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).

Bloodsucker Leads the Dance

Bloodsucker Leads the Dance

"The world is a stage. But sometimes it isn't."

It's 1902 in the city of Dublin and just as a troupe of actresses finish the closing night of their show, handsome Count Richard Marnack (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) arrives. He is infatuated with actress Evelyn (Patrizia Webley) and invites her and her colleagues – actresses Cora (Krista Nell), Rosalind (Mariza Damon), and Penny (Lidia Olizzi) and stagehand Samuel (Leo Valeriano) – to join him at his  castle. While Evelyn and the Count take romantic walks by the seaside and Evelyn and Penny entertain themselves in their bedroom, lusty Cora nets herself a local fisherman. But things turn sinister when the Count admits his family's dark past – both his father and his grandfather murdered their wives with the same ceremonial dagger and the Count's own wife went missing several years ago and is presumed dead. Before long, the visitors start turning up dead, decapitated with the same cursed blade. Could the killer be Sybil (Femi Benussi), the jealous maid or Gregory (Luciano Pigozzi), the creepy gardener? Is it possible that a ghost of the Count's ancestor has returned to fulfill the family curse?

The title Bloodsucker Leads the Dance is, perhaps, the most misleading non-sequiter in a genre filled with nonsensical titles. There are no vampires, as the title suggests, no one dances (even metaphorically), and there is certainly no one who leads any dancing. I suppose that's why the movie is sometimes known as The Passion of Evelyn, which is a little more apt. It seems that all the money for this film went into the period costumes and locations - and certainly not the script with its laughably awful dialogue (see above). It did have lofty aspirations, though, borrowing elements from such esteemed literary sources as Rebecca, Jane Eyre, and The Man in the Iron Mask.

• Here's how the movie breaks down: 20 minutes of exposition, then 40 minutes of gratuitous nudity and grownup time, and then the murders all occur and are wrapped up in the last 25 minutes. This definitely falls under the category of a "sexy" giallo.
• Director Alfredo Rizzo was also an actor. He focused mainly on low-budget horror flicks, but perhaps his biggest mainstream success was as a cab driver in the Audrey Hepburn movie Roman Holiday.
• Bloodsucker Leads the Dance features two giallo all-stars: you may remember Femi Benussi from Strip Nude for your Killer and Luciano Pigozzi from the classics Blood and Black Lace and Naked You Die.

What the Hell am I Watching?

The movie is strange enough, but the versions you'll see on DVD and Netflix have a wonderfully crazy special bonus: an eight-minute intro by horror host Redemption. Imagine a lesbian vampire Isabella Rossellini look-alike with a geographically untraceable accent wearing black-wings, leather, and white contacts. Now imagine her making out with mostly-naked chicks dripping with fake blood in slow motion. Then, in her sexy, slow purr, she talks a little about the history and development of the horror genre. It's exactly as awesome as it sounds.

Bloodsucker Leads the Dance drinking game! Drink whenever someone insults Samuel's masculinity. Chug whenever the camera lingers on a horse's butt.

Fashion Moment

Here's the scene where Evelyn first arrives in her room at the castle.
 

Notice that her amber dress and blond curls are in perfect harmony with the room's maple furnishings and gold filigree. Even the creamy sheets match her blouse. It's as if this is just where she belongs. For ever and ever.