In case anyone doesn't know about this: Alex Cox, director and ex-presenter of Moviedrome and all round good guy has a manuscript he wrote on Spaghetti Westerns, 10,000 Ways to Die, but unfortunately never published, available for download from his website
From the first few pages, it looks to be an interesting counterpoint / companion piece to Christopher Frayling's Spaghetti Westerns; the beauty of course is that if you don't like it, well, it hasn't cost you anything...
Wednesday, 18 April 2007
Stairway to Heaven? Or Powell, Bava, Argento
One of the many small pleasures I get from watching gialli are the abstract, almost avant-garde configurations that appear from time to time. Stairways are a good example of this:
From Giuliano Carnimeo's The Case of the Bloody Iris
From Dario Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage; I love the reversal of perspectives here.
From Mario Bava's Kill Baby Kill
It's the lighting, with the contrast of colours or simply black and white; the spirals, rectangles and triangles; the sheer way in which the filmmaker and his cinematographer take something we are all familiar with but make us look at it afresh; that we could take a still like this, frame it and stick it in a gallery.
But it's also the meaning that these stairwells have beyond simply being locations in which action plays out, with ascension to paradise or descent into inferno equal possibilities. And it's another point of intersection with other key figures, if we think of Hitchcock's use of stairs in the likes of Notorious, Suspicion and Psycho, or Powell, with A Matter of Life and Death even going by the alternative title of Stairway to Heaven...
From Giuliano Carnimeo's The Case of the Bloody Iris
From Dario Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage; I love the reversal of perspectives here.
From Mario Bava's Kill Baby Kill
It's the lighting, with the contrast of colours or simply black and white; the spirals, rectangles and triangles; the sheer way in which the filmmaker and his cinematographer take something we are all familiar with but make us look at it afresh; that we could take a still like this, frame it and stick it in a gallery.
But it's also the meaning that these stairwells have beyond simply being locations in which action plays out, with ascension to paradise or descent into inferno equal possibilities. And it's another point of intersection with other key figures, if we think of Hitchcock's use of stairs in the likes of Notorious, Suspicion and Psycho, or Powell, with A Matter of Life and Death even going by the alternative title of Stairway to Heaven...
Emanuelle Around the World derive
This morning I settled down to watch the XXX version of Joe D'amato's Emanuelle - perché violenza alle donne? / Emanuelle Around the World, only to find myself drifting away from the film part of the way through.
It was nothing to do with a dissatisfaction with the film: using the familiar travelogue format, as the roving reporter finds herself going from continent to continent in search of a scoop and busting a woman-trafficking ring in the process, it offers the usual pleasures like familiar cult faces (and bodies), situations and music, all coupled with "exotic" locales and expectably-unexpected moments, be it George Eastman's turn as an Indian guru or the various sometimes literal what-the-fuck encounters.
Rather, it was that the film increasingly got me thinking about the wider phenomenon of cult yet again and, more specifically, about the different approaches we take to it as consumers and producers of discourses around such texts. (Yes, it's double domed deconstructionist time; with apologies to Joe Carducci...)
The first thing here is the challenge a film like Emanuelle Around the World poses in terms of the sometimes cherished notion of authenticity. For while D'Amato frequently voices a personal preference for softcore over hardcore material in interviews, he would then typically go on to say that he was also aware of the harsh realities of the market. Thus, whereas we can take films such as The Slasher is a Sex Maniac or 99 Women and say with some confidence what constituted the director's original version or vision and that hardcore inserts were not a part of it, here we perhaps cannot.
Indeed, part of my own pleasure in watching the film – thinking about it also made me re-view it – in not having yet seen the alternative edit in the Black Emanuelle box set (give it time...) comes from making educated guesses at what point the alternative footage gets cut in or out and Gemser herself left the scene.
