conan Doyle novel, complete with seedy taverns official (Ugo Pagliai, by then Italy’s most popular and grave robbers, in Ritratto di donna velata Gothic hero) falls madly in love for the beautiful (Portrait of Veiled Woman, 75, Flaminio Laura (Janet Agren), the wife of the Baron of

Bollini); the Bourbon period Sicily, on the eve Carini, Don Mariano D’Agrò (Adolfo Celi).

of the establishment of the Kingdom of the Two L’amaro caso della baronessa di Carini is a

Sicilies in 86, in D’Anza’s L’amaro caso della very interesting effort, not the least because of baronessa di Carini (The Bitter Case of the D’Anza’s use of color, which heightens its expres-Baroness of Carini, 75); again the catacombs sive potential, thanks to Blasco Giurato’s beau-and subway excavations of contemporary Rome
tiful photography. What is more, the image of
in Il fauno di marmo (The Marble Faun, 77,
the stabbed woman who leaves the imprint of

Silverio Blasi); the Lazio province, between Fras-her bloody hand on the wall she is leaning on, cati and Bomarzo’s Parco dei Mostri, in La dama shot in slow- motion and with a flou effect, de-dei veleni (The Queen of Poisons, 7, Silverio notes the influence of Dario Argento’s cinema.

Blasi).

However, the Grand- Guignol was partly lost to Ritratto di donna velata followed scrupu-the viewers, since the movie was broadcast in
lously the same formula as Il segno del comando, black- and-white: RAI started broadcasting in
which Bollini had co- scripted: a mystery intrigue color regularly only in 77.

with supernatural elements, a heroine (Daria Ni-D’Anza heightened the story’s folksy
colodi) elusive as a ghost, the correspondence be-element, framing the narrative, as he did in Il tween the past and the present, the theme of rein-segno del comando, with a folk ballad (sung by carnation, and a doppelgänger depicted in the

Gigi Proietti), and opening the movie with a brief disturbing portrait that gives the movie its title.

b&w documentary on contemporary Sicily. How-What is more, its setting, in the Tuscan town of ever, the most successful aspect of L’amaro caso Volterra, the site of a famous Etruscan necropolis, della baronessa di Carini can be traced to the possibly drew inspiration from Armando
character of Don Ippolito (Paolo Stoppa), a Crispino’s successful giallo, L’etrusco uccide ancora.

witty intermediary between the protagonists and Ritratto di donna velata met an extraordinary suc-the audience, a sort of omniscient narrator who cess (over  million viewers), but despite some repeatedly breaks the fourth wall and addresses undeniably evocative scenes, such as the nightly the viewers. Don Ippolito is a disenchanted Illu-appearance of a ghost rider before the protago-minist, who quotes Voltaire but ultimately can nists’ car, in a foggy country road, the result was only take note of life’s unrelenting dark areas, erratic, and let down by the choice of a lighter, those that not even reason can scratch.3
less convincing tone, with a frivolous and giggly Although well- oiled, the formula for made-hero (Nino Castelnuovo). What is more, the plot for-TV Gothic was not infallible, as proved by at times looks like a half- baked rehash of its Silverio Blasi’s Il fauno di marmo, a clumsy adap-model, and the direction is often hampered by
tation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s last novel The the technical limits: like most “Sceneggiati” of the Marble Faun. Or the Romance of Monte Beni
period, exteriors were shot on film, whereas the (860) set in modern- day Rome. Constantly on static indoor scenes were shot on video, to jarring the verge of the ridiculous, it was slanted by crit-effects.

ics (one reviewer underlined its “brazen impu-

With L’amaro caso della baronessa di Carini,
dence in dressing with botched parapsycholog-
consisting of four episodes broadcast beginning ical clothes the most blatant ineptitude at telling November 3, 75, Daniele d’Anza went back
a story, let alone carry it along in a dramatically to the same folk tale that inspired novelist Gio-convincing way”4), and is noteworthy mainly for vanni Verga to write the novelette Le storie del featuring one of Italian television’s very first full castello di Trezza (876), and which was adapted frontal nude scenes, courtesy of Consuelo Fer-by other writers as well, such as Italo Toscani rara.

(La mano di sangue, published in 06 on the

Blasi did a much more convincing job in

Italian Gothic on the Small Screen

3

La dama dei veleni. In adapting John Dickson
centrality of the haunted house and its sur-Carr’s novel The Burning Court in a contempo-
roundings (secret passages, a garden, a crypt
rary Italian setting (and in a much more faithful where a necromantic ritual takes place) in which way than its previous screen adaptation, Julien the story develops; and, last but not least, the Duvivier’s 6 film La Chambre ardente), the
hesitation between a rational and a supernatural director opted without hesitation for the Fan-explanation.

tastic, emphasizing the element of reincarnation: Unlike most TV movies of the period, Rac-the result—aided by Bruno Nicolai’s score, conto d’autunno is shot on film, and from a visual which reprises one of the composer’s themes for standpoint it is quite different from its peers.

I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale Campana amplifies the Gothic elements in Lan-

(73, Sergio Martino)—brings the film closer
dolfi’s story with striking visual intuitions, from to the themes of 60s Italian Gothic. The limits the use of wide- angle shots to underline the imposed by the medium are evident (verbiage,
young protagonist’s disorientation and confu-
sleepy rhythm, many scenes filmed with a static sion, to the sudden twists that seemingly plunge camera), and the choice of Susanna Martinková
the tale into the realm of the Fantastic: such are was not felicitous for the role of the woman Lucia’s white hands entering the frame to cure whom the protagonist (the ubiquitous Ugo
the sleeping rebel’s wound, or the young girl’s Pagliai) marries, only to suspect that she is the pale hand that rises out of the darkness like that reincarnation of a notorious poisoner of the of a ghost—a moment worthy of Bava, explicitly past; nevertheless, the result retains at times the quoted in the image of the mastiffs (in Landolfi’s disturbing power of Carr’s book and its unset-novel they are wolfhounds) that Rey’s character tling final twist, which make it one of the best carries around on a leash. What is more, Fer-Gothic novels of the 0th century.

nando Rey (who dubs his own voice in Italian)

La dama dei veleni also shows how Italian
is perfect as the lord of the castle with Poe- like television of the period was adventurous in its traits and obsessions, who calls himself out of exploration of popular literature. Carr’s works his time and proudly exclaims: “Only one pas-were the source for other noteworthy mini-sion has stayed with me: not to live like other series, including another novel which blended
people.”

the whodunit with the Fantastic, Fire, Burn!

The film’s limit is to take to the letter what (56), adapted for television in 7 by Giovanni in Landolfi’s novel was an elaborate linguistic Fago with Morte a passo di valzer, starring construction, and to take the story’s Gothic sur-Gianni Garko as a modern- day cop who finds
face as an end and not as an ironic disguise for himself catapulted back in time in 8, and must a fable that carries many hidden themes, and
solve an impossible murder.

can be read both in a private and political way.

Another interesting literary adaptation was

For instance, the role of the house in Landolfi’s Domenico Campana’s Racconto d’autunno (Au-story is emblematic; unlike in Poe’s stories, it is tumn Tale, broadcast in February 8), based
not the effigy and expression of its inhabitants’

on Tommaso Landolfi’s novel of the same
delusions and obsessions, but a perfectly self-name—in turn possibly inspired by Charles contained model of sobriety and balance, that

Nodier’s Gothic novella Inés de Las Sierras. It is the eruption of an external element ends up the story of a young rebel (Stefano Patrizi), who, damaging and condemning to ruin. When Cam-fleeing an enemy army during an unnamed and
pana moves away from the cloistered three char-abstract conflict, takes refuge in a country villa acters’ game and broadens the scope to the war where an old gentleman (Fernando Rey) lives
seen as the universal condition of a humanity
together with a mysterious young girl named
divided in “invaders” and “bandits,” the allegor-Lucia (Laura Lattuada), who might be the ghost ical power of Landolfi’s novel is lost (Racconto of his dead wife. Campana, who already touched d’autunno was written immediately after the end paranormal themes in the disturbing two- part of World War II, and the novelist was sur-TV movie Il dipinto, here plays with Gothic’s
rounded by ruins, both real and ideological),
main staples: the theme of the double, here emand the film’s budgetary and substantial limits phasized by a painting (a landscape which, seen come to the fore. Still, it is one of the best Italian by a different angle, reveals a woman’s face in made- for TV Gothics of the period, and was
anamorphosis: a beautiful invention absent in
very successful at the time of its broadcast, with the book), the insinuating weight of the past, the an audience of over  million.

4 Appendix From the page to the screen:

should belong in the noir trend, that is they should inspire horror and fear. Whereas they
the anthology format
won’t be totally black, as they are treated with irony.”5 The series featured music scores by I. From Lovecraft to Poe…

Ennio Morricone, included in the CD Drammi
gotici. The most interesting episode of the lot By the end of the 70s the formula of the
was perhaps Casa delle streghe, which blended
sceneggiati was gradually abandoned. A com-
together three different Lovecraft stories (The mon format for the Gothic adaptations destined Music of Erich Zann, Cold Air and Dreams in the to the small screen became the anthology Witch House), tied together by the presence of format, with low- budget mini- series consisting a student (played by Flavio Bucci) who is a mere of a number of self- contained episodes that al-spectator of the stories or a victim. The cast also lowed young filmmakers to express an experi-included Micaela Pignatelli and Alessandro mental vein, the sign of a will to move along

Haber. The critics were harsh: the adaptation of unexplored paths, and use the medium in a cre-Capuana’s novel was dismissed as “chaotic” and ative way.

the Lovecraft episode was criticized for being Such an example was Maurizio Ponzi’s Lo

“abstruse” and “confused.” A similar project was strano caso di via dell’Angeletto (75), starring Ultima scena: 5 storie fantastiche (Final Scene: 5

Nino Castelnuovo and Paola Gassman, a weird

Fantastic Stories, 78), which comprised five one- act TV movie broadcast as part of the series stories set in the show business, including a cou-Storie in una stanza, supervised by Giovanni
ple of interesting early works by Gianni Amelio, Antonucci; the series was made of five brief stoLa morte al lavoro (openly inspired by Polanski’s ries characterized by the unit of time and place, Le locataire) and Effetti speciali (about a reclusive directed by five different filmmakers. Ponzi’s elderly horror movie director who invites a episode falls entirely into the Gothic genre, with young scriptwriter in his villa to write a new the story of a young couple attracted by an ap-film).

parently normal house which, little by little, A much more felicitous attempt at adapting
turns out to be a living organism, with a self-prestigious literary sources, and characterized consciousness and even a voice (provided by
by a creative approach to the subject, was I rac-voice actress Tina Lattanzi).

conti fantastici di Edgar Allan Poe (Edgar Allan The anthology format also allowed film-Poe’s Fantastic Tales), brought to the screen by makers to adapt stories by renowned writers, Daniele D’Anza and Biagio Proietti in 7, with keeping with the small screen’s tendency to lean music by the popular pop/progressive rock band on literary models. Such was the case with Nella Pooh. Consisting of four episodes of 55 minutes città vampira (In the Vampire City, 78), three each (Notte in casa Usher, Ligeia Forever, Il short adaptations from Dino Campana (Ma è un
delirio di William Wilson, La caduta di casa vampiro?), George Oliver Onions and Hanns Usher), it was broadcast in 7. With a similar Heinz Ewers (Kaiserstrasse o del demone fem-move as Fellini’s Toby Dammit and later Ar-minile) and Howard Phillips Lovecraft (Casa delle gento’s Il gato nero (in Due occhi diabolici, 0), streghe) broadcast in July and August 78, D’Anza and Proietti hybridized and intertwined whereas a fourth episode (Diario di un pazzo,
references to different stories, not only literary based on Gogol’s story) was broadcast almost one and not only belonging to Poe. The character of year later, in June 7; a fifth one (to be titled La Roderick Usher (played by Philippe Leroy) signorina ciminiera nella città vampira) was an-whose clothes and behavior hint that he may benounced but never made.

long to a different age, becomes a sort of alter Nella città vampira was created and super-ego to the writer; he lives in a house inside vised by Giorgio Bandini, a pioneer of Italian which “it is like being out of time and space,” as radio dramas. Bandini’s project consisted essen-another character notes. It is from this house tially of one- acts, filmed entirely in studio, with that everything begins, and it is in it that every-bland and stage- like pacing and the odd referthing ends: all the characters are inexorably ence to Expressionistic lighting, and character-drawn to it, get lost inside it and/or are incor-ized by a sometimes ironic approach to the lit-porated into it—an enclosed microcosm where
erary sources: as the director claimed, “these the ghosts from the past keep repeating the stories, being peopled with ghosts and vampires, same acts over and over again, like in Adolfo

Italian Gothic on the Small Screen

5

Bioy Casares’ novelette The Invention of Morel by Paolo Fondato, Stefano Calanchi, Nanni Fab-

(adapted in 74 by Emidio Greco).

bri and Proietti himself. The four installments In addition to the references to the Poe uni-were: Il sognatore (Paolo Fondato), about a man verse, D’Anza and Proietti introduced somewhat who dreams he sees a murder and identifies the unexpected elements. The series’ first install-killer but not the victim, reminiscent of Don’t ment, Una notte in casa Usher (A Night at the

Look Now and Fulci’s Sette note in nero; Dietro House of Usher), turns into a meditation on jus-la tenda scura (Stefano Calanchi), about two
tice that recalls Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s work, women who move to the house of their dreams,
with a narrative framing story that pays homage only to find it is haunted; Sono già stato qui to the Swiss author’s novel A Dangerous Game,

(Nanni Fabbri), where a man who moves to a
a.k.a. Traps (Die Panne), whereas the final story, small apartment senses the presence of the pre-La caduta di casa Usher (The Fall of the House vious inhabitant, who allegedly committed sui-of Usher), hints at Buñuel’s El ángel extermi-
cide; and L’armadio, about a woman who buys
nador. And if Rebecca is a predictable filmic ref-an old wardrobe and discovers it is a threshold erence when revisiting Ligeia, it is surprising to a parallel universe.

how the adaptation turns the titular character The series dealt with “stories that lose their into a silent movie star, with references to Sunset essence of fairytales right when catching the vi-Blvd. and Singin’ in the Rain, in the episode olent moment of the clash between reality and

Ligeia Forever.

the Fantastic world, an unexplored but nonetheThe nods to Poe are both visual (the gigan-
less existing universe, where reason can try to tic blade- shaped pendulum that towers over the enter and illuminate its dark corners, without hall of the house of Usher, the masked ball in having the presumption of clearing and explain-the final episode that recalls The Masque of the ing everything”6 and tried for a realistic context Red Death) and narrative: MS. Found in a Bottle to the tales.

and The Tell- Tale Heart are included in the plots in the form of dialogues or monologues, with

II. Il fascino dell’insolito
an explicit theatrical quality. Overall, the stories are hampered by a certain pedantry, and the di-Il fascino dell’insolito—Itinerari dalla let-
rection—as often occurs with TV movies of the
teratura gotica alla fantascienza, edited by period—is not always up to the task. Neverthe-Cecilia Cope, Angelo Ivaldi and Biagio Proietti less, I racconti fantastici di Edgar Allan Poe rep-and broadcast between 80 and 8, drew resent a refined, thought- provoking experiment: from th century and mainly 0th century au-to use the TV medium as a macro context thors (with such authors as Truman Capote, within which to explore and interoperate differ-William Tenn, Ray Bradbury, Stanley Ellin, ent cues, so as to build a sophisticated intertex-Montague Rhode James… ).

tual apparatus that demands a lot of the viewer.

