La Fine dell'innocenza / The End of Innocence / Blue Belle / Emanuelle's Daughter Blue Belle

There are, I think, at least two ways of reading Blue Belle / La Fine dell'innocenza.

The first, suggested by the Oriental setting and Annie Belle's appearances in Forever Emanuelle and Black Emanuelle, White Emanuelle - the later opposite Laura Gemser - is as Em(m)anuelle junior.

The second, suggested by Harry Alan Tower's involvement in the production, along with the presence of his wife/partner Maria Rohm in the cast, is as a more Sadean exercise along the lines of Jess Franco's Eugenie and Justine, being about the initiation of a naïve young woman into the workings of the real world.


La bellissima Belle

Whatever the case, director Massimo Dallamano was a good choice to help a stranger to such material, with his Sacher-Masoch adaptation Venus in Furs and schoolgirls in peril gialli What Have You Done to Solange? and What Have You Done to Your Daughters?, demonstrating a facility for taking what could have merely been sleaze seriously.


A messy close up of someone eating, recalling Dallamano's background as spaghetti western cinematographer

The story, significantly co-authored by Belle, begins with her guardian Michael arriving at the convent school to take her character, confusingly also called Annie Belle in apparent reference to Emmanuelle Arsan's eponymous, semi-autobiographical heroine, away with him.

He gives her a new outfit, which she changes into in the back of the Rolls Royce as a passing cyclist keeps pace with the car and, presumably much like the implied male spectator, enjoys the show.

Already, however, there is also a split evident: if the cyclist knows nothing of the couple and their relationship and plays no further part in the proceedings, we are likely to already more than a little disconcerted by the film-makers' declining to spell out the exact details of Michael and Belle's relationship with one another nor offer the expected explicit condemnation of his borderline incestuous cum Humbert Humbert tendencies.

Nor do things become much clearer after the action shifts to Hong Kong. Michael introduces Belle to his idle rich expatriate associates, before then being arrested on - admittedly well-founded - suspicion of currency smuggling. Left on her own, Laure is forced to make her own way in this demi-monde.


Intertextuality, 70s style

What follows is very much the usual stuff: copious nudity; some intentional humour, much of it revolving Al Cliver's collection of erotic curious and the reactions of more respectable old-timers to them (Cliver's presence feels very much of the cast-one, get-one-free variety, as also seen with the Gemser-Gabriele Tinti pairing in the Black Emanuelle films) ; extensive travelogue and quasi-documentary shooting, including sequences at a Buddhist temple where nun Ines Pellegrini delivers some pat Eastern wisdoms; various softcore lesbian and heterosexual numbers and, most problematic of all, a no-becomes-yes rape scene in which Belle loses her hitherto surprisingly retained virginity at the hands of her new mentor and confidant Linda's lover, Angelo. (Angelo's identity is revealed by the giallo-esque image of his distinctive ring, which Belle recognises in the resulting flashback.) In the end, however, Belle emerges triumphant, a new woman ready to face the world and whatever it can throw at her.




The female gaze, objectifying the male body?

Dallamano's backround as a cinematographer is in evidence in the way he directs, with a particular emphasis on shots that position us distanced from the action through some sort of barrier - a window frame, a piece of ironwork, a fence etc. - or with one character looking in on another.

The importance of voyeurism is further confirmed by several observational moments within the film, with telescopes, binoculars or through a keyhole. While for the most part these present men observing women, they are not exclusively about the "male gaze," with the keyhole scene in fact showing two women objectifying a man. In addition, another scene presents one character listening in, via a discreetly off the hook telephone, to two others making love, indicating a different, aural rather than visual regime and dynamic at work.


Whatever...

Given the film's exotic and Orientalist themes, it is perhaps also worth mentioning that the dominance of the visual over the other senses is arguably less a universal than a product of western culture at a particular point in its development and that, as such, psychoanalytic notions that tend to be derived from the experience of these selfsame cultures may also be less generalisable than their proponents have often recognised. Though there is nothing new in this, with it quickly being recognised that Laura Mulvey's ideas here, for instance, very much assumed a white, middle class, heterosexual position, it is I think also worth reiterating.