The second thing, but also perhaps intertwined with the first to some degree, is the way in which films like these help expose some of the fault lines in cult film discussion more generally. I'm thinking here of something like Video Watchdog and what its remit as "the perfectionist's guide to fantastic video" actually means, or the Mobius Home Video forums and their policy over what it's acceptable to discuss, worth quoting for both referring to D'Amato and attempting to situating him in a particular generic context:
While discussion of mainstream-oriented unrated or X-rated films that may feature sexually explicit material is okay, discussion of adult XXX-rated films and DVDs (including vintage "blue" films) and their cast and crew is outside the scope of MHVF. Rare exceptions may be made for the discussion of XXX films legitimately connected to cast or crew primarily known for their mainstream work (e.g., the films of Joe D'Amato, Radley Metzger, Abel Ferrara, etc.), or cult films such as CAFE FLESH. We're interested in keeping MHVF open to underage readers as much as possible, and allowing the discussion of XXX-rated films would impede that goal. MHVF also doesn't have the necessary legal disclosures and warnings to alert parents or concerned readers to the presence of discussion topics about XXX-rated films.
(Annoyingly the URL of the specific post / page is masked, making it harder to cite in the appropriate fashion; it's on the posting policy and FAQ page.)
While it is true that this film isn't strictly speaking a fantasy one and, more generally, that the notion of fantastical cinema is itself a slippery one - e.g. the anglophone definition of fantasy versus the francophone fantastique - one does sometimes get the feeling that the boundaries are sometimes somewhat inchoate and ad-hoc. When is the sexual content of a horror or fantasy film - again note the possible conflation /confusion – such that it is “really” a sex film? (The reaction of some critics to the opening sequences of Cronenberg's Crash comes to mind.) At what point does a Metzger or D'Amato cease being a “mainstream” director? What does “mainstream” mean in the cult context - is it simply a coded “not porn”?
Perhaps Jean Rollin's Phantasmes was just a porn film that its director effectively disowned, his use of a pseudonym a way of signifying that it was not a Rollin film, as Tohill and Tombs note, but what about much of Jess Franco's oeuvre in this regard, not to mention his own remark in one his Obsession interview to the effect that porn is just another genre?
Or maybe it is that there is sometimes too much of emphasis upon the auteur as source of meaning – if Rollin says this is not a true Rollin film, then that is it, case closed - or upon empirical detail – X seconds of footage are different Y into the film - as against what this difference might mean, within cult discourse.
The crucial word here is might, the issue that of taking on board a more interpretive approach whilst avoiding the pitfall of academic approaches that become so detached from the film - or worse, fail to engage with it in the first place - and simply disappear up their own arguments.
The task, I would argue, is to bring the two approaches into closer contact with one another, hopefully allowing for a kind of contagion so that the cult and fan types become infected with theory and academic and theoretical types with supporting their claims via more empirical evidence.
One piece that's came to mind in regard to this film specifically is Xavier Mendik's Black Sex, Bad Sex: Monstrous Ethnicity in the Black Emanuelle Films in the edited collection Alternative Europe. Examining the cycle as a whole, Mendik argues that they express an Italian unease at the racial Other, such that Laura Gemser is a fundamentally monstrous figure. It's not an argument I would necessarily agree with wholeheartedly - I think there's too much of the sadistic male colonising gaze in there and insufficient scope for irony or self-parody - but at least Mendik attempts to engage with the significance of what he sees, rather than simply providing an itemisation of factual detail.
And all that, I guess, is a rambling attempt to justify my own interest in taking a phenomenological approach to Argento, that it is – hopefully – a theoretical approach that allows one to move from the experience of the film / text to a reflection on the meanings of that experience and text while being true(r) to them than the alternatives I've looked at. (Well, that and I don't think anyone else has done it yet...)
It was nothing to do with a dissatisfaction with the film: using the familiar travelogue format, as the roving reporter finds herself going from continent to continent in search of a scoop and busting a woman-trafficking ring in the process, it offers the usual pleasures like familiar cult faces (and bodies), situations and music, all coupled with "exotic" locales and expectably-unexpected moments, be it George Eastman's turn as an Indian guru or the various sometimes literal what-the-fuck encounters.
