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Forgotten Gialli Volume Five (Vinegar Syndrome) Blu-ray Review

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    Ian Jane
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  • Forgotten Gialli Volume Five (Vinegar Syndrome) Blu-ray Review

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    Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
    Released on: August 30th, 2022.
    Director: Romano Scavolini/Giampaolo Lomi, Edoardo Mulargia/Ferdinando Baldi
    Cast: Evelyn Stewart, Luigi Pistilli, Ivan Rassimov, Pilar Velázquez, Anthony Steffen, Anita Strindberg, Gabriele Tinti, Umberto Raho, John Richardson, Arthur Kennedy, Massimo Foschi, Caroline Laurence
    Year: 1972/1972/1977
    Purchase From Amazon

    Forgotten Gialli Volume Three – Movie Review:

    Vinegar Syndrome delivers another trio of ‘forgotten gialli’ in their fifth boxed set collection. While the three films in this set were previously released on DVD in Europe by Camera Obscure, they make their high definition debuts in this collection.

    A White Dress For Mariale:

    From Romano Scavolini, the director of the notorious Nightmare comes this gothic tinged giallo from 1972, A White Dress For Mariale (also known as Spirits Of Death). The story begins with an interesting scene in which a young woman sees her father shoot down her mother (Ida Galli, credited on screen as Evelyn Stewart) in the chest with a shotgun. He also shoots down the man she has been having an affair with, and then kills himself. Eventually the young girl, Mariale, grows into a young lady (again played by Galli) but not so surprisingly she's got some issues. She's married to Paolo (Luigi Pistilli), a rather cold man who keeps her drugged in stately home.

    Despite all of her problems, Mariale decides to invite some friends over for a party one night. The guests arrive and see her decked out in the same white gown her mother was wearing on the day that she was murdered. Complicating matters is the presence of Massimo (Ivan Rassimov), who obviously has a thing for Mariale, much to the dismay of her rather jealous husband. The party quickly becomes decadent, and eventually, the guests are killed off one by one…

    Not the fastest paced giallo ever made, A White Dress For Mariale takes a little while to get going but more than makes up for a slow first half with a bizarre second half filled with a few gruesome murders, wild gothic ambiance and even a little bit of kinky interracial lesbianism for good measure. Shot with a keen eye of weird compositions and showcasing some excellent use of odd color, this is a fantastic looking film. The compositions are effective in creating some memorably strange set pieces and they really maximize the atmosphere afforded the film by the old castle location in which all of this plays out.

    Ida Galli is a decent female lead here, portraying her character as sufficiently 'out there' to make the part work even when the script sometimes goes off in completely illogical directions. Pistilli and Rassimov are the real scene stealers here, however, as both get the chance to play the type of scuzzy, diabolical characters that they excel at. Rassimov in particular really gets into his role and coming dangerously close to going over the top without ever actually doing it.

    Thematically the movie feels like a mix of Fellini and Bava, blending some moderately surreal imagery and decadence with some giallo trappings in a singular location in the style of Bay Of Blood. Scavolini takes things in much more unusual directions than Bava's giallo films, however, using the interesting score from Fiorenzo Carpi and Bruno Nicolai to help pull us in before hitting us with the suitably and somehow inevitably grim finale. It's ultimately an undeniable exercise in style over substance but it's done well and quite a unique entry in the giallo canon.

    Tropic Of Cancer:

    Co-directed by Giampaolo Lomi and Eduardo Mulargia (credited as Edward G. Muller), 1970's Tropic Of Cancer stars Gabriele Tinti as a man named Fred Wright who takes his wife, Grace (Anita Strindberg) to Haiti for a vacation of sorts. They've been having some marital troubles as of late and he figures that spending some time in the tropics will do them good, though Grace seems more interested in checking out the local Haitian males than in reconnecting with her husband. While they are in the country, Fred decides they should pay a visit to his old friend Williams (Anthony Steffen - who co-wrote the script with the two directors), a scientist working as a doctor at the local hospital.

