Priests, masks, strange little girls...

Priests, masks, strange little girls, yellow raincoats, big knives and guys with creepy attitudes towards women, what does that say to you?

Well, I have finally watched Alice, Sweet Alice aka Communion (1976), and I think this is a great example of an American giallo.

I'm not sure why I feel like I've watched it before, unless it's because the feeling I get from it is similar to what I got from watching Chabrol's Blood Relatives. I was sad to see that its director, a Hitchcock hommage-iste (hmmm I think I just made that word up) Alfred Sole didn't direct much else, but it's not a surprise that he did go on to be a production designer such is his eye for detail and beautifully framed scenes, and surprisingly for ladies costume; when I started watching this movie I was bit perplexed as to why the ladies were wearing such stylish suits, then a glimpse of a 1961 calendar in a detectives office answered my question, but I think it's quite unusual to find such authentic looking costumes in what is really a 70's horror movie.

It is queasily camp and hilariously stylised in parts (the scene with the large landlord leerily tried to kiss sweet Alice while a scratchy record of a strange and strangled opera plays on a Victrola seems to recall similar scenes from Charlie Chaplin's Mutual films where Eric Campbell terrorises a young female.

The effect of using the diminutive 19 year old actress Paula E. Sheppard (Liquid Sky) as the supposedly 12 year old Alice swings from disturbing to ridiculous and back again, her sullen wide eyes and pale face will not easily be forgotten. Don't look now (hint hint) - but I will definitely be placing this on my Giallo shelf.

"Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll"

Just been watching this much reviewed Giallo. I'll add some notes later, but suffice to say that after a slow start this did live up to its genre. Funnily, a film whose title actually makes sense (in a way). There's a lot that reminded me of Lenzi's 'Eyeball", although that was made two years later in 75. I'd recommend it for containing the usual themes (and a bean faced Paul Naschy), it's not exactly a thriller and when you've seen a load of these films it's not going to be a headache working out who dunnit but it's a bit of fun getting there.
I also noticed that there were a lot of bared bosoms in the first half, but they disappeared when the murders started happening.

Discovering Paolo Cavara

"Whose watching you Babes?" Still from "The Black belly of the Tarantula".

I've waited a while to see "Black Belly of the Tarantula", mainly because, until I started doing the t-shirts, I'd been aware that the amount of Giallo films around was finite and subsequently was willing to pace myself after my initial devouring of everything that I could get my hands on. In the last few years there has been an explosion of re-releases and also the availability of old video on the internet, and I've found myself having to get a move on if I'm to make any comment. I've had my favourites for a while and they still come out on top with the viewing I've done recently. So, it's been lovely to see the aforementioned film and another Cavara Giallo "Plot of Fear", and I hope I can get it together enough to comment more on these soon. Suffice to say, I've discovered two films which in their meandery, dreamy, gorgeousness which almost stand up to the Sergio Martino/Ernesto Gastaldi Gialli in their freshness, humour and eye for detail which has given me hope for Giallo viewing to come. I'd actually been expecting something a lot sleazier like "Strip Nude for your Killer", and maybe to a non Giallo viewer that would be the case, but the sumptuousness of the imagery, slickness of execution and general lack of prurience means they are a slice above some of the more mundane Gialli I've seen. Oh yes, and there are one or two moments of genuine suspense, which I find missing from all but the best Gialli - maybe this is due to watching so many... but then, if I picked up on it, is that more to do with a director who knows what he is doing.


A Coat to die for and another good reason to watch Giallo films! Still from "Plot of Fear"

Carolyn De Fonseca

Well I just got all excited after a quick Google around. I found this Wiki entry:

"Carolyn De Fonseca is an American actress and voice dubbing artist based in Rome.....'
And behold, there is the full list of her films. Excellente! I thought, and look how many others I missed, although I thought this may be due to me watching in the original Italian. What a fantastic resume.
But then I was very disappointed at not seeing "Torso" or "Footprints" there. Am I wrong? Well I've just been through the DVDs and it sounds like the same voice.
.......

