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In immediate response to Les Yeux sans Visage, a chronicle of bellezza deturpata. The backstage breakup between the nightclub stripper (Susanne Loret) and her beau (Sergio Fantoni) evinces a curious anticipation of L'Eclisse, her distraught ride home leads to a fiery roadside spill and the central frisson, marred flesh under a platinum mane. From the clinic to the mausoleum-laboratory, where the surgeon (Alberto Lupo) has a regenerative serum based on "the spontaneous reproduction of cells." His devoted assistant (Franca Parisi) is the first casualty when female glands are needed to refresh the cure, to overcome his squeamishness about killing the doctor turns himself into a hooded ghoul and heads to the piazza with scalpel in hand. "A new age" amid Hiroshima mementos, "to exploit horror by extracting its advantages," the cornerstone of Anton Giulio Majano's burlesque of cosmetic vampirism. The villain is somber and thoughtful, infatuation for his patient unleashes the beast, at the police station a psychological prognosis is jokingly offered. (The inspector meanwhile has a nicotine addiction to worry about, his minions are so inept that they lose track of the suspect inside a movie theater.) "Un gorilla genio del male" (cf. Florey's Murders in the Rue Morgue), Seddok the Monster to its victims, a prowling POV camera to hush the bird-loving chatterbox. Aim for sleaze and stumble into beauty, the motto of a director who leers at the heroine disfigured in her negligee and follows her to a misty wharf out of Le Notti Bianche. And then the whole thing dissipates in a greenhouse jungle, "as if awakened from a horrible dream." With Ivo Garrani, Roberto Bertea, and Rina Franchetti. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |