Have a great summer!

Like last year I'm not going to post anything during summer, so this will be the last post for a while. I'll start posting sometime in august again. Thanks to everybody who's visited the blog during and even bigger thanks to those who have posted comments or linked the blog.

I'll leave you with the cover for the upcoming Shamless release of Le Orme/Footprints for which I've supplied the artwork. It looks like this will be the definitive version of this fantastic film. Both Italian and English audio, trailer and alternate opening titles. Make sure your copy from Amazon.

Have a great summer and hope to see you back here in August!

Chi l'ha vista morire (Who Saw Her Die?)

Chi l'ha vista morire is one of my favourite gialli. Excellent performances by the cast (both George Lazenby and Anita Strindberg deliver career best perfomances here), great soundtrack by Morricone and the Venice locations are beautifully shot by Franco Di Giacomo (Four Flies on Grey Velvet). Poster art by Enzo Nistri.

Giallo Napoletano (Atrocious Tales of Love and Death)

Two of the three (!) posters for Sergio Corbucci's Giallo Napoletano. The top poster and the title are a bit misleading since the film is more a comedy with thriller elements rather than a giallo. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by it the first time I saw it though. Marcello Mastroianni is great as the hapless mandonlin player Raffaele drawn in to a murder mystery. No info on the poster artists.

Il Diavolo nel cervello (Devil in the Brain)

Sergio Sollima is best known for his excellent westerns and poliziotteschi, but Il Diavolo nel cervello is a great murder mystery that unfolds in a series of flashbacks. It also features one of Morricone's most beaautiful scores. No info on the poster artist.

Malocchio (Evil Eye)

Mario Siciliano's Malocchio (or Eroticfollia as it is also known) is a unusual mix of giallo and supernatural horror. I love a good hallucination/nightmare sequence and since this starts off with one I got my hopes up the first time I watched it. Unfortunately the mix of genres isn't entierly successful and the end result turns out to be a fairly average. Pretty cool score by Stelvio Ciprianni though.
No info on who did the top poster. The one blow is by Ferrari (Studio Paradiso)

Giochi erotici di una famiglia perbene (Thrilling Story)

Giochi erotici di una famiglia perbene is yet another one I haven't seen but considering the story and screenplay is by Renato Polselli and it stars Erika Blanc, I'm sure it's must see.

La Donna del lago (The Lady of the Lake)

I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a fansubbed copy of Luigi Bazzoni and Franco Rosselini's La Donna del lago a couple of years ago and like ...a tutte le auto della polizia, La Donna del lago is one of those hidden gems that you wish you'd seen sooner. It's not your typical giallo, but this black and white 1965 murder mystery is well worth seeking out if you're a fan of Bazzoni's other work.

La Sanguisaga conduce la danza il marchio di Satana (Bloodsucker Leads the Dance)

You hardly expect a film set in a castle on Ireland in 1902 to be a giallo, but that's the setting for Alfredo Rizzo's La Sanguisaga conduce la danza il marchio di Satana. It's a very poor genre entry though. Rizzo tries to keep the audience intrest up by serving up plenty of nudity, but not even that can save the film. It's a very poor script, the direction is flat and the first half of the film is excruciatingly slow. Just about the only good thing about it is the poster art. Unfortunately I'm not able to make out the signature.