The first season (curated by Angelo Ivaldi

Lovecraft and Poe were also among the au-
and Biagio Proietti) was broadcast from Janu-
thors adapted in another TV series, this time
ary  to February , 80, and consisted of 5
with an openly didactic aim: Un racconto, un au-epi sodes: La mezzatinta (based on M.R. James’

tore, broadcast weekly in early 8. Each in-
short story The Mezzotint); La stanza n. 13
stallment was half an hour long, and included

(based on M.R. James’ short story Number 13);

Poe’s The Oval Portrait, and a three- part adap-Piccolo assassino (based on Ray Bradbury’s short tation of Lovecraft’s The Silver Key (amounting story Small Assassin); Veglia al morto (based on to a total of 0 minutes) starring Jobst Grapow Ambrose Bierce’s short story A Watcher By the
as Randolph Carter and HPL and the Greek Dead); Miriam (based on Truman Capote’s short
filmmaker Stavros Tornes as Carter’s grandfa-
story of the same name).

ther. Accordingly, the story emphasized the “re-The second season (curated by Cecilia
fusal of the world of conventional hypocrisy”

Cope and Angelo Ivaldi) was broadcast from
and was directed by Ciriaco Tiso. On the other August  to September 4, 8, and consisted
hand, the four stories that formed part of Il filo of 3 episodes: La strada al chiaro di luna (based e il labirinto (The Thread and the Labyrinth), on Ambrose Bierce’s short story Moonlit Road); broadcast in August and September 7, were

La casa della follia (based on Richard Matheson’s not adaptations but original scripts devised by short story Mad House); Impostore (based on

Biagio Proietti and Diana Crispo, and directed Philip K. Dick’s short story Impostor).

6 Appendix The third and last season (also curated by
experimental approach, and even featured

Cope and Ivaldi, and broadcast from July 0 to the odd nude scene. The most successful

August 4, 8) consisted of 6 episodes: La tor-episodes belonged to the third season: the tura della speranza (based on Auguste de Villiers Lovecraft- inspired La cosa sulla soglia, directed de L’Isle-Adam’s short story La torture par l’es-by the twins Andrea and Antonio Frazzi (who
perance [The Torture of Hope]); La scoperta di also helmed an interesting adaptation of P. K.

Morniel Mathaway (based on William Tenn’s

Dick’s Impostor) and starring Massimo Ghini
short story The Discovery of Morniel Mathaway); as Daniel Upton, which had already been

Vampirismus (based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s short
screened in competition at Trieste’s Festival of story of the same name); La cosa sulla soglia

Science Fiction, and E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Vam-

(based on H. P. Lovecraft’s short story The Thing pirismus, helmed by Giulio Questi. The Love -
on the Doorstep); La specialità della casa (based craft episode benefitted greatly from its refined on Stanley Ellin’s short story The Specialty of the Art Déco setting in the asylum scenes, as well House); Castigo senza delitto (based on Ray as some striking locations such as the well-Bradbury’s short story Punishment Without
known Casina Vanvitelliana, on the Fusaro Crime.)

lake near Naples, the place where “a corrupt-

The budgets were low, and the episodes
ing and voracious entity is resuming its domain were mostly shot on video rather than on film; on the bourgeois space like an arcane deity as Cope and Ivaldi explained, “with this series that sits back on its throne after centuries of

… we want to prove that decent shows, worthy
exile.”8
of being watched can be made even without Despite the title, Questi’s Vampirismus is
having the means and the players of America’s
not a vampire story but a tale of ghouls. Count most successful TV series.”7 However, the ap-Ippolito (Antonio Salines) welcomes as guests
proach to the material varied wildly, sometimes in his house an elderly woman who calls herself faithful, more often thought- provoking and the Baroness (Mariagrazia Marescalchi) with a
innovative. The result represented, even more
shady past, and her little more than teenage than in the case of D’Anza’s I racconti fantas-daughter Aurelia (future film director Francesca tici di Edgar Allan Poe, an attempt to rework

Archibugi); attracted by the young woman, the
the Fantastic genre according to the demands

Count lets them settle in his house like parasites of television, while exploring new expressive
and marries Aurelia, only to find that at night ways.

his young bride wanders in the graveyards, dig-The first season was filmed in black- and-
ging up and devouring corpses.

white and the episodes were mostly suffering

Following Hoffmann’s story, Questi departs
from an overtly timid approach that made the
from the aristocratic model of the vampire. Ip-results look like filmed theater. The choice of polito is a refined dandy, alien from the things the sources ranged from the ghost story (La of the world (“You know that my greatest aspi-strada al chiaro di luna: Ambrose Bierce’s tale ration is being a serene and imperturbable was reimagined in a contemporary setting) to
dandy, which seems to me the only possible the time paradox (La scoperta di Morniel Matt-form of stoicism in this age of overwhelming
away, from the double (the elderly woman democracy,” he says), whereas the self- appointed haunted by a creepy girl who has her own

“Baroness” is a social climber who settles in his name—Death? A ghost? The image of her own
house—in an ironic paraphrase of the rule that lost childhood? A mind projection that accom-a vampire must be invited in by its victim—like panies her descent into madness?—in Miriam)

a parasite, binging with tea and pastries, and is to the haunted house. The most successful frowned upon by the circle of aristocrats that episode, the disturbing La mezzatinta, inspired Ippolito is part of.

by Montague Rhodes James’ story, is about a

What is more, the supernatural is not an
painting of a house whose appearance changes
element of the story. Aurelia’s is a mental pathol-according to the events, with the addition of new ogy, a neurosis caused by sexual traumas, and
details, and benefits from a fascinating contem-her night raids are a visceral answer to her porary setting among the villas on Mount Vesu-diurnal existence as a remissive bride. The aes-vio.

thetic (and ecstatic) aspect of vampirization is On the other hand, the following seasons
lost too: from suction to mastication, there are were characterized by the use of color, a more no bites to the jugular but rotting limbs eaten

Italian Gothic on the Small Screen

7
with feral greed, with an insistence on macabre the renowned writer’s collaboration with RAI
and gruesome details that paraphrases “the evo-on I giochi del diavolo.

lution of a certain modern literature of terror, The six stories selected for adaptation rep-where the underlying cause of horror is not the resented the cream of the crop of th century supernatural, but the very human madness, or

Fantastic literature, and benefitted from rather just an unknown disease, and in any case the
faithful adaptations. The famed authors chosen horrific effect is more important than its origin.”
ranged from Prosper Mérimée to Henry James,

As the renowned philosopher and Ger-
from Robert Louis Stevenson to E. T. A. Hoff-
manist Furio Jesi noted, in Hoffmann’s story
mann, from H. G. Wells to Gérard de Nerval,

“the vampire that feeds on meat demolishes an
and involved prestigious filmmakers, such as

Illuministic, rational conception of man and

Giulio Questi, Marcello Aliprandi and Mario
human body,”0 and the tale foreshadows a re-

Bava. It took some time before the results ended flection on the crisis of aristocracy. In Questi’s up on the screen: some episodes, such as Bava’s, adaptation the sense appears rather uncertain; were filmed as early as 78.

Vampirismus pairs an embryonic class struggle

Here is in detail the episode list as
and the battle of the sexes, but is held back in broadcast on RAI , starting in May 8.

the description of the sexual origin of Aurelia’s pathology, and is let down by the infelicitous 5.0.8: L’uomo della sabbia, by E.T.A.

choice of Archibugi (who also has a couple of

Hoffmann; screenplay by Mauro Marchesini
nude scenes) as Aurelia. However, this time the and Giulio Questi, directed by Giulio Questi.

theatrical dimension, even claustrophobic, is not 5.7.8: La Venere d’Ille, by Prosper
an impediment but an unexpected asset: the Mérimée; screenplay by Lamberto Bava and
story takes place entirely in Ippolito’s palace, and Cesare Garboli, directed by Mario and Lam-the only connection with the outside world is a berto Bava.

large window in the living room that gives onto 6.3.8: La presenza perfetta, by Henry
a garden- cemetery where the key events take

James (from the short story Sir Edmund
place: the funeral of the Baroness, the wedding, Horme); screenplay by Jean Ludwigg, directed
the discovery of the bride’s nocturnal activities.

by Piero Nelli.

It is a choice that helps depict a closed, and in 6.7.8: La mano indemoniata, by Gérard
turn, despite itself, putrefying world.

De Nerval; screenplay by Tullio Pinelli, di-
rected by Marcello Aliprandi.

III. I giochi del diavolo

6.3.8: Il diavolo nella bottiglia, by Robert Louis Stevenson; screenplay by Tomaso Sher-The six- part series I giochi del diavolo (Sto-man, directed by Tomaso Sherman.

rie fantastiche dell’Ottocento) (The Devil’s 6.4.8: Il sogno dell’altro, by Herbert

Game—Fantastic Tales of the 800), supervised

George Wells (from The Story of the Late Mr.

by Roberta Carlotto and broadcast in 8, rep-Elvesham); screenplay by Giovanna Gagliardo,
resented—together with the twin series Il fascino directed by Giovanna Gagliardo.

dell’insolito—the most dense and challenging
body of Fantastic adaptations conceived so far Expectations were high, but the result dis-for the small screen in Italy. What is more, it pleased many. Critics noted “many of the con-showed an admirable trust in television as a cul-tradictions and uncertainties typical of the first tural and educational tool, able to offer quality hesitant attempts to interweave two similar but works with good spectacular value to a wide au-not identical means. Namely, a scenic organizadience as a valid alternative to the rampant dis-tion and a narrative technique characterized by engagement; at the same time it continued the
a mainly theatrical approach are associated with work of spreading culture propounded by au-figurative choices and discursive forms that …

thors like Ugo Gregoretti (the director of 63’s are still too backward,” compared with the con-Omicron, and one of the leading pioneers of Ital-temporaneous television standards. In short, the ian television), to the point that one of Italy’s mise- en-scène strangled at birth the fantastique most popular short stories anthologies, Racconti and the intertwining of real and imaginary. The fantastici dell’Ottocento (edited by Italo Calvino result floated “in an intermediate and indeter-and published by Mondadori, the country’s lead-minate space, in which we can indeed glimpse
ing publishing house, in 83), originated from the Fantastic, but also its very impossibility.”

8 Appendix That is the case with L’uomo della sabbia,
of such renowned collaborators as Tullio Pinelli, based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s short story The who scripted La mano indemoniata) seem to Sandman, and directed by Giulio Questi, whose
consciously self- restraint themselves. The result last feature film had been the outstanding Ar-denotes a “lack of trust in the opportunities given cana. It was one of the two Gothic- inspired TV
by the Fantastic to open itself to cultured removies that Questi adapted for television in that readings and varied textual strategies.”4
period, the other being Vampirismus. As the di-Among the six one- hour episodes of I
rector recalled, “those were different times com-giochi del diavolo, Mario Bava’s last film La pared with now, and there were quite good peo-Venere d’Ille (filmed in the fall of 78 and co-ple working on television. There was a list of directed with his son Lamberto) stands out. First stories chosen by Italo Calvino—hence we
of all, it shows an evident, consummate famil-
started at a level that today we could only dream iarity with the genre, which allows the director of—it is not that RAI officials came up with the to bring to the screen such a prestigious literary scripts, as now happens. So, I was commissioned source without hindrance or subjection of any
two TV movies, to be chosen from those on the
kind, as a narrative plotline that is never over-list: I picked up Hoffmann and made my two
whelming.

movies, at a distance of a couple of years.”3

As critic Gualtiero Pironi noted,

Regrettably, the complex themes of Hoff-

Bava also managed to catch many of the tale’s sub-mann’s tale were lost in Questi’s adaptation.

themes, and used them to depict a splendid portrayal Apart from the odd visual invention—such as
of a peasant and Mediterranean culture, in which the scene where the protagonist Nataniele (Do-solar and lunar elements cohabit and intertwine (the nato Placido) and his friend Lotario (Saverio
material, irrational, religious side and the lunar, irra-Vallone) discuss philosophy as they fence, a nod tional, magic side of the Mediterranean peasant world to a famous sequence of Buñuel’s La Voie lactée and culture)… . In fact, it is exactly by conveying this (6)—the film fails to convey the uncanny
cultural trait of the world he portrays that Bava man-core of the story, in which Hoffmann discovered ages to justify, diegetically and linguistically, the the subconscious one hundred years ahead of
splendid zoom shot that links the Moon to the Earth psychoanalysis, thus inspiring Sigmund Freud’s and gives way to the masterful last part of the story, celebrated essay Das Unheimliche.

all focused on the perfect use of fantastic hesitation, By having Nataniele evoke his childhood
in which the earth and the sky, the rational and irrational combine and determine the shock which makes nightmares (he is obsessed with the disquieting the narrative reach its climax and its sense.5

“sandman,” who gouges out children’s eyes, and he identifies the monster with the ambiguous

It is natural to see La Venere d’Ille as a attorney Coppelius, whom he believes to be in-summation of sorts of Bava’s oeuvre and of volved in his father’s death), Hoffmann staged Italian Gothic in general.6 But this somehow
a fear of mutilation that alluded to castration, leads to underestimate the contribution of co-as theorized by Freud. However, Questi does not scriptwriter Cesare Garboli, a distinguished lit-show the first encounter of little Nataniele and erary critic and a scholar of the works of such Coppelius; therefore, the drama of the adult important and groundbreaking female writers

Nataniele (who thinks he recognizes Coppelius
as Elsa Morante and Natalia Ginzburg. Through
as the optician Coppola) loses its reason for different ways, Garboli and Bava use Mérimée’s being. The director is more interested in the
tale for a discourse that indeed touches Italian other uncanny element of the story: Olimpia,

Gothic on film, but it also faces a much broader the beautiful girl Nataniele falls for, unaware that theme, which finds its citizenship in cinematic she is actually an automaton. In the scene where and literary Gothic, and which here becomes
the mechanical doll debuts in society, Questi
central: the status of women.

partially recovers the biting anti- bourgeois vein The bronze Venus which, once extracted
of his earlier film La morte ha fatto l’uovo (68) from the ground, marks the downfall of the Similarly, Piero Nelli’s adaptation of the wealthy Peyrehohade family, is an alien presence Henry James story, La presenza perfetta, suffers that puts in check the gears of patriarchy, as well from giving up to the uncertainty that charac-as its continuous abuse of the female condition.

terized James’ Sir Edmund Horme; whereas Mar-

The character of the artist Mathieu (Marc Porel), cello Aliprandi, Tomaso Sherman and Giovanna
the alter ego of Mérimée’s first person narrator, Gagliardo’s episodes (despite the participation is the witness of women’s role in a male- oriented

Italian Gothic on the Small Screen


society, pleasure- loving and vulgar, in which by showing the glimmering ring at the woman’s
woman—just like the food on screen in virtually finger, that same diamond ring which Alfonso
every scene—is something to take and consume
slipped on the statue’s ring finger. But the en-before moving on to something else: see the counter ends with a sharp rebuke: “You too are scene where a maid implicitly offers, together like everyone else … you don’t know sacrificing with a tray of goodies, her own young body to
to love.” What matters is not that the Venus has her master Alfonso.