Aha! I've just had to come back and add this find.Tim Lucas (my hero and one of the reasons I got into Giallo in the first place) did a blog entry about her where he mentions that she worked on approximately 1200 dubbing projects with her husband, and I've realised that the two roles I mentioned might have been too small to have been featured on that list. Sadly he also says that she died a few months ago. I wish I'd done a search on this amazingly prolific and interesting actress earlier.

A Ponder on Dubbing

Although I will watch Gialli in the original Italian dubbing if I have the choice, I've seen enough dubbed into English that there's one voice that sticks out for me. Having lost count of the times I've seen Suspiria I find the dubbing actress's voice for Olga is also used in "Torso" and last night, after seeing "Le Orme" again I recognised her as the voice for Alice's friend at the beginning of the film. I can't imagine it would be possible to credit the names of all the dubbing actors but I would be so interested in finding out who this person is, I'm sure there are many other voices I've heard repeatedly, but her voice is quite distinctive. I should start a search or perhaps someone reading this already knows...


"Le Orme"


"Torso"

"Lizard" at Bradford: 2

It was great to see this new release by Optimum of "Lizard" on the big-ish screen at Bradford the other night, which I've checked and is officially released on DVD this very day, excellento!

Apparently there have been some missing sequences restored which may or may not be important , depending on if you have seen the film already as they made add more to the consistency of the action, I couldn't really tell at this point because I'd seen it 4 times already and knew the story. Having looked through my Shriek Show DVD again I do think the film has been cleaned up somewhat. Seeing it on the big screen was much more involving though, that's the wonder of cinema, no distractions from the screen (ok, yes there can, but that's another story). Also my choice of seating (second row from the front - I love getting close) meant the effects of the hand held camera and close-ups were even more disorientating. Call me weird, but I just loved those extreme close-ups of telephones... if I'm a telephony-phile I blame it all on Mario Bava.



The Shriek Show DVDs include the release of 'Lizard' by American International also known as "Schizoid" and the original Italian. "Shizoid" is wide screen, but a lot of the skin and gore has been edited out and the dream murder sequence has been put through a wave effect - not quite sure why, unless it's to cover up the aforementioned edits (notably the close-ups of stabbing Juliet Durer's naked body which means gore AND breasts); the dog scene is missing completely, making Carol Hammond's fainting and the doctor's statement of "I do assure you that whoever left that door open will be punished" meaningless. Also scenes like when the family are silently eating around the table, before the phone call from Carol's aunt telling her about the murder weapon are missing, but I realise now this will have been to make the film shorter for US release. I think this editing is why the Giallo reviews I used to read some years ago, talk about them not making sense at all. Agreeably, a lot of Giallo may seem incomprehensible and disorientating, and Michael J. Koven's book covers the way Italian popular films were specifically compiled for a cinema audience that might have other things on their minds besides the film, but I think that the time spent on trying to release the original edits and the fact that more people are tuned into the aesthetic and the constructs of the genre mean the films do mostly make sense (ok...ish).
The Italian release on the disc (which I thought was totally uncut) is sadly in pan and scan.

But now the Optimum version is widescreen and with all the edits restored to the full length version. We saw it dubbed, which actually worked not too badly (apart from one of the missing sequences which came hurtling back in in Italian with subtitles).

Funnily the dog scene was much longer than I remembered it, I thought that more had been added and it appeared more gratuitous, (I found myself going "Yeah yeah Lucio" at the repeated shots of pumping and spurting internal organs), but having just gone back to the Disc I can see it's exactly the same. Memory huh!?

BTW, this time round I thought this is a fab idea for a duvet cover.



Little things I noticed, George Rigaud (Carol's psychiatrist) a stalwart of some great Giallo, was speaking in English, hitherto I'd thought the dubbing was working rather well. I checked on IMDB and he was born in Argentina, but made a helluva lot of Italian movies. I guess that as the cast was international and the film was made in the UK he chose to speak in English.

