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There's a long history behind
the origins of giallo films.

The name derives from the
yellow cover of

the crime novels published
by Mondadori.

Back in 1929, Mondadori,
who was and still is

a pretty important
publishing company,

started releasing a
series of crime novels

and detective stories.

These books had very
recognizable covers,

they were colored
in yellow

with a circle in the middle
that featured a drawing

related to the plot or
the tone of the story

that people were
about to read.

This is to explain that the
usage of the term "giallo"

originates from literature.

It's not like it was
used all of a sudden.

The Italian public started
using it in the late 1920s,

when the country was still
under the Fascist regime,

and since then
they've gotten used to

calling every crime story
a "giallo",

every mystery,
or detective tale.

A giallo is like a
puzzle or a gamble.

Its plot has to
intrigue the reader,

and make him busy trying to
figure out

the identity of the culprit
before the writer

tells him at the end of
the book or film.

Of course, the writer
isn't allowed to cheat.

Otherwise, the story won't be
a giallo anymore,

but instead a tale
of suspense.

To call it a giallo, the
story must be logical.

No cheap solutions.

It's got to be made in a
certain way,

so anyone who goes through
it a second time

can notice all the clues
they missed the first time.

To solve the case
or find the culprit.

My artistic education began with
American films of the 50s.

I was a college student
back then,

before I attended the
National Film School.

I must have seen all the
masterpieces made by Fox,

Warner Brothers, and RKO.

Even now, I still buy
those films on DVD.

Back then, I saw all of Elia
Kazan's early pictures

and Don Siegel's
early ones.

Or, let me think,
there were so many.

Raoul Walsh's and William
Dieterle's films too.

All those directors

who started out
in the 30s,

and made their best
films in the 40s.

They used black and white
in such a wonderful way.

The cinematographers back
then were people

like Harry Stradling
or Nicholas Musuraca.

Their use of black and white
cinematography was amazing.

I was really impressed by those
giallos set in big cities

that were made
between 1945 and 1950.

Robert Siodmak was the
best at making those.

He directed
THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE.

And the one with
the twins

that was called
THE DARK MIRROR.

It's the one where Olivia de
Havilland plays two characters.

A giallo must have a
precise mechanism.

The worst mistake a writer or
a director can make

is to cheat with
the plot.

Maybe I'm exaggerating
a little,

but my favorite example
of this is

in THE BIRD WITH THE
CRYSTAL PLUMAGE,

when the lead can't
remember a detail.

That detail then becomes the
key to revealing

the identity of
the killer.

It creates suspense,
you see.

And to create it you
don't need logic.

Suspense can start
from anything.

Sometimes even Agatha
Christie wasn't logical.

Take TEN LITTLE INDIANS. It's a
classic, but at some point

there's a character who fakes
his death, and that's illogical.

No one could have been
totally sure

the others wouldn't
find out.

This means that the
writer is cheating,

deciding what's logical
and what's not.

I don't have a problem with
that,

but then it's just
not a true giallo.

A true giallo shouldn't
use this kind of trick.

In reality, it would be hard
to fake your death like that

without being found out by
any of the other characters.

That's some suspension of
disbelief right there.

Even a classic like TEN LITTLE
INDIANS has it,

and we're talking
about a book

that's considered a
masterpiece of the genre.

One of the biggest influences
on Italian giallos

was the German
krimi films.

Most krimis were adaptations of
Edgar Wallace stories.

Germany began producing them
in the early 60s.

These even predate
Mario Bava's early thrillers.

When Mario Bava made his first
contemporary thriller in 1963,

and I'm referring to THE
GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH.

Krimis had already been
around for a few years,

predating Italian thrillers.

Like their early Italian
counterparts, krimis balanced

very dramatic sequences,
and bursts of graphic violence,

with lighter comedic scenes.
For instance, think about

the parts Eddi Arent
played,

and their function within
the plot.

He provided comic relief that
allowed the audience

to relax a little

until the next
explosion of violence.

German krimis play
a huge role

in the history of
Italian giallo.

Firstly, because those films
were distributed in Italy.

We could say that they were
preparing the public

for our own crime
films and thrillers.

When it comes to the
narrative structure,

krimis influenced basic
characteristics of giallos.

Krimis too had killers
whose faces we don't see.

The focus is mostly on their
hands and other details.

Krimis too had black-gloved
killers,

another essential element
of giallos.

The same goes for the peculiar
weapons used for the killings.

Unconventional ones,
at least compared

to those used in classic
crime films.

Krimis featured weapons
such as knives,

or even arrows, like in a
film titled THE GREEN ARCHER.

And so killers were depicted
in a new, unique way,

which was another important
element of Italian thrillers.

Murder was being shown
in a new way,

starting with the weapons
used to commit it.

This is one of the things that
giallos borrowed from krimis.

And, as I said, krimis were
born from crime literature,

since most of them were
Edgar Wallace adaptations.

Edgar Wallace was also the
man who created King Kong.

Curiously, the early Italian
giallo writers were authors

like Francesco Mastriani or
Carolina Invernizio,

who were well known for
their serial fiction,

or stories published
in installments.

These works were sold
at newsstands,

or their equivalent
at the time.

This kind of literature
was extremely popular,

even amongst
the lower classes.

This shows how popular Italian
giallos were back then.

Of course, we also had
some authors who

specialized in writing
giallos.

One of those was Augusto De
Angelis, in the 30s.

His stories were set in Italy
and were often tales of murder.

This defied convention, of
the squeaky clean image

the regime imposed on
every story set in Italy.

Augusto De Angelis
himself was a victim

of the regime's
violence.

He was beaten to death
by a Fascist activist.

De Angelis was the first to
write murder tales set in Italy,

and he did it
under that regime.

His stories were never
adapted for the screen

because he was an
inconvenience to the regime.

After the war, another writer
continued De Angelis' legacy.

His name was
Giorgio Scerbanenco,

another great crime and
giallo author.

Some of his novels have been
adapted for the screen.

I'm going to go out on a limb
and say that Scerbanenco

was the greatest Italian
writer of mystery stories,

or giallos, if you prefer.

Genres aside, I must add that
he was quite a good writer.

I read some of his
non-crime stuff,

he did a lot of
different things.

Personally, I don't care much
about his romance novels.

That's because I don't
like the genre.

I love his five novels with the
character of Duca Lamberti.

I also like his short stories,
some of them are great.

In particular, IL CENTODELITTI,

Italy only discovered, or
rediscovered him,

after he became famous
in France.

Mario Bava is considered the
first Italian giallo director.

Bava used different
approaches to his giallos.

A film like THE WHIP AND THE
BODY can be considered a giallo.

An atypical one, perhaps,
for its setting

and also because it is full
of the same gothic elements

that were present in Bava's
previous film, BLACK SUNDAY.

THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH is
the first Italian giallo

in the "classic" sense.

The film was an inspiration for
Dario Argento when making

THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL
PLUMAGE.