Another interrelated issue here is that of consciousness and false consciousness: What do we say and do when the female spectator identifies with the 'wrong' subject position, as defined by the theorist and their theory? How does the theorist square a concern for women's own, supposedly authentic voice and experience, when it does not echo her own? What does the theoriest say when someone who is 'objectively' oppressed by patriarchy, capitalism and/or colonialism subjectively refuses to acknowledge this oppression?

Though such issues may seem navel gazing, the point is that they cut to the heart of exploitation cinema itself. Indeed, Blue Belle brings them closer to the fore than most exploitation films because of the multiple roles played by Belle. While it is difficult to say how far the film reflects her own thoughts on gender relations and coming of age, especially given that the actual writing of the screenplay also included contributions from Dallamano and Towers, the confused messages that emerge are nothing if not challenging.

Who was behind the oh so 1970s "porno rape" scene? Who detailed the reactions of Belle and those around her to her violation? Were these understood as representations of fantasy or of reality? If rape is undoubtedly abhorrent, does this mean that rape fantasies are necessarily bad, as per the old 'pornography is theory, rape is practice' line? Unsurprisingly I don't pretend to have any answers here - indeed, I think such questions are basically unanswerable. But again it is the fact that a basically unpretentious exploitation film that is provoking me to think about them and, hopefully, you to respond.

Like its models and the mondo, with its equivalent scenes of the exotic, unusual and perverse, the film's narrative approach is decidedly episodic, with individual scenes and sequences that often exist in and for themselves as much as a part of the larger whole: After the opening sequence has introduced Belle with medium-length brown hair the next scene, set in the Alps, sees her with her more familiar bleach-blonde pixie crop.

Another, decidedly what-the-hell moment, sees Belle being attacked by a group of robbers and rescued by the timely interventions of a martial artist as if in a Bruce Lee film. This is, however, then retrospectively revealed as being a scene from the making of a film within a film. If the inclusion of such material is incongruous, it also serves to further highlight the interconnections between world popular cinemas - think also here of the Ford / Kurosawa / Leone triangle, of Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars - and their willingness to borrow from one another's traditions in search of new attractions to present to their sensation-hungry audiences.

A similar hybridity is evident in Bixio-Frizzi-Tempera's scoring in which the acoustic guitar and female vocal led ballad predominant in the early European sequences, is contrasted with sitar - admittedly not the most obvious Chinese instrument - in some of the Hong Kong sequences before these two themes are eventually reconciled and combined in the penultimate scene.

La Polizia chiede aiuto / What Have You Done to Your Daughters?

Acting on an anonymous tip off, the police discover the naked body of a schoolgirl, soon identified as Silvia Solvesi, hanging in a locked loft.


Sincerity or sensationalism?

The autopsy reveals that she had had sex just prior to death, with “traces of sperm in the vagina, the anus and the stomach,” and was two months pregnant; other details also point to murder rather than suicide....




The discovery of the body

The dead girl's boyfriend Marcello is an obvious point of call, but has a rock-solid alibi, having been spelunking at the time of her death. He reveals that she sexual partners before him and was surprisingly wealthy for a 15-year-old schoolgirl, even one with rich – if predominantly absent – parents.


The projector keeps rolling as the image is freeze-framed and enlarged, but we can forgive them this...

Going to the apartment Silvia secretly rented, Inspector Silvestri (Claudio Cassinelli) and new public prosecutor Vittoria Stori (Giovanna Ralli) find enough blood to indicate a second murder and prompting a feeding frenzy amongst the press.

Their investigation soon leads to another body, that of the private investigator who had briefly been employed by Silvia's mother to tail her after she caught the underage girl daughter with contraceptive pills, with this in turn leading to the discovery that Silvia was one of a number of girls involved in a schoolgirl prostitution ring.

Its masterminds remain elusive, however. Worse, a seemingly unstoppable machete-wielding assassin in motorbike leathers is intent on killing off anyone who might aid the investigators in their quest...






Cassinelli and Ralli impress in their roles

Released in 1974 at the point when the poliziotto was taking over from the giallo at the Italian box office, Massimo Dallamano's La Polizia chiede aiuto / What Have You Done to Your Daughters? may hedge its bets by including elements of both filone – note, for instance, how the killer in the leathers is unambiguously identified as male by his voice, although he remains nameless and faceless until later – but ultimately succeeds on its own terms as a worthwhile continuation of the unofficial schoolgirls peril trilogy inaugurated by What Have They done to Solange? two years earlier.