Rather, it was that the film increasingly got me thinking about the wider phenomenon of cult yet again and, more specifically, about the different approaches we take to it as consumers and producers of discourses around such texts. (Yes, it's double domed deconstructionist time; with apologies to Joe Carducci...)
The first thing here is the challenge a film like Emanuelle Around the World poses in terms of the sometimes cherished notion of authenticity. For while D'Amato frequently voices a personal preference for softcore over hardcore material in interviews, he would then typically go on to say that he was also aware of the harsh realities of the market. Thus, whereas we can take films such as The Slasher is a Sex Maniac or 99 Women and say with some confidence what constituted the director's original version or vision and that hardcore inserts were not a part of it, here we perhaps cannot.
Indeed, part of my own pleasure in watching the film – thinking about it also made me re-view it – in not having yet seen the alternative edit in the Black Emanuelle box set (give it time...) comes from making educated guesses at what point the alternative footage gets cut in or out and Gemser herself left the scene.
The second thing, but also perhaps intertwined with the first to some degree, is the way in which films like these help expose some of the fault lines in cult film discussion more generally. I'm thinking here of something like Video Watchdog and what its remit as "the perfectionist's guide to fantastic video" actually means, or the Mobius Home Video forums and their policy over what it's acceptable to discuss, worth quoting for both referring to D'Amato and attempting to situating him in a particular generic context:
While discussion of mainstream-oriented unrated or X-rated films that may feature sexually explicit material is okay, discussion of adult XXX-rated films and DVDs (including vintage "blue" films) and their cast and crew is outside the scope of MHVF. Rare exceptions may be made for the discussion of XXX films legitimately connected to cast or crew primarily known for their mainstream work (e.g., the films of Joe D'Amato, Radley Metzger, Abel Ferrara, etc.), or cult films such as CAFE FLESH. We're interested in keeping MHVF open to underage readers as much as possible, and allowing the discussion of XXX-rated films would impede that goal. MHVF also doesn't have the necessary legal disclosures and warnings to alert parents or concerned readers to the presence of discussion topics about XXX-rated films.
(Annoyingly the URL of the specific post / page is masked, making it harder to cite in the appropriate fashion; it's on the posting policy and FAQ page.)
While it is true that this film isn't strictly speaking a fantasy one and, more generally, that the notion of fantastical cinema is itself a slippery one - e.g. the anglophone definition of fantasy versus the francophone fantastique - one does sometimes get the feeling that the boundaries are sometimes somewhat inchoate and ad-hoc. When is the sexual content of a horror or fantasy film - again note the possible conflation /confusion – such that it is “really” a sex film? (The reaction of some critics to the opening sequences of Cronenberg's Crash comes to mind.) At what point does a Metzger or D'Amato cease being a “mainstream” director? What does “mainstream” mean in the cult context - is it simply a coded “not porn”?
Perhaps Jean Rollin's Phantasmes was just a porn film that its director effectively disowned, his use of a pseudonym a way of signifying that it was not a Rollin film, as Tohill and Tombs note, but what about much of Jess Franco's oeuvre in this regard, not to mention his own remark in one his Obsession interview to the effect that porn is just another genre?
Or maybe it is that there is sometimes too much of emphasis upon the auteur as source of meaning – if Rollin says this is not a true Rollin film, then that is it, case closed - or upon empirical detail – X seconds of footage are different Y into the film - as against what this difference might mean, within cult discourse.
The crucial word here is might, the issue that of taking on board a more interpretive approach whilst avoiding the pitfall of academic approaches that become so detached from the film - or worse, fail to engage with it in the first place - and simply disappear up their own arguments.
The task, I would argue, is to bring the two approaches into closer contact with one another, hopefully allowing for a kind of contagion so that the cult and fan types become infected with theory and academic and theoretical types with supporting their claims via more empirical evidence.