Mario Bava's inspiration was
to set the story in Italy.

THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH is
still a black and white film.

The colors that characterized
the genre were yet to come.

That's why one of Bava's next
films is considered to be

an even better example
of giallo cinema.

The film is BLOOD AND BLACK
LACE, and it features a killer

whose methodology set a
standard for every

Italian giallo that
followed.

The killer emerges from the
shadows, dressed in black.

His gloves are black, too,
and he mostly uses blades.

These elements were copied
by many giallos.

My father, and myself too, even
after all these years

have a deep love for
BLOOD AND BLACK LACE.

I believe it is a
genuine classic.

Only a few moments aren't as
strong as the rest, I must say.

It took me twenty or thirty
years to rewatch A BAY OF BLOOD.

I stumbled upon it a few years
ago, I don't remember where.

You know how it is, sometimes
you stumble upon

a good copy being
screened.

This cinema was showing the
film to a young audience.

When the film ended, we all
agreed it felt so fresh,

like it just came out.

Compared to some other
films of the time,

it's still incredibly modern.

And we also noticed what a
ruthless film it still is.

It even inspired a subgenre of the
American horror film.

While FRIDAY THE 13th became
a worldwide phenomenon

A BAY OF BLOOD
remained a cult film.

My father had never been
that successful with films.

With A BAY OF BLOOD, also
known as ECOLOGY OF CRIME,

Bava approached the genre
in a totally different way.

The film could be considered
the beginning of slasher cinema.

It's a giallo, where the
violence is graphic, excessive.

There's an overabundance of it,
especially compared to the plot.

That's how Bava reinvigorated
the genre yet again.

He did it in the 70s after
doing it in the 60s.

Then, towards the end of his
career, he did a noir,

RABID DOGS.

The film had issues
with censorship.

As it often is with
great innovators,

Bava challenged the
convention of his time.

You cannot think of
Italian giallos

without considering
censorship.

It had an influence on
the genre,

at least until the early 60s.

The situation improved
during the early 70s.

All thanks to Pasolini.

After the censors dealt
with the films

he made in the 70s they were
more lenient towards giallos.

He challenged the relentless
censorship of the time.

As so his efforts helped other
directors work more freely,

especially when it came
to showing violence or sex,

unlike what had been the
norm before then.

Therefore, we can say that Bava
is one of the originators

of Italian giallo films.

Bava had the aesthetic
understanding of a painter.

He started out
as a cinematographer.

That's why he was so invested
in visual structure.

Before Argento, Bava was
perhaps the first director

to favor visuals over plot.

Bava's main goal was to
find the best visual way

to show the murders.

He found an aesthetic
for murder.

That was more important to him
than having a tight plot

like in a British giallo novel.

Naturally, Bava's films were
crafted with

a foreign audience in mind.

His films were made for an
international audience.

Right from the start,
Italian giallo directors

hired well-known foreign
actors.

Think about John Saxon in
THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH.

Saxon acted in several
giallos, including

a late entry in
the genre.

I'm referring to Dario Argento's
TENEBRAE, made in 1983.

Giallos were past their prime, but
Argento kept making them

well into the 80s
and 90s.

2000s, too. He kept making them
well after the genre

stopped being popular.

The genre was past its
prime, after reaching

its peak of popularity in the
early 70s, thanks to Mario Bava.

Bava was, without a doubt, the
originator

of the Italian giallo genre.

Chronologically
speaking, after Bava,

Dario Argento is the most
important giallo director.

With THE BIRD WITH THE
CRYSTAL PLUMAGE,

Argento introduced the
golden age of giallos.

Bava can be considered
Argento's precursor,

but his films, mainly
THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH

and BLOOD AND
BLACK LACE,

didn't generate momentum
within the genre.

That happened with THE BIRD
WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE,

Argento followed in Bava's
footsteps,

setting the film in Italy.

He also staged unique murders,
with the body count

growing throughout
the film.

He orchestrated the murders
in a dreamlike way.

That broke with convention,
with the established

rules of the genre,

both narrative and
visual rules.

It initiated a change
within the genre,

and that's the reason so many
giallos were produced in Italy

after Argento's first film.

We screened the movie at
Titanus after wrapping it.

Lombardo, the boss, was
there with his staff.

My father was there, too.

I didn't go, I was afraid it
would end badly.

And that's just what
happened.

They watched the film and really
disliked it,

especially Lombardo.

He just didn't like it.

He declared the film was
neither giallo nor thriller.

He said he didn't know
what genre it was.

Lombardo kept saying that.

I think he wasn't ready to watch
something as modern as my film.

Especially given that
it was a giallo,

my film had a new approach,

both in terms of the visual
style. and in the storytelling.

How it presented the
characters and the twists,

and how it depicted
violence, too.

It was a new approach.

That's why Lombardo
didn't like it.

He was even upset
with my father.

They all stepped out of
the screening room,

and Lombardo locked himself
and his staff in an office.

My father waited outside the
room with Cesarina,

Lombardo's longtime
secretary.

It was around breakfast, and
she was eating a sandwich.

She had watched the film, and
her hands were shaking

as she held the sandwich.

My father asked her if
something was wrong.

She replied that the
film really scared her.

She said she was still shocked.

My father told Lombardo
to ask Cesarina,

because she was part of
the audience.

So he talked to her and,

for a moment, it seemed
he might change his opinion.

That didn't last long,
because he later said

that he didn't
believe her.

He said he didn't know what
could be done,

as the film had been
already completed.

He hoped that it would at least
appeal to a small audience.

I must say that, at
least initially,

the public didn't
like the film that much.

I mean, it was my first film,
nobody knew my name.

Musante was barely
more famous.

It wasn't seen as a film that
could be successful.

We had the first showings
in Milan and Turin,

big and important
Italian cities.

It went horribly.

They started to pull
it out of theaters.

My father stamped his feet
and asked

to keep trying in
different cities.

Cities such as
Florence or Naples.

Those new cinemas started
showing it.

Meanwhile, Lombardo wasn't
in Italy,

he was on a business
trip.

So, the film was being shown
in Florence and Naples.

We went to Florence.
It was my last hope.

Otherwise, I'd have gone
back to being a screenwriter.

As we got closer to
the theater,

we saw a lot of people
walking in the same direction.

We asked ourselves what
was going on.

They were all going to
see the film.

Apparently, people
liked it

and started spreading the
news around.

Florence isn't that
big of a city.

That last showing was
packed full of people.

They even applauded
at the end.

That filled our hearts
with joy.

It didn't happen by chance.

They didn't like the film in
the other cities

because they didn't
understand it.

The next day we went to
Naples and we learned that

the same thing happened
there. The cinema was packed.

The audience loved the
film and clapped.

That's how the film
found its own way.

It started to be a hit
everywhere, even in Rome.

That's when I got a
call from Lombardo.

He complimented me, said that
we hung in there, and in the end

we had made a hit, and I was
getting the success I deserved.