taken human form, but what the sudden iden-

The marriage between Clara (Daria Ni-
tification alludes to. Clara, and the Venus, are colodi) and Alfonso (Fausto Di Bella) becomes
superior, and thus they will win, because they a further humiliation for the woman, with the
know how to “sacrifice to love,” something that ritual of the garter stolen from the bride and cut men are incapable of, and therefore doomed to
into little pieces by the guests who share it, an failure, unable to unite Platonic sublimation anticipation of the virginity which Clara is about (like Mathieu) and carnal impulse (like Al-to lose on her wedding night. And yet, despite fonso).

her forced subservience to Alfonso, Clara—and

Of course, Clara is a victim too. She agrees
every woman, for that matter—remains unat-
to marry a man she does not love and who wants tainable. If her destiny is to serve her husband, her for her wealth, and upon witnessing
her victory is in the halo of impermeability that Alfonso’s death—killed on the wedding night by separates her from the society of men. This is the revived Venus—she will succumb to mad-noticed by Mathieu, who is incapable of fixing ness. And yet there is a noticeable pleasure in Clara’s features on paper as much as he is unable her voice, when she reveals to Mathieu her phys-to figure out what links such a proud, sensible, ical attraction to her future husband, and there intelligent woman to the vulgar and conceited
is an impatient anticipation in the sequence Alfonso: “I will never be able to paint your por-where she prepares for the wedding night, trait… . I cannot keep you steady, you change
taking a bath and surrounded by maids, and in
under my eyes, you are two persons.” In his ob-the thrill with which she welcomes what she be-stinacy to conceive love only in a spiritual and lieves to be her husband in the nuptial bedroom.

idealized manner, Mathieu is the umpteenth fig-Like the heroine of André Pieyre de Mandiar-
ure of a weak and helpless spectator in Italian gues’ short story Le Sang d’agneu (in the anthol-Gothic: he is an artist who’s unable to portray ogy Le Musée noir), in the moment she chooses
his model just like, as a man, he is not able to to give herself to the man, sacrificing herself to understand her.

love, Clara brings him to ruin, which here is the Mathieu confuses the Venus with Clara, and

Venus’ deadly embrace.

in his memory he blends the two images. The inThe goddess of love that crushes between
decision between the animate and inanimate, the her arms on the nuptial bed the young husband
original and its simulacrum is a typical theme of who inadvertedly sealed a promise of marriage

Bava’s cinema, but in La Venere d’Ille the reflec -
with her, is certainly a nemesis, the umpteenth tion on the double is not developed in a Mani -
incarnation of the vagina dentata myth.7 But
chean way, dividing the saint and the whore, the Mérimée’s misogynist fantasy becomes in Bava’s innocent and the witch. On the contrary, it is a film, in a period characterized by feminist strug-way to underline the superiority of the feminine, gles, a symbol of retaliation; what is more, a few which, despite all the attempts at ownership—se-years earlier Garboli had penned the introduc-
duction, marriage, even the act of sculpting a tion for the rerelease of Nascita e morte della woman’s figure and making its features eternal in massaia, an exemplary surrealist fable on the
a bronze statue—remains aerial, unreachable, im-role of woman in patriarchal society, written by possible to comprehend in a unique way.

the “feminist avant la lettre” Paola Masino. It In the film’s most ambiguous scene, when
has been noted how the ending of La Venere

Mathieu meets what he believes to be Clara in
d’Ille, with the burning of the statue that is cast the garden, in the evening, the two entities seem in order to be transformed into a bell, recalls the to become one and the same. “Poor Mathieu,
opening of La maschera del demonio, to chisel
you’re always asking yourself who I am … here
the director’s filmography in a mirror- like way.

I am, don’t you see me?,” the woman mocks him, But the statue’s expression among the flames is and provocatively kisses him. In that moment,
a mocking, cruel smile; put to the stake, dis-

Bava explicitly identifies Clara and the Venus, solved in its identity, and with a cruel retaliation

30 Appendix that turns it from Pagan symbol to a sacred ob-and which summarizes how the “master of sus-
ject, it nevertheless remains unattainable. And pense,” as Garboli called him, was after all a therefore winning.

poet, inexorably drawn to the feminine mystery.

If on the one hand Bava bends his unmis-
takable style to a narrative flatness that is typical NOTES
of the small screen, on the other hand La Venere d’Ille retains some of the director’s trademark 1. Dante Guardamagna, quoted in Giorgio Tabanelli, images: the cutting transitions on the setting sun, Il teatro in televisione (Rome: Rai- Eri, 00), 6–7.

the alchemy of colors in the scene of Alfonso’s 2. Leopoldo Santovincenzo, Carlo Modesti Pauer and Marcello Rossi, Fantasceneggiati. Sci- fi e giallo, magico nelle death, the refined game of transparencies that produzioni Rai (1954–1987) (Bologna: Elara, 06), .

reveal the terror on Clara’s face as she is waiting 3. L’amaro caso della baronessa di Carini was remade on the bed, beneath the canopy tents. The direc-in 007: the less said the better about the new version, tor immediately breaks the story’s ambiguity, and which has all the shortcomings of contemporary made-embraces the Fantastic since the early scenes: in for-TV Italian products and even features an embarrassing happy ending.

Mérimée the hesitation persists longer, as an in-4. March., “Fauni di marmo e facce di bronzo,” Il Cor-nocent Spanish is initially accused of Alfonso’s riere Mercantile, October 3, 77.

murder, and the terrible truth emerges only later, 5. Franco Scaglia, “Adesso gli ridono in faccia,” Radio-from the bride’s tale. And yet Bava avoids show-corriere TV, #8, –5 July 78, 4–6.

6. Quoted in Santovincenzo, Modesti Pauer and Rossi, ing the revived Venus, and opts for a more allu-Fantasceneggiati, 5.

sive depiction of the deity than in Mérimée’s 7. Carlo Scaringi, “Un brivido per il sabato sera di story, with POV shots and merely alluded pres-piena estate,” Radiocorriere TV #6 (7 June—3 July 8), ences.

68–7.

8. Santovincenzo, Modesti Pauer and Rossi, Fan-The image of Venus’ hand emerging from
tasceneggiati, 8.

the ground recalls other similar inanimate hands 9. Roberto De Pol, “Sinfonia d’orrore. E. T. A. Hoffmann in the director’s work, from the old lady’s ghost e la letteratura orrorifica,” Quaderni di Palazzo Serra #7
in La goccia d’acqua to the ceramic ornament

(Genova: Dipartimento di Scienze della Comunicazione in Shock; it is a sign of Bava’s predilection for Linguistica e Culturale—Università di Genova, 00), .

10. Margherita Cottone, “Furio Jesi: Vampirismo e di-surreal details. But there’s more. The Venus re-dattica. Le lezioni su ‘Il vampiro e l’automa nella cultura flected on a window’s glass, so that one is not tedesca dal XVIII al XX secolo,’” Cultura tedesca #, , able to understand whether it is outside or inside 53.

Mathieu’s room (another moment absent in

11. Gualtiero Pironi, “Quando il diavolo della teatralità ci mette la coda… ,” Cineforum #06, July- August 8, 46.

the novelette) refers on the one hand to the di-12. Ibid.

rector’s typical threats separated by an illusory 13. Davide Pulici, “Incontro con Giulio Questi,” Nocturno barrier (the vampires’ faces beneath windows in Cinema #5/6, February 8, 6.

I Wurdalak, Melissa’s apparitions in Operazione 14. Pironi, “Quando il diavolo della teatralità ci mette paura), and on the other it works as a displace-la coda… ”

15. Ibid.

ment, confusing the character’s (and the audi-

16. See Muriel Lafond, “La Vénus d’Ille de Mario (et ence’s) spatial coordinates. But the most signifi-Lamberto) Bava: un film- testament,” in Frank Lafond, cant scene is when the morning light illuminates Cauchemars Italiens. Volume 1: Le Cinéma fantastique part of Clara’s portrait drawn by Mathieu, right (Paris: L’Harmattan, 0.), 6ss.

17. The theme of the married Venus appears since the over the eyes, and gives the drawing that life early days of Christianity. Muriel Lafond mentions De which the artist failed to give it. It is an image gestis regum anglorum by William De Malmesbury, which that recalls that of Daliah Lavi in bed, illumi-dates back to 00. Ibid.

nated by the moonlight, in La frusta e il corpo,

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3

3 Bibliography Palmerini, Luca M., and Gaetano Mistretta. Spaghetti Leutrat, Jean- Louis (ed.). Mario Bava. Liège: Éditions Nightmares. Rome: M&P edizioni, 6.

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Lucas, Tim. Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark.

AND ACADEMIC STUDIES

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Pezzotta, Alberto. Mario Bava. Milan: Il Castoro (5) Aguilar, Carlos. Mario Bava, Cátedra, Madrid 03.

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Albiero, Paolo and Giacomo Cacciatore. Il terrorista Piselli, Stefano (ed.). Cinefumetto: nerosexy, fantastique, dei generi. Tutto il cinema di Lucio Fulci. Milano: western, saderotik: estetica pop italiana, 1960–1973.

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and the Comic Book Universe in Italian Cinema.

Piselli, Stefano, Riccardo Morlocchi, and Antonio Br-Parkville MD: Midnight Marquee Press, 06.

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Sleaziest Films: Horror all’italiana 1957–1979. Flo-Curti, Roberto. Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1957–1969.

rence: Glittering, 6.

Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 05.

Poppi, Roberto. Dizionario del cinema italiano. I registi.

Curti, Roberto. Riccardo Freda: The Life and Works of Rome: Gremese, 00.

a Born Filmmaker. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 07.

Poppi, Roberto, and Mario Pecorari. Dizionario del cin-Curti, Roberto, and Alessio Di Rocco. Visioni proib-ema italiano. I film (1970–1979) (Rome: Gremese, ite—I film vietati dalla censura italiana (dal 1969 a

6.

oggi). Turin: Lindau, 05.

Pugliese, Roberto. Dario Argento. Florence: Il Castoro Curti, Roberto, and Davide Pulici. Corrado Farina.

Cinema, La Nuova Italia, 86.

Milan: Nocturno Libri, 000.

Romagnoli, Michele. L’occhio del testimone: Il cinema Della Casa, Stefano, and Bruno Piazza. Il cinema di Lucio Fulci. Bologna: Granata Press, .

secondo Mario Bava. Turin: Movie Club, 84.

Santovincenzo, Leopoldo, Carlo Modesti Pauer, and Howarth, Troy. The Haunted World of Mario Bava—

Marcello Rossi. Fantasceneggiati. Sci- fi e giallo Revised and Expanded Edition. Baltimore, MD: Mid-magico nelle produzioni Rai (1954–1987). Bologna: night Marquee Press, 04.

Elara, 06.

Howarth, Troy. So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Tentori, Antonio, and Cozzi, Luigi (eds.). Horror Made Italian Giallo Films. Volume 1: 1963–1973. Baltimore In Italy. Rome: Profondo Rosso, 007.

MD: Midnight Marquee Press, 04.

Thrower, Stephen. Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Howarth, Troy. So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Fulci. Godalming, Surrey: FAB Press () 06.

Italian Giallo Films. Volume 2: 1974–2013. Baltimore Vallan, Giulia D’Agnolo, and Della Casa, Stefano.

MD: Midnight Marquee Press, 05.

Mario Bava. Bellaria: Catalogo del festival Bellaria, Howarth, Troy, and Mike Baronas. Splintered Visions:

3.

Lucio Fulci and His Films. Baltimore, MD: Midnight Viganò, Aldo. Dino Risi. Milan: Moizzi Editore, 7.

Marquee Press, 05.

Zagarrio, Vito (ed.). Argento vivo: Il cinema di Dario Kezich, Tullio. Il Millefilm—Dieci anni al cinema 1967–

Argento tra genere e autorialità. Venice: Marsilio, 1977. Milan: Mondadori, 83.

008.

Koven, Mikel J. La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow ESSAYS IN VOLUMES

Press, 006.

Lafond, Frank (ed.). Cauchemars Italiens: Volume 1: Le Hunt, Leon. “A (Sadistic) Night at the Opera.” in Ken cinéma fantastique. Pris: L’Harmattan, 0.

Gelder (ed.). The Horror Reader. New York: Rout-Lafond, Frank (ed.). Cauchemars Italiens: Volume 2: Le ledge, 000.

cinéma horrifique. Pris: L’Harmattan, 0.

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Index

A cuore freddo (7) 0

Amarsi male (6) 0

Arnaud, Georges- Jean 78

A doppia faccia (6) 64, 77

L’Ambizioso (75) 

Arpino, Giovanni 70, 7, 7

A mosca cieca (66) 58

Amendola, Mario 38, 06

Askin, Tony [Antonio Aschini] 3

A qualsiasi prezzo (68) 4

L’Amica di mia madre (75) 77

Assassination (67) 4

Accattone (6) 6, 80

L’Amico del giaguaro (5) 0

L'Assassino ha riservato nove

Un Accetta per la luna di miele see

L’Amico del padrino (7) 8, 07
poltrone (74) 5, 0–3

Il Rosso segno della follia

Amore e morte nel giardino degli dei

Astaire, Fred 

Acteon (67) 6

(7) 60

Atadeniz, Yılmaz 4

Addessi, Giovanni 38, 3

L’Amore in città (53) 0

Atav, Ayşin 6

The Addiction (6) 8

L’Amour chez les poids lourds (78)

Un Attimo di vita (75) 8

Addio fratello crudele (7) 6

66

Audrey Rose (77) 

Adriani, Patricia 

Anche per Django le carogne hanno

Audry, Geneviève 50, 5

Un Affare tranquillo (64) 33
un prezzo (7) 

Autant-Lara, Claude 3

Afrika (73) 5

Andrei, Marcello 4, –

Avallone, Marcello 5, 7–

Agi Murad—Il diavolo bianco (5)

Andress, Ursula 68

Avati, Antonio 0, 6, 5, 63, 0

6

El Ángel exterminador (6) ,

Avati, Pupi 4, 5, –3, 3–6, 0,

Agnelli, Giovanni 6, 30

5

5, 6, 38, 3, 45, 57–63, 74,

Agrama, Faroul “Frank” 8, , 07

Un Angelo per Satana (66) 4,

87–0, , 4–7

Agren, Janet , 6, 

0

L'Aventure, c’est l’aventure (7)

Aguilar, Carlos 5

Anima persa (77) 6–7

43

Ai margini della città (54) 75

Anna dei miracoli (68, TV movie)

Avram, Chris 60, , 4

Albertazzi, Giorgio , 

76

L'Avventura (60) 

Alberti, Barbara 8

L’Année dernière à Marienbad (6)

Axén, Eva 84

Alda, Robert 8

4

Azzini, Nedo 8

Alessandroni, Alessandro 35

Anni facili (57) 6

Alessi, Ottavio 34

Anno uno (74) 8

Baba Yaga (73) 3

Alessia… un vulcano sotto la pelle

Antel, Franz 36

Baby Love (7) 66

(77) 55

L’Anticristo (74) 3

Baccaro, Salvatore , 37

Alfaro, Italo 3

Antonelli, Laura 0, 0

Il Bacio (74) , 6, 3–6

Aliprandi, Marcello 44, 45, 66–

Antonio e Placido: attenti ragazzi …

Il Bacio di una morta (74) 5

6, 7, 8
chi rompe paga (75) 77

La Bacio di una morta (4) 4

Alla ricerca del piacere (7) 46

Antonioni, Michelangelo , 46,

La Badessa di Castro (74) 4

Allen, Woody 6

7, 0, 

Baker, Carroll 3

All’onorevole piacciono le donne

Antropophagus (80) 

