Five Dolls For an August Moon

Five Dolls For an August Moon

"Only murderers kill."

Wealthy industrialist George Stark (Teodoro Corrá) has invited friends to his remote island estate for a reunion and the group includes Professor Fritz Farrell (William Berger), who has just developed an innovative new formula for an industrial resin. But while the other guests fall over themselves to invest, Fritz isn't taking any offers. When the party becomes stranded on the island and people start turning up dead, it's clear that someone is willing to kill for the money or the formula – or both.  Could it be the Professor's wife, Trudy (Ira Von Fürstenberg) who is having an affair with George's wife, Jill (Edith Meloni)? Or perhaps it's Nick Cheney (Maurice Poli) and his wife Marie (Edwige Fenech), who aren't averse to using their open relationship to get what they want. A killer is on the loose and no one is safe!

Five Dolls For an August Moon (not to be confused with Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll) is based on Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians. It's a solid formula worthy of repetition but, alas, Mario Bava brings little innovation to his version. It's not particularly sexy or bloody and we seldom see the kills - just people discovering the bodies, which is sadly anticlimactic. None of the characters show any passion in their greed and, to be honest, the storyline with the secret formula is kind of dull. If you're interested in a much better version of the same story, I recommend Nine Guests For a Crime. What Five Dolls does have, though, is style to burn. The clothes and the sets and the swanky modern opulence of the movie are undeniable. I like to think of Five Dolls, with its large cast and complex criss-cross of motives as Bava's warmup for his next film, the much better Bay of Blood.

• This movie was released in Italy on Valentine's Day 1970.
• Rumor has it that the production was so rushed that Bava started shooting three days after agreeing to direct. The whole shoot took 19 days.
• This was Edwige Fenech's first giallo.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

Perhaps the coolest thing in the movie is that the guests decide to store the dead bodies in the kitchen's meat freezer. So we're repeatedly treated to the sight of bloody bodies in plastic bags slowly filling up the crowded little room over the course of the film.

With all the similar-looking faces and a lack of contrasting characterization, it gets a little confusing telling people apart. Adding to the confusion: there's a character called Jack and a different character called Jaques.

Pentathol bullets? Is that a thing? Is that even possible?

Fashion Moment

This is the real reason to watch the movie. Crazy costumes abound, with psychedelic gowns, foppish ascots, gold lamé bell-bottoms, and unbuttoned satin disco shirts billowing in the breeze. One of my favorites is this strange white bikini, modeled by Edwige Fenech.

Also, the beautiful cliff-side house itself, with sleek modern architecture contrasts nicely with its rocky surroundings.

The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh

The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh

"A wall is no use against Jean. What I need is protection against myself."

Julie Wardh (Edwige Fenech) is, outwardly, the respectable wife of the American ambassador to Austria, Neil Wardh (Alberto DiMendoza), but in secret, she hides S&M fantasies and a kinky blood fetish. Upon returning to Austria, Julie begins an affair with the rakish George Corro (George Hilton), cousin of her friend Carol (Conchita Arioldi). At the same time, a razor blade-wielding maniac is terrorizing the city, murdering beautiful young women, and Julie thinks her stalker, ex-boyfriend Jean (Ivan Rassimov) might be responsible. Someone has been leaving bouquets of roses for Julie with  vaguely menacing notes, Julie is being blackmailed over her affair, and before long, Julie herself is being chased by the killer. Is Jean responsible? Or maybe it's someone else in her life?

The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (not to be confused with Vice has Black Stockings) is equally well-known as Blade Of the Ripper and is Sergio Martino's first giallo. It's also one of his best. In addition, this is the first of four films to star giallo's "golden couple," Edwige Fenech and George Hilton.  While the film starts off hitting all the standard beats, the last 20 minutes really shake things up with some fantastic twists and double crosses, making this film a standout of giallo storytelling.