Then he asked me to start
working on the next film

immediately.

I guess there was some
hypocrisy on his part.

"I'm starting to
fear that Italian."

That's what Alfred Hitchcock,
the Master of Suspense,

said after watching
Dario Argento's debut.

And that masterpiece
was...

THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL
PLUMAGE.

A film made by Dario
Argento, the director

who opened a new and
shocking dimension of fear.

What new elements did Argento
add to the Italian giallo genre?

Why do we say that his first
film was the model

for every Italian giallo
that followed?

In my opinion, we can say so
because Argento

basically created a list
of elements

and tropes that would define
the genre from that point on.

As well as recreating
the giallo, he created

a code for the others
to follow.

Naturally, he also kept using
some of the elements

established by Bava.

There's a series of elements
that Argento

started using in
his first film.

First of all, the
look of the killer.

The killer is dressed
in all black:

hat, trenchcoat and
gloves.

He mostly uses blades
to kill his victims.

Having a mysterious,
black-clad killer

that moves in the shadows would
become one of the most

recognizable traits of
Italian giallos.

That can also be said
for another element,

which is the attention to
the staging of the murders.

From that point on, all
Italian giallo murders

would be choreographed.
Literally.

Great care was devoted
to staging them.

These murder scenes have
become pure visual elements.

Beautiful artistic displays
detached from a realistic plot.

Each one is an expressionistic
display of its own.

Not only was the visual
aesthetic

of the murders
changed,

but they increased
in number as well.

From that point on, Italian
giallos would always feature

a substantial number of
killings committed

by the culprits.

That's a departure from
what happens

in more traditional
films or books.

The guilty parties are
often revealed to be the ones

that the audience doesn't
expect.

In THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL
PLUMAGE, for instance,

the killer is a woman.

This is one of the elements that
made the film so original

in comparison to more
traditional genre pictures.

Another element that was
introduced in the genre

by Dario Argento's film is
showing the killer's P.O.V.

It forces the viewer to see
what the killer sees.

Before that, the technique
wasn't widely used in giallos.

Argento introduced it
in order to show

the story from more
angles.

He also "fakes" some points
of view,

in order to keep viewers on
their toes,

and make them fear
that the killer

will pop out from
anywhere.

It's one of the hallmarks of
Argento's and other giallos.

The killer jumps out when
you least expect it.

You could say for this reason
Argento's and other giallos

aren't as rational
in terms of plot.

But we're less interested in
plot holes than strong visuals

when we watch Italian
giallos,

especially in regards
to violence.

This aesthetic of violence can
be seen in the murder scenes.

Another important element
found in Italian giallos,

one that was introduced
in Dario Argento's

THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL
PLUMAGE, is the soundtrack.

The soundtrack is no longer
just traditional film music,

it becomes more than just
incidental,

more than just accompaniment.

It somehow makes silence
expressive.

This new musical style also
makes innovative use of noise.

Master composers like Morricone,
or Bruno Nicolai,

exploited noises to
intensify the effect

of their music to
create suspense.

The music builds to
a crescendo of terror,

which is essential to any
Italian giallo

regardless of
whom the director is.

And, in his first film,
Dario Argento managed

to make the soundtrack yet
another expressive element,

where even silence
speaks volumes.

It was a radical break from
traditional scores.

Another element
introduced in

THE BIRD WITH THE
CRYSTAL PLUMAGE,

this is something
Argento adopted

from German krimis, is a bit
of comic relief.

The presence of comedic or
light-hearted moments appear

to make the violence seem
even more explosive.

In THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL
PLUMAGE we have characters

like Addio, the pimp,
played by Gildo Di Marco,

or Berto Consalvi, the
painter, played by Mario Adorf,

who add comedic elements
to the giallo.

These elements lighten the
plot a bit,

and are typical of
Italian cinema.

It has been said that all our
films have comedy in them,

even neorealist ones.

Even a very dramatic film like
ROME, OPEN CITY

has some lighter bits.

As when Aldo Fabrizi hits a
bedridden old man

on the head with
a pan

because the fascists are
about to storm

into the room they're in.

So, the comedic moments
introduced in Argento's debut

reappeared in many later
Italian thrillers.

The other important element
introduced by Dario Argento

is a nonlinear
narrative plot.

Cause-and-effect relationships
aren't essential in giallos,

at least compared
to traditional ones.

Even the murders happen
in a nonlinear way.

Ever since Argento's debut, when
we watch an Italian giallo

we see a film where the
killer could come from anywhere.

Even when we think that all is
safe and locked up tight.

Even then, the killer
could appear from anywhere!

There's a constant feeling
of unease,

a constant feeling
of helplessness.

That is very typical
of Italian giallos.

In an Italian giallo, you don't
feel safe even in your own home.

The viewer knows that, and
that the killer

might appear anytime.

In the two films that followed,
Argento remained faithful to

the conventions he
introduced in his debut.

THE CAT O' NINE TAILS and
FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET.

We could say that the former
has a more "classic" feel

than Argento's debut.

Whereas the latter is the
start of Argento's

visionary horror phase.

DEEP RED partially inaugurated
this new phase,

which came to fruition
with SUSPIRIA.

FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET has
an element of precognition

which is typical of the
cinema of the fantastic.

I'm talking about
foresight, or even

the metamorphosis
of reality.

After this first trilogy
of giallos,

and we can call it a trilogy

due to the use of animals
in the titles:

the bird, the cat,
and the flies,

after this trilogy.
I was saying,

Argento transitioned to
horror films

to films with more
fantastical elements,

starting with DEEP RED.

DEEP RED is an important
film

in the history of Italian
cinema.

It seems to encompass
our whole film tradition.

It's no coincidence that it was
written by Bernardino Zapponi,

who worked on
some Fellini films.

Zapponi added his own layer of
the fantastic

to Argento's films.

DEEP RED, of course, is
still a thriller.

And so the murders must have
a logical explanation,

despite the plot being
nonlinear compared

to standard crime films.

It was the perfect
screenplay.

It had no downtime, and the
characters were fleshed out.

That's not something you
find in every giallo.

Giallo characters can
often be two-dimensional.

In DEEP RED, they
were all developed.

David Hemmings' character had
his own temperament,

mine had another, and so on.

At the time, when I
played a character,

I took inspiration
from the director.

I took inspiration
from Elio Petri

when I made PROPERTY IS
NO LONGER A THEFT.

Dario had me playing
a journalist,

so he drew upon a time
when he was one himself.

He kept waving his hands
frantically, like an elf,

an inspiration for my
character from

.an existing woman
journalist,

and also from Dario, who
moved like a neurotic.

I created something like
complicity with my audience.

I basically told them, right
from the start

that they were about
to witness a series of

scenes and situations
that are highly unlikely.

Unlikely, because I was
channeling my nightmares

and my imagination.

The viewer was required to
enter my nightmares.

That's what I told
my audience.