The policeman responsible for bringing in the confessed killer was VERY familiar. From an IMDB check, I can't work out if it was Luigi Antonio Guerra who was also in Le Orme as well as some others I've seen. Darn it, I was convinced it was the murderer from The 5th Cord. Will have to check out both again, just to see if it is he and/or how wrong I was.



Lizard is one of the reasons I have a hard time seeing Anita Strindberg as cowed victim in "Your Vice..." and "Scorpion's Tail", not her fault at all, though perhaps her face, for me, is too angular and her expression too knowing (intelligent?) to be as compelling a victim as Edwige. Perhaps for these reasons, her appearance in the dream sequences is absolutely iconic.



Comparing Strindbergs (Above "Lizard", below "Your Vice").

Lizard at Bradford: 1

Saw this with friend Bex last night at the Bradford Fantastic Film Festival.
I've seen it about 4 times already, having the Shriek Show DVDs in Italian and US cut version, this new release is by Optimum, I'll follow up with some notes later, but it were grand to see this on the big screen.

Giallo T-Shirts Live in Leeds

Location: THE FAVERSHAM
Times: 1.00PM - 6.00PM
Ticket prices: FREE ENTRY

Our friend Annabel at Shoddy and Mungo will be taking some of our t-shirts to sell at her stall at The Faversham this Saturday at the "While Stocks Last" retro/vintage clothes fair. I'm hoping to be there too for at least a couple of hours (though I have to dash back to take part in a Murder Mystery event, where I'm playing a school cook who might turn out to be a murderous chef, I don't know yet). It looks like it should be a beautifully retro-tastic experience and you can catch our "Flies" and other T's in person.

Hot off the Press

The designs for "Bird" went off last Friday and our lovely screenprinters at October Textiles got the screen ready in order to the the run today (a week earlier than anticipated - great stuff). This pic of the first t-shirt has just come through. I've been in touch to get the image shifted down a couple of cm but we're very pleased with the look of it. So a box of our lovely "L'Uccello" will be with us this weekend, and will be available to order online everso Pronto Pronto.

Now that's what I call a Cover

Thanks to the le-giallo Blog for alerting me to these releases from neo Publishing. The Blog has some tasty stills and interesting additions to the Giallo umbrella, I will have to take some time to try and read the rest of the reviews (my french not being so fantastique).

I felt I should add these in reference to one of my earlier posts because these covers combine style with the yellow background beautifully. The DVDs are subtitled in French, I'm supposing they are Italian language and not with English dubbing - oh darn it, I must get on an Italian course.

Amer

Checked out the trailer for Amer by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani. Love the poster, love the look, though I thought the trailer might be a little staid, I'm so wary of trailers these days. Looking at this though I'm hoping it could be a bit of Alain Robbe-Grillet meets Giallo, I hope so.

It's French/Belgian, I don't know many Belgian films apart from: "Daughters of Darkness", now if it was as stylish and as sinister as this film we are cooking.

Revival05 on IMDB says that the Giallo connection is not really justified although the motifs are all there, but the rest of the review means I will have to see it.... hmmm 'insanely imaginative imagery".

Cover Notes

Two for this evening.

I feel I've now moved into another level in my Giallo watching, and I don't necessarily mean in an upwards direction; this may be very unfair to these films, I haven't watched them yet, but this is my response to the covers from Shameless.

Now, I thank Shameless very much for making more Gialli available to the masses (although Italian dubbing would be a lovely addition), but compared to the mysterious and understated cover for the Blue Underground 2005 release of "Crystal Plumage" and the sumptuous Shriek Show version for "Woman in A Lizard's Skin" (I realise there are other complaints about the quality of the DVD), I can't help feeling that this has a negative effect on the perception on the product. Their cover for "Torso", which uses a still from the film, does not pave the way for the stylish delights therein, and is a bit of a spoiler. How much better is the sinister, atmospheric Anchor Bay 2000 cover, I have the recent Blue Underground release, which has an almost 60's poster look to it.