A touching moment

Unlike that film there we are not presented with a parade of suspects and red herrings and invited to sift through the evidence and attempt to solve the mystery for ourselves. Rather, we follow Silvestri, Stori and their colleagues more or less in lock step with few if any digressions without a direct bearing on their investigations, resulting in a faster pace and more consistent if decidedly downbeat and sordid tone compared to its predecessor.


An exploitative image, an image of exploitation, or both?

This also helps us in knowing how we are supposed to respond to the sight of the naked Silvia / Cheryl Lee Buchanan, for instance, as equally or more an images of exploitation than an exploitative image, marking something of a contrast with the often confused stance of Solange in the likes of its shower sequences.

On the other hand, Solange is perhaps the more successful of the two films as far as using music is concerned. While Stelvio Cipriani's driving score certainly matches the pace of the film and ratchets up the tension as and when required, it is less diverse and feels less integrated into the whole; I tend to find Cipriani's cues, while certainly effective and memorable enough as pieces of music somewhat interchangable between films, in that I hearing yet another signature ostinato but can never quite place it as the leitmotif for a specific character / film.






An effective shock moment

As with the poliziotto there is a strong element of political critique to the film with an interesting balance insofar as both post-1968 radicals and the establishment are commented on, the former for the ease with which they seem to be able to accommodate previously apolitical violent elements (we're told that one of the rioters captured on the film went from convictions for assault to political extremism) and the latter for their endemic, systematic corruption. Unlike the more typical entry within that filone, however, there is a curious lack of resolution. No-one steps outside the boundaries of the law to deliver vigilante justice nor resigns their post in disgust and / or despair; there is no “free hand for a tough cop” to be found here.


A new alliance?

Paradoxically, this also gives the ending to an otherwise grim film a curiously upbeat quality. One gets the sense of new alliances being formed and a determination to get it right the next time, Silvestri and Stori having realised that their differences in attitude and approach pertain to means rather than ends, with the former's masculine directness and the latter's feminine touch each having their role to play. (“You've proved yourself as capable as any man,” as Silvestri tells Stori in response to her “fishing” for insights – and, crucially, getting them where he is not always able.)


He knows...


and she knows he knows...

This impression is also sustained by the closing title. Although compromised by overstating its message – while I can't claim to be an expert, do the majority of runaways really just disappear, never to be seen again as title implies? – and being ironically juxtaposed with the disclaimer that the film is not intended to refer to any real persons or situations, I found the effect curiously reminiscent of Fritz Lang's M, the message that it is now up to the audience; that we are the ones who can effect a change and who should be watch out for our own daughters.

Cassinelli and Ralli themselves well, even allowing for the effects of dubbing, bringing intelligence and sensitivity to their performances, while Mario Adorf again impresses with his range in a smaller role as Valentini.

Dallamano does likewise, utilising a wide variety of techniques, including frenetic first person handheld camera, dramatic angles and compositions and distorting lenses, but without indulging in style-for-styles sake type grandstanding .

Though the suspense and action sequences are well handled – excepting a lapse in continuity when the killer's nighttime attempt on Rita's life at the hospital segues into a daytime chase – the most accomplished and powerful moments are in many respects also the simplest in their construction.

One thinks here of the private detective's ex-wife coming to identify her husband's remains and indicating, despite Casinelli's stating that it is not necessary, she wants to see them all, “the whole thing, how the bastard ended up,” to then break down as the reality underlying this tough talking, the mess of pieces, hits her; or of the exchange of looks between Valentini and his daughter Patricia, their changes in expression proving far more powerful than the dramatic zoom or intensifying close-ups a less thoughtful film-maker would likely have employed as an indication that he now knows her secret...

Above all, however, it is the sequence where Silvestri, Stori and audience listen, with mounting horror to the tape capturing exchanges between the schoolgirls and their clients. Running just short of three minutes, Dallamano constructs the sequence with only three shots, with minimal camera movement.


A masterclass in the minimal producing the maximum effect

It is a “poetic” instance that seems to confirm the underlying sincerity of the piece, confounding the expectations of those after easy entertainment by doing the kind of thing more expected of Antonioni – as per the famous end sequences of L'Eclisse and L'Avventura – than filone.