And I also assured them
that they would like it.

Everyone hated the
idea of the puppet.

My father, my brother, and my
production designer

all hated it.

They all begged me to not
shoot the puppet scene.

They said that the film
was good,

that it was powerful stuff,

but kept begging and begging
me to forget the puppet.

But I persisted, and asked
the great Carlo Rambaldi.

He won two Oscars later
on, working in the US.

We're talking about the man
who created E.T.

I asked him to create a puppet
capable of walking

and moving its head.

A sort of automaton.

Rambaldi was a very talented
engineer and

quite a cultured man.
He said "yes", and succeeded

in building
this walking puppet

that could move
its head.

I always found great pleasure
in cinematic violence.

It's a cathartic feeling.

Compared to the horrible things
that happen in real life,

or what you see
on the news,

the aesthetic of murder
can give you great pleasure.

Look at the fake blood.

Everyone knows it's fake,
although not as obvious

as tomato sauce.

But it's a very expensive
nail polish

made by Max Factor, that
you have to use according to

the lights in order to
grade the tones of red.

It creates a great,
interesting feeling.

There must be something
special in my films.

I guess my films have
nine lives, like cats.

There must be something that
makes them unforgettable.

And something too that
attracts new viewers.

There have been some recent
screenings around the world.

I went to Pisa, Italy, and the
theater was packed with people.

So many people...

And in America as well.

And also some screenings
in other countries.

The audience is very young.

Some have watched my
films on DVD.

For others it's the first time,
but they've heard of them.

This new, younger audience
is an interesting lot.

Very interesting...

I don't know why my films
are still liked,

like SUSPIRIA or OPERA.

The audience continues to like
my films

and find interest
in them.

I mean, tastes change,
so I wonder what it is.

Maybe because I tell stories
that come from deep inside me.

I don't tell stories that
come from other sources,

except for the occasional
homage to certain directors,

or to certain old
films that I like, but

I take inspiration
from within,

from my subconscious,

which guides me in what to
say and what story to tell.

When it happens, I don't know if
there's a meaning or symbolism.

I don't immediately understand,
but

it comes to me
gradually, in time.

With SUSPIRIA and INFERNO,
Argento focused

on fantastical themes.

In 1983, with TENEBRAE, he
returned to the thriller genre.

More recently, he directed
another thriller, GIALLO.

Given that title, GIALLO,
it clearly follows in the steps

of classic giallos
and thrillers.

Naturally, over the years,
both Italian

and international
cinema

have undergone
profound changes,

as has Dario Argento
himself.

Therefore, the new,
revolutionary driving force

behind his first films
has been inevitably lost.

The Argento of today is a
very different director

than the one he once was.

He's still a great director,
and one still able to draw on

with an extraordinary visionary
gift, and an ability

to make a film in which
aesthetics prevail over

traditional narrative
structure.

He remains among the greats
of international cinema.

Well, Argento doesn't like me,
though I don't understand why.

It's an odd thing.

Why doesn't he like me? I mean,
if he thinks I'm nothing

then he shouldn't even
be talking about me.

Instead, he hates my guts.

Okay, he doesn't really
hate me.

Argento doesn't hate anyone,
he just loves himself.

I think that Argento is a
great craftsman,

who believes he's
an artist.

Hitchcock, on the other hand,
was an artist who believed

he was a craftsman.

That's why I think Argento will
do the same things forever.

He's very good with
public relations.

The young people like him.

He also uses a certain kind of
music in his films

that other horror
directors,

including American
ones, would never use.

I like modern music, I have
young kids,

Argento's children are
younger than mine,

but I believe that his use
of music is fake.

He's the same with
other things.

I think that he is a good
director and a terrible writer.

People often say the opposite,
but I think

he's a terrible writer.

Among the most important Italian
directors that made giallo,

we must remember
Lucio Fulci.

He approached the genre before
Argento, with a film called

ONE ON TOP OF THE OTHER.

Fulci realized his original
vision without

being influenced by Argento.

Argento's success with his
first film aided

Fulci's subsequent films,
because

after Argento's debut
was a hit,

the genre became very
lucrative.

The public demanded more
giallos, and wanted them

to be set in our country.

My first giallo was
ONE ON TOP OF THE OTHER.

The Producer chose
the title.

Edmondo Amati was a good
producer,

though he didn't know what
a giallo was.

I consider mine to be the second
Italian giallo. The first was

THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH,
directed by Romolo Guerrieri

and produced by my
friend, Luciano Martino.

He's always said we need to
do more giallos in Italy.

He stopped making them, at
some point, but now he's back.

ONE ON TOP OF THE OTHER, also
known as PERVERSION STORY,

is perhaps the first Italian
giallo with a studied mechanism.

When the film came out,
everyone was scared

of what would happen,
Amati included.

They were scared because of the
way the film was constructed.

Personally, I love
the script,

which took eight months
to write.

Originally, we had a deal to do
a comedy for this producer,

but when our actor,
Ugo Tognazzi, backed out,

we decided to do
a giallo instead.

A lighter giallo, something
similar to

THE SWEET BODY
OF DEBORAH.

I never would have imagined
it would become

an example of
screenwriting technique.

We worked as hard as we could,
and we often made mistakes.

I believe you could remake
the movie now,

and avoid the mistakes
we made.

The narrative mechanism
is still solid.

For the first time, the police
aren't involved in the plot.

Cops aren't that capable
in my films, they never

manage to catch anyone.

They always make bad mistakes,
like the Carabinieri policemen

in DON'T TORTURE A
DUCKLING.

In EROS PERVERSION, the real
enigma is within

the protagonists and we
see it by what they do,

by their attitudes and
their psychological gestures.

Some of Argento's films
follow these rules, too.

After ONE ON TOP OF THE OTHER,
Lucio Fulci made

a series of films that were
very different from each other.

His giallos were, indeed, quite
different from each other.

For instance, A LIZARD IN A
WOMAN'S SKIN was very dreamlike.

Whereas, DON'T TORTURE A
DUCKLING was very realistic.

Starting with the setting,
deep in southern Italy.

These two films couldn't
be more different.

In A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN
we have a female lead,

played by Florinda Bolkan.

We often have a number of
important female characters

in Fulci's giallo films.

Naturally, female characters
in giallos are often

even more "exposed"
than their male counterparts

to the violence
inflicted by the killers.

The success of my previous
giallo allowed me

to do A LIZARD IN
A WOMAN'S SKIN.

Amati trusted me to
do the film.

Argento had already done what
were perhaps his best giallos

THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL
PLUMAGE

and THE CAT O' NINE TAILS.

LIZARD and CAT were released
around the same time.

People loved animal titles.

LIZARD wasn't a hit. If I made
eight million in a theater,

he made 12 in another.

It was still good and, back
then the industry

was a happier place.

His film made more
because it was gorier.

My film had only a couple
of strong scenes.

Again, I preferred to focus
on the mechanism.

