This film represents one of the few instances where I enjoyed an Italian film better in its English-dubbed incarnation (another I can recall is CASTLE OF BLOOD [1964]), which I first watched via the R2 Anchor Bay DVD. Still, the fact that the Italian dubbing on the DVD rental edition I now checked out was newly-recorded – rather than what was originally shown to theatres (the distinctive voice of the only Italian actress among the main cast, Laura Betti, is sorely missed) – wasn’t an enthusing prospect to begin with...
Anyway, the film is one of Bava’s most unusual – ditto for the giallo genre; rather than having a variety of suspects among whom to determine the killer, here the hero (who also acts as narrator) tells us upfront who it is – himself! This makes of it a sort of black comedy – even though handsome lead Stephen Forsyth doesn’t exactly set the screen on fire…and the film is, in any case, undermined by the deliberate pacing typical of the “Euro-Cult” style.
Bava here also served as his own cinematographer (with any number of smooth camera moves and striking compositions), and the result – with Forsyth’s villa and atelier (the latter, a familiar giallo setting) as attractive backdrops – is a beautiful-looking film; the editing, too, is creatively done. The various murders are, obviously, among the film’s highlights – as is Sante Romitelli’s memorable score (at once melancholically playful and creepily avant-gardist).
Perhaps the most effective scene is Betti’s murder halfway through (whom Forsyth kills while he’s decked out in a bridal veil!) – which is immediately followed by the arrival of the police on the scene to interrogate Forsyth on a previous victim (where the wife’s blood dripping from the stairs and reflection on a table-top could give the killer away at any moment); an amusing in-joke here is the fact that Forsyth had been watching a TV screening (in black-and-white) of Bava’s own BLACK SABBATH (1963)! Also interesting are Betti’s numerous apparitions (which again stresses the absurdist/psychological aspects of the plot, since this is clearly not a supernatural tale): at first, Forsyth can’t see her but everyone else can – so, to make doubly sure, he exhumes her interred body, burns it in his incinerator and, then, keeps her ashes constantly with him inside a leather bag!; when he’s finally captured, the situation is reversed – the wife determined to haunt Forsyth till his dying day!
Lovely “Euro-Cult” starlet Dagmar Lassander plays the heroine who, even though she’s eventually revealed to have served as police-bait for the killer every step of the way, demonstrates genuine affection for Fosyth throughout. Incidentally, the police inspector is unusually perceptive for this type of film and, at various points in the narrative, he lets Forsyth know that he’s his chief suspect – even equating the latter’s greenhouse (where plants are made to grow in an unnatural manner) with the inner workings of a madman’s mind!
While the final revelation isn’t really much of a surprise, it’s interesting that a piece of the puzzle which haunts Forsyth – he also receives intermittent visits from himself as a child, to act as a guide through his hazy past – is seen to fall into place with each new murder of a bride! By the way, the film was an Italian/Spanish co-production written by Santiago Moncada – whose work includes two other fine “Euro-Cult” offerings, THE CORRUPTION OF CHRIS MILLER (1973; still unavailable on DVD, though I did get to catch it on DVD-R while in Hollywood in late 2005/early 2006) and A BELL FROM HELL (1973).
Anyway, the film is one of Bava’s most unusual – ditto for the giallo genre; rather than having a variety of suspects among whom to determine the killer, here the hero (who also acts as narrator) tells us upfront who it is – himself! This makes of it a sort of black comedy – even though handsome lead Stephen Forsyth doesn’t exactly set the screen on fire…and the film is, in any case, undermined by the deliberate pacing typical of the “Euro-Cult” style.
Bava here also served as his own cinematographer (with any number of smooth camera moves and striking compositions), and the result – with Forsyth’s villa and atelier (the latter, a familiar giallo setting) as attractive backdrops – is a beautiful-looking film; the editing, too, is creatively done. The various murders are, obviously, among the film’s highlights – as is Sante Romitelli’s memorable score (at once melancholically playful and creepily avant-gardist).
Perhaps the most effective scene is Betti’s murder halfway through (whom Forsyth kills while he’s decked out in a bridal veil!) – which is immediately followed by the arrival of the police on the scene to interrogate Forsyth on a previous victim (where the wife’s blood dripping from the stairs and reflection on a table-top could give the killer away at any moment); an amusing in-joke here is the fact that Forsyth had been watching a TV screening (in black-and-white) of Bava’s own BLACK SABBATH (1963)! Also interesting are Betti’s numerous apparitions (which again stresses the absurdist/psychological aspects of the plot, since this is clearly not a supernatural tale): at first, Forsyth can’t see her but everyone else can – so, to make doubly sure, he exhumes her interred body, burns it in his incinerator and, then, keeps her ashes constantly with him inside a leather bag!; when he’s finally captured, the situation is reversed – the wife determined to haunt Forsyth till his dying day!
Lovely “Euro-Cult” starlet Dagmar Lassander plays the heroine who, even though she’s eventually revealed to have served as police-bait for the killer every step of the way, demonstrates genuine affection for Fosyth throughout. Incidentally, the police inspector is unusually perceptive for this type of film and, at various points in the narrative, he lets Forsyth know that he’s his chief suspect – even equating the latter’s greenhouse (where plants are made to grow in an unnatural manner) with the inner workings of a madman’s mind!
While the final revelation isn’t really much of a surprise, it’s interesting that a piece of the puzzle which haunts Forsyth – he also receives intermittent visits from himself as a child, to act as a guide through his hazy past – is seen to fall into place with each new murder of a bride! By the way, the film was an Italian/Spanish co-production written by Santiago Moncada – whose work includes two other fine “Euro-Cult” offerings, THE CORRUPTION OF CHRIS MILLER (1973; still unavailable on DVD, though I did get to catch it on DVD-R while in Hollywood in late 2005/early 2006) and A BELL FROM HELL (1973).