The Giallo Files: April 2022

Night of Violence

"We communicate with words. That's how we understand."

Carla Pratesi (Héléne Chanel), the oldest daughter of an esteemed ambassador, is working as a high-class call girl in Rome. On her way to pay off a blackmailer who threatens to make her secret public, her car has a blowout and she is chased into the woods and strangled by a mysterious stranger. Inspector Ferretti (Alberto Lupo) quickly takes up the case and discovers a vast ring of drug smugglers and human traffickers. But each night, more women are attacked - and multiple witnesses claim that the killer is Mario Vivaldi, a famous actor. Not content to sit around and watch the press malign her family's name, Carla's sister (Marilú Tolo) decides to pursue the killer herself. Who is the killer and what motivates him to attack women? Can Inspector Ferretti stop him? And will Carla's sister be the next victim?

Night of Violence (not to be confused with Night After Night After Night) comes from the earliest period of giallo, when the genre was still figuring itself out and establishing its tropes. It has a masked killer who strikes a series of beautiful women, but this one plays out more as a police procedural, tracking not only the killer's movements, but the methodical course of the police investigation. It's very straightforward storytelling and, much like Watch Me When I Kill, the killer's identity and motivation stem from the horrors of actual 20th Century history.

• The music in this film is fantastic. The mix of Italian big band and R&B music is very hip for 1965. Composer Aldo Piga also scored A... For Assassin.

• Writer/Director Roberto Mauri would go on to write Clap... You're Dead, which also features a murder investigation on the set of a movie-within-a-movie.

• The original Italian title is Le Notti Della Violenza, so the translation should more accurately be Nights of Violence (plural).

What the Hell Am I Watching?

You read correctly - Marilú Tolo's character doesn't get a name in the movie. She's only ever referred to as "Carla's sister."

Also, Carla's sister is the only character smart enough to realize that the killer is wearing masks.

In the finale, the killer forces Carla's sister up a massive spiral staircase (an observation tower? Campanile?). When she slips and dangles off the edge, the police just stand there and look around at each other. No effort is made to help her, catch her or even run to break her fall. Rome's finest.

Fashion Moment:

Carla starts the movie off with a bang (figuratively).

But her sister is the one who really shines in a chic black dress, lush leopard coat and accent jewelry.

Later at the stakeout, she adds a fashionable newsboy hat to the look.

And finally, here's a good look at the killer's mask. Kind of looks like Michael Meyers with a mustache.

Delitto D'autore

"How strange, Marco. I sense fear and my head feels light."

Countess Valeria Volpi Gerosi (Wilma Casagrande) has generously donated a painting by Peter Paul Rubens as the prize for a prestigious music festival. In attendance for the event is her niece, Milena (Sylva Koscina) who is secretly married to Marco (Pier Paolo Capponi), because Valeria doesn't approve of Marco. When a mysterious phone call threatens misfortune if the painting is donated, nobody takes it seriously, but soon after, Milena is kidnapped, the painting is stolen and Valeria is murdered. Bloody priest's robes are found at the scene, but could the killer really be the kindly Don Lino (Luigi Pistilli)? Who stole the painting? Who kidnapped Milena and why? The police have a web of motives to untangle!

Delitto D'Autore (not to be confused with Delitti) is a tough watch - not for the content, but because its plot is absolutely inscrutable. I appreciate the neorealist approach of dropping the audience into a naturalistic conversation, but there are so few context clues in the dialogue that it's challenging to figure out what's going on, who the characters are and what their relationships are to each other. It all becomes more clear as the movie goes on, but writer/director Mario Sabatini was obviously more interested in style than a coherent plot. The mis-directs seem forced and the ultimate motivation of the killer is sadly anticlimactic.

• The movie was apparently never released with an English title, but it translates as "Copyright Crimes," which doesn't make sense until the final minutes of the film. The only alternate title I could find is the Greek O dolofonos me ta kokkina heili, or "The Killer With Red Lips."

• Despite the rickety final product, the movie has a star-studded cast - Luigi Pistilli (Bay of Blood), Sylvia Koschina (Crimes of the Black Cat), Pier Paolo Capponi (Seven Blood-Stained Orchids) and Krista Nell (So Sweet, So Dead) are giallo all-stars

What the Hell Am I Watching?

With a run time of only 75 minutes, I wish the filmmakers could have taken more time with the plot. But instead, they chose to pad the film with two scenes of naked frolicking women. First, there's a pool party that devolves into a giddy lesbian grope session. Later, we take time for a topless dance party, which looks like an X-rated episode of Laugh-In. Obviously, neither of these scenes has anything to do with the rest of the movie and are just awkwardly shoehorned into the edit.

Dream sequences are always fun, especially when the character is drugged. Milena tells Don Lino about her drug-induced dream, where she was dancing feverishly with shadowy figures.