As with Don't Torture a Duckling the filming of a funeral provides a clue

It also provides a salutory reminder that it is easy to over-emphasise the visual element to the detriment of all else, the clue that ultimately leads to the identification of those behind the prostitution ring proving, as with many gialli, to be aural rather than visual.

Beyond this, meanwhile, one wonders whether we could speak of aural displeasure as a counterpart / counterpoint to the famous Mulveyean notion of visual pleasure – a pleasure, of course, that Dallamano is also keen to make us aware of and throw into question by the relentless self-referentiality of his images (“damn peeping tom; still, maybe we should thank him for the lead,” remarks Silvestri at one point) and auto-critique of media sensationalism.


Sincerity or sensationalism?, once more


I Bambini ci guardano

That the killer – in truth little more than a minion doing the dirty work – is brought to book through the intervention of a young girl leads nicely into the third part of the triad, Enigma Rosso / Rings of Fear, where her counterpart takes a rather more active and involved role...

La morte non ha sesso / A Black Veil for Lisa

Inspector Franz Bulov (John Mills) of Interpol is a man beset by problems. Hamburg has become a centre for the narcotics trafficking and he is under pressure to crack the case. Bulov is one-hundred percent certain than Schurmann is at the centre of the operation – although less so whether Shurmann is acting alone or represents a larger syndicate – but has not managed to get any actual evidence to this effect. Whenever an would-be informant comes forth with the offer of such, they invariably meet a swift end at the hands of a hitman. To make matters worse, Bulov is increasingly suspicious that his considerably younger wife Lisa (Luciana Paluzzi) is having an affair, as she often fails to return his calls or is unexpectedly absent from their home, and this finding it harder to concentrate on official business.









Touches of giallo

It is not, however, that the assassin, Max Lindt (Robert Hoffmann) is having things any easier. Having successfully undertaken three jobs he feels he has already stretched his luck and just wants to take his money and get out of the city. But his contact indicates that it would be bad for his health not to postpone his flight and do a fourth:

“How often do you think a man can get away with murder? I've been lucky. I want to stay lucky”

“You don't understand Max – there isn't much choice.”

“What do you mean?”

“You want to go away? Not tomorrow. Go away the day after tomorrow. Take my advice – if you want to be around and catch that plane, well then do what I tell you.”




Yet more classic iconography

Sure enough, Max's luck runs out this time round. While the hit again goes off without any difficulties, he drops his distinctive lucky silver dollar (complete with mark caused by stopping a bullet) by the body. Bulov finds its and thus the clue he needs for a break in the case, as he recalls that not too long ago he had rounded up a with a compulsive habit of tossing a similar coin: Max Lindt.

But by the time Bulov had managed to track down and apprehend Max his balance of priorities has once more shifted towards Lisa. Unsatisfied by her explanation that the red Porsche she was in belonged to a purported friend he had never previously heard her mention – a small detail of the sort it it worth paying attention to in this carefully constructed film – he is now convinced she is unfaithful. In his quiet, calm, controlled rage he thus makes Max an offer / deal, the exact details of which are however left deliberately vague for us, the filmmakers glossing over the rest of the exchange: Max is to kill Lisa.




Bulov – a divided self?

Posing as an insurance salesman – a nicely ironic occupation if one considers intertexts such as Double Indemnity and The Killers – Max pays Lisa a visit. Whether on account of his inherent reluctance to carry out such a bad luck job, immediate physical attraction or Lisa's handling of the situation, Max does not go through with the deed the first time round and begins to hatch a plan of his own...

Released in 1968, La morte no ha sesso / A Black Veil for Lisa presents an intriguing post-Bava, pre-Argento take on the giallo for those who are interested in charting the development of the filone and an engaging noir-styled crime story for those less concerned with such details.

One area where the former aspect is apparent is the way Max is presented. We are first introduced to him as the metonymic black-gloved hand, invariably tossing a coin George Raft style when it not wielding a knife. His attire – a black raincoat completes the ensemble – has some of the qualities of a disguise as per Blood and Black Lace (we're even told that the clothes and weapon are “mass produced [...] cheap stuff that anyone can pick up in a chain-store”) but Max's superstitious nature (“I've lost my lucky dollar!” “Is that the end of the world?” “Yes, for me it is!”) coupled with ritualistic way he leaves the weapon, gloves and coat by the body of each victim suggest a fetish element more akin to the post-Bird with the Crystal Plumage giallo.