It's one of my fixations.

DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING is
more of a psychoanalytic film.

There's a theme of repression.

After all, the murderer
repressing his guilt

is one of the pivotal
elements of Italian giallos.

DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING
was a huge hit.

It even won an important
award.

It was an attempt to create a
giallo in a rural setting.

I told a similar theme in
my best film,

THE CONSPIRACY OF TORTURE.

Nobody remembers it, it's
not even on VHS.

I'd pay you if you could
find me a copy.

Anyway, in THE CONSPIRACY OF
TORTURE, I showed

how papal power condemned a man to both
death and eternal damnation.

In DUCKLING, the priest kills
the kids because

he wants them to go
to heaven.

That's the theme that got me
the award I mentioned.

I really love the film.

There are many subtleties.

At some point, I even reveal
the identity of the killer.

It's when the priest walks
with Milian,

I might not remember
the exact scene.

Anyway, the priest tells him
that he doesn't allow

the sale of porn magazines,
and that he doesn't want

the children to grow up.

He wants them to remain pure
and innocent forever.

That's why the film begins
with the bells ringing,

the children at confession,

and the modern highway that
divides this unreal land in two.

Concerning the character of the
local witch, believe it or not,

I wanted to set
the film in Turin,

where these southern
superstitions still exist.

They still exist as
a matter of fact,

in the big cities of the north,
among southern immigrants,

I personally saw little
ceremonies of Italian voodoo

taking place.

They did them in grungy
courtyards and buildings,

where the southern laborers

that work for FIAT lived.

It was the first film produced
by Medusa Film. They did well.

It was my first thriller.

I wanted to make something new
after so many comedies.

I remember they made me
change the color of my hair.

As you can see they dyed it
almost red,

styled long and straight.

So, this was my first
thriller and, thankfully,

it became a big hit.

Of course, DON'T TORTURE A
DUCKLING was

very different from
a comedy.

I was really trying to
diversify my range of roles,

but it wasn't
always possible.

DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING
was different,

I also liked the cast.

And I played the role.

I liked the idea of working
with Tomas Milian,

and with Irene Papas, who
I greatly admired.

Also Florinda Bolkan, who
was at the top of her game then.

I must say I didn't know
who Fulci was at first,

I never knew who the
directors were.

I was a foreigner working
in Italy.

The only way I had to
determine if a project

would be good was to look
at the script,

or watch the directors'
previous films.

Or trust my agent's word.

Fulci was a little nutty.

He was a bit grouchy.

He had his moments of anger.

I never had any problems
with him.

He never got angry with me.

I do remember my first few
days on the set.

I got sick.

I had to stay in bed. I'm about
to repeat some old gossip.

A little film within the film.

There was, I don't remember
well, I think

it was the costume
designer who

came into my room and
told me I had to

to see something
outside.

I was so weak, I said I would
see it the next day.

She insisted that I had
to get up and go see.

So I did, I got up out of bed.
Outside, by the pool,

I saw this big,
muscular man.

So handsome and tall.

"Nice view," I said.

"He came with Irene Papas,"
she told me.

"Not bad," I said, and
that was it.

A short time later, however,
I found out that Irene

had developed a crush
on Tomas.

Yes, Tomas...

He had his wife with him.

Irene had such a big crush
on him, that

she dumped the
beefcake.

So I stepped in and took
him for myself.

He was free, she was busy with
Tomas. Finders keepers.

I won that battle.

Eventually, there were these
huge fights between

Irene, Tomas, and his wife.

So many fights, at the
hotel, at night...

We kept ourselves busy.

You said you've seen one of
my best, and.

Least successful films,
SETTE NOTE IN NERO.

Its American title is
THE PSYCHIC.

The French title is
L'EMMURE'E VIVANTE.

It was such a painful
production for all of us.

I even had some personal
troubles.

It happened because I made a
film about challenging fate.

You should never do that.

Polanski once told me that,
while I challenged fate,

he made a film that
challenged the Devil,

another thing you should
never do.

I'd shoot it again tomorrow.
I love a solid structure.

The film came out, but
nobody cared.

It was a great disappointment
for us all because,

let's be honest... THE PSYCHIC
is a little gem of a giallo.

I'm always thinking remake
potential,

and I think you could build
some incredible films on

that narrative framework.

Because, really, the film is
essentially a modern take

on Edgar Allan Poe's
THE TELL-TALE HEART.

It uses a music box instead
of a heart,

but the spirit of Poe
remains

in the use of something
unusual to help uncover a crime.

It's a classic device.

It works because that device
is both simple,

yet loaded with meaning.

I love this film, it's probably
the best one I did with Lucio.

That's what I think. Others
might beg to differ.

I did 8 films with him, and
I think this is the only

"round" one. It works
perfectly.

The only one where it
all makes sense.

The others aren't as perfect.

They might have been more
successful or more exciting,

but they're not
as "round".

This film has also
something I really love,

and it's a trace
of the supernatural.

The movie starts off as a
traditional giallo,

with a murder.

There's nothing unusual, it's a
story just like any other.

If anything, like many stories,
it might seem a bit prosaic,

because, ultimately, it's
a meditation on human misery.

Yet, the film has this
supernatural vibe, and it

revolves around fate,
destiny, and so on.

Different stuff than usual.

This allows the plot to
transcend the limitations

of common criminality.

It also evokes a different set
of feelings about the murders.

You know you're looking at
something different.

I just loved that,
and Lucio knew it.

THE PSYCHIC, which can
genuinely be defined as

a truly great film.

It marks an important
transition in Fulci's career.

Sort of a rite of passage,
separating the realism

of the giallos, from a cinema
that is more overtly horrific.

As you know, after shooting
THE PSYCHIC in 1977,

Fulci shifted to films
like ZOMBIE,

CITY OF THE LIVING
DEAD, and THE BEYOND.

THE PSYCHIC, despite
the giallo elements

in the script written by
Gianviti and Sacchetti,

was a sort of bridge
to more fantastical films.

There's a female protagonist
in THE PSYCHIC,

played by Jennifer O'Neill.

She experiences visions of a
future that might

actually be the past, or
both at the same time.

Therefore, this intentionally
confusing narrative timeframe

could be defined as one of
the key elements of the film.

The film explores more
fantastical territory,

but it's still a giallo, even
if it's not as realistic

as Fulci's previous work,
such as ONE ON TOP OF ANOTHER,

A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN, and
DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING.

Those films are examples of
Fulci's incredible

visionary talent.

As well as his willingness
to show the cruelty of

the murders, which was
another key element

of the whole Italian
giallo genre.

Moreover, he retained certain
elements from previous films.

Let's not forget that Fulci
worked in almost every genre,

very much like
Sergio Martino

and many Italian
genre directors,

with the exception
of Dario Argento.

Fulci started doing thrillers
after directing many comedies

starring Italian comedians
Franco and Ciccio.