One piece that's came to mind in regard to this film specifically is Xavier Mendik's Black Sex, Bad Sex: Monstrous Ethnicity in the Black Emanuelle Films in the edited collection Alternative Europe. Examining the cycle as a whole, Mendik argues that they express an Italian unease at the racial Other, such that Laura Gemser is a fundamentally monstrous figure. It's not an argument I would necessarily agree with wholeheartedly - I think there's too much of the sadistic male colonising gaze in there and insufficient scope for irony or self-parody - but at least Mendik attempts to engage with the significance of what he sees, rather than simply providing an itemisation of factual detail.
And all that, I guess, is a rambling attempt to justify my own interest in taking a phenomenological approach to Argento, that it is – hopefully – a theoretical approach that allows one to move from the experience of the film / text to a reflection on the meanings of that experience and text while being true(r) to them than the alternatives I've looked at. (Well, that and I don't think anyone else has done it yet...)
Saturday, 14 April 2007
Some thoughts on Cat o' Nine Tails
I have been thinking a lot about Argento's second film, Cat o' Nine Tails, recently.
It is a film which is often evaluated as the weakest of his early period. Reading responses to the film, much of the criticism seems to fall into two camps. Many fans don't seem to be particularly willing to go beyond Argento's own negative appraisals of the film, in a the-master-has-spoken manner. Those with a more critical orientation, meanwhile, often seem to react negatively to the film because its particular interests do not accord with their theories; Gary Needham's Kinoeye article is a good example.
The more I think about the film, however, the more I find I like it. Admittedly this could be simple perversity; a desire to demonstrate an independent position vis-a-vis an author-god, or that the limited applicability of film psychoanalysis is in accord with the approach I want to use as an alternative.
Any film with a blind protagonist who feels his way through the world with a cane that is essentially a part of his body rather than a separate thing is, I have to admit, pretty much a gift as far as a phenomenological, cinaesthetic reading is concerned.
Plus, no doubt some would be suspicious of any film that has to be worked at in this sort of way – shouldn't the best films have an effect the first time round and then unveil new resonances and depths with each viewing?
In this regard, I find Argento films seem to fall into a number of camps here. There are some, like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Deep Red and Inferno, that I fell in love with the first time I saw them and can watch again and again and always find something new to enjoy in. There are others, including Trauma along with Cat o' Nine Tails, which took longer and more effort to get a handle on.
Crucially, however, I think this is a reflection of the interplay of “surface” and “depth” in Argento's cinema; that different films work in different ways with them, rather than as anything to do with one group being superior or inferior to the other.
So, my question to you is: what do you like or dislike about Cat o' Nine Tails, either in itself or in relation to other Argento films.
For the record, here is a brief itemisation of some of my current thoughts:
I think the film suffers, reception wise, from the lack of a endlessly re-viewable set piece as in its predecessor. But the sequence in the train station leading up to the murder of Calabresi is suspensefully constructed and the montage of shots as he goes under the train so tight and precise – bang, bang, bang – as to be sufficient compensation.
I think the performances are better, or at least Argento was more comfortable with his actors this time around and could get them to simply be there as elements within the frame, somewhat akin to the approach favoured Antonioni and Hitchcock; Cinzea de Carolis also has that rare quality among child actors of not being in the least bit annoying. Arno and Giordani are characters one feels warmer towards than their counterparts in the other Animal Trilogy films, although crucially this not come at the cost of making them idealised types devoid of flaws – Giordani makes his leaps of judgement, while Arno's flipping out at the end has dubious parallels with the killer's.
The editing has an edginess and experimental quality to it, as if with flashes of insight and precognition that seem to double for Arno's sixth sense and thus perhaps prefigure themes in Deep Red and beyond; Bianca Merusi's murder also feels like something of a dry run for Amanda Righetti's in Deep Red and if you look carefully you can see that she also has a door-handle incident slightly reminiscent of those in Inferno.
The science is more convincing than Four Flies on Grey Velvet. Even if the XYY chromosome idea might have been discredited, genetic predispositions seem to have become more rather than less discussed.
I especially like the ironies within the writing, the attention to detail that too often goes unrecognised perhaps on account of the legacy of the Argento-as-visual-stylist approach.
