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Italy
- Spain
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1972
Directed
by Riccardo Freda
Starring
Camille Keaton
Luciana Paluzzi
Luigi
Pistilli
Color
| 87 Minutes
| Not Rated
Format: DVD (R1 - NTSC)
Dark Sky Films
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Guest
Review by Troy
Howarth |
A
group of hippies find themselves stranded in a mysterious villa,
and what they experience there affects the rest of their lives...
Basically
a low rent variation on Mario Bava's ethereal masterpiece Lisa
And The Devil (1972), Tragic Ceremony
(or, as it is known in Italy: From The Secret Police Files
Of A European Capital) still has its share of charm for
forgiving Euro-Cult enthusiasts. The film was directed (and
subsequently disowned) by Riccardo Freda, one of the prime architects
of Italian horror cinema despite his basic disinterest in the
genre. Nevertheless, in the Barbara Steele vehicles The
Terror Of Dr. Hichcock (1962) and The
Ghost (1963), he displayed a flair for atmosphere almost
equal to his protégé, Bava, and made his mark
as one of the country's finest directors of genre films. His
real specialty, however, always remained historical epics —
they may be somewhat forgotten today, but pictures like The
White Warrior (1959) or The Sins
Of Rome (1953) are marked by the director's fascination
with older civilizations, and his flair for staging robust action
set-pieces on a low budget helped to make them look much more
expensive and grand than they really were. By the time of Tragic
Ceremony, however, Freda's career was on the downslide.
It would be one of only two films he would complete in the 1970s
—
the other being the equally awkward Iguana
With The Tongue Of Fire (1971) —
before he finished his directorial career for good with 1980's
regrettable Murder Obsession.
Much of the film is
staged with little care, and the director's curious propensity
for staging scenes in long masters punctuated with none-too-subtle
zooms will draw unfavorable comparisons to Jess Franco. It is
unclear, really, whether Freda actually directed the entire
film or simply started it and walked out before completion,
as he was wont to do on earlier pictures. Certainly, the fact
that Freda later disowned the picture is evidence enough that
he wasn't happy with the final assembly, so it seems fair to
assume that even if he stayed for the entire shooting, he didn't
participate in the final editing. In any event, traces of Freda's
visual flair surface sporadically throughout: a trippy Satanic
orgy that erupts into almost comically overstated mayhem, for
example, is sufficiently arresting to warrant an almost-entire
reprise towards the end of the picture.
Freda receives little
assistance from his cast... or should that be the other way
around? While the cast includes such fine character actors as
Luigi Pistilli (Your
Vice Is A Locked Room & Only I Have The Key), Luciana
Paluzzi (Thunderball),
Pepe Calvo (Fistful
Of Dollars) and Paul Müller (Eugenie
De Sade), they are all terribly underused. The film is basically
carried by its younger, more inexperienced performers, most
notably Camille Keaton (I Spit On Your
Grave) and Tony Isbert. Keaton is a photogenic actress,
but she doesn't do much with her admittedly half-baked characterization.
She spends much of the film wandering about looking perplexed,
which is perhaps an accurate portrait of her reaction to the
material. Isbert is a bland actor obviously hired for his 'pretty
boy' good looks, and he also fails to energize the proceedings.
With such inadequate performers at the core of the film, it's
not surprising that it falls considerably short of Freda's finer
efforts.
Technical credits
are variable. Stelvio Cipriani contributes a fine score that
ranges from good old-fashioned melodramatic barnstorming to
more genteel romantic themes; the catchy main title song apparently
features lyrics co-authored by Freda himself, but without the
benefit of a translator, I can't testify to their poetry. The
special makeup effects by Carlo Rambaldi (Alien)
are surprisingly gruesome, and some of the more elaborate get-ups
are very well done: a shot of a character's head being bisected
by a sword is every bit as 'wet' as a similar gag Rambaldi orchestrated
for Bava's Twitch
Of The Death Nerve, though its repetition towards
the end of the film becomes unintentionally funny. The cinematography
by Francisco Fraile is all over the map; some of the setups
and movements evoke the classical romanticism of Freda's more
deeply felt films, but some of the material looks overlit and
downright ugly, again lending some credence to the theory that
the director may well have bolted before the film was finished.
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Dark
Sky's release of Tragic Ceremony
is most welcome, though it has to be noted how frustrating it
is that while Freda's wide body of work (which includes some truly
fine films) is so poorly represented on DVD, a lesser offering
like this finally gets a satisfactory release. The film has been
circulating on the gray market for years in its Spanish language
variant edit, and the differences between the two cuts should
be enough for fans to disregard Dark Sky's advice on the back
of the box ("Throw away those fuzzy bootlegs!") and hold
on to the Spanish cut for the sake of comparison.
The
Spanish version was supervised by Jose G. Masseo, and the editing
of the two versions is sufficiently different to reconsider Masseo
as the true auteur of the Spanish cut. In addition to differences
in editing, the Spanish version is also a 'clothed' variant, so
Keaton fans will rejoice at the brief flashes of skin on display
in the Italian version released by Dark Sky. The 1.85/16x9 transfer
looks very good, though the image does seem somewhat dark. Colors
are accurately rendered, but don't expect one of Freda's candy-colored
gothic extravaganzas. Detail is reasonably sharp, and the framing
looks correct. The Italian mono soundtrack is surprisingly punchy:
Cipriani's music booms with a life of its own, and dialogue is
always clear in the mix.
Extras include the Italian trailer (in rougher shape than the
feature, but looking a bit better where the dark levels are concerned)
and a 13-minute interview with Keaton entitled Camille's European
Adventures. Keaton comes across as a down-to-earth and likable
lady, and she recalls her European films somewhat sketchily, but
with great fondness. Her memories of Freda are actually positive,
which contrasts with many actors' testimonials of how beastly
he could be on set. 2/12/08 |
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