Consequently, I'm not expecting great things from these two - but, we shall wait and see.

Other favourites include:

"What have You Done to Solange" Shriek Show 2002

The NoShame Sergio Martino collection (these guys do do some delightfully stylish for other genres too)

"The House with Laughing Windows" Image Entertainment 2003

The "Perversion Story" cover above from Severin 2007

These are intriguing and stylish covers that you want on your shelf. I like the way Shameless have used the yellow as a nod to the books, which is handy because you will instantly pick them out on your shelves BUT, I'm not keen on these cheapo covers. I know there are people enjoy this look, but I'd love to see Shameless up their game a bit. I love schlock n'sleaze with the best of them, but I don't feel these are good examples of that either.

Early Christmas present to Self

La Dolce Morte by Mikel J. Koven - Scarecrow Press (and I am checking them out right now)
I am So going to enjoy this.

The first two lines:

"This book has three aims. The first, obviously, is an explanation of the giallo, albeit from a rather synchromic, rather than diachronic, perspective..."
I'm thinking "Cor!!!" in the manner of Norman Wisdom! I am getting my dictionary out and settling down to it shortly. All this and the sound of carol singers echoing in the park! Mmmmmm.

Pronto! Pronto! a go! go!

We drove back with our latest t-shirts hot off the press from the wonderful guys at October Textiles. This time I managed to take some film of the process. We've still got to take some pics with our models but the t-shirts will be for sale online later today.

There's a bit more to add but I just wanted to put the pics and film up for now.

Pronto Pronto

We're going to our printers next week to pick up our new t-shirts for "Pronto Pronto!" (popular request). Also we've decided to keep the url off this design. I'll be taking some pics of the printing process too.

Curtis Harrington's House Part2

Image © Tyler Hubby

I've just found out that the person who sent me the link to the pics of Curtis Harrington's house is film editor Tyler Hubby who has made a film profile of the director: House of Harrington, as well as editing Harrington's last film "Usher"; there's a mention of this gem in this lovely obituary on Alternative Film Guide by Andre Soares.

Speciale Stracult: L'Horror Italiano

What a fab find!

I was trawling around YouTube last night and just happened on this nugget Speciale Stracult: L'Horror Italiano. How cool. All 4 parts are worth a watch but this one is a must for Giallo fans, featuring some tiny interviews with Bava, Fulci and Freda, also quite a bit with Babs Steele (parts 1 and 4 has some lovely footage of Argento).

A Meander down Curtis Harrington Lane

OK, this is just a slightly sketchy response to a link I've just received which is a lovely coincidence as it has something to do with a new design I've been working on. A great set of pictures of: Curtis Harrington's House by TylerHubby.

I saw his film "Ruby" when it came out in the UK and although I saw it as an Exorcist/Carrie rip-off at the time I will never get certain scenes out of my head (it starred the lovely and unforgettable Piper Laurie too). Years later I started to find out more about this interesting director, and I was lucky enough to discover an interview with him in one of the copies of Films and Filming from the 70's which I'd rescued from the bin men in Crouch End about 20 years ago - but sorry I digress.

Curtis made Avante Garde films in the 40's and 50's (and also worked with Kenneth Anger). I've still to see "Night Tide" (with Dennis Hopper) though it's on my list. But I have seen "How Awful About Allan" and "Games" (and 'Who slew Aunty Roo' is on order). There's an unnerving and sinister dream like quality to these films that seems quite unique to him. I feel he's similar to Sergio Martino in that they both have a particular style that totally immerses the viewer in their world. I feel the same could be said of Russ Meyer.

I saw "Games" very recently, and it definitely could be considered Giallo-esque. I also can't help feeling that it was the inspiration behind "Oasis of Fear" ("Un posto ideale per uccidere") in some way.