It is the way Arno and the killer respond existentially to the hands that fate has dealt them, and that we here have a scientist who for all his purported brilliance seems to too easily slip from correlation to causality – after all, it is only a significantly higher proportion of the prison population who have the XYY combination, not all of them. Or the way in which the blackmailer and those engaged in industrial espionage are seeking the same ends, independently and in ignorance of one another, yet it is the way in which they come together in terms of the subsequent investigation that confuses things so much. Or the parallel between Bianca's watch with the cameo portrait of her dead love and the cameo portrait on the slab of her own tomb.
Yes, there are weaknesses – who killed Braun, why and with what consequences (though I wonder if this could be given a queer reading akin to that Robin Wood performs on Hitchcock's Rope) or the coincidence of having Anna cut her hand at the inopportune moment for example – but ultimately I feel it is a film that deserves a second look.
It is a film which is often evaluated as the weakest of his early period. Reading responses to the film, much of the criticism seems to fall into two camps. Many fans don't seem to be particularly willing to go beyond Argento's own negative appraisals of the film, in a the-master-has-spoken manner. Those with a more critical orientation, meanwhile, often seem to react negatively to the film because its particular interests do not accord with their theories; Gary Needham's Kinoeye article is a good example.
The more I think about the film, however, the more I find I like it. Admittedly this could be simple perversity; a desire to demonstrate an independent position vis-a-vis an author-god, or that the limited applicability of film psychoanalysis is in accord with the approach I want to use as an alternative.
Any film with a blind protagonist who feels his way through the world with a cane that is essentially a part of his body rather than a separate thing is, I have to admit, pretty much a gift as far as a phenomenological, cinaesthetic reading is concerned.
Plus, no doubt some would be suspicious of any film that has to be worked at in this sort of way – shouldn't the best films have an effect the first time round and then unveil new resonances and depths with each viewing?
In this regard, I find Argento films seem to fall into a number of camps here. There are some, like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Deep Red and Inferno, that I fell in love with the first time I saw them and can watch again and again and always find something new to enjoy in. There are others, including Trauma along with Cat o' Nine Tails, which took longer and more effort to get a handle on.
Crucially, however, I think this is a reflection of the interplay of “surface” and “depth” in Argento's cinema; that different films work in different ways with them, rather than as anything to do with one group being superior or inferior to the other.
So, my question to you is: what do you like or dislike about Cat o' Nine Tails, either in itself or in relation to other Argento films.
For the record, here is a brief itemisation of some of my current thoughts:
I think the film suffers, reception wise, from the lack of a endlessly re-viewable set piece as in its predecessor. But the sequence in the train station leading up to the murder of Calabresi is suspensefully constructed and the montage of shots as he goes under the train so tight and precise – bang, bang, bang – as to be sufficient compensation.
I think the performances are better, or at least Argento was more comfortable with his actors this time around and could get them to simply be there as elements within the frame, somewhat akin to the approach favoured Antonioni and Hitchcock; Cinzea de Carolis also has that rare quality among child actors of not being in the least bit annoying. Arno and Giordani are characters one feels warmer towards than their counterparts in the other Animal Trilogy films, although crucially this not come at the cost of making them idealised types devoid of flaws – Giordani makes his leaps of judgement, while Arno's flipping out at the end has dubious parallels with the killer's.
The editing has an edginess and experimental quality to it, as if with flashes of insight and precognition that seem to double for Arno's sixth sense and thus perhaps prefigure themes in Deep Red and beyond; Bianca Merusi's murder also feels like something of a dry run for Amanda Righetti's in Deep Red and if you look carefully you can see that she also has a door-handle incident slightly reminiscent of those in Inferno.
The science is more convincing than Four Flies on Grey Velvet. Even if the XYY chromosome idea might have been discredited, genetic predispositions seem to have become more rather than less discussed.
I especially like the ironies within the writing, the attention to detail that too often goes unrecognised perhaps on account of the legacy of the Argento-as-visual-stylist approach.