We can say that he was
a mainstream director who,

thanks to his unique vision,
created giallos

that captivated
audiences by merging

elements of genre with
those of mainstream cinema.

Following these films, Fulci
refined his vision

to create his
horror masterpieces,

made in the late 70s
and 80s.

There's something my daughter
says about MURDER-ROCK...

I mean my older one, not the
one who works with me,

and will probably become
a director soon.

Anyway, she says that it feels
like a good American TV series.

She's right.

Yes, it feels like the end of
an era, and I knew I had

to reinvent myself and
the things I was doing.

I mean, times were changing.

Like my daughter said, with
MURDER-ROCK I did something

that looked like it was
an episode out of a

good American crime series.

She felt it was no more
than that,

but I was trying to do
something different.

There are some directors who
only made a few giallos.

One of the most important
was Duccio Tessari.

He made a film based on a novel
by Giorgio Scerbanenco,

DEATH OCCURED LAST NIGHT.

The novel was very
well-known.

Its Italian title is I MILANESI
AMMAZZANO AL SABATO.

Lombardo, who distributed the
film, feared that mentioning

the Milanese people might
put off potential viewers

from other regions.

That's why the title was changed
to DEATH OCCURRED LAST NIGHT.

Tessari and I suggested it,
because it's

a quote from the film.

Given that we had to change
the title,

it was the best possible choice.

I'm happy that, in recent years,
most film critics and viewers

have started to consider it
the best film adaptation

from Scerbanenco's novels
with Duca Lamberti.

Out of all the Italian
giallo directors,

Luciano Ercoli was one
of the first.

He was also a producer, and
when he started

directing he had already
produced some interesting

Italian Westerns directed
by Duccio Tessari.

The films Ercoli directed are
elegant,

and quite Hitchcockian in style.

His style was refined and
his choice of music

was equally sophisticated.

We could say that his films
are "deluxe packages."

Spanish actress Nieves Navarro was
the mainstay of these films.

She usually adopted an
anglicized pseudonym,

Susan Scott.

Ercoli's films, DEATH WALKS AT
MIDNIGHT,

DEATH WALKS ON HIGH
HEELS, and

FORBIDDEN PHOTOS OF A LADY
ABOVE SUSPICION,

are very sophisticated
works.

We could say that, as
a director,

Ercoli marries Argento's
innovations

with his own elegant and
stylized mise-en-scene.

These films were also
quite successful.

I always liked doing
thrillers.

Crime films too, but I did
those after the thrillers.

Thrillers were the
trend in those years.

Especially after Dario
Argento's ascension.

Many of us directors tried
to follow in his footsteps.

That's how I started doing
thrillers, in my own little way.

I found it a bit difficult.
It was my directorial debut.

The script wasn't much help, and
the dialogue was very spare.

I had to turn that into
an hour and forty minute film,

so I wound up with
a lot of slow parts.

I didn't have that problem
in my next film.

I always liked noir films.
I really love them.

From the old ones with Richard
Widmark and Orson Welles,

to the new ones.

Luciano gave me the script, I
read it, and loved my character.

I found it funny, and really
interesting.

I had already acted in some of
the films Luciano produced,

but it was the first time I
worked in a film he directed.

He was a very demanding
director, you know.

Maybe he thought I was Ingrid
Bergman or someone like that.

Even if I wasn't Ingrid Bergman,
he was still very demanding

with me and
Dagmar Lassander.

We didn't pay too much
attention to him,

and just did the best
that we could.

I had a good relationship with
Ernesto Gastaldi,

the screenwriter.

We had already worked together,
and I felt I could trust him.

He wasn't a great writer, but
he had some good,

even very good ideas when it
came to giallos or thrillers.

The development wasn't
always as good.

Yet, you could still see they
were proper giallos

or thrillers.

In addition to Ercoli, we
could mention Aldo Lado.

Among other giallo
directors,

Lado directed an atypical
giallo,

SHORT NIGHT OF GLASS DOLLS.

The film is set in Prague,
a great location

with an eerie, magical feeling.

The lead character is
played by Jean Sorel.

The film feels like a waking
nightmare.

Its twist ending is somewhat
similar to

the ending of Wilder's
Sunset Boulevard.

And, maybe its beginning too,
an homage to Sunset Boulevard.

Another giallo directed by
Lado is WHO SAW HER DIE?

That film is set in Venice,
which is an ideal location

for that kind of thriller,
a city on water, one that feels

almost apart from the
rest of the world.

That film has such rich
atmosphere.

Its protagonist, George
Lazenby, had played 007 once,

although without great
success.

It's a film that shows Lado's
understanding

of the schematics of
the genre.

Giuliano Carnimeo was among
the one-time giallo directors.

He is best known for his
enjoyable westerns,

mostly starring
George Hilton.

Despite directing only one
giallo, Carnimeo's film

is considered to be one
of the best examples of

Italian giallo.

THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS
stars Edwige Fenech,

and it's a film where the
schematics of the

Italian giallo are
well-calibrated.

The soundtrack is
incredible, too.

The film unifies all the
elements of Italian giallos.

Being a mainstream director,
Carnimeo is particularly adept

at tying all of those
elements together.

The orchestration of the murders
within that mise-en-scene,

makes this among the
most representative

examples of 70s
Italian giallo.

Sergio Martino was among the
first to attain success

by making giallos.

Martino's importance can be
attributed to many factors.

First of all, he's one of
Italian cinema's

most versatile
craftsmen.

His first film was a western,
and then between

the 70s and the 80s

he was one of the
preeminent

Italian comedy directors at
least in terms of box office.

He made films like SUGAR, HONEY,
AND PEPPER,

and DON'T PLAY WITH TIGERS.

With his film, THE STRANGE VICE
OF MRS. WARDH,

Martino created a successful
niche with giallos,

to which he brought
originality.

It didn't hurt that the film
was produced by his brother,

Luciano Martino, who only a few
years earlier had produced

Romolo Guerrieri's THE
SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH.

We could say that the Martino
"family tradition"

of making giallos predates
Argento's taking on the genre.

THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH
was the first giallo

produced by Luciano
Martino after LIBIDO.

LIBIDO was a gamble made by
Mino Loy and Luciano Martino.

They each put five
million lire into it.

A small investment to
make the film.

One half of the film was
mine and Vittorio Salerno's.

By that I mean that
we worked for free.

My wife Mara acted for free,
and we

only paid Giancarlo Giannini

Actually, I still owe him 20K.

If I remember correctly,
Dominique Boschero

got one million. She
was our lead actress.

Again, the film was a gamble.

There was no guarantee we
would make a profit.

In Italy, we only earned 123
or 153 million.

The budget was 26 million.

So it wasn't bad, but
it wasn't much.

Then, suddenly, on the
foreign market,

and I don't know how, but the
distributors managed

to sell LIBIDO everywhere.

They sold it for big money,
too.

At that point, Loy and Martino
made an English-dubbed version.