Some of the many faces of Lisa

Another important element here is the fact that A Black Veil for Lisa is not particulary concerned with the conventional whodunnit aspect of most gialli, with Max's second appearance – i.e. qua Max, the professional assassin – momentarily throwing one's genre expectations for a loop given the his more generically conventional introduction.

Equally, however, the films position as one with more in common with the earlier noir than later poliziotto-giallo hybrids such as director Massimo Dallamano's own What Have You Done to Your Daughters? is signalled by the way in which Bulov is from the outset a decidedly compromised figure, frequently shot by the director in profile or with half his face in shadow to suggest a divided and / or duplicitous nature. While a poliziotto type cop would certainly bend the rules, filmmakers invariably made it clear that this was an ends justifying the means strategy and that the division between police protagonist and gangster antagonist was ultimately an absolute one. Here, by contrast, we have two compromised male figures with far more in common than they would perhaps care to admit. (Significantly Max also uses the alias Hans Schmidt, his forename sounding too like Franz for Lisa's liking.)

Both are, after all, defined in terms of their unhealthy obsessions, Bulov with Lisa, Max with his lucky coin, which then become symbols of exchange between them (i.e. Bulov takes possession of the coin, Max of Lisa). Both also seek to manipulate time to their advantage, Bulov extracting the information he needs from a young junkie / hooker type by lying to her about the time one of Max's victims died to make her think she is suspected of murder and Max winding the next victims' watch forward before smashing it to suggest a later time of death.




Examples of compositions that tell you almost all you need to know

Oddly, however, nothing further then comes of this detail. What makes it odd is that the filmmakers otherwise reward the attentive viewer by judiciously avoiding over-emphasising significant details. Thus, for example, while tulips are mentioned early on as being somehow mixed up in the whole affair, Bulov doesn't immediately pay the (yellow) flowers on the dining table of his house very much attention, being more interested in the note that Lisa has left besides them. Thus by the time he does notice them he's also too wrapped up in his personal business to consider whether there might be some wider connection. Yet the joke is also on us: while the flowers appear in the and closing sequences, the end doesn't quite answer the beginning in that we never learn exactly what their significance is, besides being the McGuffin.


Is this the real Lisa, or just her as she appears in Franz's insanely jealous mind?

A sense of mystery also applies as far as Franz and Lisa's relationship is concerned. We know that she was in trouble with the law and that whilst nothing was ever proven, a sense of no smoke without fire hangs over her and the relationship as far as her husband's superiors are concerned, but little else as to what brought them together:

“I'm not a criminal and I refuse to be treated like one – I've had enough”

“So what are you going to do? Leave?”

“What do you expect me to do? Keep paying all my life for one mistake?”

“What mistake was that? Making friends with Reinhardt?”

“I knew you'd drag that up again!”

This said, anyone familiar with noir is likely to quickly draw their own picture as to what is really going on, how far the marriage was one of love and of convience and for whom; while it is difficult to say much more without running the risk of spoiling the viewer's enjoyment, I did feel that the filmmakers' made a lapse in judgement here by ultimately lifting the veil a bit too much towards the end.

Make no mistake, however: A Black Veil for Lisa is the kind of giallo that can be enjoyed by fan and non-fan alike and on a number of levels, with filmmaking, writing and performances each of a higher than usual standard for the genre.

Dallamano strives to tell his story as visually as possible and to avoid doing the most obvious thing if he can. Thus, for example, when Bulov excuses himself to make a quick telephone call home whilst in conference with his colleagues, Dallamano does not simply cut in on a close up of Bulov's face, but rather dollies in, then reverse this movement when Lisa fails to answer and Bulov tries to returns to the business at hand, after imagining Lisa in the arms of another conveyed through a series of rapid-fire inserts: if his mind is understandably somewhat distracted thereby, there is no doubt that Dalllamano's is not.

