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It opens rather like Le Notti di Cabiria, and by the end has foreglimpsed Paris Nous Appartient. The drained corpse fished out of the Seine is the latest in a series of murders, the inspector (Carlo D'Angelo) is stumped, the journalist (Dario Michaelis) is determined. "The very energy that generates life" is the ultimate goal of the scientist (Antoine Balpêtré) who works for the aristocratic crone hidden behind veils, formerly an obsessive pursuer of the reporter's father. Breezing through is the enigmatic fashion plate (Gianna Maria Canale), "infinitamente bella." An Italianate eye on Feuillade's city, a parallel with the Hammer horror wave, Riccardo Freda coming into his own in tandem with Mario Bava's camera. Eternal youth calls for a certain blood type, the dirty work falls to a twitchy heroin junkie. Gothic chambers that turn into unfurnished lofts, the authorities wander off befuddled while a kitten scampers across the back of the frame. A medieval motto over the family's coat of arms, "I Shall Conquer Hell," a holdover from the Crusades. The Duchess has a secret, the revelation adduces a striking effect from Mamoulian (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and Pichel and Holden (She). The details are to be relished, the hero stumbles into the tenebrous castle and a stone skull with glowing eyes rings out like a burglar alarm. The gloved hand clutching a syringe, the ominous henchman materializing in the dancer's mirror, the car approaching the woods as light filters through trees and mist suffuses the screen in a signature Bava composition. "Most people will never know that kind of love," only Franju and Argento and Franco and other disciples of the frisson. With Angelo Galassi, Wandisa Guida, Renato Tontini, and Paul Müller. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |