In The last issue of HORROR-WOOD, we reviewed the spine-tingling saga of Italian cinematic horror's early years. Now let's take up where we left off and plunge into the...

PART TWO

THE YELLOW AND THE SILVER

by David White

Whether it’s set to the eerie, tinkling piano cues of Ennio Morricone or the electronic gothic-rock of the band Goblin, the images of a set of strong hands zipping on a pair of black leather gloves, a close up of a blinking, bloodshot eye, or the shot of running water washing away blood from a shiny straight- razor can only mean one thing, we are watching a giallo; the curious film genre from Italy that combines sex and violence in ways that American films have yet to discover. At their worst, the gialli are senseless, violent exercises in pointless misogyny filled with gratuitous female nudity and bloodshed. At their best, they are stylish, cinematic experiences combining sex , violence and mystery into a heady, visually dazzling mix that keeps the viewer glued to the screen regardless of the grotesqueries about to unfold. Like all Italian horror films, however, very few examples of uncut gialli are easy to find in the U.S. Several were released on video in the early eighties but they were poorly panned and scanned, cut into incoherence or dismissed by casual viewers as simply "bad". Such mishandling drove away the general audience of VCR owners. Conversely, fans of more intellectual fare also dismissed the films due to their crude English-language dubbing, ignorant of the fact that until recently all Italian films were dubbed, regardless of the language heard on the soundtrack. Nevertheless, the genre has attracted many admirers. Although created as a separate genre, independent of the Italian gothic-horror film, the genres soon began to cross over and influence one another, giving rise to a series of adventurous films that continue to capture the imagination of horror and fantasy fans, not only in Italy and America, but world-wide.

Blood and Black Lace (AKA Six Women For An Assassin) (1964): - In 1962 Mario Bava made The Girl Who Knew Too Much and gave birth to the Italian film genre known as the giallo. Named after a series of crime paperbacks with yellow covers, the giallo genre was not an outgrowth of the horror films being produced at the time. Far from the baroque imagery of Italian horror’s gothic fairy-tales, the gialli were boldly contemporary. As with Freda and Bava’s I Vampiri, however, The Girl Who Knew Too Much was reedited and rescored for the American market. The film was released, in the States, under the title The Evil Eye with additional comic sequences that interfered with Bava’s fluid, suspenseful direction. In 1964, however, Bava made the film that would define and popularize the giallo for years to come; Blood and Black Lace.

A brutal murder takes place outside a large fashion house filled with cartoony, colorful female mannequins, as well as several equally cartoony female models. The motive for the murder seems to be connected to a bright red diary belonging to the victim; a diary that every character wants to lay their hands on. As the book changes hands, the murders continue until the twist ending which, despite the simplistic mechanics of the plot, is genuinely surprising and suspenseful. While containing all of the trappings of an Agatha Christie style mystery (a series of murders, multiple suspects and a secret-filled diary) the bare-bones plot is actually nothing more than a simple thread to link Bava’s colorful, imaginative and violent set-pieces. The film most resembles a live-action comic book, albeit one for adults only. (Charlton Comics, in fact, developed a character named The Question in the late-sixties. The character is a dead ringer for the killer in Blood and Black Lace; a mysterious figure in a trench coat with a blank white cloth stretched tightly across his face).

The film is shockingly violent, especially for the time period in which it was made. The killer brutalizes his female victims with such vehemence that the film teeters on the edge of good taste. Every woman is severely beaten before dying. One has her face pressed against a glowing, hot oven. Another has her wrists slashed in a bathtub, her blood mixing with the running water until the corpse disappears in a sea of red.

It may all sound like a bit too much to handle, but Bava films the story with such visual bravado and panache that the viewer can barely pry his/her eyes from the screen. Bava doesn’t want us to be repelled by the horrific images, but seduced by them. Shadowy rooms are filled with flashing red lights, blue fog overruns the streets and every drop and smear of blood is so carefully placed that the film reads less like an essay on misogynistic violence, and more like a work of sado-masochistic pop-art.

Bava went on to make two more films in the giallo genre; the bizarre, slapdash Five Dolls For An August Moon, which actually borrows a conceit from Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, and Bay of Blood (AKA Twitch of the Death Nerve) a much more realistic film essay on the violence of greed.

Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1970) - While Bava may have invented and helped define the genre, Dario Argento popularized it with this landmark film. A former screenwriter of spaghetti westerns, Argento made his directing debut with Bird With the Crystal Plumage. The film owed as much to the films of Alfred Hitchcock as it did to the work of Mario Bava, and ushered in a series of films by different directors all with convoluted titles containing the names of animals; The Blood Stained Butterfly, Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, The Scorpion with Two Tails, Black Belly of the Tarantula and Argento’s own two follow-up films Cat O’ Nine Tails and Four Flies on Grey Velvet. Even Riccardo Freda got into the act with his imaginatively titled, but disappointing, Iguana With A Tongue of Fire.

Bird tells the story of Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante), an American writer in Rome about to return to the states with his wife, Julia (Suzy Kendall). On his way home, one night, Dalmas witnesses an attempted murder behind the glass walls of an art gallery. In attempt to help, he is trapped between the walls and forced to watch as a young woman in white, the apparent victim, reaches out for help. With the arrival of the police, Dalmas is detained and forced to stay in Rome. He begins his own investigation which leads him through a series of bizarre suspects, grotesque paintings and the nagging suspicion that what he saw may not have been exactly what he thought.

Argento’s visual style, which reached it’s apex in Suspiria and Inferno, clearly has it’s origins here. As early as the opening credits, his trademarked black gloved hands (usually Argento’s own hands) loving caress photographs of his future victims. As seductively as the killer’s hands trace the photographic images, so too does Argento’s camera trace the shiny knives and blades that are the killer’s tools. Argento pulls off several bravura sequences. After pursuing a yellow-jacketed hitman (played by Reggie Nalder, the assassin in Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much) our protagonist finds himself in a hotel convention hall where hundreds of conventioneers are dressed exactly the same. In another scene, Suzy Kendall defends herself from the killer by jabbing a knife through a keyhole while the killer relentlessly carves away at the door separating them. The ending, in which a psychologist explains the killer’s motives on television while the host of the program begins drifting asleep, clearly shows us where Argento’s priorities lie. Violence is often chaotic and without reason and Argento cares more about showing us the act of murder than explaining the reasons behind it.

After Bird…, Argento began gradually pulling himself away from the responsibilities of cohesive narrative and his films became more nightmarish. In Cat O’ Nine Tails the revelation of the killer’s identity is likely to provoke a "who’s that?" from first time viewers. The violence that threatened to take center stage in Bird… does so with a vengeance in Cat… In Four Flies On Grey Velvet, Argento uses his camera to explore paranoia and mental illness. Several plot elements make no sense, narratively, but it is the emotional and psychological aspects of the film that carry it from scene to scene.

Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972): Before he went on to redefine Italian horror with buckets of latex and swarms of maggots (see Part Three), Lucio Fulci made a series of gialli that pushed the boundaries of the genre and often crossed over into the horror genre that he ultimately found himself for the latter half of his film career. His first giallo, One on Top of the Other (AKA Perversion Story), was a fairly restrained, but sexy and clever, mystery marred by a ridiculously handled denouement. Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (AKA Schizoid) was a delirious, almost psychotic, murder mystery filled with bat attacks, drug trips and disemboweled barking dogs. With Don’t Torture a Duckling, Fulci created his masterpiece. With all of the attention heaped on his work, in recent years, it’s incredible that this film continues to remain one of his least known works. Even horror fans that find themselves dissatisfied with Fulci’s work will find something to like in this one.

Several young boys are being brutally murdered in a small, rural town in Southern Italy. Florinda Balkan plays a crazed gypsy woman who has sworn revenge on the children that continue to taunt her. Barbara Bouchet plays a disturbed young woman with a sexual penchant for young boys. As the investigation in to crimes increases, so do the number of suspects until the town threatens to self-destruct; a victim of it’s own misguided religion and superstition.

