The Obscure Giallo Thread

[Dom D]

One was Sinister Cinema so it might be a dvr. I think the other was Asian Cult Cinema. The pic samples looked good.

Cheers. They do indeed both have a wide-screen copy. Looks like a trade-off between do you want wide-screen or a better quality picture? Hopefully someone offers the best of both worlds soon.

A.A.A Massuesse, Good Looking, Offers Her Services (1972)



And we're back to post Bird With A Crystal Plummage stalk and slash antics. This one featuring a lot of nudity and a little bit of razor violence.

A young lady leaves the family home to move into a share apartment and pay her own way through handsomely paid prostitution. The only problem to this excellent lifestyle is that her clients keep getting murdered the night after she sees them.

That's not a bad setup for a giallo. Basically what I'm looking for in the genre. The execution is a bit odd though. Forty minutes in I actually googled the title to make sure I was watching a giallo as it felt more like one of those USA 50s films about good girls gone bad. No sooner had I started typing in the ridiculous title though than the standard black trenchcoated, wide brimmed hat, rubber glove wearing, razor wielding psychopath turned up.

Thank christ for that too because at that point the film was feeling tonally off and was trying my patience. The second half is better than the first half but it still has a strange vibe. Theres all sorts of disparate musical genres on the soundtrack that don't feel like they belong at all. Sometimes feels like a comedy, sometimes like a sleazy sex film, sometimes like a Runaway Daughter movie.

The "mystery" of who who the killer is so obvious you should see it coming a mile off. Feels like an oddly moralistic capper to what was a fairly sleazy piece of entertainment.

[unclefred]

Where did you find those? I'd be keen to get. The copies on Cinemageddon and Rarelust are nice enough quallity but are both 4:3. I'm guessing the widescreen copies are in pretty rough shape?

One was Sinister Cinema so it might be a dvr. I think the other was Asian Cult Cinema. The pic samples looked good.

[mjeon]

I love this thread, but it's been costing me money!

[Dom D]

I found some widescreen prints but they are grey market.

Where did you find those? I'd be keen to get. The copies on Cinemageddon and Rarelust are nice enough quallity but are both 4:3. I'm guessing the widescreen copies are in pretty rough shape?

[unclefred]

I found some widescreen prints but they are grey market.

[Dom D]

A Hyena In The Safe (1968):



I couldn't find a poster that was even close to large enough to upload so I have to settle for a still of this one.

The film came advertised as a giallo, and I guess it is, but it doesnt really feel like one. Feels more akin to spy films of the time than a giallo. That said, whatever it is, it is a very good example of whatever genre it may be.

A group of criminals converge on a huge French mansion. Each of them has a key to unlock a safe that is full of diamonds. The catches: their leader has apparently died and his impossibly glamorous wife is standing in for him. One of the thieves lost his key gambling and so there is a gambler in his place. One of the thieves has brought his sex kitten girlfriend to the party. Worse than that, the dirty bastard has lost his key and the safe is unopenable. It doesnt take long for them to start offing one another.

This is hyper stylish. The cameras constantly roving and finding wierd off kilter angles to shoot from. The female leader of the group has a ridiculous wardrobe and the director clearly finds that more interesting to focus on than the plotting. There's a funky jazz soundtrack throughout. Flat out one of the coolest films I've seen in a bit. Curse the pan and scan copy I was stuck with. Would love to see this in wide-screen.

[f.ramses]

Yeah, I really wanted that one to be good because of the cool title but it was pretty boring and confusing even with a second watch.

[Dom D]

Love And Death In The Garden Of The Gods (1972)



This ones maybe less obscure than the other titles so far but I had somehow managed to miss it despite being a huge fan of Miss Blancs. She's once again wandering around in Devils Nightmare costuming here. The white coat and boots she arrived at the castle in that movie getting another showing here. I'm quite sure I've seen the blue and orange outfit she wears in this in something else as well. Damned if I can place it though. Certainly not Devils Nightmare as the Succubus didn't really go in for orange.

Even for a giallo that's a very portentious title. Sort of thing you'd more expert in a high-falutin art film that some trashy Italian pulp. It's an odd movie all round though. It has a ridiculously convoluted storytelling device where it's a flashback within a flashback within a flashback. Pointlessly obscure. Everyone is so overcome with existential ennui that they're a bit hard to take seriously.

I confess I once again didn't make it to the end. The word on this one is quite good but I found it deeply missable. I'm not sure what it was about and I just didn't have the patience to find out.

[Dom D]

The Night Of The Scorpion (1972):



The setup on this ones fun. It starts with a wealthy man burying his wife. His widowed Step Mother- who's is definitely trying to bang him- tells him that it wasn't his fault that he murdered his wife. After all, he was drunk. If I'm ever up on murder charges I want this woman as my attorney. The man leaves the family home for a time, returning the next year with Daniella Giordano in tow as his new wife. Things are tense in the family home. The step mum is still trying to shag our man. His sister is still moping about the death of his wife because she was having a lesbian relationship with her. There's also a maid floating around who's definitely Up For Anything. Cue weirdness like the step mum watching through a hole in a painting while her son humps his new wife in traditional giallo fashion ie. they both get naked and he lays inert on top of her.