Baker, Roy Ward 05

(7) 3, 4

L'Apocalisse delle scimmie (0) 60

The Balcony (63) 5

Almendros, Néstor 48

Apostolof, Stephen C. 8

Baldanello, Gianfranco 4

Altman, Robert 33, 48

Appunti su un fatto di cronaca

Baldassarre, Raf 40

L’Altra faccia del peccato (6) 7

(50) 00

Baldi, Ferdinando 5

L’Altro inferno (80) 04

Aquila nera (46) 67, 37

Baldwin, Peter 3

L’Altro piatto della bilancia (7)

Aragon, Louis 

Balsamus l’uomo di Satana (70)

47

Arcana (7) 34

5, –4, 4, 5, 6, 58, 6

Alvina, Anicée 7

L'Arcano incantatore (6) , 5,

La Bambola di Satana (6) 5

Amadio, Silvio , 46, 74

6, 6

Banana Republic (7) 0

L’Amante del demonio (7) , 50–

Archibugi, Francesca 6, 7

Bandidos (68) 77

53, 7, 35, 37

The Arena (74) 8

Bandini, Filiberto 4

L’Amante del vampiro (60) 8,

Arena, Maurizio 

Bandini, Giorgio 4

03, 04, 7, 08

Argan, Giulio Carlo 4

Banfi, Lino 

L’Amante fedele (78) 6

Argento, Dario , 4, , 4, 4, 58,

Barbareschi, Luca 00

Le Amanti del mostro (74) 06–

64, 76, 5, 6, 05, , 3, 4,

Barbieri, Francesco 78

0, 5

55, 60, 7, 74, 75, 76, 80–

Barilli, Francesco 4, –34, 48,

Amanti d’oltretomba (65) 5

87, 5, 8, 0, , 

4, 6–0

L’Amaro caso della baronessa di

Aricò, Ettore Elio 3, 4, 53

Barma, Claude 0

Carini (75, TV mini- series)

Arié, Bruno 5

Barnard, Christiaan 35, 70, 50

, 30

L'Arma l’ora il movente (7) 67

Baron Blood (7) 3, 53–57, 85, 87

35

36 Index Barros, Esmeralda 8, 

Bianchi Montero, Roberto 46, 68,

Boyd, Stephen 37

Barrymore, Christa 03, 04

04, 0

Boyle, Peter 43

Barthelme, Donald 3

Un Bianco vestito per Marialé (7)

Bradbury, Ray 5, 6

Bartolani, Alberto 0

4, 57–60

Brambati, Angela 77

Bartolini, Claudio 4, 43

Les Biches (68) 48

Brambilla, Pietro 6, 63

Basile, Giambattista 5

Bierce, Ambrose 5, 6

Brancucci, Ernesto 66

Bastelli, Cesare 5, 5

The Big Shave (68) 68

Brandi, Walter [Walter Bigari] 8

Bataille, Georges 

Biggle, Lloyd, Jr. 7

Brandon, Michael 74, 83

Báthory, Erszebét 8

Bildnis des Dorian Gray, Das (70)

Brass, Tinto 5, 

Battaglia, Gianlorenzo 35

46

Braunsberg, Andrew 8

Batzella, Luigi (aka Paolo Solvay)

Billa, Salvatore 65

Brazzi, Oscar 48–50, 35, 137

7, 6–, 6–, 56

La Bimba di Satana (83) 0

Brazzi, Rossano , 48–50, 37, 4

Bava, Lamberto , 3, 86, 87, 8,

Birkin, Jane 94, 5, 6

Brescia, Alfonso 3, , 3

6, 78, 7, 03, , 7, 8

Bisera, Olga 6

Brice, Pierre , 43, 44, 45

Bava, Mario , 5, 8, –3, , 33,

Bitter Moon () 8

The Brides of Dracula (60) 5

4, 53–57, 6, 67, 74, 76, 77, 8,

Bixio, Franco 38, 76

Brignone, Guido 4

84–0, 6, , 0, 04, 3, 3,

Black Aphrodite (77) 66

Bristow, Gwen 

7, 3, 45, 57, 68, 77–80,

Black Mirror (TV series) 30

Brocani, Franco 8, 05

8, 85, 88, 06, 6, , 3,

Black Moon (75) 

Brochero, Eduardo Manzanos 74

7, 8–30

Blade Violent—I violenti (83) 04

Brooker, Charlie 30

Baxter, Les 54

Blanc, Erika [Enrica Bianchi

Brooks, Mel , , 38, 4, 43,

Bazzoni, Camillo 30, 3

Colombatto] 4, 60

66, 8

Bazzoni, Luigi 4, 6, 46–50, 5

Blasi, Silverio 

Broun, Charles W., Jr. 35

Beatrice Cenci (56) 6

Blondell, Simone [Simonetta

Browning, Tod 04

Beaugrand, Henry 64

Vitelli] 35, 37

Bruce, Leo 4

Beckett, Samuel 8

Blood for Dracula (74) 3, 5, 83,

Brueghel, Pieter 43

Beckford, William 

6–

Bruni, Franco 64, 76

Beffe, licenze et amori del De-

Blood Orgy of the She- Devils (73)

Bruni, Piera 56
camerone segreto (7) 73

66

Brusati, Franco 86

La Bella e la bestia (77) 3

Blu Gang e vissero per sempre felici e

Bucceri, Gianfranco 6

Il Bell’Antonio (60) 4
ammazzati (73) 4

Bucci, Flavio 85, 4

La Belle et la Bête (46) 86

Bluebeard (7) 64

Bufi Landi, Aldo 6

Belletti, Adolfo 5

Bo, Angela 3

Bugnatelli, Salvatore 74

Bellezze in bicicletta (5) 58

Boccaccio ’70 (6) 3

Buio omega (7) 4, 3, 0–05

Belli, Agostina 76, 

Boccardo, Delia 

Buñuel, Juan 7

Bello di mamma (8) 68

Boccia, Tanio 5

Buñuel, Luis 0, 5, , 04, 5,

Bellocchio, Marco 4, 4

The Body Snatcher (45) 35

8

Belphégor ou le Fantôme du Louvre

Bogart, Humphrey 36–88

Burton, Clarence 64

(65) 0

Bogdan, Adriana 

Buzzati, Dino 30, 46, 48

Bene, Carmelo 7

Il Boia scarlatto (65) 77, 7, 54

Byleth (il demone dell’incesto) 60–

Benigni, Roberto , 6, 6

Boileau, Pierre 4

6, 7, 73, 5

Bennati, Giuseppe 0–3

Bolchi, Sandro 5

Byron, George Gordon 0, 

Bennett, Joan 86

Bollini, Flaminio 0, 

Benussi, Femi 56

La Bolognese (74) 55

Cabrera Infante, Guillermo 48

Berenguer, Manuel 76

Bolognini, Mauro 4

Il Cacciatore di squali (7) 

Berger, William 7, 8, 

Bona, Pietro 8

La Caduta degli dei (6) 

Bergman, Ingmar 88

Bonini Olas, Marcello 03

Cagliostro (4) 3

Bergonzelli, Sergio 55

La Bonne (86) 0

Cagliostro (75) 3

Berkeley, Busby 8

Bonnie and Clyde (67) 06

Cagné, Gil 3

Berlinguer ti voglio bene (77) 6

Bonnie e Clyde all’italiana (8)

Caiano, Mario 4, 7–, 48, 64, 5

Berlusconi, Silvio 

06

Calanchi, Stefano 5

Bernabei, Claudio , 

Bonomi, Nardo 30

Calderoni, Rita , , 03, 04, 5,

Bernanos, Georges 5

Bonuglia, Giancarlo 5

6–, 53

Berruti, Giulio 30

Bonuglia, Maurizio 6, 3

Calderoni, Stella 5

Bertolucci, Bernardo 84, 33

Bora Bora (68) 6, 48

Calvino, Italo , 7, 8

Bertolucci, Giuseppe 6, 00

Boratto, Caterina 3

Calvo, José 67

La Bestia in calore (77) 7, ,

Bordella (76) 3, 38, 63

Campana, Dino 4

, 37

Borel, Annik 65, 66

Campana, Domenico 74, , 3

La Bestia uccide a sangue freddo

Borges, Jorge Luis 

Campanini, Francesco 0

(7) 6, 65

Un Borghese piccolo piccolo (77)

Campogalliani, Carlo 4, 58

Bestialità (76) 04

7

Camus, Albert 58

Beswick, Martine 6

Boriani, Tino 5

Canale, Gianna Maria 85

La Bête (75) 3, 65

Borione, Pina 0, 5

Candelli, Stelio 7, 73, 7

Betti, Laura , 

Borowczyk, Walerian 3, 8, ,

Candy (68) 

Betti, Ugo 67

65, 0

Cantafora, Antonio 8, , 54

Biagetti, Giuliano 6

Boschero, Dominique 78, 0

Canter, Kieran 0, 04

Biancaneve & Co. (8) 6

Bosé, Lucia 46, 47, 8, 34

Canterbury proibito (7) 3

Bianchi, Andrea 77, 08–

Il Boss (73) 68

Capogna, Sergio 6

Bianchi, Mario 6, 66

Bouchet, Barbara 64, 75

Capolicchio, Lino 60, 6, 6

Bianchi cavalli d’agosto (75) 45

Un Bounty killer a Trinità (7) 0

Capote, Truman 33, 5

Index

37

Il Cappotto di legno (8) 6

Chabrol, Claude 0, 48, 75, 4

Cope, Cecilia 5

Capriccio all’italiana (68) 08

Challenge of the Tiger see Mie jue

Coralba (70) 48, 

Caprioli, Vittorio 5
qi qi

Corazzari, Tonino 6

Cara dolce nipote (77) 0

La Chambre ardente (6) 3

Corbucci, Bruno 38, , 06

Cardinale, Claudia 35

Chaplin, Charles 0

Corbucci, Sergio 74

Cardini, Anna 04

Charlys Nichten (74) 73

Corman, Roger 33, 34, 36, 37, 8,

Carnalità (74) 55

Che? (7) 8, , 8

86

Carne bollente (87) 04

Chi l’ha vista morire? (7) 6,

I Corpi presentano tracce di violenza

Carne per l’inferno (67) 5

3
carnale (73) 3

Caro papà (7) 80

Chi sei? (74) 46, 78

Corruzione al palazzo di giustizia

Caroli, Daniela 0

Lo chiamavano Trinità… (7) 46

(74) 67

Carpi, Fiorenzo 5

Chiani, Caterina see Damon,

La Corta notte delle bambole di

Carpi, Pier [Arnaldo Piero Carpi]

Marzia
vetro (7) 5

3, 74, 

Chiari, Mauro 04

Cortese, Ernesto 

Carr, John Dickson 3

Chiari, Walter 7

Cortese, Valentina 6, 4

Carraro, Tino 65, 66

Chiusi, Sergio 86

Cosa avete fatto a Solange? (7)

Carrère, Emmanuel 86

Chomsky, Marvin J. 06

64, 68, 3

Carsten, Peter 40

Christian-Jacque [Christian

Così… così… più forte (70) 05

Carver, Steve 

Maudet] 6

Costanzo, Maurizio 8

Casa Barilli (7) 00

Christiane F.—Wir Kinder vom

Cotten, Joseph , 34, 36, 55, 6

La Casa dalle finestre che ridono

Bahnhof Zoo (8) 64

Count Dracula (70) 0

(76) 4, 0, 3, 6, 3, 45, 57–

Christie, Agatha 

Countess Dracula (7) 8

63, 87, 8, 5, 6

Christine, Katia 08, 5, 6

Courbet, Gustave 05

Casa d’appuntamento (7) 7, 35,

Cicciolina see Staller, Ilona

Coward, Noël 

36

Cimarosa, Tano 03

Cozzi, Luigi 83, 04, 05

Casa dell’amore... la polizia inter-

Cinema!!! (7—TV series) , 4,

Craven, Wes 0
viene (78) 4, 53

63

Crepax, Guido 3

La Casa della paura (74) 35

5 bambole per la luna d’agosto (70)

Crescete e moltiplicatevi (73) 4

La Casa dell’esorcismo (75) 3, 87,

56, 67

La Cripta e l’incubo (64) , 

8, 78

5 donne per l’assassino (74) 3

Crisanti, Gabriele 0

La Casa nel tempo (8) 47, 77

5 tombe per un medium (65) , 6,

Crispino, Armando 6, 4–44,

La Casa nel vento dei morti (0)

77



0

Cipriani, Stelvio 50, 54, 66, 46

Crispo, Diana 5

Casanova (76) 56, 6, 7

Cirillo, Claudio 6

Cronaca di un amore (50) 46

Casapinta, Ferruccio 5

Citati, Pietro 86

Cugine mie (76) 6

Casini, Stefania 8, 

Cittini, Alberto 8

Cuomo, Alfredo 60

Cassidy, Joanna 46

Civinini, Sergio 48

Cuore (48) 8

Cassinelli, Claudio 68, 76

Clarke, Robin 5

Cuore (73) 60

Castel, Lou 58, 7, 3, 4, 5

Clouzot, Henri- Georges 7, 60

Cushing, Harry 34, 5, 53

Castellari, Enzo G. [Enzo Girolami]

Cocteau, Jean 86, 7

Czemerys, Eva , 3

5, 43, –4

La Coda dello scorpione (7) 77

Castelli, Alfredo 

Col cuore in gola (67) 

Da uomo a uomo (67) 3

Il Castello dei morti vivi (64) 33,

Coletti, Duilio 05, 8

D’Agata, Giuseppe 0

43, 55

Colin, David, Jr. 7, 80

Dagli archivi della polizia criminale

Castelnuovo, Nino 0, 

La Collectionneuse (67) 6

(73) 5, 5

Castle, William 55, 3

The Collector (65) 7

Dagobert (84) 37

Cat People (4) 64, 86

The College Girl Murders see Der

Dahl, Roald 6

Catalano, Massimo 04

Mönch mit der Peitsche

Dali, Fabienne 56, 57

Catene (4) 4

Collins, Wilkie 

Dalí, Salvador 5

Les Cauchemars naissent la nuit

La Colomba non deve volare (70)

Dalla, Lucio 0, 0, 0, 0

(6) 77

, 07

Dallamano, Massimo 64, 68, 77,

Il Cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco

I Coltelli del vendicatore (66) 6

44–46
ovvero: Dracula in Brianza (75)

Colucci, Mario 45–48

Dallesandro, Joe 80, 8, 8, 83, 7,

0, 38–4, 4, 07

Come un uragano (7) 

8, , 

Cavallone, Alberto , 48, 5

Comincerà tutto un mattino: io

La Dama dei veleni (7, TV mini-

Cavani, Liliana 4
donna, tu donna (78) 06
series) , 3

Cavina, Gianni 0, 3, 6, 6, 160,

Commando suicida (68) 3

La Dama rossa uccide sette volte

8, 215, 6

Concerto per pistola solista (70)

(7) 5, 4, 6–64

Celi, Adolfo 30, 5, 6, 

4

D’Amato, Joe see Massaccesi, Aris-

Celli, Giorgio 0, 4

Congo vivo (6) 0
tide

La Cento chilometri (5) 3

Constantin, Michel 3

Damiani, Amasi 3, 

C’era una volta (67) 6

Contamination (80) 04

Damiani, Damiano 65, 86, 4

C’era una volta il West (68) 35

Conte, Richard 5

Damon, Mark , 6, 7, 8, 

Ceremonia sangrienta (73) 5

Contes Immoraux (74) 8

Damon, Marzia [Caterina Chiani]