    Complicating matters is the issue of a drug that Williams has discovered, a powerful aphrodisiac of sorts that a few nefarious types would love to get their hands on, not the least of whom is Peacock (Alfio Nicolosi), a wealthy and flamboyant gay man who lives in a huge house run by frequently nude young black male servants. While Fred and Grace are enjoying the resort they're staying at and catching up on old times with Williams, a murderer has been making the rounds, killing off various Caucasian characters in increasingly nasty ways and draining them of all of their blood. Is there some sort of Haitian voodoo curse at work or is there a psychopath in their ranks out to eliminate anyone who might stop him from stealing Williams' work?

    A strange mix of fairly standard giallo trappings and more exotic sexploitation elements the likes of which were common in films like the Black Emmanuelle series, Tropic Of Cancer is an interesting film, if not a perfect one. The plot bounces around a bit and gets a little convoluted in the middle half but it works its way to a satisfactory conclusion and offers up some solid murder set pieces and fever dream scenes of eroticism along the way. The movie plays up the racial side of things fairly effectively, with Strindberg's character obviously intrigued by the black men who populate the country she's visiting so much so that she has a strange dream in which she runs down a red hall wearing a negligee as naked black guys grope at her! It's a very hallucinatory scene but shot in such a quirky interesting way that somehow it manages to fit into the narrative quite well.

    Performance wise, Strindberg is a little bit wooden. She looks great here but doesn't really offer her part much emotion outside of a few spats between her and Tinti in the last half of the film where their marriage really hits rock bottom. Tinto fares a little better simply because he's given a bit more to do here. Steffen is also fine, playing the seemingly emotionless doctor who cares for nothing but his work with an appropriate amount of distance. Alfio Nicolosi as the horribly stereotypical homosexual character isn't quite as over the top as you might think but he definitely plays to seventies standards here and isn't exactly portrayed in any sort of progressive way. He's a caricature, really, as are many of the black characters in the film. Those concerned with political correctness need not apply!

    The film does a good job of working the voodoo practices and rituals into the storyline nicely. This gives the movie something to stand out with, as they make up a large portion of what's interesting about the film. A scene in which our three white characters attend a sacrificial ceremony in which a (very real) cow is cut open for the purposes of blood drinking stands out and builds in intensity very well. The murder set pieces are creative and more than just standard slashings (though one scene in which a character's face is burned off by steam while his moustache remains in perfect condition might make more attentive viewers snicker). A scene in which a corpse is discovered in a slaughter house (more real animal violence in this scene as well) is also quite jarring and shocking.

    The movie is well shot and does a great job of really hammering home the heat and sweat of its locations. It's well framed and well put together and it benefits not just from solid editing work but from an interesting score by Piero Umiliani (who has some interesting credits including Viva Django! and Five Dolls For An August Moon). Giampaolo Lomi doesn't have much else to his credit save for contributing to Savage Man, Savage Beast and Goodbye Uncle Tom, while Eduardo Mulargia remains well known for writing and directing a string of Spaghetti Westerns and a women in prison film or two. Neither made another Giallo after this one, a film that has, until this DVD release, been notoriously difficult to come by.

    Nine Guests For A Crime:

    Directed by Ferdinando Baldi in 1977, Nine Guests For A Crime wears the influence of Agatha Christie's work plainly on its sleeve but nevertheless puts an interesting spin on the idea behind that classic novel of suspense. The movie begins with a fairly intense flashback wherein a young couple are enjoying some romantic alone time on a scenic beach only to be swarmed by an angry mob that proceeds to kill the young man by burying him alive.

    From here we meet Ubaldo (Arthur Kennedy), a wealthy man who takes his family on vacation to a quiet island home that he owns. We know early on, when things get tense between family members on the boat ride to the island, that things are dysfunctional. Upon their arrival they try to make the best of it but Ubaldo's son Michele (Massimo Foschi) has obviously got the hots for his dad's new girlfriend, Patrizia (Loretta Persichetti), which understandably complicates things, particularly for his naïve young wife. Michele's two brothers, Lorenzo (John Richardson) and Walter (Venantino Venantini), aren't any more trustworthy or moral than he.