It is the way Arno and the killer respond existentially to the hands that fate has dealt them, and that we here have a scientist who for all his purported brilliance seems to too easily slip from correlation to causality – after all, it is only a significantly higher proportion of the prison population who have the XYY combination, not all of them. Or the way in which the blackmailer and those engaged in industrial espionage are seeking the same ends, independently and in ignorance of one another, yet it is the way in which they come together in terms of the subsequent investigation that confuses things so much. Or the parallel between Bianca's watch with the cameo portrait of her dead love and the cameo portrait on the slab of her own tomb.
Yes, there are weaknesses – who killed Braun, why and with what consequences (though I wonder if this could be given a queer reading akin to that Robin Wood performs on Hitchcock's Rope) or the coincidence of having Anna cut her hand at the inopportune moment for example – but ultimately I feel it is a film that deserves a second look.
Friday, 13 April 2007
Art of Darkness
Something I chanced upon while browsing: an art installation inspired by Suspiria:
http://p-l-m.blogspot.com/2007/03/stan-douglas-suspiria-2002.html
http://p-l-m.blogspot.com/2007/03/stan-douglas-suspiria-2002.html
Una Libélula para cada muerto / A Dragonfly for Each Corpse
Though the giallo and spaghetti western are essentially Italian forms, it is easy to forget just how many were co-productions with Spain in particular. And just as there was the odd paella western where the Spanish input was dominant, so there is also the odd giallo that might well be labelled an amarillo instead, like Carlos Aured's Los Ojos azules de la muñeca rota / Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll and this film, together proving that the Italians did not have a monopoly on bizarre titles by any means.
The link in both cases - from his appearance some unkind souls might well say missing link - is weightlifter turned one man horror factory Paul Naschy who, in addition to taking the male lead also performed scripting duties under his given name, Jacinto Molina.
The killer indulges in a spot of tachisme, Tenebrae style
Free hand for a tough cop as Scaporella confronts a pervert
Working once more with Argentinean-born director Leon Klimovsky, the barrel-chested Molina here appears as Inspector Scaporella, a cigar-chomping, moustachoied type who could give Maurizio Merli a run for his money in the perpetually angry cop stakes – until that is, he then blows his tough-guy credentials somewhat by donning an apron and preparing dinner for his wife Silvana.
One of the killer's calling cards
The loving couple - Naschy and his cigar, oh and Blanc as well
Two of Silvana's friends and possible suspects / victims
She is played by Erica Blanc who, as just about the only Italian amongst the cast and crew, was perhaps in there for business rather than artistic reasons; if so, however, this strategy apparently did not work insofar as the film was not released in Italy.
Oddly in this regard the location is actually an Italian one, with the city of Milan suffering the attentions of mysterious Dragonfly Killer. He or she – the red flares that offset the otherwise de rigeur black gloves and jacket add a deliberate element of ambiguity – is killing off various degenerates and low-lifes in an apparent clean-up-the-city type crusade.
The killer is on the phone
The girl who knew too much
Scaporella himself doesn't seem to mind, but the higher-ups want results, especially after the killer takes out three hippies one of whom happens to be the son of the police chief.
This time, however, there is at least another clue besides the trademark artificial dragonfly that the killer leaves on each of his victims: a button.
Not just any button, however, but a quality, "high-fashion" type button - "craftsmanship," explains Scaporella.
Yes, having an aspiring designer as a wife has its advantages, especially when she is so much smarter than Scaporella and associates with the kind of people who can tell him that the killer's modus operandi is reminiscent of the ancient sect of the Caldeans. They apparently had a policy of marking out prostitutes, homosexuals and other deviants with Dragonflies, you see.
The only problem is that Silvana's investigation is also the type that, being more likely to unmask the killer, is all the more dangerous....
Though a pan and scan badly dubbed VHS sourced copy is hardly the best way to experience A Dragonfly for Each Corpse, I can't see myself desperately seeking out the recent Spanish-language only DVD just in case it is classic that has been lost in translation.
