This is the place where genres begin. Although the mad-scientist-kidnaps-and-kills-women-to-rejuvenate-duchess-while-hunted-by-a-trench-coated-reporter-plot wasn't even new in 1956, the picture invents large parts of the visual style and form of the Italian Gothic and the Giallo. Even heavily erotic undertones and extremely loose plotting are to be found.
Which shouldn't come as too big a surprise if one considers the director Riccardo Freda and especially director of photography (if you believe some sources co-director) Mario Bava. But I was very much surprised how much this looks like a Bava film, lighting to camera movement to dream-like pacing.
Another point of interest is the strange juxtaposition of ultra-modern feeling 1956 and the gothic dream fantasy of the villain's castle and I can't help but see the film as proof of the siamese twin theory of Italian genre cinema; just before the operation.
No Darlings today, I watched in Italian without subtitles.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
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