• There's a shower scene which was obviously influenced by Psycho. We see the killer's shadow slowly creep up on a shower curtain before he tears it open and hacks up the poor victim. But it's over pretty quickly and it's missing the pathos of the Hitchcock version.
• Besides Psycho, there's a clever take on Strangers On a Train as well.
• Carol is a great sidekick. In the tradition of giallo films, she's the free-spirited, worry-free counterpoint to the more sensible main character.
• One of the notes on a bouquet of roses includes the phrase "Il tuo vizio é una stanza chiusa dal di dentro e solo io ne ho la chiave." This line became the title of Martino and Fenech's next collaboration, Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key.
• Some of the music from Mrs. Wardh was used in Kill Bill Vol. 2.
• Ivan Rassimov re-joined Martino, Fenech, and Hilton a year later in the film All the Colors Of the Dark. It's not a giallo, but rather a supernatural thriller in the same vein as Rosemary's Baby.
• There's a scene where Carol goes to an empty park at closing time in place of Julie in order to pay off the blackmailer. She is chased through the woods and murdered by the killer – a scene which closely resembles a memorable part of Dario Argento's Four Flies On Gray Velvet. Argento's film was released only 11 months after Mrs Wardh hit theaters, but production schedules were fast. Did Argento "borrow" ideas from Martino? I'll leave it up to you to decide.
• Director Sergio Martino is known for his Westerns and that style of film making permeates this giallo. This is especially noticeable during the one-on-one desert showdown at the end.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

Julie's fantasy sequences are mesmerizing and beautifully shot in slow-motion. Especially the first one in the rain, when we don't know at first what's going on.

At a party, two women are wearing paper dresses.  Along comes some drunk jerk who tears the back of one of them. The other woman starts laughing and the woman with the torn dress just lunges at her. They both fall to the floor shredding each others' clothes until they're both naked, while the rest of the party-goers just laugh and stare.

Fashion Moment

George has an awesome collection of sunglasses. There's this Elvis-inspired pair...

 

...and these mirrored aviators.

Also, check out the Wardhs' space-age apartment.

This exact same set, with its distinctive wallpaper and architecture, was also used in The Red Queen Kills Seven Times.

Strip Nude For Your Killer

Strip Nude For Your Killer

"In our kind of business a person doesn't take long to know who he does and doesn't like."

A mysterious murderer in a black helmet and leather motorcycle gear is killing the employees of a photography studio. Photographer Carlo Bianchi (Nino Castelnuovo) and his girlfriend and assistant, Magda Cortis (Edwige Fenech), are piecing together the clues. Could the killer be the studio's stern owner, Gisella Montagni (Amanda)? Or jealous model Patrizia (Solvi Stubing)? And what motive could possibly tie all the killings together? Carlo and Magda must race to find the vital clues and solve the case!

Some gialli are scary and some gialli are sexy. Strip Nude For Your Killer is definitely a sexy giallo, with pretty much the entire cast in minimal wardrobe (or nothing at all) throughout the film. And if you like something shocking to go with your bewbs, consider that the movie opens with a woman in stirrups dying from complications of a botched abortion. That really sets the tone for some brutal killings, unapologetic misogyny, and gratuitous sex. In short, it's everything you want in a giallo film.

• There's certainly nudity and there's a whole lot of killing, but no one is forced to "strip nude for the killer" as the title suggests.
• The traditional killer's costume of a black trench coat and hat is re-imagined as a tight leather jumpsuit and helmet, making him look like a psychotic member of Daft Punk.
• There's a water motif throughout the film: fountains, spilled booze, faucets, and pools are recurring elements thought the film. The killer's trademark is to turn on a tap to lure victims. It's all meant to remind the victims (and the audience) of the initial killing, which was staged to look like a drowning.
• The murder of Maurizio Montagni (Franco Diogene) is the Psycho shower scene, staged in reverse. He is standing in the bathroom and the killer strikes from inside the shower,  behind the curtain.
• In that scene, we can clearly see the camera crew in a mirror as Maurizio walks by.
• There is one off-screen killing: the gynecologist from the opening scene.
• I don't think the killer was killed at the end, so I didn't count him in the body count. It was just a fall down some stairs and he was wearing a helmet, so the injuries couldn't have been too bad.
 