She then woke up to find a pair of leather gloves. If an intruder was in her room while she slept, why would he take off his gloves and place them on her blanket before leaving? This is the kind of style-over-logic thinking that we find throughout the film.

The movie ends with a climactic car chase, in which the drivers zip up and down staircases, which is pretty fun. In one shot, you can clearly see the camera operator's shadow on the roof of the car as it passes by.

Fashion Moment:

There wasn't a lot of thought or effort put into the script and, sadly, this laziness carries over into the production design and costumes. The cast gets glammed up for a night of dancing, which is about it. Also, the mid-70's European swimwear is on full display at the pool (before it gets tossed aside).

Room 13

Well, she's covered up in a way she never expected.

After twenty years away, notorious London gangster Joe Legge (Richard Häussler) pays a visit to Sir Robert Marney (Walter Rilla), to blackmail him into participating in a train robbery. Scotland Yard gets wind of this meeting and, to avoid the scandal of a police investigation, they hire private eye Johnny Gray (Joachim Fuschberger) to look into it. Johnny tracks Legge and his mob to the Highlow Club, where they plan their heist from a secret room. But the investigation is complicated when women at the club start turning up dead - their throats slit with a razor belonging to Sir Robert. But is Sir Robert the killer? Will Legge pull off his train heist? And can Johnny solve the case before it's too late?

Room 13 (not to be confused with The Girl in Room 2A) is barely a giallo. Really, it's about 80% heist movie, 15% spy thriller and 5% giallo, but that 5% is enough to earn it a place on this list. Some early gialli cling to the framework of gothic horror, but this one is based more on film noir. It's a fun movie to watch with a quick run time, a couple of explosions, a few jokes thrown in and a murder mystery B-plot, but it doesn't have the outrageous style that would develop in later gialli.

• The movie was based on the novel of the same name, by Edgar Wallace, best known as the creator of King Kong.

• The movie is in black and white, but the credits are in color.

• The most famous cast member is Karin Dor, who plays Sir Robert's daughter, Denise. You may remember her as Helga Brandt in You Only Live Twice.

• The body count in this movie is awfully high, but keep in mind that half of the deaths occur in the final shootout between police and mobsters.

What the Hell am I Watching?

When police investigate the murder of a burlesque stripper at the Highlow Club, they realize that she's an undercover officer because she's wearing "official underwear of Scotland Yard."

Also, this is what a forensic crime lab looks like in 1964.

Fashion Moment:

Very little to report. Lots of tweed and very formal suits.

The dancers at the club wear these over-complicated 19th century can-can outfits, but that's as daring as the fashion gets.

Eye in the Labyrinth

"A naked woman doesn't have to go into explanations, especially if she's as young and beautiful as you."

When psychiatrist Lucas (Horst Frank) goes missing, his girlfriend Julie (Rosemary Dexter) sets out to find him. With the help of a dapper stranger named Frank (Adolfo Celi), her search leads to a luxury villa owned by Gerda (Alida Vali), who surrounds herself with eccentric artists. While everyone denies ever seeing Lucas, Julie keeps finding evidence that Lucas has not only been there, but that he was murdered by one of the guests. Everyone seems to have a motive, but who really killed Lucas and why? Can Julie find the killer before he strikes again? And what clues can be discovered from a mysterious painting?

High on style and light on kills, Eye in the Labyrinth (not to be confused with Eyeball, a.k.a. Red Cats in a Glass Labyrinth) is a twisted thriller that takes some liberties with giallo tropes. There's no black masked killer here, but you'll find lots of gorgeous people in gorgeous locations keeping dark secrets. If you like the visual elements of giallo more than the blood and don't care if the plot makes any sense, this one is for you.

• In a title card at the beginning of the film, it's explained that a labyrinth may be a beautiful piece of architecture, but its main purpose is to confuse and trap anyone who wanders in. So the title is a metaphor for the hostile environment of Gerda's villa.

• In the checklist above, "Gay character" has been changed to "LGBT+." It's checked for the transgender character in the film.

• Composer Roberto Nicolosi turns in a wild bebop jazz score, similar to what Ennio Morricone would provide for Dario Argento's early films, Nicolosi previously worked with Mario Bava on both Black Sunday and Black Sabbath.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

One of the main clues to Lucas's death is this painting done by pervy orphan Soro (Benjamin Lev).

This whole plot point was lifted directly from The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, wherein an artist witnessed and painted a murder. The painting is even done in a style similar to the one in Crystal Plumage:

Also, the title might be a metaphor, but there are some visual references to labyrinths as well. When she first arrives in town, Julie is told to look for Lucas in an abandoned villa with winding corridors and staircases that lead nowhere. As she goes deeper in, you can see that someone has written "MOSTRO" (monster) on several walls, with arrows. Perhaps warning visitors about a minotaur?