Un Certo Harry Brent (70) 

La Controfigura (6) 3

6, 05, 5, 56

Cerulli, Fernando 7, 3

Contronatura see The Unnatu-

Dana, Rod 34

Cervi, Antonio “Tonino” 4–7
rals—Contronatura

Danning, Sybil 64

Cervi, Gino 5

Controrapina (aka The Rip- Off,

D’Anza, Daniele , 0, , ,

Cesari, Francesco 4

78) 6

4, 5, 6

Cestié, Renato 45

Convoi de filles (78) 55

Danza macabra (64) , 3, 38, 3,

38 Index 40, 47, 5, 73, 86, 88, , 7, 3,

Un Detective (6) 3

Dreyer, Carl Theodor 60

68, 7, 7, 0, 

De Toth, André 56, 6

Due occhi diabolici (0) 86, 4

Darc, Mireille 3

Les Deux orphelines (65) 65

Duel (7) 4

Dard, Frédéric 75

I Devastati (57) 58

Dunn, Michael 36, 37

Darel, Dominique 8

Diabla see Sensività

Durbridge, Francis 0, 

Darni, William 03

Le Diable au corps (47) 3

Dürrenmatt, Friedrich 5

D’Avack, Massimo 3

Diabolicamente… Letizia (75) 74

Duru, Yılmaz 0, 6

Da Verona, Guido 4

Diabolik (68) 3, , 80

Duvivier, Julien 3

Davila, Francesca Romana [Enza

Les Diaboliques (55) 7, 60

Sbordone] 

I Diafanoidi vengono da Marte

E Dio disse a Caino… (70) 38

Davis, Bette 86, 8

(66) 83

E per tetto un cielo di stelle (68)

Davoli, Ninetto 43

Diario di un vizio (3) 0

3

Dawn of the Dead (78) 0

Diario di una schizofrenica (68)

E tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà, …

Dawn of the Mummy (8) 8

48

(8) , 04

Dawson, Anthony M. see

Diario segreto da un carcere fem-

Easy Rider (6) 5

Margheriti, Antonio
minile (73) 64

Ecce Homo (67) 58

Dazzi, Tommaso 7, 8, 00

Il Diavolo nella bottiglia (8, TV

Eco, Umberto 6

Deacon, Brian 6
movie) 7

Edwards, Blake 30

Dead of Night (45) 8

Di Bella, Fausto 

8 ½ (63) 0

De Amicis, Edmondo 60

Dick, Philip K. 6

Ekberg, Anita 3

De Benedetti, Carlo 6

Di domenica (63) 48

Ellin, Stanley 5, 6

De Benedittis, Laura 5

Dieci italiani per un tedesco (6)

Elmi, Nicoletta 55, 8, 45

Il Decameron (7) 80, 03

43

Emmer, Luciano 0

Decamerone proibito (7) 73

Diffring, Anton 5

Enfantasme (78) 0–

De Carolis, Cinzia 76

Di Giovanni, Gastone 4

Enigma rosso (78) 3

De Concini, Ennio 5

Di Lazzaro, Dalila 7, 81, 8, 84

Enrico IV (84) 4

De Filippo, Peppino 3

Di Leo, Fernando 6, 46, 7, 0,

Ensayo de un crimen (55) 0, 04

De Fonseca, Carolynn 

03, , 33, 65

Erberto Carboni (8) 00

De Funès, Isabelle 3

Dillman, Bradford 

Ercole al centro della terra (6) 56

Degli Esposti, Francesco 34

Di Lorenzo, Edward 34, 35

Erika (7) 43, 44, 45

De Gregori, Francesco 0

Dionisio, Silvia 68, 8

The Erotic Dreams of Cleopatra

De Laurentiis, Aurelio 74

Il Dipinto (74, TV mini- series)

(85) 66

De Laurentiis, Dino 80

74, , 3

Erotic Flash (8) 04

De Laurentiis, Luigi 74

Di Silvestro, Rino 63–66

Erotico 2000 (8) 06

Del Balzo, Raimondo 45

Disney, Walt 54, 8, 86

Escher, Maurits Cornelis 84, 86

Del Cile, Cleofe 5

Disperati, Giuliano 30, 3

Escrivá, Javier 5

Del Grosso, Remigio 58

Divisione Folgore (54) 05

L'Esorciccio (75) 8

Deliria (87) 

Dmytryk, Edward 64

ESP (73, TV mini- series) 74, 

Delirio caldo (7) 34, 03, 3, 4

Docteur Justice (75) 6

Estratto dagli archivi segreti della

Il Delitto del diavolo—Favola

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (3) ,
polizia di una capitale europea
thrilling (70) 4–6, 3, 0

06

(7) , 65–6

Deliverance (7) 75, 3

Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde (7) 05

Il était une fois un flic (7) 3

Delle Piane, Carlo 5, 8, 215, 6

D’Offizi, Sergio 5

L'Etrusco uccide ancora (7) 4,

Delli Colli, Franco 0, 46, 6

Dogan, Antonella 64



Dell’Orso, Edda 5

Dogtags (87) 60

Eugenie … The Story of Her Journey

Delon, Alain 3

Dolce pelle di donna (78) , 53

Into Perversion (6) 4

Delon, Nathalie 68, 6

La Dolce vita (60) , 6, 54, 

Eva, la venere selvaggia (68) 36

Delvaux, André 5

Dolfin, Giorgio , 3

The Evil Dead (8) 05

De Marchi, Emilio 4

Una Domenica d’estate (6) 3

Evil Dead II (87) 47, 05

De Martino, Alberto 3, 4, 3

La Domenica specialmente ()

Ewers, Hanns Heinz 4

Demick, Irina 67

00

Ewing, Loren 37

Il Demonio (63) 57

Il Dominatore del deserto (64) 5

The Exorcist (73) 3, 5, 55, 60, 68,

Les Démons (7) 40

Donaggio, Pino 6

8, 06, 44, , 0

Demons of the Mind (7) 7

Donati, Ermanno 0

De Nardo, Gustavo 56

Donati, Sergio 4

Fabbri, Nanni 5

De Nerval, Gérard 7

La Donna del lago (65) 4

Fabbri, Ottavio 0, 04

Deneuve, Catherine 33, 7

Una Donna per tutti () 04

Fago, Giovanni 3

Deodato, Ruggero 6, 8, 5, 5

Don’t Look Now (73) 6, 46, 68,

Fai in fretta a uccidermi… ho

De Ossorio, Amando 45

6, 75, 5
freddo! (67) 

Le Deportate della sezione speciale

Doré, Gustave 6

Fajardo, Eduardo 86, 88

SS (76) 64

Doria, Sergio 3

La Familia Vourdalak (75, TV

De Quincey, Thomas 8, 85, 86

Dorian, Max 03
movie) 77

De Rosa, Mario 56

Doriana Grey (75) 

Fanetti, Pasquale 04

De Rossi, Massimo 5

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor 86

Fanfoni, Vittorio 04

De Rossi, Patrizia 56, 0

Dottor Jekyll e gentile signora (7)

Fango bollente (75) 

De Sade, Donatien- Alphonse-

05–08

Fani, Leonora 00, , 3

François 58, 86

Douglas, Kirk 

Fanon, Frantz 5

De Santis, Giuseppe 6

Dracula cerca sangue di vergine e…

Fantasia erotica in concerto (85)

De Sica, Christian 3,
morì di sete!!! see Blood for

06

De Sica, Vittorio 00, 8, 6, 8

Dracula

Fantasma d’amore (8) 

Index

3

Fantozzi (75) 43, 06

Fotre, Vincent 54

Gassman, Paola 4

Farina, Corrado 4, 5, –3

Foucault, Michel 76

Gassman, Vittorio 7, 7

Farmer, Mimsy 3, 33, 78, 8

The Fox (67) 48

Gastaldi, Ernesto 78, 7, 4, 74

Farmer, Philip José 06

Fracchia la belva umana (8) 06

Gastoni, Lisa 4

Farrow, John 75

Fragasso, Claudio 04

Gatti, Gengher 5, 

Farrow, Mia 

Fraile, Francisco 67

Il Gatto a nove code (7) 76

Il Fascino dell’insolito—Itinerari

Francesco d’Assisi (66) 4

Il Gattopardo (63) 6, 67
dalla letteratura gotica alla fanta-

Franchi, Franco 4

Gaudenzi, Franco 0, 7, 8
scienza (80–8, TV series)

Franciosa, Anthony 38

Gebissen wird nur nachts - das Hap-

34, 5–7

Franciosa, Massimo 4
pening der Vampire (7) 57

Fassbinder, Rainer Werner 4

Francis, Anne 86, 87

Geleng, Antonello 46

Fassio, Stefania 04

Francis, Freddie 57, 36

Geminus (6) 0

Fate la nanna coscine di pollo (77)

Franco, Francisco 4

Gemma, Giuliano 4



Franco, Jesús “Jess” 34, 37, 40, 4,

Gemser, Laura 68

Il Fauno di marmo (77, TV mini-

50, 6, 0, 5, 55, 57, 77, 4,

Genberg, Mia 46
series) 



Genberg, Pia 46

Fear in the Night (47) 77

Franju, Georges 57, 5

Genet, Jean 5

The Fearless Vampire Killers (67)

Frankenstein all’italiana (75) ,

Genova a mano armata (76) 6

3, , 40

4–44

Genoveffa di Brabante (64) 0

Fehmiu, Bekim 3

Frankenstein ’80 (7) 6–7, ,

Ghia, Dana 5

Feldman, Marty 55

35, 50

Ghini, Massimo 6

Felicità perduta (46) 43

Frankenstein 1970 (58) 70

Ghione, Riccardo 4, –0

Felisatti, Massimo 4, 4

Frankenstein 2000—Ritorno dalla

Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (66)

Fellini, Federico 0, , 3, 5, 6,
morte () 04

37

8, , 3, 0, 43, 53, 54, 56,

Fratter, Roger 0

Giacomelli, Mario 

6, 6, 7, 7, , 6, , 4

Fraulein Doktor (6) 6

Giallo a Venezia (7) 0

Fellini—Satyricon (6) , 5, 7

Frazzi, Andrea 6

Giancaro, Maria Pia 64

Femina ridens (6) 6, 

Frazzi, Antonio 6

Giannini, Giancarlo 0

Fenech, Edwige 78, 7, 07

Freaks (3) 04

Gianviti, Roberto 74

Fenelli, Mario 48

Freda, Jacqueline 66, 6

I Giardini del diavolo (7) 54

Ferrara, Abel 8

Freda, Riccardo , 6, 8, 0, , 8,

Il Giardino dei Finzi Contini (70)

Ferrari, Paolo 

30, 33, 56, 58, 60, 6, 64, 65–6,

6

Ferreol, Andréa 04

77, 87, 0, 3, 6, , 37, 74,

Gicca Palli, Lorenzo “Enzo” 37,

Ferreri, Marco 30, 5, 00, 38, 7

75, 0

04

Ferri, Gaetano 53, 54

Freixas, Ramón 

Gide, André 58

Ferroni, Giorgio 74–77, 57, 58

Freud, Sigmund 40, 3, 45, 4,

Gilling, John 34

Ferzetti, Gabriele , 76

85, 8

Gimpera, Teresa 76

Festa Campanile, Pasquale 6, 6

Friedkin, William 3, 68

Ginzburg, Natalia 8

Fidani, Demofilo 74

Frizzi, Fabio 76

I Giochi del diavolo (Storie fantas-

Fiedler, Leslie 33

Fröbe, Gert 75
tiche dell’Ottocento) (8, TV

Field, Karin 3

La Frusta e il corpo (63) , 3,
mini- series) 6, 7, 8

Fierro, Jole 8

80, 30

Un Gioco per Eveline (7) 7–

I Figli di nessuno (74) 5

Fruttero, Carlo , 

Giordan, Ivana 3

Il Figlio della sepolta viva (74) 5

Fuchsberger, Joachim 40

Giordana, Marco Tullio 00

Il Figlio di Dracula (60) 30

Fulci, Lucio 3, 4, 6, 47, 75, 3, ,

Giordano, Daniela 7, 8, 

Filippone, Edoardo 

38–4, 4, 57, 7–77, 8,

Giordano, Mariangela 0, 0

Filippou, Pavlos 66

0, 04, 5

Giordano, Paolo 48

Il Filo e il labirinto (7) 5

Furia, Oddone 53

Giorgi, Eleonora 6, 3

Finché c’è guerra c’è speranza (74)

Furneaux, Yvonne 6

Giornata nera per l’ariete (7) 6,

6

Fux, Herbert 34, 35

48, 4

La Fine dell’innocenza (76) 46

Giorni da leone (00) 00

Un Fiocco nero per Deborah (74)

La Gabbia (85) 0

Il Giorno del giudizio (7) 37

4, –

Gabin, Jean 6

Giovannini, Maria 56

Fisher, Kay 05

Gaburro, Bruno 5, 

Il Giovedì (64) 7

Fisher, Terence 30

Gagliardo, Giovanna 7, 8

The Girl in Room 2A (74) 35, 36

Fisichella, Enzo 0, 0

Gainsbourg, Serge 5, 6, 

Girod, Francis 04

Flesh (68) 80

Galli, Ida (aka Evelyn Stewart/Ewe-

Girolami, Marino 43, 0, 06

The Flesh and the Fiends (60) 34
lyn Stuart) 6, 5

Girotti, Massimo 55, 6, 0, 

Flesh for Frankenstein (73) 3, 5,

Galli, Maïténa 50

Gita scolastica (83) 8

34, 35, 80–84, 7, 8, , 03

Gallone, Carmine 84

Giulietta degli spiriti (65) 

Fletcher, Lucille 5

Gamma (76, TV mini- series) 

Giurato, Blasco 

Flynn, John 46

Garboli, Cesare 7, 8, , 30

Giuseppe Verdi (000) 00

Fondato, Paolo 5

Gardenia, Vincent 

Gizzi, Claudio 8, 84

Ford, John (film director) 06

Gariazzo, Mario 3, 37, 45

Gobbi, Sergio 0–

Ford, John (playwright) 6

Garko, Gianni 75, 76, 76, 3

Godard, Jean- Luc 3, 58, 56

Forlai, Romolo 03

Garofalo, Franco 05

Gordon, Phyllis 64

Formula 1—La febbre della velocità

Garrone, Matteo 6

Gottlieb, Franz Josef 37

(78) 0

Garrone, Sergio , 06–0, 4–

Goytisolo, Juan 48

Forsyth, Stephen 0, , 3

6, 86

Granata, Graziella 7

Fotografando Patrizia (84) 0

Gaslini, Giorgio 76

Grand, Giorgio 04

40 Index La Grande Bouffe (73) 7, 04

Horror of Frankenstein (70) 34

Karina, Anna 86

Il Grande duello (7) 8

Hough, John 7

Karlatos, Olga 68

Il Grande racket (76) 

The Hound of the Baskervilles (5)

Karloff, Boris 35

La Grande scrofa nera (7) 75

5

Kartal, Kazım 4

Granger, Farley 46

The Hound of the Baskervilles (78)

Kasché, Renate 36

Granger, Stewart 8



Katarsis (63) 5

Grapow, Jobst 5

House of Wax (53) 56

Katz, Raoul 5

Grau, Jorge 5, 6, 6, 8, 

The House on Haunted Hill (5)

