The Bloodstained Butterfly

The Bloodstained Butterfly
Original Title: Una farfalla con le ali insanguinate
Directed by: Duccio Tessari
Italy, 1971
Giallo / Poliziotteschi, 89min
Distributed by: Manga Films

Even though Duccio Tessari’s The Bloodstained Butterfly is safest placed in the Giallo genre, I feel that is has more in common with say Massimo Dallamano’s What Have They Done to Your Daughters? 1974, than the common Giallo. Sure it plays off the same who-done-it plot structure, but follows the cops methods of singling out the villain more than the regular following of one specific lead character – until we get half way through that is. Just like What Have they Done to Your Daughters? it becomes a near perfect hybrid of the Giallo and Poliziotteschi genres.

Starting with a typical genre trait opening murder, we see the poor victim rolling down a hillside after being stabbed to death by the assailant. Through a speedy montage, various witnesses see the murderer fleeing from the scene of the crime. A Man stares out of his window, a balloon seller later points the killers path of escape to the police and a woman making out with her boyfriend sees the killer as she winds down the steamy window. This is where Tessari and Gianfranco Clerici [Ruggero Deodato’s Last Cannibal World 1977, Cannibal Holocaust 1980, Phantom of Death 1988, Lucio Fulci’s New York Ripper 1982 and Don’t Torture a Duckling 1972], start laying out the red herrings for us to chomp down on as he brings us into the movie.

Pretty soon Inspector Berardi’s [Silvano Tranquilli - Paolo Cavara’s Black Belly of the Tarantula 1971, Silvio Amadio’s A Smile Before Death 1972 and Umberto Lenzi’s Violent Naples 1976 among others] hard work pays off and they bring in sport newscaster Alessandro Marchi [Giancarlo Sbragia], their prime suspect. The Victim - French exchange student Françoise Pigaut [Carole André – Visconti’s Death in Venice 1971, Lucio Fulci’s White Fang 1973 and Massimo Dallamano’s Colt .38 Special Squad], was a friend of his daughter Sarah [Wendy D’Olive – Mike Nichols’ Catch-22 1970 and Joe D’Amato’s Cormack of the Mounties 1974], his fingerprints where on the murder weapon, the stains on the victims coat match the interior of his car seats , his coat – as described by the witnesses – was sent to the cleaners by his wife Maria [Ida Gali once again as Evelyn Stewart – Mario Bava’s The Whip and the Body 1963, Lucio Fulci’s The Psychic 1977] in a rather held back performance, not to mention that his skin was found under her nails - Alessandro seems to firmly hold a one way ticket to the slammer for the rest of his life.

Enter the sub plot that will spin this movie around and get the tempo back to a firm beat. While her father Alessandro is in custody, Sarah starts dating Giorgio [Helmut Berger - from all those great Visconti movies and Tinto Brass' Nazisploitation classic Salon Kitty 1976 ] a filthy rich music student who was Pigaut’s boyfriend before she was killed – which isn’t disposed to the rest of the cast, but we know it and it’s soon going to work it’s way into the narrative. Anyhow it’s a relationship that will get ugly before the climax. Simultaneously Alessandro takes to the chair during his trial and tells how his car was broke into several weeks earlier, the knife, his gloves and a black leather bag being stolen at the time. Marchi’s defence, Attorney Gulilio Cordaro [Günther Stoll – Dallamano’s What Have You Done To Solange 1972 and Jesus Franco’s The Castle of Fu Manchu 1969], starts trashing the prosecutions case and as a favour to Sarah, even Giorgio testifies on behalf of Alessandro.

A string of event’s that expose double crossing lovers and intricate relationships are told in great Hitchcockian fashion – let the audience in on the plot and keep the characters in the dark – all lead up to a second murder and further complications for the cops. Not to mention Alessandro who is held captive, even though his Attorney Cordaro claims he’s doing everything in his power to get his set free. But when the obligatory Italian husband’s lover makes an entrance he’s off the hook thanks to a watertight alibi. Once again we are desperate to solve the mystery and expose the killers identity, and thanks to he complex weave that’s been woven into the narrative we have a whole new set of prime suspects.

In a final reel twist Tessari chucks in a brief blackmail subplot that comes kind of unexpected, but leads up to the greatest reveal of them all. You won’t see this one coming and you will be surprised as all your conclusions are once again shattered. And for a change the motif behind the killings is actually quite logic, which once again proves that Tessari and Clerici are masterful screenwriters. The two worked together on several movie’s and the results where often very satisfying.

I can feel that there perhaps are a few courtroom scenes to many in the first half of the movie, but it’s all part of the set up, as in the second half all the conclusions that we have come to make are thrown aside when Tessari kicks the movie up full throttle. We are certain that Alessandro is the killer or at least perhaps hiding the real killer, and as soon as this presumption is made, he throws us a tight series of red herrings at us when a second victim is found only to have us jumping at new conclusions – the way only Gialli can, inviting the audience to be the amateur detective.

