4 BLOOD-STAINS ON YELLOW SCREEN (aka 4 blood-stained gialli)
I have watched 4 gialli which make the blood-stained “tetralogy”. Well, they are actually linked only by english versions of their titles which all contain something stained in blood. Two of them are more or less literal translation from Italian original, one is pretty close (‘Butterfly with bloody wings’ would be more correct) while The Blodstained Shadow has nothing to do with Solamente Nero which would translate as something like ‘Only Black’.
The Bloodstained Shadow (1978 ‘Solamente nero’, Antonio Bido) is sometimes mentioned as one of the better gialli, but to me it was rather dull and predictable. Score by Stelvio Cipriani is good though. Duccio Tessari’s The Bloodstained Butterfly (1971 ‘Una farfalla con le ali insanguinate’) belongs among more serious gialli. Most of the movie relies more on police investigations and courtroom drama, than on lurid killings and scares. I liked it, but it stalled at the moments, which prevented it from being elevated among true favorites of mine. True favorite in this quartet is Umberto Lenzi’s Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972 ‘Sette orchidee macchiate di rosso’). It has everything: black-gloved killer, great score by Riz Ortolani, stylish death scenes, likable leads, interesting puzzle to solve, beautiful scenery, enough but not too much camp, sexiness, very strong Lenzi’ directing and plenty but not to much genre cliches (casual chauvinism being one of them: “police broke him during the investigation, what do you think they’ll do to a woman like you”). Off course, if you are familiar with genre cliches, you’ll know the killer the moment he/she appears, but this was still very fine and recommendable giallo that is now in my Top20 list. The one I’ve seen last is The Bloodstained Lawn (1973 ‘Il prato macchiato di rosso’, Riccardo Ghione). It’s not really bad, but it is the dullest of them. Early promise of scary things to come is never really fulfilled and despite promising setting, movie is not very eventful. It probably says something about how the privileged are draining the blood from the unprivileged ones: the poor, the weak, the misfits, but this is not laid out in very skillful manner. The late great Italian singer-songwritter Lucio Dalla sings the main song and appears in the role of the drunk.
Marina Malfatti appears as one of central characters in …Lawn and is also one of the Orchids.She sure liked those low-cut dresses.