Keaton, Camille , 67, 68, 05, 06

Gravina, Carla 3, 0

55, 3

Keller, Hiram 5

Gravy, Claudia 6

Hoven, Adrian 57

Kelley, DeForest 77

Grazie zia (68) 4

Hundar, Robert [Claudio Undari]

Kenton, Erle C. 36

Grazzini, Giovanni 5, 4

46

Kessler, Christian 7, 06, 5

Gregoretti, Ugo 7

Huston, John 30

Kezich, Tullio 68, 7, 6

Grimaldi, Alberto 80, 8

I Spit on Your Grave (78) 68

Kier, Udo 81, 8, 84, 7, 8, 65,

Gritos en la noche (6) 5

Iconockaut (76) 3

85

Guardamagna, Dante 0

L'Iguana dalla lingua di fuoco (7)

King, Stephen 4, 7

Guarnieri, Ennio 

65, 67, 3, 65

King Kong (76) 80

Guerra, Tonino 8, 00

Im Schloß der blutigen Begierde

Kinski, Klaus 38, 3, 40, 4, 91, ,

Guerrieri, Lorenza 06, 43

(68) 57

3, 07, 08, 0, 5, 48

Guerrieri, Romolo 3, , 3

Images (7) 33

Klimovsky, León 75, 76

Guerrini, Mino 0

Immagini di un convento (7) 0

Klossowski, Pierre 86

Guglielmi, Marco 

In quella casa Buio omega see Buio

Knight, Arthur 35

Guillermin, John 80
omega

Koch, Howard W. 70

Guyon, Jean- Paul 

Gli Indifferenti (6) 

Koch, Marianne 3

Koscina, Sylva 48, 4, 86, 87, 88,

Haber, Alessandro 4

Indizio fatale () 

8, 4

Un Hacha para la luna de miel see

Infascelli, Carlo 5

Kraft, Evelyne 37

Il Rosso segno della follia

Inferno (80) 4, 3, 84, 85, 86,

Krüger, Hardy 68

Hackett, Pat 8

8

Kümel, Harry 8

Hakan, Fikret 50

L'Ingenua (75) 4

Kuntsmann, Doris 94, 5

Hands of the Ripper (7) 45

Ingrassia, Ciccio 8, 4

Kuveiller, Luigi 7

Hanna D. – La ragazza del Vondel

Ingrid sulla strada (73) 

Kyra la signora del lago see Sensiv-

Park (84) 64

The Innocents (6) 78
ità

Hanno cambiato faccia, … (7) 4,

Innocenza e turbamento (74) 46

5, 7, –3, 0, 3

Interno di un convento (78) 0

Labbra di lurido blu (75) 4

Hargitay, Mickey , 34, 35, 36, 03

Interrabang (6) 6

Labbra rosse (60) 

Harper, Jessica 181, 8

Invernizio, Carolina 6, 4, 5, 6

Lado, Aldo 5, 5, 6

Harrison, Richard 6, 

Isabella, duchessa dei diavoli (6)

Lady Dracula (77) 37

Hatchet for the Honeymoon see Il



Lady Frankenstein (7) , 3–37,

Rosso segno della follia

Isbert, Tony 68

5, 70

Hawthorne, Nathaniel 5, 4, 

Işık, Ayhan 07, 5, 6

Laennec, Katell [Cornely Pascale

Heat (7) 80

La Isla de la muerte (67) 33

Sylvie] 0

Hedman, Marina 76

L'Isola delle svedesi (68) 

Lafond, Frank 6

Herzog, Werner 8

Israel, Víctor 4

Lafond, Muriel 30

Heyes, Douglas 86

L'Italia s’è rotta (76) 08

La Lama nel corpo (66) 4

Hill, Craig 76

Ivaldi, Angelo 5, 6

Landolfi, Tommaso 3

Hill, Terence [Mario Girotti] 36

Ivaldi, Mauro 77

Landru (6) 0

Hillinger, Wolfgang 

Ivanna (70) 5

Lanfranchi, Mario 3, 3–6

Histoires extraordinaires (68) 8

Lang, Fritz 8, 86

Hitchcock, Alfred , 37, 4, 77,

James, Henry 55, 6, 67, 68, 0,

Last Cut (7) 

03, 05

7, 8

The Last Porno Flick (74) 66

Hitler, Adolf 83, 85

James, Montague Rhode 5, 6

Lastretti, Adolfo 68

Hitler: The Last Ten Days (73) 5

Jannacci, Enzo 38

Latimore, Frank 6

Ho incontrato un’ombra (74) 

Jarry, Alfred 

Lattuada, Alberto 6, 0

Hoffmann, E.T.A. 0, 6, 0,

Jazz Band (78, TV mini- series)

Lattuada, Laura 3

6, 7, 8

63, 8, 4

The Laughing Policeman (73) 46

Hölderlin, Friedrich 7

Je t’aime moi non plus (76) 

Laurenti, Fabrizio 

Holmes, John 04

Jekyll (6) , , 

Lauricella, Pippo 5

Holocaust (78, TV mini- series)

Jesi, Furio 7

Lautner, Georges 3

06

Jessua, Alain 0

Lavagnino, Angelo Francesco 6,

Holocaust parte seconda: i ricordi, i

Job, Enrico 8

47
deliri, la vendetta (78) 06

Johnny Yuma (66) 

Lavi, Daliah 

Holocaust 2000 (77) 

Johnson, Richard 45, 46

Lavia, Gabriele 7, 0, 5

Holt, Joel 35

Jourdan, Louis 86

Law, John Phillip 60, 68, 6, 3

Holt, Seth 5

Juerging, Arno 8, 7, 8

Le Bar, Bob 7

Hooper, Geraldine 7, 3

Jung, Carl Gustav 48

The Legacy (78) 86

Hooper, Tobe 0

Legend of Hell House (73) 80

Hopper, Dennis 5

Kakkientruppen (77) 43

La Leggenda del Piave (5) 67

Horror (63) 4

Kaput Lager—Gli ultimi giorni delle

La Leggenda del rubino malese

Horror of Dracula (58) 30

S.S. (77) 

(85) 6

Index

4

La Leggenda di Fra Diavolo (6)

Macabro (80) 6, 03

La Marge (76) 

6

Macario, Erminio 54

Margheriti, Antonio (aka Anthony

Lelouch, Claude 43

Macchie solari (75) 6, 4, 44

M. Dawson) , 3, 5, 37–40, 46,

Lenzi, Umberto 6, 5, 64, 3

Maccione, Aldo 142, 43

73, 8, 3–6, , 8, 

Leonardo, Enzo 0, 4

Maccoppi, Antonio 7

Margheriti, Edoardo 5

Leoncini, Leonida 

MacRae, Henry 64

Mariani, Luigi 74

Leone, Alfred 54, 55, 56, 85, 86, 88,

Madeleine—Anatomia di un incubo

Mariani, Marco 3

8

(74) 68, 0, 74

Marletta, Franco 73

Leone, Sergio 35

Maesso, José Gutiérrez 66, 8

Marnie (64) 

Leoni, Roberto 6, 0

Les Magiciens (aka Death Rite, 75)

Marotta, Franco 45

Leonor (75) 7

75

Marquand, Christian 

The Leopard Man (53) 56

Magni, Luigi 0

Marquand, Richard 86

Leroy, Philippe 6, 47, 66, 4

Magnolia, Lorenzo 0

Marquis De Sade’s Justine (68) 34

Lesoeur, Marius 

Magnus [Roberto Raviola] 0

Marraccini, Dante 8

Lettieri, Al 3

Magritte, René 86

Marsh, Ray 66

Levi, Paolo 

Maietto, Carlo 

Martin, Karlheinz 67

Lewis, Herschell Gordon 70, 

Maiolini, Paola 5

Martinková, Susanna 3

Liberatore, Tanino 0

Majano, Anton Giulio 

Martino, Luciano 7

Liberatore, Ugo 6, 68

Mal [Paul Bradley Courling] 44

Martino, Sergio 60, 68, 77–7, 3

Libidine (7) 76

Malabestia (78) 

Martino, Walter 80

Libido (65) 7

Malabimba (7) 08–

Marx, Barbara 35

Liebes lager (76) 04

Maladolescenza (77) 33, 0

Marx, Harpo 06

Ligabue, Antonio 6

Maladonna (84) 

Marzano, Barbara 0

Il Limbo (67) 0

Maldera, Roberto 4, 75

La Maschera del demonio (60)

Liofredi, Marco 8

Malenka, la sobrina del vampiro

0, , 45, 55, 56, 67, , 6, 84,

Lionello, Alberto 0

(6) 45



Lionello, Oreste 6

Malfatti, Marina 4, 64, 7, 0,

Mascitti, Iolanda 8, 

Lisa and the Devil see Lisa e il di-

0, 

Maselli, Francesco 0, 
avolo

Le Malizie di Venere (6) 46

Masi, Marco 5, 53

Lisa e il diavolo (73) 3, 56, 67, 77,

Malle, Louis 

Masino, Paola 

84–0, 3, 7, 7, 85, 03

Malocchio (75) 68

The Mask (6) 44

The Little Shop of Horrors (60)

Malombra (4) 45, 0

Massaccesi, Aristide 67, 0–3, 7–

33

Malù e l’amante () 04

, 67, 0–05, 0, 0

Livi, Piero 3

Mamoulian, Rouben , 06

Mastriani, Francesco 4

Lizzani, Carlo 4, 0, 4, 63, 4

A Man Called Horse (70) 3

Mastrocinque, Camillo , 4, 

Lo ammazzò come un cane… ma lui

The Man Who Knew Too Much

Mastroianni, Ruggero 
rideva ancora (7) 05

(34) 37, 77

Matarazzo, Raffaello 4

Lo Bianco, Tony 6

The Man Who Knew Too Much

Mattei, Bruno 8, 66, 0, 04

Lobravico, Carol 8, 

(56) 37

Mattei, Giuseppe 8

Lo Cascio, Franco 3, 06

Manaos (80) 

Una Mattina come le altre (8)

Le Locataire (76) 4

Mancini, Carla 60, 77, , 3, 4

00

Lombardo, Paolo 50–53, 73, 5

Mancini, Mario 6–7, 35

Mattoli, Mario 54

Lombroso, Cesare 64

Mancori, Guglielmo 38

Maulini, Giorgio 85

Lonely Lady (83) 04

Mancori, Sandro 38

Maupassant, Guy 33, 7

López, Charo 77

Mandará, Lucio 0

Mauri, Roberto 68, 8, 7, 36, 74

Lorre, Peter 77

Mandiargues, André Pieyre de ,

Maya (8) 

Lourcelles, Jacques 8

, 

Mayans, Antonio , 3

Love, Lucretia , 3

Manera, Gianni 6, 5

La Mazurka del barone, della santa

Love Birds—Una strana voglia d’a-

Manfredi, Nino 86
e del fico fiorone (75) 3, 6,
mare (6) 8, 48

Mangione, Giuseppe 58, 5

0, 38, 58

Lovecchio, Raoul 03

Mania (74) –4, 53

Mazzamauro, Anna 43

Lovecraft, Howard Phillips 6, 85,

Mann, Thomas , 0

Mazzei, Francesco 67

, 4, 5, 6

Manni, Ettore 68, 56

McCarthy, Kevin 77

Lovelock, Ray 5, 6

Manning, Bruce 

McLeod, Norman Z. 06

LSD (70) 58

La Mano che nutre la morte (74)

Il Medaglione insanguinato (Per-

Luca il contrabbandiere (80) 3

08, 0, 4–6
ché?!) (75) 3, 44–46

Lucas, Tim , 3, 57

La Mano della morta (4) 4

Medici, Gianni 46

Luce rossa (7) 06

La Mano indemoniata (8, TV

Il Medium (80) 74

Lucentini, Franco , 
movie) 7, 8

Melato, Mariangela 24, 6, 58

Una Lucertola con la pelle di donna

Mansfield, Jayne 35

Méliès, Georges 7, 86

(7) 6, 3, 75, 76

La Mansión de la niebla (7) 5

Melikov, Arif 6

Lucisano, Fulvio 44, 78

Maraini, Dacia 80

Melissa (66) 48

Ludwigg, Jean 7

Marano, Ezio 5

Mell, Marisa 4, 5

La Lunga spiaggia fredda (7) 7

Marchesini, Mauro 7

Menczer, Erico 8

Lunga vita alla signora (87) 3

Marciano, Francesca 58, 160, 8

Mercanti, Pino 4

I Lunghi capelli della morte (64)

Marcovaldo (70, TV mini- series)

Mercier, Michèle 38, 3

6



Merenda, Luc 8, 00

La Lupa mannara (76) 63–66

Marcovecchio, Aldo 43, 45

Méril, Macha 74

Luppi, Aureliano 34

Marcuse, Herbert 30, 3

Mérimée, Prosper 0, 7, 8,

Luttazzi, Lelio 5

Marescalchi, Mariagrazia 6

, 30

4 Index Merino, José Luis 5

La Morte ha sorriso all’assassino

99 Women (68) 34, 6

Merli, Silvana 66

(73) 67, 0–3, 7, 0, 0

No profanar el sueño de los muertos

Il Merlo maschio (7) 6

La Morte negli occhi del gatto (73)

(74) 6, 

Méténier, Oscar 5

3, 8, 3–6

La Noche de Walpurgis (70) 76

Metti, una sera a cena (6) 6

La Morte non conta i dollari (67)

Nocita, Salvatore 

Meyrinck, Gustav 

0

Nodier, Charles 3

Miami Vice (84–8, TV series)

La Morte risale a ieri sera (70) 

Non commettere atti impuri (7)

34

La Morte scende leggera (7) 6,

4

Micheli, Elio 6

7–74

Non è mai troppo tardi (53) 43

Microscopic Liquid Subway to Obliv-

Moschin, Gastone 4

Non si sevizia un paperino (7)

ion (70) 3

Il Mostro (77) 80

75, 4, 57, 75

Mie jue qi qi (80) 

Il Mostro dell’opera (64) 03, ,

Nosferatu () 4, 0

Migliorini, Romano 74, 77, 85

4

Nosferatu (7) 8

Mikels, Ted V. 66

Il Mostro di Venezia (65) 5

La Notte che Evelyn uscì dalla tomba

Mil sexos tiene la noche (8) 77

Il Mostro è in tavola, barone...

