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All
the Colors of the Dark
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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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7
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8 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Edwige!
Siete fantastici!
It's a matter of personal taste, of course,
but I think Euro-Cult goddess Edwige Fenech (The
Case of the Bloody Iris) was one of the sexiest, most alluring
women to ever grace the silver screen. Born in 1948, the French-Algerian
beauty appeared in a slew of European suspense thrillers, horror
flicks and sex comedies beginning at age 19, and was still hot
enough to appear nude in Italian Playboy in her late
forties. (She has since become a television/film producer, heading
her own production company.) As Jane Harrison, a mentally troubled
young woman who may or may not be the target of a stalking killer,
Edwige is center stage in Sergio Martino's stylish 1972 giallo
All the Colors of the Dark, just
released on Region 1 DVD by Shriek Show. Fenech fanatics
like your
humble correspondent
should have
a field day with this new disc.
Poor Jane suffers from some really freakadelic
nightmares... In them she sees her mother, who was murdered
by an unknown assailant when Jane was a little girl, stabbed
to death by a man with piercing blue eyes (Eaten
Alive's Ivan Rassimov). The bad dreams are taking a serious
toll not only on Jane's psyche but also her relationship with
love-in lover Richard (giallo veteran George Hilton). He believes
the nightmares stem from the miscarriage Jane had after a car
accident the year before; she hasn't told him of their true
nature. Although increasingly frustrated by her frigidity
how would you like to share a bed with Edwige Fenech
and not get to do her? Richard insists that psychiatric
therapy is pure bunk and quackery. Providing the exact opposite
advice is Jane's older sister Barbara (Nieves Navarro, as "Susan
Scott"), who works for an esteemed psychiatrist. She councils
that therapy is the only way Jane can restore her mental health.
Then Jane begins seeing
the blue-eyed man of her nightmares, armed with a stiletto,
during waking hours. And he's stalking her. Fearful for her
sanity, she not only agrees to see the shrink recommended by
Barbara but also opts for less conventional treatment. Befriended
by a mysterious new tenant in her apartment building named Mary
(Marina Malfatti), Jane is convinced to meet with some people
who the woman says helped her under similar circumstances. Only
when it's too late does she learn, to her horror, that Mary
is a member of a satanic cult! At a secluded mansion Jane is
forced to drink dog's blood and have sex with the cult's creepy
high priest (Julian Ugarte). But was the Black Mass just a hallucination,
as she believes is the case with the recent appearances of Stiletto
Man? Or could it all be real? She can't confide in Richard
to whom she's told none of this
and is frequently left alone in their flat while he, a salesman
for a pharmaceutical firm, is away on business. As Jane edges
closer to total mental breakdown she starts having visions of
events that shortly thereafter come true...
Some of the stereotypical elements associated with the Italian
giallo are tossed overboard in All the
Colors of the Dark. There's no faceless, black-gloved
murderer, since we see Rassimov from the get-go as the knife-wielding
stalker. (Rather than present us with a whodunit, the central
mystery here is whether or not Stiletto Man is even real
and if he isn't a creation of Jane's troubled mind, why is he
threatening her?) The body count is relatively low and the deaths
never really gory; putting aside the 'dream-murder' of Jane's
mother there aren't any killings at all until the film's third
act. The potentially supernatural aspect of the satanic cult
and our heroine's premonitions of future events add an occult
flavor not typically found in the genre. The kink/sleaze factor
is also comparatively subdued, so there aren't any cross-dressing
lesbian midget incest victims turned B&D-obsessed
serial killers or the like... Ms. Fenech has some tasteful yet
sexy nude scenes, however, just not nearly as many as I'd prefer!
The techniques employed by director Martino
to transition from reality to fantasy and back again are simple
yet effective, always in service to the plot and never used
just to grandstand or show off. In fact, that last phrase would
be an apt description of Martino's approach to this film as
a whole. He takes excellent advantage of the wide frame; his
camera is very rarely still, almost always in motion (even if
only subtly), preventing routine dialog scenes from becoming
static or bland. Apart from the audaciously bizarre opening
dream sequence the film is quite stylish in a deliberately low-key
manner. He also builds and maintains suspense quite well, the
essential component of any successful thriller. (The clichιd
'car won't start' bit gets a freshening makeover with the camera
blurrily whipsawing between Jane, frantic behind the wheel,
and the doorway from which she expects Stiletto Man to emerge
at any second.) Aided by composer Bruno Nicolai's evocative
score and a script that neatly ties up the loose ends (while
still retaining a trace of ambiguity at the end), All
the Colors of the Dark is one of the most
satisfying gialli I've seen in some time. I wasn't particularly
impressed with Martino's most famous giallo, 1973's Torso,
but after this one I may have to revisit it for a thorough reevaluation.
Then there's the luscious Edwige Fenech. She's not just a total
fox she can also act, and is thoroughly convincing as the
frightened, confused Jane. Sadly her filmography has been mostly
neglected by Region 1 DVD companies, still limited to a handful
of titles as of this writing. Let's hope that changes in the
future. (Dammit! Where's Top Sensation,
aka The Seducers? I want it!)
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This
being a Shriek Show disc I naturally had
some trepidation upon buying it. While SS has certainly released
a variety of interesting
some would say 'must-have'
Euro-Cult titles in the past
few years, the company's output has been plagued by defective
discs, canceled and/or continually postponed release dates and
rampant typos on packaging, insert materials and menu screens.
(See Slaughter Hotel for a particularly
egregious example.) Happily, its edition of All
the Colors of the Dark suffers from none of these problems.
The uncut
2.35:1 widescreen transfer used for this DVD looks great to exceptional.
It's not pristine but I have zero complaints. Images are sharp
and colors vivid; there's no practically no damage to the print
and only one instance of noticeable dirt. It's important that
the film is presented in its original aspect ratio
Martino's visual compositions would
otherwise be destroyed. Reportedly this is a much superior-looking
transfer than that of the Region 2 PAL disc (issued by a different
company) and is 16x9 enhanced to boot.
Audio:
Two separate mono tracks are offered, English and subtitled Italian.
The dubbed English track is to be avoided. It's quite flat and
often muffled-sounding, as if your speakers were being physically
blocked. (Nicolai's score is especially shortchanged.) In contrast
the Italian track is much clearer and more robust. There's
some underlying hiss if you listen for it but it's never really
distracting.
With the removable, easy-to-read
English subtitles the Italian track is really the only
way to watch this film. (It would appear that All
the Colors was shot with the actors speaking their lines
in Italian, unlike the typical practice of the day, which was
to do so in English [without sound]. Thus the Italian dubbing
looks more in sync here.)
Extras:
Quite a satisfying package of bonus goodies here. You
get the spoiler-filled Italian and U.S. theatrical trailers (the
latter under the title Sam Sherman's Independent International
slapped on it, They're Coming To Get You!), two schlocky
American radio spots, an extensive image gallery (production stills,
promotional art, French "photo-novel" panels, some Fenech
nudies), and the inferior U.S. opening titles sequence. Two interview
featurettes cover the film and more. In the first of these (running
20 minutes), director Sergio Martino talks not only about helming
All the Colors of the Dark but also
Torso and the sci-fi cheesefest 2019:
After the Fall of New York. The second interview (6 min.)
sees an amiable George Hilton whistfully recalling working with
Fenech on All the Colors and their
other movies together. ("The Hilton-Fenech Team!")
Finally, there's a slate of trailers for four Shriek Show titles:
2019: After the Fall of New York,
Slaughter Hotel, Nightmares
Come at Night, and Syndicate Sadists.
10/18/04 |
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