As opposed to his later films, Don’t Torture a Duckling contains only one scene of extreme violence, when several of the male villagers decide to take the law into their own hands by punishing the gypsy woman that they are convinced is responsible for cursing their children. The resulting act of violence is difficult to watch, but it is possibly the most accomplished scene in Fulci’s canon. Far from being filled with gore for gore’s sake the scene is filled with anxiety, confusion, fear and, most importantly, character. You can virtually see the woman’s life flash before her eyes, so well-crafted is Balkan’s performance.

The film does have a few flaws. The conclusion is a bit of a let-down that most viewers will be able to see coming. The contrived justification of the film’s title seems a bit forced and Bouchet’s character is let off the hook rather easily, despite that fact that she has sexual liaisons with several of the town’s young boys. Still, the film boasts an oppressive, paranoid tone reminiscent of Mario Bava’s Kill, Baby, Kill and a haunting music score.

Fulci went on to make one more giallo; Murder to the Tune of Seven Black Notes (AKA The Psychic), but it is the weakest of the four. After that, he found his gory niche with Zombie and never looked back.

Next (AKA The Next Victim, Blade of the Ripper, and The Strange Vice of Mrs. Ward) (1970): Sergio Martino cranked out a series of wonderfully dark and sleazy gialli when the genre was at it’s height of popularity. Torso (AKA Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence) was a rough, violent film starring Suzy Kendall (Bird With the Crystal Plumage). Day of the Maniac (AKA They’re Coming to Get You and All the Colors of the Dark was a delirious, fantastic tale starring Edwige Fenech that dealt with equal amounts paranoid psychosis and satanic ritual. For my money, however, Martino’s best film is Next.

Edwige Fenech plays Julie, the wife of an Italian diplomat (Manuel Gill). Shortly after returning from a vacation, Julie hears the news of a series of violent sex crimes ("Is it the sex fiend?" her chauffeur asks a local policeman. "Yes", he replies. "And he’s still using the razor.") The news brings back memories of her former lover, Jean (Ivan Rassimov), and their brutal, sadomasochistic relationship. The next night, Jean shows up at a party Julie is attending and begins the process of trying to insinuate himself back into her life. At the same time, the number female victims falling prey to the mysterious killer begins to increase. Coincidence?

The four elements that make Next such a well-realized film are easy to discern; First and foremost is Fenech’s fragile, sexy performance. Without giving too much away, her character disappears from a section of the film at one point, and the narrative suffers as a result. Secondly, Martino’s imaginative direction, which reaches its apex with a series of flashback/dream sequences that depict Julie and Jean engaging in their twisted games, is dark, sexy and suspenseful without ever becoming prurient. Thirdly, the screenplay (co-scripted by Ernesto Gastaldi) is full of tight characterization and a handful of nice plot twists. Last, but certainly not least, is the absolutely brilliant music score by Nora Orlandi.

Seeing Next in a satisfactory, uncut print is an almost impossible chore. It was released in two different versions, here in the states. The Next Victim is fairly decent looking, but is missing a bit of important exposition at the beginning, as well as every instance of nudity. The omission of nudity is particularly troubling, as it considerably shortens the flashback sequences which are the heart and soul of the film. In one scene, Jean sprays champagne on Julie’s body, then cracks the bottle across her knee sending the shards of glass raining down on her. These images are too important to the tone and character of the film to be compromised. The other American print, Blade of the Ripper, restores the nudity, but deletes an important scene midway through the film. Even worse, the visual quality of the print is complete junk; greenish in tint and blown up so that only the very middle of the picture is visible. Reportedly, a third print, entitled The Strange Vice of Mrs. Ward has recently become available through mail-order. Supposedly, it is an uncut print containing even more footage than the previously mentioned variants.

What Have You Done To Solange? (AKA The School That Couldn’t Scream, Who’s Next?) (1972): Enrico Rossini (Fabio Testi) is an Italian professor at an English boarding school engaged in an extra-marital affair with a young dance student named Elizabeth (Christina Galbo). After another of Rossini’s students is found murdered in the woods with a knife embedded in her groin, Rossini is branded a suspect unable to account for his whereabouts without revealing his affair to his embittered wife. The murders continue and Rossini begins his own investigation which is complicated by the fact that Elizabeth has begun to have psychic premonitions of the murders as they happen. Rossini’s investigation leads him on a search for a mysterious young woman named Solange (played in flashback sequences by Camille Keaton, shortly before she became exploitation cinema’s most infamous rape victim in I Spit On Your Grave) whose ultimate fate may hold the secret to stopping the string of murders.