    When some unseen killer takes out one of the sailors and scurries off with their yacht, the family find themselves stranded together on the island with no means of getting back or even communicating with the mainland. Soon enough the murders begin and Ubaldo's reclusive sister Elizabeth (Dana Ghia) shows up. This won't end well for anyone…

    The script from Fabio Pittorru isn't the most original story ever told but it is very brisk in its pacing and its execution. The flashback scene sets the stage in interesting ways for what's to come and a few of the murder set pieces that play out are surprisingly nasty. The score from Carlo Savina is also pretty decent, heightening the tension when required and otherwise just complimenting the flow of the story nicely. Cinematography is typically very strong here as well, and the camera work does a great job of not only showing off the tropical locations used for the shoot but also the activities of the requisite black gloved killer as well.

    All of this is performed by a very able cast, with prolific Hollywood film and television star Arthur Kennedy headlining. His character is fairly bitter, just like pretty much everyone else in the film, but he plays it well and convincingly enough (even if he is obviously dubbed here - he speaks English where it looks like most of the other cast members are probably delivering their lines in Italian). Massimo Foschi is also very good here, playing the sleazy and conniving son with a very obvious ulterior motive with no small amount of flair and style. Lovely Loretta Persichetti doesn't have as much to do dramatically but she certainly looks great here while both Richardson and Venantini are enjoyable in their respective supporting roles as well.

    Forgotten Gialli Volume Three – Blu-ray Review:

    The three films in this collection are presented as follows:

    A White Dress For Mariale is presented in AVC encoded 1080p and framed at 2.35.1 widescreen. Presented newly scanned and restored in 4K from its 35mm original camera negative and using 26.3GBs of space on a 50GB disc, the picture quality here is very nice. The image is clean from start to finish showing very nice detail and excellent color reproduction alongside accurate looking skin tones and nice, deep black levels.

    Tropic Of Cancer is also presented in AVC encoded 1080p and framed at 2.35.1. This second feature is, again, offered up on disc newly scanned and restored in 4K from its 35mm original camera negative and it uses up 29.4GBs of space on a 50GB disc. The naturally grainy image shows a bit of minor damage in the opening credits but is quite clean after that, with very strong detail present throughout.

    Nine Guests For A Crime is framed at 1.85.1 in AVC encoded 1080p and is also newly scanned and restored in 4K from its 35mm original camera negative. This transfer uses 28.4GBs of space on the 50GB disc and it also looks excellent, despite some flicker and minor print damage in the opening minutes (things clean up quite nicely after that).

    None of the transfers show any noise reduction, edge enhancement or compression artifact related problems and retain a proper, film-like appearance throughout the duration of their respective running times.

    As far as the audio options go, A White Dress For Mariale gets a 24-bit DTS-HD Mono track in Italian with optional subtitles provided in English. Tropic Of Cancer offers 24-bit DTS-HD tracks in both Italian and English language options with subtitle options for reach track provided in English. Nine Guests For A Crime also gets 24-bit DTS-HD tracks in both Italian and English language options with subtitles provided in English. The audio is problem free, each track coming across as clean and balanced and offering crisp dialogue and some depth to the different scores used throughout the three movies in the set.

    Extras are laid out across the three discs in the set as follows:

    A White Dress For Marial:

    Forget This Movie is a twenty minute an interview with director Romano Scavolini who talks about how his second film won awards and boosted his reputation only to have that all undone with this picture. He talks about having to make the movie to pay off his brother's debt, having a fair bit of control on set but not liking the original script, changing things when and where he could to improve the movie, how he still does love some aspects of the movie but not all of them, the score, the camera work, where the producers interfered, his thoughts on the cast members he worked with, and his thoughts on horror pictures and cinema in general.