Thoughts on "Mrs Wardh" and the woman's giallo

Just pondering somewhat about the idea of Sergio Martino's "The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh " being a 'woman's giallo', only because I've shown it to a few women friends (none Giallo watchers) and they've been quite taken by it.

Many Gialli follow a heroine being persecuted by a murderer but I still think "Wardh" does more.

Similar themes run through Carnimeo's "The Case of the Bloody Iris" (which is more of a "fun giallo").

In both films (both written by Ernesto Gastaldi) Edwige Fenech plays a victim of an ex-husband. In "Iris", Jennifer Lansbury has been previously married to the head of a cult who makes her take part in orgies somewhat against her will. Julie Wardh, although seemingly in a passive role is actually a willing participant in the S&M flavoured games with her husband Jean ie: the strange vice of the title.

In "Iris" the character is less rounded, generic victimised female, the important thing is the plat, finding out who the murderer is, whereas in Wardh, we're not sure, we want to know why and what's she going to do, there's a stalker about but we're still more engaged by what Mrs Ward thinks.

In Wardh she has motivations, I love the wonderful long bike ride with George (George Hilton) where different expressions flutter across her face as she seemingly makes her mind up about him, first excitement, then fear, some suspicion and finally desire.

Mrs Wardh is clearly a complex woman willing to take risks. She's left Jean (Ivan Rassimov), presumably tired and fearful of her games with him and looked for security and stability with Neil Wardh - but we sense all is not well - she still yearns for excitement (and someone who clearly isn't averse to wearing a bit of lip gloss now and again) and takes a risk again to pursue a relationship with George.

Maybe my friends enjoyed that in the end Mrs Wardh falls victim to all three males in her life - like you can't trust blokes sane or insane!? I wonder about that cop at the end too, wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him.

"All the Colour of the Dark" is yet another Martino film to make the heroine the main protagonist, but it follows the route of having us assume that the heroine, Jane Harrison (Edwige again) could be unbalanced, so you're not sure if everything is real or in her head; this is somewhat distancing and like "Sweet Body of Deborah" and "The Red Queen Kills 7" Times" you're not quite immersed in the heroine's world.

I don't think any other Giallo I've seen (and there are still plenty more of me to see) matches "Wardh" for depth of characterisation and motivation. The victim becomes the victor in a round about twist and has much more to do with her persecutors' demise than most other rescued heroines.

Edwige is important in this respect too. In the other Martino Gialli, "Your Vice" and "Scorpions Tail", the victim is played by Anita Strindberg who doesn't have that vulnerability. Hers is a rather fragile, febrile victimhood and indeed with the twist in "Scorpion's Tail" this suits the character. You feel sorry for her in both but there's something about Fenech's depiction of fear that is almost voluptuous - she wallows in it, in fact is almost galvanised by it...there's nothing lightweight about her screaming.

So there's me thoughts, somewhat incoherent but you get the picture.

URL on T-Shirt

This is an interesting one for me, because I do like text and images together (as you may have guessed from the other designs) and I quite liked the detailed url against the larger picture of a laughing Rassimov incorporated into the design (and I thought it balanced the "Four Flies" title quite well) . However, we have had three comments so far that object to the url and see it as spoiling the design, now that I wasn't expecting but has made me think.

The reason we put the logo and url on the design was because we haven't put our labels inside the garments yet, we do want to we've only done a relatively short run so far to see what people like and it's not been cost effective to add the labels we've designed. We wanted something that told people who we are as well as signifying what the t-shirt was about and so we decided to include the url as part of the design.

For the next run we will have labels, (although not for Rassimov or Four Flies as that we'd have to pay for the set up again - and we couldn't do that just yet) and as we do more I'm looking forward to having some lovely swing tags too (mmmm I've got some lovely ideas for swing tags - I have a wish list of goodies). I'd be very interested to hear what other people think as if we get more feedback like this we may reconsider the url on the other designs.