So it all looks very promising. But there are pacing issues. Fun set up. Fun conclusion when we get down to some good stalk and slash antics. They just had no idea how to progress this story through the middle. Nothing happens for a long time. It's a shame because I felt it was almost Very Good but as is I struggle to even recommend it.

[BW Haggar]

Not having been there its hard to say but that's not exactly my take. The giallo wave seems a lot more self conscious than the Noir one. As early as '69 there was a film made called Yellow which says they knew they were making a film within a defined genre. Then you've got those yellow posters for films like Amuck that ape the book covers. While noir has some definite tropes they are not as specific as giallo tropes. A black trench coated killer with hat and razor. The heiress in an isolated mansion getting driven mad etc.

That's a very fair point.

In fact, I can see that I was kind of contradicting myself in my earlier post, by stating that giallo was never recognised as a style within Italy, then implying that all the '68-'70 films followed a clear pattern.

It might be more accurate to say then, that the boundaries of "giallo" becomes so blurry and uncertain simply because the use of the term encompasses a far wider range of stuff within Italy than it does when we (ie, English speakers) use it, meaning that wherever we choose to draw the line is kind of arbitary.

I know it's often been said that Italians use "giallo all'italiana" / "thriller all'italiana", as a sub-set of the wider giallo, to refer to the movies we'd tend to call "giallo".... but I'm unsure how accurate or helpful that designation really is?

[Dom D]

The mass of genre traits we immediatley think of when someone says "giallo" in the English-speaking world is a retrospectively created concept which was never recognised/understood in the same way within the culture the movies emerged from... which makes trying to define its exact parameters feel a bit like building a house out of pond weed..

Not having been there its hard to say but that's not exactly my take. The giallo wave seems a lot more self conscious than the Noir one. As early as '69 there was a film made called Yellow which says they knew they were making a film within a defined genre. Then you've got those yellow posters for films like Amuck that ape the book covers. While noir has some definite tropes they are not as specific as giallo tropes. A black trench coated killer with hat and razor. The heiress in an isolated mansion getting driven mad etc.

[George Barry]

It's very much like Film Noir in that respect - not so much a cut-and-dried genre, but a bunch of stylistic & thematic elements contributing to a general "feel", recognition of which is ultimately just down to an individual viewer's "I know it when I see it" gut reaction.

Well said.

[BW Haggar]

I noticed in the Severin giallo doc that the Italian directors and screenwriters just use it as a synonym for thriller. So to me, any Italian thriller from the era is essentially a giallo.

This is definitely the key point which makes any discussion of where giallo begins & ends so difficult.

The mass of genre traits we immediatley think of when someone says "giallo" in the English-speaking world is a retrospectively created concept which was never recognised/understood in the same way within the culture the movies emerged from... which makes trying to define its exact parameters feel a bit like building a house out of pond weed.

It's very much like Film Noir in that respect - not so much a cut-and-dried genre, but a bunch of stylistic & thematic elements contributing to a general "feel", recognition of which is ultimately just down to an individual viewer's "I know it when I see it" gut reaction.

That said though, the dozens (hundreds?) of Hitchcock/Les Diaboliques-inspired Euro-thrillers made in '68-'70 in which rich people murder each other in exotic locations definitely constitute a THING, and, in terms of the English-speaking world, it seems pretty churlish & contrarian not to include them within "giallo".

[Randy G]

I noticed in the Severin giallo doc that the Italian directors and screenwriters just use it as a synonym for thriller. So to me, any Italian thriller from the era is essentially a giallo.

For me, many of the best giallos fall outside of the proto-slasher template that English language horror fans seem to have decided is a 'true' giallo.

[Dom D]

To be fair, Tarantino mentioned Bava and Avary cited GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH during the intro, so it's not like they just ignored them. They just chose BWTCP as a starting point for their topic. No big deal.

It's not a big deal and I mentioned that they weren't saying it due to a lack of knowledge as they were clearly up on the films made beforehand. I just find it very strange that they picked that as the beginning of the genre. My take was that was that was what they were saying, not that BWCP was the start point for their specific discussion. After all they discount the Baker/Lenzi films as giallo. It seemed a very odd position to me and given that it was accepted by all without debate I was wondering if this was a popular take that I'd somehow missed till now. I take it that it's not.

Anyway...

The Silk Worm (1973)



One of those rich people in costal villas giallos. Nadja Tiller is a rich bitch with a taste for younger men. George Hilton is a ne'er do well who she's about to toss out on the streets for fooling around on her. She picks up another barely legal fella at a bar. He drugs her and when she wakes up it is to find her jewels gone and a bloody sweater in the bathroom with a bullet hole through it.

Has someone been killed? Were the jewels actually stolen? Where's George Hilton throughout this when he's got second top billing?! The films keeps its card close to its chest until some flashbacks near the end fill in the blanks.

This is an odd one. No sex, very minor amounts of violence. No stalk and slash and no driving the rich woman crazy. Just a little mystery with no end of likely suspects- though obviously Hilton is tied up in somehow. Dude just looks shifty...

A very minor entry but a reasonable time passer for your giallo completest.