What the Hell am I Watching?

After the credits, we're taken to some sort of... facility. I'm not sure if it's a rec center, a spa, or a sex club, but there's a bar and nearly-naked people are everywhere. Carlo tails the beautiful Lucia (Femi Benussi), lures her into the sauna, gets her naked, and then jumps her. What makes it most uncomfortable is that she protests the whole time before going along with every step. Rather disturbing in our modern era of "no means no."

Chubby Maurizio is the saddest character in the entire giallo canon. The poor guy is married to a cold, domineering woman who gets more chicks than he does and when he does try to have an affair, he bursts into tears, clumsily offers to pay the woman anyway, and finds solace with his blow-up doll. It's supposed to be funny, but I just find it depressing. It makes me even sadder when the poor guy is killed later.

Hey, Magda, honey? You're working with caustic chemicals in that film lab. Maybe take off the bulky fur coat?

And speaking of which, she must have done millions of Lira in damage, knocking down lights and furniture while trying to stealthily evade the killer in the photo studio.

Fashion Moment

It takes a confident man to wear a swimsuit like this.

Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key

Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key

"What did Irina tell you? That she shares her bed with a crazy alcoholic murderer?"

Irina Rouvigny (Anita Strinberg) has a rough life. Her unloving husband Olivero (Luigi Pistilli) is a failed writer with an Oedipal complex who drinks too much, sleeps around, and parties every night with the hippies from the local campgrounds. She lives in a crumbling mansion and even the cat, Satan, seems to have it in for her. When Olivero's young mistress and then the maid turn up dead, Irina suspects her husband, but still helps him cover up the crimes, hiding bodies in the cellar. Things get more complicated when Olivero's hot-blooded niece, Floriana (Edwige Fenech) shows up for an extended visit. Floriana proceeds to seduce Irina and her own uncle (plus a young motorcycle racer), taking both sides and plotting with each to kill the other. But who is playing who in this game of cat and mouse?

The story is based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat," (though very loosely) and he even gets a screenwriting credit.  Anita Strinberg gets all my respect for heavily downplaying her beauty for this role. For most of the movie she looks like a strung-out Ann-Margaret. Also, let's address the dozens of flash-cuts of the cat's eyes (or "eye" after Irina gouges one out).  

• Edwige Fenech made this movie the same year as The Case of the Bloody Iris and her range between the two movies is amazing. Here, she's a young, self-assured schemer in complete control of everything while in Iris, she plays a shy, nervous, more mature woman lost in victimhood.
• In the film, Olivero shuts himself in his study writing and Irina later sees that he has been typing the same psychotic phrase over and over for page after page: "Kill her and hide her in the cellar wall." Sound familiar? Note that this movie came out five years before Stephen King published The Shining and eight years before Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation.
• As one YouTube commenter writes, one could easily turn the flash-cuts of the cat's eyes into a drinking game. You'd be drunk before you know it.
• The title has nothing to do with this film, but it does come from an earlier Martino-Fenech collaboration. The phrase "Your vice is a locked room and only I have the key" appears in a note from the killer in The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh (a.k.a. Blade of the Ripper).

What the Hell Am I Watching?
The craziest scene in the movie is right at the beginning. Drunk, angry Olivero gets his party guests to dump their drinks into a bowl and humiliates his wife by forcing her to drink it.  Then he sexually harasses the maid as the party guests sing a creepy, taunting song and one young woman strips naked and dances on the table. This scene effectively sets up the creepy atmosphere of the film.

Fashion Moment
There's not much glamor to report here, since the characters are a bunch of downward-spiraling depressives.  All the women try on Olivero's mother's 18th Century costume at some point and that's the nicest article of clothing in the film.