Giallo

[CineMaven]

Oh WoW Mr. A.!!! You brought back memories with that Giallo trailer. That trailer would play before every film. I love how it's introduced too. I love that trailer!! I'm going to put it in my Favorites list right now!



It's really quite a great experience when one immerses oneself totally into a genre and night after night after night drown in it. I had a wonderful time with these films, even as unsettling and shaken up as it would make me. ( Remember, I still have to travel home in the dark from the theatre. ) I thank my lucky stars I found out about the series...by accident. Life's a little crazy right now for me...but I want to get back into these in a big way.There's some great storytelling going on in Giallo that will be missed by those who are put off by sex and violence. And thank you so much Mr. A., for guiding those of us who want to explore the genre in a meaningful way.

I miss your "Fenechian" Tumblr avatar. But ( sigh! ) life is about change!

[Mr. Arkadin]

Great pics of you guys. I learned a lot from those clips. Suzie Kendall has made at least two other good films in this genre--Torso (1973) and Spasmo (1974), and to realize she got the call simply because of Musante's request is incredible. He also mentioned The Incident (1967), which FMC used to show and that is a spellbinding performance by all involved.

I should mention that the film we are talking about is The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1969), which introduced Giallo to the rest of the world outside of Italy:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyycwz_Msy0[/youtube]

The window scene--can you say Hitchcock?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjDuIpIUJYQ[/youtube]

Fenech photo for ya:

[Mr. Arkadin]

Since the concept of happy/sad endings is being discussed elsewhere on this board, I thought I might as well throw out some thoughts as to how it see it in this specific genre.

Giallo is unique to every other type of movie in the sense that the films are built upon suspense and release comes in the form of a twist ending, providing clarity to everything we thought we understood beforehand. Hitchcock's films are very similar to this, in fact, most gialli fans would agree that Vertigo (1958) and Psycho (1960) were forerunners and served as a road map for Italian directors. Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1969) has an ending much like Psycho where a doctor must explain the killers motive, but what is very different is although the Sam and his girlfriend Julia get on a plane for a "happy ending", we realize Julia was attacked and abused in the same way the killer was--which was the initial reason behind the murders. Will the cycle repeat itself with Julia? Argento wisely leaves this question for us to ponder.

There are also films like Vertigo where the murderer is actually never caught. Short Night of Glass Dolls (1971), The House with Laughing Windows (1976), Eye in the Labyrinth (1972), and The Designated Victim (1971) all share this trait with twist endings where everything goes wrong and our perceptions are turned upside down. In these films we don't just question motive, but our worldview.

[Mr. Arkadin]

Nice little documentary on the genre. This was originally a DVD extra on Death Walks at Midnight (1971):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgsSvnLbwQA[/youtube]

[Mr. Arkadin]

Courtesy Mr. Dewey:

[CineMaven]

Ahhhhhh! "The Bird With the Crystal Plumage."

[Mr. Arkadin]

TCM dips its toe into the Giallo world with a rare showing of The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) late tonight. Although the settings and characters are American, this film reeks of Italian influence and contains many of the hallmarks that define the genre. Check it out:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AID3rsgNvzE[/youtube]

[MikeBSG]

Yesterday I watched "Anatomy" (2000) directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky.

I think fans of giallo might like this German horror film about sinister goings on at an elite medical school. I found the film extremely enjoyable.

[ChiO]

Thought that this is the most likely spot for posting this short piece on an upcoming film at the Chicago International Film Festival.

[Mr. Arkadin]

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970) comes out today, restored by Criterion:

http://www.criterion.com/films/27911-in ... -suspicion

This is a very hard to find giallo that has many fascinating political and social aspects. I've got a bootleg, but I know this will look amazing.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-izhm7cGU4s[/youtube]

[Mr. Arkadin]

Revisited My Dear Killer (1971) a couple of nights ago. While not as complex as Lizard in a Woman's Skin, or The Designated Victim (both released in the same year), there are many nice touches and inside jokes, along with another brilliant score by Morricone. Fans of Agatha Christie will definitely see parallels in the investigation and endgame where the inspector gathers all the suspects together to unmask the murderer.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLYaB6EQ7CE[/youtube]

[Mr. Arkadin]

New to me Gialli:

Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll (1973)--A Spanish Giallo, dealing with an ex-convict taking a handyman job at a villa with three sisters--after which several brutal slayings take place.

Nine Guests for the Killer (1974)--Obviously based on Agatha Christie's Ten little Indians, where a group of people are locked inside a theater with a killer.

Both of these films were more about sex and titillation than anything else, with no real plot, or development of characters. Cinematography was non-existent and scoring was forgettable ho hum tripe. It's stuff like this that gives the genre a bad name: F

[Mr. Arkadin]

Ever wonder what a giallo version of Flashdance or Fame might look like? That's the premise of Lucio Fulci's Murder Rock (1983). I'd wanted to check this out for awhile, but never had the time to sit down and watch a film about dancing kids getting killed. Unfortunately, it turned out to be an hour and thirty minutes of my life that I'll never get back.

Fulci's work often teeters between brilliance and slop with this film wallowing in the latter. All of the terrible early eighties cliches are here, but are made even worse by the fact that they are interpreted by a non-American, who obviously got his understanding of U.S. culture from Jordache commercials. Fulci's camerawork is decent and he holds the gore in check (victims are pierced through the heart with a long needle), but the plot is obvious and provides none of the interesting social ideas of his earlier films that existed in Don't Torture a Duckling (1972), or the previous years New York Ripper (1982). Fulci also steals the dream sequence from Emilio Miraglia's The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972), which happens to be the best part of this movie.

What a mess. Made me want to borrow a pair of leg warmers, tie one over my eyes, and stuff the ends of the other in my ears: F

[CineMaven]

[Mr. Arkadin]

Does it get cheesier than this?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRudE2KCcG4[/youtube]

A much better choice with a similar scenario would be Death Carries a Cane (1973), a pulpy, trash giallo, which still manages to entertain despite (or perhaps because) of its limitations:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJMIsYUvydM[/youtube]

Of course, when discussion of dance school and murder arise:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7UefOfcly4[/youtube]