Cheers Phil. I thought my tiki-bar ladies would complement that cover.
Vol.2 arrived today. I’m watching A Dragonfly for Each Corpse at the mo. and this looks a goodie with some fantastic outfits - particularly for Erika Blanc, and is set in Milan.
I’m just composing my photo of it for this thread in my head, and will surely go and snap it soon. I reckon this should feature another of my 70s stylee psychedelic shirts, and my charity buy (£1) DelSey attache case - as seen in every blackmail film from this era.
The movie begins not far from my house: Corso Buenos Aires, with on the left Cin Cin Bar & Restaurant and the red sign of Astor movie theater, who became an X-rated movie house in 1991 and was closed in 2009.
I’ve just re-watched that bit to check out the Cin Cin Bar and porno-cinema.
I only recognised Milan from the cathedral of course. I remember the only time the c-m and myself visited there. We got the tube to Duomo without really knowing what we were doing, and arrived just in time to hear “and now for your pleasure this evening… Stevie Winwood”. A free concert no less, so we grabbed a beer and chilled out to Stevie-boy and his samba band on a balmy evening. Must’ve been 15 years ago or so. Very !
Btw - I thoroughly enjoyed the movie… ADFEC I mean, not one of those smutty sordid ones at the Astor.
Tessari: Death Occured Last Night
-A bit different kind of giallo about prostitution. Frank Wolff is in the main role as a policeman investigating a case of missing retarded girl whom they believe has been kidnapped for prostitution. Reminded me of Di Leo’s Naked Violence as they both have focus on police work. Good film but I prefer my gialli with mystery elements and serial killers.
Lenzi: Dirty Pictures / Oasis of Fear / An Ideal Place to Kill
-Film with many alternative titles, I only knew afterwards that this was the one released on dvd with Oasis of Fear title. Ray Lovelock and Ornella Muti are good pair of lead as careless hippies making living by selling pornography. They get accidentally involved with older woman who has plans of her own. I like Lenzi’s films and gialli, Spasmo is one of my favorites but this one is a minor one I’d say. Film has it’s moments but the ending was a letdown.
I watched both of these recently and was a little let down by DOLN for pretty much the same reasons, but it’s still worth a rewatch at some time as with most of these films.
OOF got its second viewing - and again I agree with Bill about the cop-out ending, which I’m pretty sure has a Carroll Baker doing a similar thing at the same spot? (I’d have to check)… in Lenzi’s earlier A Quiet Place to Kill (as opposed to OOF’s similarly titled AIPTK. Confused ). 'Scept in AQPTK there’s a decent twist at the end.
Anyway, AQPTK was watched as part of a yacht-based giallo-ish marathon, than included such gems as the Greek film To Agistri (with Barbara Bouchet being very good as a baddy cheaty-schemer).
Other yacht-based naughtiness included Waves of Lust and Interrabang - the latter I’ve been wanting to see ever since BsA spoke about it many years ago, and it piqued my curiosity then. Thankfully, although pretty slow-moving, it wasn’t a let down I’m pleased to report!
Yet another sordid sea-bound spume ridden offering was Top Sensation - not really a giallo, but there’s murder and mucho soul and flesh baring so all is well.
Finally, firmly back on giallo-grounded territory, but still with a nautical-based twist came two desert island (not the label) classics in the forms of … 5 Dolls for an August Moon (a rewatch) and a virgin-view of 9 Guests for a Crime. This brace of deliriously fabulous and fashionably attired goodies are everything I desire from the genre. Clothes aside (and for much of the time they are ) these (along with all the others mentioned) have some of the most beautiful women of the era thrilling their way through twisty turny plots as they don bikinis and bare flesh for the sake of their art.
I’d be hard-pushed to pick a queen of these beauts - but Ornella Muti, Eva Thulin, Silvia Dionisio and Haydee Politoff were four not-so-often-seen faces amongst the more regularly seen beauties, which included the aforementioned BB and CB, as well as genre favourites such as Edwige Fenech, Rosalba Neri.
After a short break, I picked up the giallo trail with this very sexy outing:
AMUCK! (Alla Ricerca del Piacere - 1972, Silvio Amadio)
Barbara Bouchet is a young American woman called Greta Franklin, who becomes the secretary of a successful novelist, an ex-patriate now living, with his wife and over-sexed friends, on an island near Venice. What the author doesn’t know is that Greta was the friend (and lover!) of the previous secretary, who dissapeared without leaving a trace.
A giallo that hardly qualifies as a giallo, but probabably has more nudity and steamy sex scenes (most of them lesbian) than any other example in the same genre. Full, frontal, back, top, bottom, this movie has it all. Understandably it’s not dull, but not too much energy was spent on developing the mystery plot. Good cast, with the exception of the ever so dull Farley Granger.
The film is available on You Tube, so those who want to see Barbara Bouchet, Rosalba Neri and Patrizia Viotti in the nude, know where to go. And before I forget: the movie also offers a raunchy version of Red Riding Hood.
BUT, as far as I know 88 Films and either Camera Obscura or FilmArt are releasing it on blu-ray in the forseeable future and at least I will postpone my rewatching of it until I get my hands on one of those releases. I got the dvd release from EuroVista which is in full frame as far as I remember which only redeeming feature is that it is signed by both Barbara Bouchet and Rosalba Neri
I’ve read imdb comment that the line between what is generally consider “good Argento” and “bad Argento” is actually pretty thin, and I agree. This is considered lesser Argento, but it is actually exactly what you would expect from him. That weird, unsettling stye, over-the-top gore, bizarre plot, downright ridiculousness (if you think that “last image taken by the iris before death” in Four Flies was ridiculous, in this one there is a severed head that is still able to mumble last words), and genuine creepiness. It was OK, better than Opera IMO.
This weird idea is actually based on reality. I’ve read police tried to examine one of Jack the Ripper victim’s eyes if they had captured the image of murderer. I think there might have been more recent studies around the time Four Flies was made which might have inspired Argento.
In A History of Italian Cinema, Peter Bondanella writes the following about “this weird idea” in Four Flies on Grey Velvet (p. 384):
Like The Cat o’ Nine Tails, this film rests on the false claim of forensic science folklore that the police are capable of testing with a laser the eyeball of a murdered victim, since the retina supposedly will retain the killer’s image (an idea inspired by untested hypotheses of nineteenth-century studies of the eye).
I thought my tiki-bar ladies would complement that cover.
). 'Scept in AQPTK there’s a decent twist at the end.
) these (along with all the others mentioned) have some of the most beautiful women of the era thrilling their way through twisty turny plots as they don bikinis and bare flesh for the sake of their art.