    A White Dress For Evelyn is a lengthy, fifty-five minute interview with actress Ida Galli where she talks about her family life, her background, her education and what it was like growing up where she did when she did. From there, she talks about how she got into acting, getting her first break just out of high school, working with Fellini, her shyness and aversion to publicity, how her career started to take off, getting the lead in A White Dress For Marial and what that was like to work on, other career highlights and why she decided to quit cinema.

    The disc also contains an audio essay by film historian and critic Rachael Nisbet that runs for seventeen minutes. She discusses the gothic elements of the film, the psychology behind some of the story elements, Romano Scavolini's career and approach to directing the film, what sets the movie apart from other giallo pictures, the use of fate and pre-destination in the movie, production details worth appreciating, how the picture compares to other gothic giallo movies and the tragic elements that are important to the movie's storyline.

    We also get just over three minutes of deleted scenes, an Italian language original theatrical trailer, a French language original theatrical trailer, menus and chapter selection options.

    Tropic Of Cancer:

    Sex, Voodoo And Dictatorship is a thirty-three minute interview with writer/director Giampaolo Lomi that covers where he got the idea for the film from, what it was like shooting in Haiti, casting the film, working with the different actors used during the shoot, what he learned from working with Gualtiero Jacopetti, shooting the voodoo scenes and some of the other more complex moments in the movie, De Teffe's demands during the making of the movie, some of the locations that were used, the effect of politics on the film and how he looks back on the making of this movie and his time in Haiti very fondly.

    Rachael Nisbet contributes an audio essay on this disc as well, this one running eighteen minutes. She talks about the film's place in the giallo-hybrid arena, how the film amalgamates elements from the mondo films that were popular around the time the movie was made, what sets the picture apart from the countless other giallo that came out at this time in the wake of The Bird With The Crystal Plummage, Lomi's career up to this point and his work on Goodbye Uncle Tom, the use of real life cultural practices in the movie, the Haitian locations and the country's politics of the time, the specific way that certain characters are portrayed in the movie, the love story elements and quite a bit more.

    We also get just under three minute of outtakes some alternate English title sequences, an Italian language original theatrical trailer, an English language original theatrical trailer, menus and chapter selection options.

    Nine Guests For A Crime:

    Giallo In Sardinia is a new twenty-seven minute interview with actor Massimo Foschi that goes into detail on his acting career up to this point, highs and lows of his career, doing a lot of work in dubbing films, the idealistic mindset he had during this period, working with Baldi and his very professional directing style, thoughts on his character in the movie, his work doing live theater, the state of Italian cinema at the time compared to how it is now, why so many non-Italian actors came to work in Italian films, having to shoot the love scene in the movie, going on to work with Ruggero Deodato and what that experience was like, other films he made later in his career and his love of adventure movies.

    From there, we get a third audio essay by Rachael Nisbet, clocking in at fifteen minutes and covering Fernando Baldi's career, his connection to the giallo cycle, the basis for this picture and its ties to other, similar films. She also details the directing style employed, the characters that populate the movie and the performers that played them, the locations used in the feature and the way that Baldi toys with isolation using the landscapes, different important plot devices that are used and the quality of the production values and sound work in the film.

    Outside of that, we get an original theatrical trailer, menus and chapter selection options.

    Special mention should also be made of the packaging for this release. All three films get their own clear plastic Blu-ray case and those cases in turn slip inside a beautiful, and sturdy, box that opens from the top to allow the cases to slide in. It's also worth pointing out that each of the three films gets some nice reversible cover sleeve art as well.

    Forgotten Gialli Volume Three – The Final Word:

    Vinegar Syndrome’s Forgotten Gialli Volume Five Blu-ray collection gives three interesting and well-made giallos impressive high definition presentations, improving on the very nice DVD editions offered in Europe for each film by Camera Obscura a few years back. The improved transfers definitely add to the films’ enjoyment and the new extras are interesting and nicely put together. Recommended!


    Click on the images below, or right click and open in a new window, for full sized Forgotten Gialli Volume 5 Blu-ray screen caps!

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