The director's background as cinematographer also comes through, making good use of location – excepting some iffy back-projection – and screen space through compositions that reveal almost all we need to know – or as much as they are willing to let us know - about the shifting constellation of Franz, Max and Lisa through their respective position within the frame, screen depth and selectivity of focus and attention.

Finally a question: who does Jimmy il fenomeno play? Is he the newspaper vendor who gives Bulov tips?

Rings of Fear / Enigma Rosso

The body of a girl, Angela Russo, from the exclusive St Teresa's School for Girls is found in the river, wrapped in plastic like Twin Peaks' Laura Palmer.


One of many Twin Peaks-isms in the film, others including a secret diary and repeated references to coffee

Detective Di Salvo (Fabio Testi) is assigned the case, but finds the investigation going slowly until the dead girl's younger sister Emily indicates that he should focus his attentions on Angela's friends Franca, Paola and Virginia, the remaining three-quarters of a group collectively known as the Inseparables (“if anybody knows what Angela was up to, it's them”) and gives him the dead girl's purse, containing clues in the form a surprisingly large sum of money and a secret diary in which the Saturdays are marked with a stylised cat.

It is less than clear what the figure means, however, until a convenient roadside billboard reveals it as the logo of brand of designer jeans sold at a boutique in town.

Further investigation soon reveals that the Inseparables were regular visitors to the place and that it is the hub for a schoolgirl prostitution ring. Unfortunately the ringleaders have friends in high places who will do whatever it takes to protect themselves, including murder.








De Salvi meets some of the the staff of St Teresa's School for Girls; comparing this to the equivalent scene in What Have You Done to Solange the influence of Massimo Dallamano is evident

Meanwhile Franca, Paola and Angela find themselves being terrorised by figure identifying themselves only as Nemesis. (“Run towards the black shadow. Death will come to meet you and your deepest desires will then come true. Nemesis.”)




The Inseparables in the shower and under observation, perhaps by Il Gatto dagli occhi di giada?

With no fewer than six writers working on the script for Rings of Fear, it is not surprising that the end results are somewhat confused at times, most notably in the handling of Di Salvo's relationship with his kleptomaniac partner Christina; fed up with his devotion to the job, she announces that if he leaves she will not be there when he returns and follows through on the threat – with no obvious effect upon him or the subsequent narrative.

Nevertheless, anyone who has seen What Have You Done to Solange or What Have They Done to Your Daughters will have no difficulty in picking out the dominant contribution of Massimo Dallamano – whose accidental death in 1976 robbed him the chance to complete the trilogy – through the private Catholic girls' school environs, complete with shower-room peeping tom and line-up of the teachers / suspects; backstreet abortions gone wrong; sex and drug orgies, all the way down to a vague fairground motif as Di Salvo drags one suspect (played by Jess Franco regular Jack Taylor) onto a roller-coaster to facilitate extracting the information he needs.




Il gatto a nove code?

Unfortunately the film also shows a distinct case of diminishing returns, with director Alberto Negrin – whose sole film this seems to have been, the rest of his career having been spent in television – failing to achieve the same degree of critical distance from the exploitative material as did his predecessor. Thus, for instance, while he cuts in close-ups of the shower-room voyeur's eye, the broader theme is not really integrated into the proceedings in a way that makes the viewer think about his own responses to the scene.




Yet another fall from a great height

The casting of Testi as police investigator makes for some fascinating contrasts and comparisons with Solange, the actor having played the amateur investigator / suspect there, with the differences in attitude between the early 1970s giallo-krimi and the late poliziotto-giallo seemingly encapsulated by the poliziotto directness of Di Salvo's approach (“Somebody with a cock this big raped Angela Russo and threw her in the river!”) against the krimi restraint and discretion shown by the Scotland Yard man.

As with Daughters, meanwhile, the film testifies to the widespread sense of social malaise prevalent as the anni di piombo wore on, whether the headmistress of the school – at times perhaps recalling a real-world version of Suspiria's Tanzacademie – who is is most concerned with preserving its reputation, yet does not care about the sometimes dubious family circumstances of her pupils so long as their fees are forthcoming; the consistent thwarting of good cops by their superiors (“Rich, influential men pay well for teenage favours,” indeed); or even such minor details as the boutique shop assistant closely scrutinising the bill used to pay for a pair of jeans.