While many gialli simply drift from one smarmy scene of sexual violence to another (Polselli’s Delirium comes to mind), director Massimo Dallamano keeps the proceedings solemn and saves the most violent set-pieces for the film’s conclusion. The result is a film in which the emotional residue of the murders takes precedence over the depiction of the crimes themselves. The film also follows the popular giallo convention of the killer’s actions containing a warped bit of "eye for an eye" morality, as the knives to groin serve as thematic punishment for "crime" committed by the victims; a plot-point that I won’t reveal here for fear of spoiling someone’s enjoyment of the film. (See Dario Argento’s Trauma for a later example of this plot device).

Deep Red (AKA Profondo Rosso) (1976): After having popularized the giallo and inspiring countless rip-offs by lesser film-makers, Dario Argento turned the genre inside-out with his film Profondo Rosso. No longer would the genre be bound to the conventions of narrative logic. The film contains a murder mystery as intricate and puzzling as his earlier films, but the clues to the mystery are imbedded not only in the dialogue and narrative, but within the structure and visual motifs of the film itself.

Marcus Daly (David Hemmings) is a Jazz pianist living in Rome. One night, while out drinking with his troubled friend Carlos (Gabriele Lavia), he witnesses the brutal murder of famous psychic Helga Ulman (Macha Meril). Upon entering her apartment, he sees a painting out of the corner of his eye that continues to haunt him throughout the film. Although he cannot remember what he saw, he insists that the painting was removed after his arrival and that the image contained in it holds the secret to the mystery. His investigation leads him into bizarre games of sexual politics with reporter Gianna Brezzi (Daria Nicolodi), an interlude with Carlos’s disturbed mother, Marta (Clara Calamai) and a mysterious book leading him to "The House of the Screaming Child"; a house with a secret buried in it’s walls.

Profondo Rosso is a visual and aural assault on the senses anticipating Argento’s Suspiria, filmed a year later. The film contains levels of explicit violence that will cause even the most jaded horror fans to cringe. Teeth are bashed in, a woman’s face is scalded by steaming bath water and a head is decapitated by an ascending elevator. In keeping with the "psychic foreshadowing" theme introduced by the Helga Ulman character, each death is subtly prophesized by the structure of the film. The face scalding is anticipated when Marcus burns himself in a restaurant kitchen while using a pay phone. The teeth bashing takes place after Marcus equates his piano playing with wanting to "bash his father’s teeth in". The water rushing out of Helga’s mouth foreshadows the killer’s grisly demise and, finally, the secret of the missing painting rings with thematic significance during the film’s final image over the closing credits.

Another influential aspect of the film is it’s electronic rock score by the band Goblin. Argento jettisoned most of the original symphonic score by Giorgio Gaslini and replaced it with Goblin’s jarring, violent music. The score provides a heartbeat to the body of the film and is, along with the scores to What Have You Done To Solange? (Ennio Morricone) and Next (Nora Orlandi), one of the top three giallo scores of the seventies.

Like Sergio Martino’s Next, finding a satisfactory version of Profondo Rosso is difficult. The American version, entitled Deep Red: The Hatchet Murders, is missing over twenty minutes of expository footage, violence and character information. The Japanese version, entitled Suspiria II, restores the violence and some additional dialogue but is still missing approximately fifteen minutes. The full-length, subtitled Italian version is uncut, but David Hemming’s witty and clever performance is dubbed into Italian by another actor. Hemming is the emotional heart and soul of the film and without his full performance the film suffers.

Being that the giallo genre was so popular in Italy, there are literally hundreds of examples, many of them worth more attention than I am able to devote. The previous films were all released at the height of the genre’s popularity. In Part Three, I will discuss how the films from Italian horror’s golden age, the gialli and various American genre films (specifically, The Exorcist and Dawn of the Dead) have influenced the past twenty years of Italian Horror.

Thanks again, David! We look forward to Part Three...in the meantime, a witch's cauldron of good giallo awaits our readers!

Article copyright David White.

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