When they sold it to the
US market for

35 or 40 thousand dollars,

it wasn't much at the time, but
more than the film's budget,

the Americans didn't
want the dubbed version.

They said that it sounded like a
character was

dubbed in Sicilian.

And the character's child in
Milanese.

We didn't understand that you
can't have a guy from Alabama

dubbing a character whose
child is dubbed

by someone from Boston.

The film had to be redubbed,
but this time the Americans

did it themselves.

It was one of the few times
they dubbed a foreign film.

They tend to use subtitles.
The film did great and

they sold it worldwide.

The bottom line is, out of
a 26 million lire budget,

this little film
earned 400 million.

And then Luciano, who wasn't a
stupid man at all,

had a bright idea.

"Giallo is the way", he said,
"let's do more of them, pronto"...

So THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH
was the first giallo

of the long-running series
produced by Luciano.

Ernesto Gastaldi can be
considered the top

screenwriter of giallo
cinema.

He wrote several solid
screenplays

for the giallos made in
those years.

The various directors turned
those stories into

more elaborate films.

Nevertheless, all
those scripts written

by Gastaldi were strong.

Those films were often full of
visual inventions,

and that's why they always
needed good scripts,

like the ones Ernesto
Gastaldi wrote.

"We're all descendants of
an uninterrupted

chain of murderers,
whose love to kill

was instilled in their
blood, just as it could

be within us too."
- Sigmund Freud

From its very start, THE
STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH

differs from Argento's films
in its emphasis on the sexual,

psychological, and dreamlike
elements.

These elements recur throughout
the films of Sergio Martino.

In those years, the director
frequently worked with

Edwige Fenech, an actress
whose strong physicality

defined the difference
between Martino's

and Argento's films in
those days.

I was the first to meet Edwige
when she came into our office,

which was also used as a
dubbing studio.

She was gorgeous, in black
leather pants that were

unusual back then.

I told my brother about this
gorgeous girl,

and he hired her to do a
film called

THE SINS OF MADAME BOVARY,
which was a collaboration

between Luciano and another
producer, Alabiso.

After this film, I believe
she felt grateful

to Luciano and eventually
got to know him better,

in the biblical sense.

She became his partner, and she
became more and more successful.

Edwige was a buxom,full-figured
girl, and she was working

in Italy at a time when...
Let me digress a little,

even seeing a girl showing her
bosoms was almost an event.

I remember that every time we
went to Paris for a film,

the first thing the crew did
was buy a copy of Playboy.

You have to think in the
context of the time.

In those days, censorship was
finally slightly less

vicious than it had been.

Edwige became successful, and
I think she was

a very good actress in my films,
even if she didn't have

the physique du role, like the
French say, to play

the part of a frail-looking,
emaciated girl.

Maybe I need to escape
from myself.

These thrillers were often
very interesting films.

Made with not much money,
but a lot of good will.

And what came out
was our love for them.

In the end, they were very
good films that had

great success, not just
in Italy, but abroad too.

We were always greatly
surprised by that, because

we didn't have the means
of big budget films.

We knew we weren't
actors with big names,

but our films were seen
both in and outside of Italy.

I first met Edwige Fenech,
when we were in Tirrenia.

She was doing a film with
Rosalba Neri,

and we were staying at
the same hotel.

I was doing IL BACO DA SETA,
a film with Nadja Tiller.

We met in the hotel lobby.

She greeted me and
introduced herself.

In talking, we learned that we
lived near one another in Rome.

We became friends, and started
to hang out together.

I met her family, she met mine.

Then, one day, Luciano Martino
told me he was crazy about her.

He begged me to introduce
him to her in exchange

for doing a film together.

He promised I'd have had carte
blanche to do a film

with her in it.

And that promise became THE
STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH.

I was in charge of hiring her,
but I had to introduce them.

So I had them meet during a
dinner and we all read

the script that he brought.

And that's how they
started working together.

I think she was great
in those films.

I made several
films with Hilton.

And I became friends
with him, his family.

His wife came with him,
and then his children.

We were all a big
family, all together.

I have fond memories of George.

He's a funny man.

Edwige Fenech was
every man's dream.

I had people stopping me in the
streets, telling me how lucky

I was to do all those
love scenes with her.

She drove men crazy. Her beauty
was in a class of its own.

She was fantastic, and
so sexy.

I remember her as an amazing
woman to which

I had this great friendship.

I think Edwige was able to not
feel "naked" when she was

doing nude scenes.

I must add that, despite
being a gorgeous woman,

and no matter how many
people asked me

what she looked like naked,

I always saw her as a
sister, perhaps because

she was my brother's
partner.

Therefore, I never got a sexual
charge from anything she did.

A few times, when we were
making a film,

in order to give the censors
something

they could cut, without
hurting our picture,

we shot some more
explicit erotic scenes.

But this is another matter.

I always asked to have as few
nude scenes as possible.

But it seemed as though we
couldn't sell my films

without a scene of me
taking a shower.

Most of all, I wanted to
avoid doing love scenes,

they were what worried
me the most.

She never had that sort
of problem,

at least in the films we
made together.

Her body was so beautiful, and
she showed it on film.

Everyone knew that people
flocked to

the theaters to see
her movies.

They always gave her
a shower scene.

Love scenes, too.
That's how it was.

She was and still is a
gorgeous woman.

It's hard to do a love scene
with a friend.

We were actually naked
when we did our scenes.

We always covered our
private parts, of course.

They put some tape on them.

Those were good scenes.

When you act, you think you're
really making love.

But it was just acting, they
weren't real love scenes.

Yet, we did our best to make
it look as real as possible.

THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS.
WARDH was my first giallo.

The plot was, for the most part,
similar to other giallos.

Perhaps, not many people
realize it,

but with his film
LES DIABOLIQUES,

Henri-Georges Clouzot became
a great source of inspiration.

I foolishly didn't co-sign
the screenplay of my film.

This happened a lot in my career
and consequently, I lost money.

I tried to give it a unique
introduction to make it feel

less like a TV film, and to
infuse it with more energy.

To do so, I made up a
parallel story about

a maniac on the loose
in Vienna killing women.

Using this tactic to boost
the tension by showing

murders more frequently
allowed us to avoid

involving the police
trying to find the killer.

Writing a book on giallos,
I discovered that

at least 2000 articles, and
books have been written about

how to commit a murder
inside a locked room.

In THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS.
WARDH, I created

the perfect murder in a
locked room

using an iced cube!

It melts, the door locks
itself, and appears

to have been locked
from the inside.

The water dries and that's that.

I've read quite a few murder
scenarios dreamed up

by other writers.

Hidden snakes and other
crazy ideas.

Anyway, that's what giallo is.

It's about creating a mystery
that people can solve

if they pay attention.

Without cheating, of course.

Sergio Martino directed a
series of very

successful and stylish
giallos, such as

THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS.
WARDH, his first, and

ALL THE COLORS OF
THE DARK.

