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| PERCHÉ QUELLE STRANE GOCCE DI SANGUE SUL CORPO DI JENNIFER? |
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aka Le rendez-vous de Satan (Fr), The Case of the Bloody Iris (Int), What Are Those Strange Drops of Blood Doing On Jennifer's Body? (Int, unconfirmed)
1972
Italy
Luciano Martino for Galassia Film, Lea Film
Director: Anthony Ascot [Giuliano Carnimeo]
Story & screenplay: Ernesto Gastaldy [Gastaldi]
Music: Bruno Nicolai (Sermi Film)
Cinematography: Stelvio Massi {Eastmancolor}
Editor: Eugenio Alabiso
Set design: Carlo Leva
Cameraman: Michele Picciaredda
Filmed: Elios Studios (Rome)
Release information: Registered 25.07.72. Italy (04.08.72, 97 mins), France (07.03.79, Paris, 90 mins Cast: Edwige Fenech ( Jennifer Lansbury), George Hilton ( Andrea Antinori) , Paola Quattrini ( Marilyn Ricci, Jennifer's friend), Giampiero Albertini ( Erici, a police commissioner), Franco Agostini ( Renzi, an agent), Oreste Lionello ( the photographer), Ben Carrà ( Adam, Jennifer's husband), Carla Brait ( Misar Harrington), Gianni Pulone, Carla Mancini, Georges Rigaud ( Professor Isaacs, Sheena's father) and with Annabella Incontrera ( Sheila Isaacs)
Uncredited: Luciano Pigozzi ( Martelli, a nightclub owner)
This title is available from Amazon.com on DVD as part of the Giallo Box Set. It's a lovely print and highly recommended.
In many ways, The Case of the Bloody Iris feels like a reworking of The Day of the Maniac (72), and one which should have come out six months before, rather than after, that film. Whereas Maniac had tried - not entirely successfully - to extend the giallo formula by incorporating elements of the occult, this goes backwards and sticks to a standard murder mystery scenario. Despite having a different director, Spaghetti Western specialist Giuliano Carnimeo (They Call Me Hallulujah (71)), this looks and feels remarkably similar to the previous Hilton / Fenech / Sergio Martino collaborations, perhaps highlighting the considerable input of scriptwriter Ernesto Gastaldi and producer Luciano Martino to all of these films.
Martino, particularly, was an unheralded but significant figure in the development of the Italian giallo: he had been an advocate of thrillers all'italia since the early-sixties, when they were anathema to the box-office. Subsequently, he was a prime mover in the making of The Sweet Body of Deborah (68) and So Sweet So Perverse (Così dolce... così perversa, 69), both of which acted as a kick-start for the genre as much as (if not more than) Dario Argento's more lauded The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo, 70).
A young lady is stabbed to death in the elevator of a spick'n'span new apartment block. The discovery of her body proves distinctly underwhelming: one witness decides that work is more important and wanders off, while the old codgers who live on the top floor stand around debating exactly whether the corpse is that of a tenant or not. Meanwhile everybody else just gets annoyed that the lift appears to be stuck!
When another girl is murdered in the same block (tied up and drowned in the bath as a possible homage to Bava's Blood & Black Lace (Sei donne per l'assassino, 64)) the police, in the person of stamp collecting Commissioner Giampiero Albertini, become involved. They don't seem particularly on the ball - 'Didn't I see you yesterday about a murder?' - but they do soon discover that both victims were ladies of some ill-repute.
Andrea (George Hilton), manager of the ill-fated apartment block (despite claiming never to have set foot in the building (!?!)) wastes no time, swiftly leasing the newly vacant apartment to a pair of models: Jennifer (Edwige Fenech) and Marilyn (Paola Quattrini). Andrea also happens to have an aversion to blood; which of course makes him even more of a suspicious character than, well, simply being played by George Hilton does.
The killer soon develops an inevitable interest in Jennifer: creeping into her room and attempting to strangle her whilst she sleeps. As the corpses pile up, so do the possible suspects. Could it be intense Andrea? Or lesbian neighbor, Shiela (Annabella Incontrera)? How about her father (Jorge Rigaud), who has a penchant for playing his violin into the early hours? Or even the disfigured chap locked up in the apartment next door (every tenement has one)?
This is a film that's simply full of echoes. Edwige Fenech plays the former member of a sect (cf. Day of the Maniac), attempting to escape from a kinky sexual relationship (cf. Next). She again has a dodgy ex-lover (Ben Carrà) who is a combination of the Julian Ugarte and Ivan Rassimov characters from Maniac and Next respectively. Incidentally, this poor fellow looks increasingly the worse for wear as the running time progresses: his stubble becomes less cultivated, his hair more unkempt, his leather sports-jacket more crumpled. It seems only natural when he finally gets shish-kebabbed and stuffed in a wardrobe; a suitable punishment for such lack of grooming.
Hilton, meanwhile, plays a virtually identical character to those he essayed in Next and The Case of the Scorpion's Tale, albeit even more suspicious. Paola Quattrini fills the 'annoying female sidekick' role (cf. Cristina Airoldi In Next), with the superb Anabella Incontrera as a token lesbian with a thing for the heroine (cf. Marina Malfatti in Maniac). And as mere icing on the cake, there's even some of the same cranky poetry as was to be found in Next : 'My sin is as black as you, and your color has already started to corrupt me'.
What with all this, The Case of the Bloody Iris could hardly be accused of staggering originality, and stylistically it also plays much like the aforementioned films (including recurrent, slow motion flashbacks). That said, it's well enough made, with cinematography that makes great use of artificial lights and clever framing, some extremely mod sets and a smashing soundtrack. There's a neat murder scene in a shopping mall and an authentically tense set-piece in the cellar which, full of air-conditioning pipes and steaming valves, manages to anticipate Ridley Scott's Alien. It closes with a decent climactic scrap at the top of a vertigo-inducing staircase, a sequence filmed with quite considerable panache, before the appearance of a rather perplexing coda (the meaning of which, if any meaning was actually intended - beyond supplying cult superstar Carla Mancina with her habitual one second role - is frankly beyond the comprehension of this humble reviewer).
Beyond that, there's quite a bit of amusement to be had from the confused seventies Mediterranean sensibilities: there may be some voguish sapphism, but it doesn't prevent Sheila being told that '.it's a shame to see a beautiful woman like you wasting her talents'. Women's lib is summed up in the character of Miza (Carla Brait), a feisty lady who wrestles men as a nightcub act; during the course of which, natch, her clothes happen to get ripped off. In fact, Ms Brait's aren't the only garments to be shed; Edwige Fenech seems to change costume every five seconds, which gives suitable opportunity to run around in bra and panties (as does being chased down a corridor by a lunatic sex case, but that's something else entirely). Some of the most effective sequences are those in which people creep around the apartment block, thus making this a great example of a film wherein a central building almost becomes a character in itself (other examples of which include The Beyond and The House with the Windows That Laugh ).
On the downside, the pace does slacken occasionally, most particularly with the recurrent police investigation scenes. Despite the game efforts of Giampiero Albertini and Franco Agostini , these betray the director's comedic tendencies and unfortunately act to rather dissipate the tension. In all, then, it doesn't quite pack the punch of the Martino films, but can still be counted as a way above average example of its type. Finally, it must be pointed out that this is remarkably similar to the Sharon Stone / William Baldwin vehicle, Sliver (93).
Review by Matt Blake
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