(7) 5, 40–4, 64

Milano odia: la polizia non può

Frankenstein see Flesh for

La Notte dei dannati (7) , 2, 43–
sparare (74) 6

Frankenstein

45, 46, 48, 73, 06

Miles, Vera 03

Moullet, Luc 3, 87

La Notte dei diavoli (7) 68, 74–

Milian, Tomas 3, 4

Movie Rush—La febbre del cinema

77, 57

Milland, Ray 55

(76) 0

La Notte dei serpenti (6) 4

Mille, Giorgio 0

Il Mulino delle donne di pietra

Le Notti del terrore (8) 77, 0

Mimì Metallurgico ferito nell’onore

(60) 74, 76

Le Notti di Cabiria (57) 

(7) 76

Muller, Paul , 35, 36, 66, 67

Novak, Harry 36, 37

Ming, ragazzi! (73) 

Müller Loeb Casella, Yvonne 8

Nuda per Satana (74) , 3, 6–

Minnelli, Liza 8

Murder Obsession (8) , , 3,



Minnelli, Vincente 

58, 67, 68, 

Nude per l’assassino (75) 0

Il Mio amico Jekyll (60) 06

Murgia, Pier Giuseppe 0

Nunes, José María , 3

Mirabella, Michele 8

Musante, Tony 0

Nusciak, Loredana 46

Miraglia, Emilio 5, 40–4, 6–64

Musoduro (53) 0

Mitchell, Cameron 33

Mussetto, Giambattista 74, 77

Oasis of the Zombies (8) 55

Mitchell, Gordon , 5, 7, 05, 06,

Musumarra, Romano 84

O’Brien, Donal 06

3, , 35, 37, 5, 5, 53

Muti, Ornella 86, 3

L'Occhio dietro la parete (77) 6

Modesto, Sam 04

L'Occhio nel labirinto (7) 64

Modigliani, Francesca 3

Nabokov, Vladimir 0, 7

Odoardi, Giorgio 

Moffo, Anna 5

Nada (74) 4

Oggi a me… domani a te! (68) 5

La Moglie più bella (70) 86

The Name of the Game (TV series)

Oliver, Robert Harrison 7, 35, 37

Moncada, Santiago 0, , , 7

38

Oliveros, Ramiro 35

Der Mönch mit der Peitsche (67)

Nana, Aïché 

Olizzi, Lidia 56

64

Narcejac, Thomas 4

Olmi, Ermanno 3

Mondo erotico—Inchiesta n. 8 (73)

Naschy, Paul [Jacinto Molina] 8

Un’Ombra nell’ombra (7) 74

45

Natale, Roberto 77, 85

Ombre roventi (70) 4, 7–, 74

I Mongoli (6) 6

Natoli, Luigi 4

The Omen (76) 

Monicelli, Mario 0, 38, 7

Nebbia, Franco 40

Omicidio per vocazione (68) 77

Monreale, Cinzia 0, 04

Necropolis (70) 8, 05

Omicron (63) 7

Monsieur Verdoux (47) 0

Negri, Giulio Giuseppe 4

O’Neill, Jennifer 0, 75, 76

Montagnana, Luisa 4

Nel labirinto del sesso—Psichidion

Onions, George Oliver 4

Montefiori, Luigi 8

(6) 3

Opera (87) , 86

Montero, Roberto see Bianchi

Nel nome del padre (7) 4

Operazione notte (57) 0

Montero, Roberto

Nell, Krista [Doris Kristanell] 7,

Operazione paura (66) 0, , 3,

Monti, Maria 76

8, 56

8, 55, 56, 5, 77, 87, 88, 0, 7,

Monti, Silvia 6

Nella città vampira (78) 4

57, 30

Monty, Mike 56

Nella stretta morsa del ragno (7)

Orano, Alessio 86, 87

Mora, Teo 40

3, 37–40, 86, 4, 6

Ordine firmato in bianco (75) 5

Morante, Elsa 8

Nelle pieghe della carne (70) 55

Orfei, Moira 5, 4

Morante, Massimo 04

Nelli, Piero 7, 8

La Orgía nocturna de los vampiros

Moravia, Alberto 8, 00, 

Neri, Rosalba , 33, 34, 35, 5, 53,

(73) 75

Mordi e fuggi (73) 8

8, 

Orgy of the Dead (65) 8

Morgens bis mitternacht, Von (0)

Nero, Franco 4, 67, 75, 0, 3

Orlandi, Ferdinando 5

67

Nero veneziano (78) 68

Orlando, Orazio 3

Moro, Aldo 3, 4, 80

Nerosubianco (6) 5

Le Orme (75) 4, 46–50, 75, 7

Morricone, Ennio 4, 4

Nicolai, Bruno 4, 64, 78, 3

L'Orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock

Morrissey, Paul 3, 5, 80–84, 6–

Nicolodi, Daria 7, 8, 83

(6) 8, 5, 75, 4

, 03

Nietzsche, Friedrich 86

Gli Orrori del castello di Norimberga

Morte a passo di valzer (7, TV

Night Has a Thousand Eyes (48)

see Baron Blood
mini- series) 3

75

Ortese, Anna Maria 7

Morte a Venezia (7) 8

Night of the Living Dead (68) 76

Orth, Jacques 04

La Morte accarezza a mezzanotte

Nightmare (56) 77

Ortolani, Riz 38, 6

(7) 3, 74

Nightmare (8) 58, 60

Oscenità (80) 3, 4

La Morte cammina coi tacchi alti

Nightmares in a Damaged Brain see

L'Osceno desiderio—Le pene nel

(7) 3

Nightmare (8)

ventre (78) –5

Index

43

L'Ossessa (74) 3, 68, 0

Pezzotta, Alberto 56, 57, 86

Profondo rosso (75) 7, , 3,

Osterman, Enrico 3

Phenomena (85) 86

64, 7, 6, 74, 83, 84, 86

The Others (00) 6

I Piaceri dello scapolo (60) 3

Il Profumo della signora in nero

Ottoni, Filippo 75

Picasso, Paloma 8

(74) 4, –34, 48, 75, 7,

The Outfit (73) 46

Piccoli, Michel 04

6, 8, 00, 0

Owen, Harold 5

Pieces (8) 37

Profumo di donna (75) 7, 

Özipek, Güzin 4

Pierrot le fou (65) 56

Proietti, Biagio 48, , , 34, 4,

Özkaracalar, Kaya 6

La Pietra di luna (7, TV mini-

5
series) 

Proietti, Gigi 

La Padrona è servita (76) 6

Pietrangeli, Antonio 30

Pronto ad uccidere (76) 6

Il Paese del sesso selvaggio (7)

Pignatelli, Micaela 4

Prosperi, Franco 6

3

Pigozzi, Luciano , , 55, 56, 7,

Prostituzione (74) 64

Pagani, Amedeo 8

5, 36, 37, 56

La Prova generale (70) 58

Pagliai, Ugo 64, 0, , , 3

Pinelli, Tullio 7, 8

Psycho (60) 0, 87, 03

Paladino, Cesare 

Pirandello, Luigi 4, 5, , 3

Puente, Jesús 

Palance, Jack 7, 4

Pironi, Gualtiero 8, 30

I Pugni in tasca (65) 4

Pallanch, Luca 7

Pirro, Ugo 

Puig, Manuel 48

Pallardy, Jean- Marie 66

Pisano, Berto , 0

Pulieri, Giuseppe 

Pallottini, Riccardo 35

Pistilli, Luigi 60, 68

Punter, David 3, 3, 48

Paluzzi, Luciana 8, 68

Pitt, Ingrid 8

Pupillo, Massimo , 6, 77

Pampanini, Silvana 58

Pittorru, Fabio 4, 4, 64

Purdom, Edmund 5, 5, 5, 37

Pamphili, Mirella 6

Pivano, Fernanda 3

Putignani, Rodolfo 

Pane e cioccolata (74) 86

Pizzirani, Giulio 0, 11, 6, 8, 215,

Pani, Corrado 4

6

Qualcosa striscia nel buio (7)

Pannacciò Elo [Angelo Pannaccio]

Pizzuti, Riccardo 36

45–48, 0

04–06

Placido, Donato 8

Quando i califfi avevano le corna

Papa, Ciro 7, , 36, 37

Placido, Michele 3

(73) 3

Paramo, José Antonio 77

Plagio (68) 6

Quando l’amore è oscenità see

Parenti, Neri 06

Plague of the Zombies (66) 5

Oscenità

Parenzo, Alessandro 78

Pleins feux sur l’assassin (6) 57

Quante volte… quella notte (6–

Parigini, Novella 7

Il Plenilunio delle vergini (73) , 3,

7) 8, 54, 35

La Parmigiana (63) 30

7, 6–, 6

Quasi davvero (78) 6

Parolini, Gianfranco 6

Poe, Edgar Allan 38, 3, 40, 4, 43,

I 4 dell’Apocalisse (75) 38

La Parte più appetitosa del maschio

58, 7, , 5, 8, 47, 67, 75,

4 mosche di velluto grigio (7) 74,

(7) 0

7, 84, 86, 0, 3, 4, 5,

8, 83, 84

The Party (68) 30

6

Queen, Ellery [Frederick Dannay,

Pasolini, Pier Paolo , 46, 6, 80,

Polanski, Roman 3, 0, 7, 8, 8,

Manfred B. Lee] 

03, 43

, 0, , 3, 33, 87, 8, ,

Quei paracul… pi di Jolando e

Pasqualino settebellezze (76) 38

5, 4

Margherito (75) 4

Pastore, Sergio 64

Politoff, Haydée 6

Quel maledetto treno blindato (78)

La Patata bollente (7) 07

La Polizia incrimina la legge assolve



Patrick vive ancora (80) 0

(73) 3

Quella carogna dell’ispettore Sterling

Patrizi, Stefano 3

La Polizia ringrazia (7) 08

(68) 4

Patroni Griffi, Giuseppe 6, 6,

Polop, Francisco Lara 5

Quelli che contano (74) 0

7

Polselli, Renato , 34, 48, 50, 0–

Quelli della calibro 38 (76) 46

Patucchi, Daniele 05

04, , –4, 7, , 53

Questa libertà di avere… le ali bag-

Paura nella città dei morti viventi

Poltrone rosse – Parma e il cinema
nate (7) 5, 53

(80) 3

(04) 00

Quien Sabe (66) 4

Peccati di una giovane moglie di

Pompili, Silvana 6
campagna (77) 55

Ponti, Carlo 8, 8, 4, 8, 

Rabal, Francisco 8, 00

Peckinpah, Sam 5

Ponzi, Maurizio 4

I Racconti di Canterbury (7) 03

Pelle di bandito (6) 3

Porel, Marc 75, 76, 8

I Racconti fantastici di Edgar Allan

La Pelle sotto gli artigli (75) 50–

I Porno amori di Eva (7) 0

Poe (7, TV mini- series) 4–

53

La Porta sul buio (73) 87, 

5, 6

Penn, Arthur 06

Porter, Mack 73, 74

Racconto d’autunno (8, TV

Pensieri morbosi (80) 04

Poseída see L’Osceno desiderio—Le
movie) 3

Pensione paura (78) 6–0, 03
pene nel ventre

Un Racconto, un autore (8, TV

Pépé le Moko (37) 6

Un Posto ideale per uccidere (7)

mini- series) 5

Per amore di Cesarina (76) 04

6

La Ragazza che sapeva troppo (63)

Per una manciata d’oro (66) 4

Pozzetto, Renato 07

3

Peraino, Luis 

Il Prato macchiato di rosso (73) 4,

La Ragazza dalla pelle di corallo

Perkins, Anthony 86

–0

(76) 

Perodi, Emma 5

Prattico, Franco 48

La Ragazza dalle mani di corallo

Perrella, Alessandro 5

La Presenza perfetta (8, TV

(6) 05, 06

Petit, Alain 
movie) 7, 8

La Ragazza di latta (70) 67

Petrini, Luigi 05

Price, Vincent 55

Un Ragazzo d’oro (04) 6

Petroni, Giulio –5

Prima della rivoluzione (64) 30

Raho, Umberto 3, 64

Pettinari, Daniele 3

Il Principe dalla maschera rossa

Rakoff, Alvin 3

Pettini, Giancarlo 

(55) 6

Rambaldi, Carlo 36, 66, 68, 6, 70,

Pevarello, Osiride 5

Professione reporter (75) 8

76, 8, 5, 80

44 Index Randall, Dick , 34, 5, 7, , 35,

Roma come Chicago (68) 3

Satta Flores, Stefano 

36, 37

Roma Imago Urbis (4) 4

Saturday Night Fever (77) 04

Rascel, Renato 07

Román, Leticia [Letizia Novarese]

Savage, John 

Rassimov, Ivan 5, 60, 78, 08

3

Savage Hunt (80) 60

Rassimov, Rada 56, 0

Romano, Renato 7

Savalas, Telly 67, 86, 85

Ratti, Filippo 43–45, 66

Romanzo popolare (74) 38

Savina, Carlo 8, 45, 88, 3, 4

Ravaioli, Isarco 3, 4

Rome, Sydne 67

Savona, Leopoldo 60–6, 7–74

Ray, Aldo 3

Romero, George A. 76, 0

Scaccia, Mario 3, 7

Ray, Jean 86

Rondi, Brunello , 57

Scacco alla regina (6) 6

Razzini, Vieri 74, 75

Rosati, Giuseppe 

Scala, Delia 58

Re Manfredi (6) 5

Rose, William 35

Scalfaro, Oscar Luigi 4

Rea, Luca 4

Rose rosse per il Führer (68) 46

Scandalosa Gilda (85) 0

Reazione a catena (7) , 53, 55,

Rosemary’s Baby (68) 0, 78, 0,

Scardamaglia, Elio 5

56, 47, 8, 88, 8, 78, 80, 

3, 33, 4, 5

Scavarda, Aldo 

Rebecca (40) 5

Rosenberg, Stuart 46

Scavolini, Romano 4, 57–60

Reeves, Steve 30

Ross, Howard [Renato Rossini] ,

Scavolini, Sauro 60, 7

Regalo di Natale (86) 8

65

Scerbanenco, Giorgio 

Le Regine see Il Delitto del diavolo

Rossellini, Franco 4

Schicchi, Riccardo 04

Le Regine see Il Delitto del di-

Rossellini, Roberto , 8

Schivazappa, Piero 6, 0, 
avolo—Favola thrilling

Rossetti, Dario 0, 04

Schneider, Romy 7, 04

Regnoli, Piero 5, 68, , 54, 74,

Rossi, Luciano , 3

Schön, Mila 64

4, 0, 0, 

Rossi, Mirella 3, 53

Schubert, Karin 04

Reich, Wilhelm 3, 0

Rossi Stuart, Giacomo 3, 4, 46,

Schurer, Erna [Emma Costantino]

Repulsion (65) 3, 3, 33, 

47, 88, 3, 56

, 30

Requiescant (66) 4

Il Rosso segno della follia (70) ,

Scorsese, Martin 68

El Retorno de Walpurgis (73) 8

5, –3, 87

Scott, Susan [Nieves Navarro] 7

Reverberi, Gianfranco 03

La Rouge aux lévres (70) 8

Se vuoi vivere… spara! (68) 08

Rey, Fernando 67, 6, 3

Rousseau, Jean- Jacques 43

Seberg, Jean 

Ribotta, Ettore 5

Rousset, David 85

Il Secondo tragico Fantozzi (76)

Ricci, Franco Maria 6, 

Rovai, Giulia 48

06

Richardson, John 7

Roy, Massimiliano 5

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Richardson, Tony 6

Rusicka, Francesca “Chicca” 85

(47) 06

Der Richter und sein Henker (75)

Russo, Luigi 3, 7, 73, 

Il Segno del comando (7—TV se-

8

Ryan, Shawn 6
ries) 74, –, 

Rienzi, Maria Teresa 67

Rydell, Mark 48

6 donne per l’assassino (64) 0,

Rienzi, Nicolò 67

56, 87, 3, 5

Riesgo, Joaquín Domínguez 4

Sacchetti, Dardano 75, 78

Seigner, Emmanuelle 0

Rigby, Jonathan 45

Sacchi, Robert 36

Sella d’argento (78) 77, 04

Righi, Mario 68

Saffray, Marie Eugénie 5

Il Seme di Caino (7) 5

Rinaldi, Antonio 56

Sainati, Alfredo 5

Senatore, Paola , 3

Risi, Dino 0, 8, 8, 37, 6–

Le Salamandre (6) 48

Sensività (7) 5, –4

7, 80, , 

Salce, Luciano 4, 40, 43, 06

Senso (54) 6

Risi, Nelo 48

Salerno, Enrico Maria 0, 5, 7

Sentenza di morte (68) 5

Riti, magie nere e segrete orge nel

Salerno, Nicola 7

Senza buccia (7) 67, 6

Trecento… (73) , 34, 0–04,

Salerno, Vittorio 

Senza scrupoli (86) 0

3, 7, 53

Salines, Antonio 6

Sepolta viva (73) 5

Ritratto di donna velata (75, TV

Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma

Serao, Matilde 4
mini- series) 

