A trio of Italian “giallo” pictures made in the 1970s, all enmeshed in lurid murders whose victims are exclusively the members of the weaker sex (mostly sylphlike, nubile girls), but each with their different kinks and kicks.
Sergio Martino’s THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH finds the titular wife (Fenech, a porcelain-like trophy wife) of a diplomat harassed by mysterious letters and life-threatening attacks while any of the three men in her current life, her seemingly upstanding husband, her current, swarthy and caring paramour and a deranged, sadistic old flame, could be a serial killer offing young women with a blade.
The film’s final reveal would certainly throw audience for a loop. Although the twist is quite shark-jumping, it really goes out of its way to pinpoint a woman’s precariousness in this world, but that doesn’t hinder Mrs. Wardh from seeking out a possible new romantic object, sexual morality is something her and the film take a dim view of, above all, a woman’s extramarital affair is simply a mote in the eye of the oceanic masculine malignancy circling around her.
In Massimo Dallamano’s WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE?, several sexually emancipated, pubescent schoolgirls in a London Catholic school are ruthlessly iced with a very startling modus operandi. The cases eventually turn out to be a personal vengeance with a conservative connotation. Here, our nominal protagonist is the school’s Italian professor Enrico Rosseni (Testi, who is in fine fettle but his amateur sleuth operation is half-baked), whose flagrant affair with Elisabeth (Galbó), one of his students, doesn’t get much flak besides the cold glare from his frigid German wife Herta (Baal).
When Enrico, and by extension, audience, finally sees daylight of the revenge act, the story’s punitive overtone of promiscuity-censuring and sadistic punishment cannot hide its sexist, even misogynic slant and disregard for reproductive justice, not to mention the hidebound, incorrigible hymen fixation (Enrico is easily forgiven for his peccadillo by Herta after Elisabeth is revealed to be a virgin). Dallamano vehemently nails his orthodox Catholic color to the mast but that notion is truly démodé half a century later.
Dissimilar to the aforementioned films, Lucio Fulci’s THE PSYCHIC (one of its many alternative titles is MURDER TO THE TUNE OF THE SEVEN BLACK NOTES) is rather chaste and barely blood-stained, with no exploitative sexual and nude contents, which is also uncharacteristic for him, after all, he is famously dubbed as “the poet of macabre”.
Riding on a high-concept construct of parapsychology, about a woman (O’Neill) who can foresee events happened in near future, only too late to realize that they are the components of a dreadful situation where her own life will be put in extremis, THE PSYCHIC is a taut Hitchcockian thriller and mystery, vigorously piecing together all the puzzles of a predestined climax, and suffixed with an open-end coda, leaving the fate of our hapless heroine a moot point. A case of saving by the music, but not a complete victory, as fanciful as MRS. WARDH.
All three pictures are reined by competent hands despite their moderate-to-scanty funds. MRS. WARDH seems to be spurred by Martino’s somewhat hog-wild energy, brandishing slapdash compositions and punch-drunk cuts as if in a delirium. It also tries to creep audience out with a sinister POV and an eldritch ambience of a slasher (including emulating a notorious a slashing scene in the bathroom).
The similar technique also appears in SOLANGE, where Gothic oppression, Catholic formality and idyllic lushness all gel into a rigid whodunit, while treacherously belying the transgressions and profligacy underfoot. The sadistic commission can hardly match the black-and-white flashback sequence which could be an adolescent girl’s worst nightmare.
Fulci’s psychotronic pyrotechnics in image-confecting and myth-fabrication are well served in THE PSYCHIC. The neatness of its narrative procedure elicits a wonderful adrenaline rush through Fulci’s time-honed proficiency and savvy in the trade, only the periodic zooming-in close-ups of Jennifer O'Neill’s soulful, spacey eyes to segue into her eerie vision is woefully deployed ad nauseam.
As per in the genre’s idiom, the dialogues in all three films are crummily composed, merely to thuddingly implement their function as plot propellers. Apart from distinctive visual finesse, a good giallo’s best bedfellow is a killer score, and that’s something the trio isn’t shy of. Nora Orlandi, the first female film composer of Italian cinema, confidently dazzles and seduces audience with her strangely alarming and discordant accompaniment in MRS. WARDH; whereas Morricone’s contribution to SOLANGE is alternately lyrical and unsettling, the titular tune is particularly mellifluous and melancholic; as for THE PSYCHIC, its score is also quite untypical, preferring a more melodious, otherworldly atmosphere than the usual suspect as a routine mood enhancer.
At the end of the day, for all their gratifying demerits and logical lacunae, each film makes for a gripping first-viewing. For an erstwhile genre mainly regarded as a purveyor of divertissement, it still remains a mother lode of perversion, delectation and thrill for an audience of new generations to discover.
referential entries: Dario Argento’s SUSPIRIA (1977, 7.3/10), THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUME (1970, 6.1/10); Yann Gonzalez’s KNIFE HEART (2018, 7.7/10); Mario Bava’s BLACK SUNDAY (1960, 7.3/10); Ti West’s X (2022, 6.2/10); Peter Strickland’s THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY (2014, 8.0/10). English Title: The Strange Vice of Mrs. WardhOriginal Title: Lo strano vizio della signora WardhYear: 1971Country: Italy, Spain Language: Italian, SpanishGenre: Crime, Mystery, HorrorDirector: Sergio MartinoScreenwriters: Eduardo Manzanos, Ernesto GastaldiMusic: Nora OrlandiCinematography: Emilio Foriscot, Florian Trenker Editor: Eugenio AlabisoCast:Edwige FenechGeorge HiltonIvan RassimovAlberto de MendozaConchita AiroldiCarlo AlighieroManuel GilBruno CorazzariMarella CorbiLetizia LehirAnne Pouchie Rating: 7.1/10 English Title: What Have You Done to Solange?Original Title: Cosa avete fatto a Solange?Year: 1972Country: Italy, West Germany, UKLanguage: ItalianGenre: Horror, Mystery, ThrillerDirector: Massimo DallamanoScreenwriters: Massimo Dallamano, Bruno Di GeronimoMusic: Ennio MorriconeCinematography: Joe D’Amato Editor: Antonio SicilianoCast:Fabio TestiKarin BaalCristina GalbóJoachim FuchsbergerGünther StollClaudia ButenuthCamille KeatonRainer PeukertPilar CastelGiovanna Di BernardoVittorio FanfoniAntonio CasaleMaria MichiMaria MontiGiancarlo BadessiRating: 6.3/10
English Title: The PsychicOriginal Title: Sette note in neroYear: 1977Country: ItalyLanguage: English, ItalianGenre: Horror, Mystery, ThrillerDirector: Lucio FulciScreenwriters: Lucio Fulci, Roberto Gianviti, Dardano Sacchetti Music: Frano Bixio, Fabio Rizzi, Vince TemperaCinematography: Sergio SalvatiEditor: Ornella Michelli Cast:Jennifer O’NeillGabriele FerrettiMarc PorelGianni DarkoIda GalliJenny TamburiFabrizio JovineLoredana SavelliBruno Corazzari Rating: 7.0/10
