THE BLOODSTAINED BUTTERFLY- ALSO KNOWN AS 'UNA FARFALLA CON LE ALI INSANGUINATE.' (1971) DIRECTED BY DUCCIO TESSARI. STARRING HELMUT BERGER, GIANCARLO SBRAGIA, EVELYN STEWART, WENDY D'OLIVE, CAROL ANDRÉ AND SILVANO TRANQUILLI. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
This is a rather splendid example of a
giallo film, which for those
not in the know means an Italian-produced murder mystery flick, most
popular during the 1970s, which may also contain elements of slasher
horror and eroticism. That's about it in a nutshell, haha, except to say that you could do worse than study up on the works of directors Lucio
Fulci, Dario Argento and Mario Bava if you want to see some of the
films that made the genre famous.
I love
this film. What basically happens in it is that everyone's sleeping
with everyone else behind everyone else's back and then someone gets
killed. Giallo in a
nutshell once more...! All the women are beautiful in that casually
sexy Continental way that we Irish women couldn't hope to attain if
we lived for a hundred years, and the men are mostly dark and hairy
and middle-aged and authoritative and very, very sexy.
The murder
victim (this is a
murder mystery giallo, not a horror giallo!) is a gorgeous young student called Francoise Pigaut. She's stabbed to
death in a wooded local park, which isn't very nice, and her lifeless corpse rolls down a
muddy hill and comes to rest with arms and legs akimbo, her pretty
face staring sightlessly up at the sky.
The men of the press are only too happy to film her in that ignominious position for
the evening news, and there's no shortage of salacious speculation
regarding whether or not she was raped. The press do like
a nice juicy rape or sex scandal, as we already know all too well...!
The
interesting thing is, though, that a man wearing a beige raincoat (do
they come in any other colour...?) is
seen legging it away from the scene of the crime as if the hounds of
hell are chasing him. The cops don't waste any time tracking down
their man. At least, they think it's
their man. Me, I
ain't sayin' nuthin.'
The murder of
the pretty young Francoise impacts heavily on the Marchi family.
There's Daddy Marchi, or Alessandro, who may or may not be cheating
on his stunning wife, Maria. Mammy Marchi has a secret or two of her
own, however, and their daughter Sarah Marchi has rather a serious thing for
a local musician called Giorgio, played by 'Seventies heart-throb
Helmut Berger.
Giorgio has a big fat bee in his bonnet, however, and he seems preoccupied and even
tormented by other unknown concerns, even during his intensely
passionate sex scene with Sarah, who gets the bum's rush from Giorgio
pretty much the instant he pops his cork, if you get me, heh-heh-heh.
She's not too happy about this but what can she do? Guy's obviously
got summat major on his mind.
So
what- or who- is
eating the handsome Giorgio? And have the cops put away the wrong guy
for the murder of the lovely Francoise? The plot thickens with the
addition of a few interesting little red herrings that have the viewer all conflicted
about who actually 'dunnit.'
I
myself was all of a tizzy trying to figure out who did what to whom
and why, and I'm usually pretty on the ball about these things.
Welll, actually, that's a lie. I'm hopeless at figuring out
'whodunnit' in murder
mysteries like INSPECTOR MORSE, LEWIS or
MIDSOMER MURDERS.
I generally
have to have a friend on standby to explain the denouement
of too-complicated plots to me.
I seem to have the kind of brain that finds that kind of stuff
impossible to follow, haha.
The
denouement here is
quite exciting, unexpected and not hard to follow at all, however (even for me!), and the
visuals are stunning and the music terrific, with a lot of well-known
classical stuff thrown in for good measure.
There's
one piece in particular that's played a lot in the film. I don't know
the name of the piece or even the composer (excuse my
ignorance!) but if you heard it
yourself, you'd recognise it straightaway, even if you didn't know
the name or the composer either. The soundtrack to this movie would be pretty amazing to listen to, now I come to think of it.
The
good news for today is that the lovely people at ARROW
VIDEO are releasing this
excellent giallo movie
on DVD and Blu-Ray on August 22nd
this year (2016). It comes complete with a ton of brilliant extra
features, including an exclusive introduction by Helmut Berger and an
interview with the not at all unattractive Mr. Berger as well.
There are
interviews with the director's wife and also with the beautiful
Evelyn Stewart, who
plays
Maria Marchi in the movie, and you can watch the film with Italian
audio and English subtitles, which is handy, or you can choose to go
with the English audio if you prefer.
Personally,
I wouldn't miss out on the chance to hear Italian spoken really fast
by real Italian people. It's such a sexy language! I don't know why
people always insist on calling French 'the language of
love.' Me, I'd rather be wooed
in Italian any day of the week. It does more for me than French ever
could, haha.
There's a load of other goodies on there as well, so if you buy the film you're in for a rather scrumptious cinematic treat. Plus there's sex and nudity in it and extremely attractive Italian people behaving in a terribly Italian fashion with each other, as indeed only they can, and sure what else do you want? Watch it. It's a brilliant example of the giallo genre and it's got nice naked boobies in it too. Bob's your Uncle, so...!
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA
HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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