(75) 43

Seray, Bernard 

Rivelazioni di un maniaco sessuale

Salomè (7) 7

Serling, Rod 86, 87
al capo della squadra mobile

Samperi, Salvatore 0, 4

Serra, Gianna 8

(7) 46

San Babila ore 20: un delitto inutile

Servo suo (73) 60

Rivelazioni di uno psichiatra sul

(76) 63

Il Sesso del diavolo—Trittico (7)

mondo perverso del sesso (73)

Sanders, Anita 5, 6

48–50

03, 3, 4

Sandrelli, Stefania 75

Il Sesso della strega (73) 6, 68,

Rivière, Georges 73

Le Sang d’un poet (30) 7

04–06, 5

La Rivoluzione sessuale (68) 0

Sangster, Jimmy 34

Sessomatto (73) 8

Rizzo, Alfredo 54–57

La Sanguisuga conduce la danza

Sette note in nero (77) 4, 0,

Rizzo, Carmine Domenico 3

(75) 54–57

7–77, 5

Ro.Go.Pa.G. (63) 

Sansoni, Gino 

Sette orchidee macchiate di rosso

Robbe-Grillet, Alain 7

Santaniello, Oscar 0

(7) 64

Robinson, Edward G. 77

Santi, Giancarlo 8

Sette scialli di seta gialla (7) 64

Robinson, Shawn 5

Santilli, Antonia 68

La Settima donna (78) 77

Rocco e i suoi fratelli (60) 3

Santini, Alessandro , 50–54

Sexperiencias (67) 3

Roeg, Nicolas 6, 46, 68, 75

Santoni, Espartaco 86, 88

Seyrig, Delphine 8

Roffman, Julian 44

Santuccio, Gianni 5

Sfida sul fondo (76) 66

Roger La Honte (66) 65

Sarduy, Severo 48

Shadow, John , 3

Rohmer, Eric 6

Sartre, Jean- Paul 40

She-Wolf of London (46) 64

El rojo (66) 6

Sasdy, Peter 8, 04

Shelley, Mary 35, 70

Rollin, Jean 5, 3

Satanella () 4

Sherman, Samuel 7

Roma (7) 

Satanik (68) 0

Sherman, Tomaso 7, 8

Index

45

The Shining (80) 73, 3

Stegers, Bernice 03

Il Terzo occhio (66) 0

Shock (77) 55, 87, 3, 45, 68,

Steiner, John 40

Il Testimone deve tacere (74) 

77–80, 03, 30

Steiner, Rudolf 8

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Siciliano, Mario 68

Steloff, Skip 34

(74) 75

La Signora senza camelie (53) 46

Steno [Stefano Vanzina] 35, 67, 3,

They’ve Changed Faces see Hanno

Silva, Henry 4

06, 07, 08
cambiato faccia, …

Silva, María 8

Stern, Ingrid 46

Thomas... gli indemoniati (70)

Silvio Amadio , 46, 74

Stevenson, Robert Louis 70, 7,

3–6, 58, 6, 6

Simon, François 68

05, 06, 7

Timpani, Antonio 5

Simón, Juan Piquer 37

Stewart, Evelyn see Galli, Ida

Tinti, Gabriele 68, 87, 8

Simonelli, Giovanni 3, 5, 6

Stoker, Bram 8, 40

Tiso, Ciriaco 5

Simonetti, Claudio 04

Stoppa, Paolo , 

Toby Dammit (68) 3, 8, 54,

Sinatra, Frank 35

Stoppi, Franca 0, 04, 05

7, 4

Il Sindacalista (7) 40

Storaro, Vittorio 4, 50

Todorov, Tzvetan 

Sindoni, Vittorio 77, 04

Storie in una stanza (75, TV mini-

Tognazzi, Ugo 6, 0, 3, 63, 04

La Sindrome di Stendhal (6) 04
series) 4

Tolstoy, Aleksey 74, 75, 76, 77

Singin’ in the Rain (5) 5

Stracuzzi, Stefania 45

Tom Jones (63) 6

Siragusa, Gianni 76

La Strage dei vampiri (6) 8, 7

Tombs, Pete 4

The Sixth Sense () 6

Lo Strangolatore di Vienna (7)

Tommasi, Amedeo 5

Det Sjunde inseglet (57) 88

7, 35

Tonelli, Bob [Ariano Nanetti] 0,

Skay, Brigitte 

Lo Strano caso di via dell’Angeletto

, 3, 5, 6, 160, 6, 8

Skerl, Peter 04

(75, TV Movie) 4

Tonelli, Steno 0

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Lo Strano vizio della signora Wardh

Top Sensation (68) 34

(37) 8, 86

(7) 77, 78

Torino centrale del vizio (7) 

Soavi, Michele 

Strategia per una missione di morte

Tornatore, Giuseppe 00

Sogni mostruosamente proibiti

(7) 

Tornes, Stavros 5

(8) 06

Straub, Robert 35, 37

Torrisi, Pietro 65

Il Sogno dell’altro (8, TV movie)

Le Strelle nel fosso (7) 6, 4–

Toscano, Laura 45

7

7

Totò [Antonio De Curtis] 4, 08

Un Soir, un train (68) 5, 

Strick, Joseph 5

Tourneur, Jacques 56, 64, 86

Soldati, Mario 45

Stross, Raymond 

Tovoli, Luciano 83, 86

Soldati, Wolfango 00, , 3

Suggestionata (78) 55

Tozzi, Fausto 0

Solis, Dag 35

Sunset Blvd. (50) 5

Traitement de shock (73) 0

I Soliti rapinatori a Milano (63)

Suor Emanuelle (77) 0

Tranquilli, Silvano 40, 74

3

Suspiria (77) 4, 6, 65, 80–87,

Il Trapianto (6) 35

Sollazzevoli storie di mogli gaudenti



Trasatti, Luciano 73
e mariti penitenti (7) 0

Un Sussurro nel buio (76) ,

Trash (70) 80, 8, 83

Solvay, Paolo see Batzella, Luigi

66–6

Travolta, John 04

Sommeil blanc (00) 

Sykes, Peter 7

Tre franchi di pietà (66) 8

Sommer, Elke 54, 85, 86, 8

I Tre volti della paura (63) 0, ,

Sorbole... che romagnola (76) 55

Taglioni, Fabrizio 5

74

Sordi, Alberto 6, 7

Tamar Wife of Er (70) 65

Tressler, Dieter 55

Sorel, Jean , 75

Tamburi, Jenny 43

Trifirò, Goffredo 5

Il Sorpasso (6) 7

Tamburini, Stefano 0

Le Trio infernal (74) 04

Sorrentino, Arnaldo 8

Tarascio, Enzo 4, 0, 0

Trog (70) 36

I Sovversivi (67) 0

Tate, Sharon 67

Troisio, Antonio 5, 60

Sözen, Şakir V. 07, 08, 0, 5,

Taviani, Paolo 0

Trotter, Laura 5

6

Taviani, Vittorio 0

Il Trovatore (4) 84

Spaak, Catherine 47

Un Taxi mauve (77) 

Truffaut, François 37

Space: 1999 34

Tecnica di un amore (73) 

Il Tuo vizio è una stanza chiusa e

Spadaro, Eva 3, 4

Tedeschi, Gianrico 142, 43, 07
solo io ne ho la chiave (7) 60,

Spence, Ralph 5

Tedeschi, Luigi 

70, 84

Spencer, Bud [Carlo Pedersoli] 36

Tedesco, Paola 0

Turner, Lana 8

Spettri (87) 

Telefoni bianchi (76) 

Tutti defunti … tranne i morti

Lo Spettro (63) 8, 60, 3

Tempera, Vincenzo “Vince” 74, 76

(77) 4, 58, 87–0, 0

Spielberg, Steven 4

Tempi duri per i vampiri (5) 55,

Tutti i colori del buio (7) 68, 77–

Splendori e miserie di Madame

3, 40, 06

7

Royale (70) 5

Il Tempo degli assassini (75) 

Twain, Mark 5

Squitieri, Pasquale 

Tenebre (8) 6, 86

Twins of Evil (7) 

Stafford, Frederick 65, 66

Tenn, William 5, 6

Two Families (007) 60

Stajano, Giò 66

Teorema (68) , 46, 76, 74, 0

2001: A Space Odyssey (68) 30, 

Staller, Ilona 40

Tepepa (6) 3

Two Weeks in Another Town (6)

Stamp, Terence 76

Terror (78) 86



Starace, Bella 5

Terror! Il castello delle donne

Lo Stato d’assedio (6) 58
maledette (74) , 5, 7, 34–

L'Uccello dalle piume di cristallo

Steel, Alan [Sergio Ciani] 5

37

(70) 64

Steele, Barbara , , 8, 3, 56, 67,

Il Terrore con gli occhi storti (7)

Gli Uccisori (77) 5

73, 76, 6, 3, 5, 85, 4, 0

67

L'Udienza (7) 38

Steffen, Anthony [Antonio De

Terrore nello spazio (65) 86

Ugarte, Julián 7

Teffé] 4

La Terza madre (007) 83, 85

Ulloa, Alejandro 3

46 Index L'Ultima carica (64) 6

Vázquez Figueroa, Alberto 

Warhol, Andy 80, 8, 8, 83, 84, 8,

L'Ultima neve di primavera (73)

Lo vedi come sei… lo vedi come sei?



45

(3) 54

Warnung vor einer heiligen Nutte

L'Ultima preda del vampiro (60)

Vegezzi, Nello 5

(7) 4

54, 55, 56, 08

Velasco, Mahnamen 74

Warren, Bill 34

Ultima scena: 5 storie fantastiche

Venantini, Venantino 5

Warren, Norman J. 86

(78, TV mini- series) 4

La Vendetta di una pazza () 4

Waugh, Hillary 78

Le Ultime ore del Che (004) 60

La Vendetta di una pazza (5) 4

Webley, Patrizia [Patrizia De Rossi]

Ultimo tango a Parigi (7) 84

Vendetta per vendetta (68) 46

0, 0

L'Ultimo treno della notte (75) 3

Il Venditore di palloncini (74) 45

Wedekind, Frank 8, 85

Una forca per tre vigliacchi (7)

La Venere d’Ille (78) 87, 7, ,

Weis, Don 37

53

7, 8–30

Welles, Mel , 3–37, 70

Una sull’altra (6) 75, 76

Venus in Furs (68)

Welles, Orson 3, 3

The Undead (57) 33

La Vera storia della monaca di

Wells, Herbert George 7

Ungari, Enzo 

Monza (80) 04

Wendel, Lara [Daniela Rachele

The Unnaturals—Contronatura

Verga, Giovanni 

Barnes] 33

(6) 38, 3, 40, 46, 47, 64, 5

La Vergine dei veleni (7) 4

The Werewolf (3) 64

Uomini contro il Po (5) 4

La Vergine di Norimberga (63)

Wertmüller, Lina 76, 38

Uomini e lupi (57) 6

64, 4, 5

Whiskey e fantasmi (74) 6

Uomini si nasce poliziotti si muore

La Verità secondo Satana (70) 48,

Whitmore, James 45

(76) 6

03, 

The Whole Town’s Talking (35)

Un Uomo da ridere (80) 77

Vernon, Harry 5

06

L'Uomo della sabbia (8, TV

Verrecchia, Alberto 

The Wild Wild West (65–6, TV
movie) 7, 8

La Viaccia (6) 4
series) 34

L'Uomoorgoglio e la vendetta (67)

Vidali, Enrico 4

The Wild, Wild World of Jayne

4, 5

Villa, Franco 0

Mansfield (68) 35

L’Urlo (63) 30

Villaggio, Paolo 6, 06, 07

Wilson, Ajita 76, , 66

Un Urlo dalle tenebre (75) 3, 68,

Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, Auguste de

Winters, Shelley 7

06, 0

6

Wolff, Frank 33, 58

Ustica: una spina nel cuore (000)

Viola, Giuseppe “Beppe” 38

Woodlawn, Holly 80

60

Violenza in un carcere femminile

Woods, Robert 5, 53, 7

Usuelli, Teo 0

(8) 04

Woolrich, Cornell 75, 76, 77,

Uysal, Ersan 6

Viotti, Patrizia , 43, 44, 45, 73

83

Viridiana (6) 5

Wright Williams, Walter 07

Vacanze per un massacro (80)

Virus (80) 0, 04

Wyler, William 7



Visconti, Luchino , 6, 00, 8,

Vai avanti tu che mi viene da ridere

3, 67

Yarbrough, Jean 64

(8) 

La Vita, a volte, è molto dura, vero

Les Yeux sans visage (60) 5

Vai col liscio (76) 6

Provvidenza? (7) 4

Young, Gig 0

Valerii, Tonino 0

La Vita è bella (7) 

Young Frankenstein (74) , 35, 55,

La Valle dell’eco tonante (64) 5

Vitali, Alvaro 43

, 38, 4, 06

Valletti, Aldo 43

I Vitelloni (53) 73

Valli, Alida 86, 87, 88

Viti, Attilio 33

Zampa, Luigi 6, 80

Vallone, Saverio 8

Vitti, Monica 

Zamuto, Elio 65

Valverde, Máximo 00

Vivarelli, Piero 0

Zapponi, Bernardino 7, 7

I Vampiri (57) 30, 3, 45, 67, ,

Vivo per la tua morte (68) 30

Zarchi, Meir 68

0, 5

I Vizi morbosi di una governante

Zavattini, Cesare 00, 0

Vampirismus (8, TV movie)

(77) 45

Zeder (83) , 3, 5, 5, 6, 6,

6–7, 8

Vlady, Marina 0, 

6, 7

Vampyr (3) 60

Voci notturne (5, TV series) 

Zeglio, Primo 46, 48, 5

Vampyros Lesbos (70) 50

La Voie lactée (6) 8

Zelda (74) 8

Van Cleef, Lee 3

Volpi, Franco 

Zelenovic, Srdjan 84

Vani, Bruno 4, , 53

Volta, Ornella 

Zenabel (6) 5

Vanni, Massimo 3

Vonnegut, Kurt 3

Zombi Holocaust (80) 0

Van Vooren, Monique 8, 83

Von Theumer, Ernst Ritter 33

Zombi 2 (7) 3, 77

Vanzina, Stefano see Steno

Le Voyou (70) 43

Zorro contro Maciste (63) 5

Varela, José 

Zurli, Guido 7

Varriano, Emilio 56

Walcamp, Marie 64

Vayan, Greta 8

Wallace, Edgar 64

Document Outline

- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- A Note on the Entries
- Abbreviations
- Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1970–1979
- 1970
- 1971
- 1972
- 1973
- 1974
- 1975
- 1976
- 1977
- 1978
- 1979

- Appendix: Italian Gothic on the Small Screen

- Bibliography

- Index

Table of Contents

- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- A Note on the Entries
- Abbreviations
- Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1970–1979
- 1970
- 1971
- 1972
- 1973
- 1974
- 1975
- 1976
- 1977
- 1978
- 1979

- Appendix: Italian Gothic on the Small Screen

- Bibliography

- Index