The stripper who does the Belle de Jour style coffin routine
Rather, on the evidence here, it falls squarely into the trashy, campy so-bad-its-good category whether through Naschy's enjoyable over-the-top performance; Blanc's frequent and ever-more outrageous costume changes; the use of where-have-I-heard-this-before musical cues from A Bay of Blood, Blood and Black Lace and some unidentified spaghetti western (all simply credited to CAM Espana); quotably bad dialogue and sleazily contrived situations like the stripper / prostitute whose client requires her to play dead or the group of Nazi biker types who attack Scarporelli in a subplot.
The link in both cases - from his appearance some unkind souls might well say missing link - is weightlifter turned one man horror factory Paul Naschy who, in addition to taking the male lead also performed scripting duties under his given name, Jacinto Molina.
The killer indulges in a spot of tachisme, Tenebrae style
Free hand for a tough cop as Scaporella confronts a pervert
Working once more with Argentinean-born director Leon Klimovsky, the barrel-chested Molina here appears as Inspector Scaporella, a cigar-chomping, moustachoied type who could give Maurizio Merli a run for his money in the perpetually angry cop stakes – until that is, he then blows his tough-guy credentials somewhat by donning an apron and preparing dinner for his wife Silvana.
One of the killer's calling cards
The loving couple - Naschy and his cigar, oh and Blanc as well
Two of Silvana's friends and possible suspects / victims
She is played by Erica Blanc who, as just about the only Italian amongst the cast and crew, was perhaps in there for business rather than artistic reasons; if so, however, this strategy apparently did not work insofar as the film was not released in Italy.
Oddly in this regard the location is actually an Italian one, with the city of Milan suffering the attentions of mysterious Dragonfly Killer. He or she – the red flares that offset the otherwise de rigeur black gloves and jacket add a deliberate element of ambiguity – is killing off various degenerates and low-lifes in an apparent clean-up-the-city type crusade.
The killer is on the phone
The girl who knew too much
Scaporella himself doesn't seem to mind, but the higher-ups want results, especially after the killer takes out three hippies one of whom happens to be the son of the police chief.
This time, however, there is at least another clue besides the trademark artificial dragonfly that the killer leaves on each of his victims: a button.
Not just any button, however, but a quality, "high-fashion" type button - "craftsmanship," explains Scaporella.
Yes, having an aspiring designer as a wife has its advantages, especially when she is so much smarter than Scaporella and associates with the kind of people who can tell him that the killer's modus operandi is reminiscent of the ancient sect of the Caldeans. They apparently had a policy of marking out prostitutes, homosexuals and other deviants with Dragonflies, you see.
The only problem is that Silvana's investigation is also the type that, being more likely to unmask the killer, is all the more dangerous....
Though a pan and scan badly dubbed VHS sourced copy is hardly the best way to experience A Dragonfly for Each Corpse, I can't see myself desperately seeking out the recent Spanish-language only DVD just in case it is classic that has been lost in translation.
The stripper who does the Belle de Jour style coffin routine
Rather, on the evidence here, it falls squarely into the trashy, campy so-bad-its-good category whether through Naschy's enjoyable over-the-top performance; Blanc's frequent and ever-more outrageous costume changes; the use of where-have-I-heard-this-before musical cues from A Bay of Blood, Blood and Black Lace and some unidentified spaghetti western (all simply credited to CAM Espana); quotably bad dialogue and sleazily contrived situations like the stripper / prostitute whose client requires her to play dead or the group of Nazi biker types who attack Scarporelli in a subplot.
Nice little short film
Semih Tareen send me a link to a short film he has made, entitled Giallo and dedicated to Mario Bava. It's got the colours; the music; a woman in peril with Edwige Fenech-style eye make-up; and even throws in a Bergmanesque allusion that I'm sure Argento would appreciate, as the killer and his victim play chess before he dispatches her. I also liked the branches that brush against the outside window, presumably done Bava-style by having a couple of guys waggling them as appropriate.
Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0nCfEWxDIs
Also be sure to look at the other links on the page – some trailers, an interview with Mariano Baino and more.
Enjoy!
Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0nCfEWxDIs
Also be sure to look at the other links on the page – some trailers, an interview with Mariano Baino and more.
Enjoy!
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