The Giallo Files: Anny Papa

Sweets From a Stranger

"Horizontal in life and in death. What difference does it make?"

A bicycle-riding killer is stalking prostitutes in the city, hacking them up with a razor blade before finishing the job with a handgun. The police have responded by stepping up patrols, but the local prostitutes aren't happy about the increased harassment and don't feel any safer. In response, they form an alliance, arming themselves, watching each others backs, and collecting evidence on suspicious clients. All this just adds to their own personal problems. Monica (Anny Papa) looks after a lonely, troubled young girl; Angela (Marina Suma) secretly supports her family as a high-priced call-girl; Stella (Mara Veiner) struggles with doubts about ever being loved and fitting into society. All the while the mysterious killer keeps striking – could it be a crazed client? The police inspector? Or perhaps it's one of the girls, turning on her sisters?

Sweets From a Stranger (not to be confused with So Sweet... So Dead) may have the framework of a murder mystery, but at its heart it's a gritty depiction of the lives of prostitutes, touching on serious issues. The movie addresses the dangers of the job, police apathy, financial difficulties, mental illness, abuse, and it ultimately asks us to consider who is being exploited by prostitution. Serious stuff.

Sweets From a Stranger was written and directed by Franco Ferrini, one of Dario Argento's main screenwriters of the 1980's. This is his only directorial effort.
The first murder is a shot-for-shot homage to Blood and Black Lace. The victim (Sabrina Ferilli) is chased through a wooded area, is knocked to the ground, and is hacked by a knife. Just as in Mario Bava's classic, the camera pans up to statues of crying angels as the girl dies, giving a sense of ironic pathos.
That first victim (who is only called "La Romana" or "the girl from Rome") has a dog with her. When a John asks what the dog's name is, she coyly replies "Adescame" which translates as "seduce me" (or, literally, "lure me in").
You may remember Anny Papa from A Blade In the Dark
For a movie about prostitutes, there's very little nudity.
For the purposes of the checklist above, I'm counting the hooker's union as an "all-girl institution."

What the Hell am I Watching?

Once the girls unite and devise a plan of action, they all drive to a field where they take clients and loudly address the nearby shrubs, (where they know peeping Toms hide) asking for protection and help in finding the murderer. Then, as a gesture of good will, they lift their coats and put on a (mostly chaste) show for the unseen men hiding in the foliage.

That whole scene is scored to a knockoff of the "Colonel Bogey March," which you may know as the peppy theme to Bridge on the River Kwai.

Fashion Moment

It's the mid-80's, so when the women aren't in over-complicated underwear, they're hiding under bulky layers and long shapeless dusters.

They look like an all-girl Cure cover band.

There is, however, a scene where a group of the ladies drop off important evidence to the police, wearing masks to hide their identities.

Meow.

A Blade In the Dark

"When you're in the dark there's menace in every sound... danger...

there could be monsters, killers... murderers lurk in the black dark."

Bruno (Andrea Occhipinti) has moved into a wing of a remote villa to compose the score to a horror film, directed by his friend Sandra (Anny Papa). Soon after he arrives, he meets Katya (Valeria Cavalli), who is looking for her friend, Linda, the former tenant. When Katya suddenly goes missing, Bruno is only left with a series of mysterious clues: blood on the stairs and on some shrubs, mysterious phone calls, and whispered voices on his recordings that seem to say "Linda... secret... no one must know." Is working on the scary movie playing tricks on Bruno's mind? Could the mysterious Linda be murdering intruders? Or maybe Sandra or Bruno's girlfriend Julia (Lara Lamberti) is the killer. Perhaps it's Giovanni, the caretaker who keeps a scrapbook of murder-related newspaper clippings. The clues don't seem to add up, but answers can be found in the most unlikely places.

A Blade In the Dark (not to be confused with Blade of the Ripper) is my favorite Lamberto Bava film. His movies tend to lack subtlety and rush to the kills, but this one really takes its time, ratcheting up the tension slowly and quietly and building to some great, bloody payoffs. This is exemplified by the killer's box knife blade, which he slowly extends before each kill: click... click... click... And when we do get to the kills, he goes all out. The second murder, in the bathroom, is especially gory and the strangulation using film stock has a poetic irony.

The movie opens with a film within a film, which doesn't have any musical score. That's because Bruno hasn't written it yet.
The music that Bruno does come up with is elegantly creepy – simple modulating arpeggios, reminiscent of John Carpenter's theme to Halloween.
That bathroom murder is an obvious homage to Psycho, right down to the frantic cleanup afterwards. In fact, there are a lot of important elements in this movie that were lifted right from Psycho.
Michele Soavi, who plays real estate agent Tony, was Lamberto Bava's assistant and scored uncredited or walk-on roles in a lot of Bava's films, as well as those of Bava's mentor, Dario Argento. He also went on to become a skilled director of horror movies like Stagefright and The Church.
I once met Giovanni Frezza (the blond kid from the film-within-a-film) at a horror movie convention. He was really nice. He gave up acting at the age of 13 and is now a marketing manager living in Italy, occasionally showing up at fan conventions.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

We never actually find out what Katya was doing in that closet when we first meet her.

Speaking of which, the women in this movie have a habit of appearing out of nowhere, popping out of closets, from behind corners, out of shrubs, and behind curtains.

A Blade In the Dark was made in Italian and is available on DVD dubbed into English, but the translation is really awkward. This results in some unintentionally hilarious phrasing and vocabulary. Here are some of my favorites:

"I must say, you're very perspicacious, because that is exactly what I was thinking."

"How are you in the feathers?" [meaning "in bed"]

"You know, Julia, you're being slightly difficult."

"This is all the whiskey you possess?"

"The difference between fantasy and reality often becomes minimal."

"Give me a break, Bruno. Don't begin again. Just don't begin."

Fashion Moment

SPOILER ALERT!

One of Lamberto Bava's favorite things to do is to give the audience visual cues by connecting characters and objects to the killer through color – specifically, the color yellow, which gives the genre its name. The first victim is wearing a yellow skirt.