As well as YOUR VICE IS
A LOCKED ROOM

AND ONLY I HAVE
THE KEY before 1973,

when he directed what he
calls his giallo masterpiece.

We're talking about an extremely
violent film that even compared

to today's standards
represents a watershed

for Italian cinema.

In 1973, never before had an
Italian film been so violent,

and then came Sergio
Martino's TORSO.

TORSO has all the elements of
the Sergio Martino style.

His cinema speaks a universal
language and appeals

to an international
audience.

Martino's films have no borders,
and his specialty

is to create a world in
which it isn't important to

pinpoint the exact location.

His films are mostly
set in Italy.

TORSO is set in the town
of Perugia.

Which is an international
environment,

the University for
Foreigners,

which is perhaps the most
important cultural

institution in town.

In this film, all the elements
that define

Martino's filmmaking style
are present and very explicit.

Explicit as the sexuality we
see throughout the film,

and its emphasis on
graphic violence.

These elements are filtered
through Martino's

signature cinematic style.

As usual in his films, Martino
makes use of a hand-held camera,

in order to simulate the
frenzied movements

of the killer.

In addition to his hand-held
camera,

we know it's a Martino film
by the visuals, and

that specific mise-en
scene that defines his style.

This framing allows his
giallo audience

to feel a different physical
sensation in every set piece.

Martino, like Dario Argento,
doesn't offer his viewers

any guarantees.

In his films, as with
Guerrieri's

THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH,

we experience several
twists, and follow false trails,

the latter a recurring element
common to giallos back then.

It's like saying that anyone
could be the killer,

is the person you least expect.

A university professor
or a woman are

another element that
characterizes all

Italian giallos, not
just Martino's films.

These elements tear at the
fabric of social convention.

There's not an anthropological
or sociological

explanation for murder.

These giallos are detached from
reality, and detached

also because they never
gave the viewer

any certainty over how the
identity of the killer

will be revealed.

A killer who may be the least
likely suspect.

One of the most important
Italian giallo directors

is undoubtedly Umberto Lenzi.

His first films were aimed at
an international audience,

and he was one of the
few directors,

in the 60s, who made Italian
films palatable, you could say

to a foreign audience.

Lenzi's actors were often
real international stars

such as Carroll Baker, who
made Elia Kazan's BABY DOLL,

or Jean-Louis Trintignant,
one of the most important

French actors.

With SO SWEET... SO PERVERSE,
Lenzi created

what he called his
"uptown giallos".

These were giallos that were
set in the milieu

of the upper class.

These films are often
characterized by a certain

morbid quality that was
more suggested than shown.

An obvious example is the way
that Carroll Baker played

her characters.

After SO SWEET... SO PERVERSE,
Lenzi made a series

of similar giallos, such as
PARANOIA, A QUIET PLACE TO KILL,

SPASMO, and KNIFE OF ICE,
which is

more Hitchcockian in style
than those other films.

Then Lenzi made a more
Argentian giallo with EYEBALL.

He was a great director, who was
never afraid to experiment

with different kinds
of giallos.

I've always been an avid
reader of giallo literature.

Take a look at my library, and
you'll see it's almost

all giallos.

I particularly love
Georges Simenon,

and American hard boiled
writers.

I mean Raymond Chandler,
and the other famous one.

I took inspiration from this
style, and used it to

write my own stuff.

Naturally, the giallos I made
reflect my stylistic taste.

My giallos are set in the world
of VIPs, very important persons.

The upper crust.

It's a world rife with feelings
of hatred and perverted

sexual practices.

Therefore, my "trilogy of VIPs,"
consisting of PARANOIA

SO SWEET... SO PERVERSE,

and A QUIET PLACE TO KILL
comes with a very potent

social message. One that
I've emphasized.

I wrote the original story for
PARANOIA and adapted

it as a script with help from
Ugo Moretti,

a great screenwriter and
novelist.

Being a co-production, I also
worked with a French writer,

Marie Claire Solleville.

We wrote the script and I shot
the film as PARANOIA,

which was my original title.

The leading lady was
Carroll Baker,

a great Hollywood star who was
a very good and professional

actress and a friend with
whom I kept in touch

until a few years ago.

The male lead was a foreign
actor working in Italy,

Lou Castel.

The two leads were excellent,
but the supporting cast

was no less strong with
names like Lilla Brignone

and Tino Carraro.

We also had a young French
actress I discovered,

Colette Descombes.

She was the plot's pivotal
character.

Pretending to be Castel's
sister,

with the two staging these
sexual encounters

in order to degrade Baker's
character and eventually

drive her to suicide.

When the film was screened in
New York and other

American cities in the
summer of 1969,

it became a roaring
success.

The American major who bought
the rights was about to go bust,

but they made a handsome profit
from my picture and

subsequentially produced
my war film,

BATTLE OF THE COMMANDOS
starring Jack Palance.

When the film was about to be
released here,

the distributors, who are often
dimwits, said that the title

"PARANOIA" made them think
of "noia", Italian for "boredom",

and that a new title was
necessary to attract

viewers to see the film.

Sexy films were all the rage
back then, so

the producer said to
rename it ORGASMO

as a reflection of the
sexual tension in the film.

I didn't like it, but
they did it anyway.

Basically, this act
mutilated the film.

When it was revived at the
Fiamma Cinema in Rome,

I think in February...

It was a huge success. The
people gave us

a standing ovation during
the last scene.

A standing ovation. I'm
telling the truth.

All due to a final twist, no
one saw coming.

The same happened when it was
shown at the

Venice Film Festival.

This was 27 years after the film
was made and nobody

in the audience guessed the
unthinkable twist that happened.

The film's success in Italy
drove Paramount

to buy the rights.

Not Paramount, sorry, I meant
Commonwealth United.

Anyway, the film became very
successful in America, too.

But the Americans released it
under its original title,

PARANOIA, because when it comes
to cinema they're more

cunning than we are.

PARANOIA, they just
loved that film.

That's when Italian producers
decided to make a film

with the same title.

They asked me to write a new
film, starring Carroll Baker,

to be called PARANOIA.

That's why I made a film titled
ORGASMO that's also known as

PARANOIA, and a film titled
PARANOIA that was released

as A QUIET PLACE TO KILL in
the US

because they couldn't call
it PARANOIA like the other one.

Carroll Baker gets so confused
about this every time

they interviewed her about the
films that we made together.

She can't remember which is
which.

After directing some of the
most important Italian giallos,

Umberto Lenzi started to write
more and more.

Especially in the last few
years,

with the crisis of Italian
genre cinema, and

fewer and fewer valid
examples of it.

Lenzi decided
to become a writer.

He wrote successful giallos
such as DELITTI A CINECITTÁ,

and TERRORE AD HARLEM,

even if these stories are
not meant to be watched

onscreen, but to be read on
paper, they still have

Lenzi's uncanny ability as a
storyteller.

Subtitled by
Francesco Massaccesi