Just like his later Giallo, Puzzle 1974, a fantastic movie in it's own right, Tessari takes a delicate approach, avoids the predictable clichés and focuses more on the characters and their development than the usual trait of violent deaths and jazzy scores sat to wild cinematographically compositions. And it’s a healthy break from the fast paced moves of other movies in the genre at the time period. The slow pace also is where Tessari manages to build his characters and give us an insight into the deceptive reality behind the fancy façade that the characters hold towards the audience upon first glimpse.

There’s a great returning gag with Inspector Berardi’s espresso that keeps coming back every time they are in the office, he can never get that perfect espresso that he craves, and it gives a neat little comic relief to the movie.

The movie features a terrific score by Gianni Ferrio [Who scored several other Tessario movies, among them the 1974 Giallo Puzzle and also Luciano Ercoli’s Death Walks at Midnight 1972 and The Rip-Off 1977], which is possibly one of his best scores. Take notice of Ferrio’s opening score and you will hear how he fuses in Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No1 into the opening scenes, and that’s not just coincidental as it will be of major importance to the rest of the movie. It’s the record that Françoise had with her before she was killed, it the record that breaks down Giorgio as he reminisces about his lost love, and it’s also the music that is of importance to the killer in The Bloodstained Butterfly. Another Gialli trait - the fine art that triggers the murderers killing spree!

Half the fun of great Gialli is trying to figure out the title of the movie, as the title often refers to a specific item, incident or scene found in the narrative. Dario Argento’s Bird with the Crystal Plumage 1970 refers to the bird in the zoo that becomes a valuable clue to solving the case, Profondo Rosso 1975 is the grizzly climax - deep red blood. Sergio Martino’s The Case of the Scorpions Tail 1971 to the photographic image that eventually exposes the killer, Fulci’s Murder to the Tune of Seven Black Notes 1977 to the melody that plays on Virginia Ducci’s watch - which is why the US title sucks so hard, Umberto Lenzi’s The Oasis of Fear 1971 to the house they spend the main time of the movie in and so on and so on. The title The Bloodstained Butterfly also has a semiotic significant within the movie. The title is a reference to the necklace butterfly that Giorgio bought Françoise before she was killed – a butterfly soon to be stained with her blood.

Duccio Tessari’s The Bloodstained Butterfly is a wonderful piece of Gialli cinema, perfectly conducted, well performed, holds a splendid plot and is a refreshing change to the common eclecticism of many other movies in the genre. Definitely a one to pop on when you grow tired of trippy, surreal Funky Jazz fests with to many incoherent killings and shifty characters – you won’t be disappointed.

Image:

2.35:1 Non-Anamorphic

Audio:

Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, English dialogue and a Spanish dub. Spanish Subtitles are forced, but you can work around them if you search the net for the right tricky combo of buttons.

Extras:

Very sparse, only cast and crew filmographies. To be honest, if you really need this movie in it's complete uncut glory you need to find the rare Italian Medusa release, or the German release, but I can't remember which company. X-rated perhaps?

Here's that great score by Ferrio for your audio pleasure.

And here's the opening titles... with a scene not included on the Spanish Manga films release.

The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion

The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion
Original Title: Le foto prohibite di una signora per bene
Directed by: Luciano Ercoli
Giallo, 1970
Italy, 96 min
Distributed by: Blue Underground

Story:
A young woman, Minou is lured into a fiendish web of blackmail and extortion as she tries to protect her husband. Slowly but surely she is tangled up in a terrible game which forces her to engage in lurid sexual activity while the Blackmailer shoots photographs of her. When she finally tells her husband all, and they together with the police breakdown the door to the sex fiends’ apartment, it is empty and Minou’s sanity is questioned. But guess who shows up outside their house in the middle of the night in the pouring rain… The Blackmailer. Minou confronts him and the horrific truth is finally revealed in a plot twist that you never saw coming…
…if you never saw a Giallo before that is.

Me: Luciano Ercoli’s first attempt at directing a Giallo proves that you don’t need a bunch of violent killings to keep the story going. All you need is to delicately plant your red herrings here and there along the way to keep your audience guessing where the movie is going. The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion is a great example of this, and although it’s not my favorite of Ercoli’s Gialli, I found it to be a damned fine and entertaining movie.


Having produced a few dramas, some comedies and three movies for among others Duccio Tessari [both his Ringo Spaghetti Westerns and the action/comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang from 1966 ] it is no surprise that Luciano Ercoli wanted to get himself behind the camera and direct a few movies. And you have to give it to the man, of the eight movies he did direct, there are at least half of them really fabulous genre pieces.


The absurd ending to Ercoli’s career is as enigmatic and strange as the Gialli he directed. His final movie, the Poliziotteschi The Rip Off [La Bidonata 1977] was shelved after the producer Niccolo De Nora was kidnapped! De Nora was held captive for an amazing 524 days, and the ransom was supposedly well over four million. Not long after Ercoli came into a large inheritance, packed up his offices and retired from the movie industry. With a mind filled of red herrings and warped plots makes it easy to fantasize about the strange events and their conclusions. Ercoli obviously had nothing to do with the kidnapping, but it’s a fantastic story. Thanks to the age of restored movies on DVD, Ercoli’s The Rip Off, just like Mario Bava’s last shelved project, Rabid Dogs has finally been able to be presented to it's audience.


Often critiqued for his Gialli first and foremost being vehicle for his girlfriend (or wife, nobody knows for sure) Nieves Navarro aka Susan Scott, I still can’t help to find myself feeling that there is indeed more to these movies in Ercoli’s Giallo suite than just showcasing his fabulous wife. Navarro was a decent enough actress even before Ercoli started directing his own movies, and in some way that kind of diminishes the craft that the rest of the crew put into these pieces. I can certainly understand that one may like to claim that Ercoli only made the movies to show off his marvelous partner, but in all honestly there’s no way they could assemble the casts and crew if that where the case.

All three of the Gialli, The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion 1970, Death Walks on High Heels 1971 and Death Walks at Midnight 1972, where all written by the master of the genre, Ernesto Gastaldi (Midnight was co-written by the great Sergio Corbucci). And, The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion is a great script which definitely has an engaging narrative, wonderful plot twists, even if there are no genre typical killings. It builds empathy for Dagmar Lassander's Minou character as she is lured deeper and deeper into a sinister blackmail scheme set to force her into bed with the stalker. Friend and ally Dominique, played to perfection by Nieves Navarro (as Susan Scott) uses her emancipation to trick the viewers into never quite knowing who’s side she is on, is she really concerned for Minou or is she in cohorts with the blackmailer. The sleazy Blackmailer played by Simón Andreu is excellent, (Andreu returned in all three of the Giallo movies) and Minou’s husband Peter [Pier Paolo Capponi – no stranger to the Giallo genre or the Nunsploitation genre for that part…] once again prove that in an Italian Gialli you can’t trust any man at all, unless it’s the old reliable police commissioner of course. The shock surprise end doesn’t really come as a bombshell after seeing a reasonable amount of movies in the Giallo niche, but at the same time it doesn’t really take all that much away from the story as the final twist is held for an as late as possible reveal, and there’s plenty of red herrings along the way to keep you guessing who masterminded the plan against Minou. It’s pretty common Gialli ground, and entertaining enough to keep the steam going all the way through.



The editing on both Death Walks on High Heels and Death Walks at Midnight was performed by Angelo Curi. Ercoli himself edited The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion, with Curi as his assistant, and Curi stayed on as first editor on all the films Ercoli directed from there on. The Cinematography by Alejandro Ulloa on The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion is probably the simplest of the three Gialli, but brooding sinister reds and deep dark blues create some wonderfully lit scenes. Fernando Arribas on the other hand used the frame much better on Death Walks on High Heels and Death Walks at Midnight, setting the camera at low angles and using wide lenses for some really delicious shots that can’t be found in The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion.


Then there’s the soundtrack. Ennio Morricone’s score for The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion is standard Morricone fare, which is easily summed up in the word fantastic. The music of Morricone does wonders to add to the lush feeling of the Gialli and this one is no exception.

Finally a small reflection on the actors, I’ve never been much of a fan of Dagmar Lassander. She has the same two, three facial expressions in her repertoire and never does much to surprise. (With perhaps Piero Schivazappa’s The Frightened Woman being the exception) and there’s not really any surprises here either, she just get’s the job done. Navarro is almost always fabulous as she constantly wears clothes that look dazzling on her (contrary to Lassander who looks like she got makeup and dressed in the dark), perfect makeup and that stunning smile. I think that if Ercoli had flipped the parts here, had Navarro in the Lassander part, put in Anita Strindberg, Edwige Fenech or Marisa Mell in that ferocious part I'm positive that the movie would have become a classic of the genre. Not taking anything away from The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion, it is a great movie, and it really keeps you trying to figure out who is in on the scam and how far they are going to go with it. But a re-shuffle of the cast would have been beneficial. This could possibly have been in the mind of Ercoli too, as this is exactly what he did with the next two installments of his Gialli suite, giving Navarro the lead, Andreau the male lead, and probably what ignited that reputation of his movies only being a vehicle for Navarro. But if you are married to a woman like that you’d be insane not to have her lead your movie.


One of the things that intrigues me about The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion is that the opening sequence is terrible! The movie opens on Lassander in the bath, she gets out and ponders around her house talking to herself how she’s going to seduce Peter when he get’s back from work. Not until she gets outside and Andreau starts stalking her on the beach does it start to pick up pace. But that opening is just so ridiculous, and it would have been much better to start with her on the beach, roll the credits over shots of her walking and then start straight off with the attack instead of that meaningless five minute blotch at the start.


Image:
Widescreen, 2.35:1 [16x9 Anamorphic]

Audio:
English Dubbed version. Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono. No subtitles.
Extras:
Forbidden Screenplays. A short interview with Ernesto Gastaldi on the script and movie and the Theatrical Trailer.