La Controfigura (The Double)

Looking at the poster, you'd hardly think it's be a thriller, but Romolo Guerrieri's La Controfigura is something of a hidden gem and it has more than Jean Sorel in common with Short Night of the Glass Dolls. It all starts off with Jean Sorel getting gunned down in a underground parking garage and through non-linear flashbacks we're shown the events leading up to the shooting. The flashback narrative works well and there are some great visuals along the way. The trio of Jean Sorel, Ewa Aulin and Lucia Bosé are all great in the leads and the film features a groovy lounge score by Armando Trovajoli. Those looking for a fix of black-gloved killers and straight razors won't find a lot to savour here, but to the more adventurous gialli fans, this is a good as it gets. I'd love to see it on dvd one day.

Il Dolce corpo di Deborah (The Sweet Body of Deborah)

You'd be forgiven for thinking that Romolo Guerrieri's Il Dolce corpo di Deborah (which stars Carroll Baker and Jean Sorel) was inspired by Umberto Lenzi's early thrillers, but it is in fact made in 1968, before both Così dolce... così perversa and Orgasmo.
Luigi Pistilli, George Hilton and Evelyn Stewart rounds out the cast and with a soundtrack by Nora Orlandi and story by Ernesto Gastaldi and Luciano Martino, you know that you're unlikely to be disappointed. It's not my favourite of Guerrieri though. That honor goes to La Controfigura. Poster art by Renato Casaro.

And yet another post where I start off by excusing the lack of updates recently! This time it's not due to any slacking on my part though. It solely due to the incompetence of UPS. They've done their best to keep an order of a folder, 25 foglie and posters away from me by sending sending the package back to Italy without givning me a chance to accept it. And on top of that, they refused to correct their mistake. It's taken a while to get that sorted, but package is finally here. The camera battery is charged and I'm getting ready to photograph about 20 posters or so. I'll have the first proper post up in a day or two. Anyway, moving on...

Some other giallo related news while I'm at it. I've provided scans that will be used for the upcoming releases of Arrow Video's Masters of Giallo series for the Sleepless and The House by the Cemetery releases. The DVDs will be released on June 29th and the artwork will be used for the reverse covers. You can check the covers out in this thread at Lovelockandload.

I'm also very happy to have been able to provide a scan of the Footprints locandina for the upcoming Shameless release. I think Footprints is a fantastic film and even though it's in a very, very small way, I'm immensely proud to have been able to contribute to this release. I urge everybody who hasn't seen this extraordinary and hauntingly beautiful film to pick it up when it's released in July. Kudos to Shameless for releasing this!

Code Red are releasing Weekend Murders on July 28th. Anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) and surprisingly good extras as well. An audio commentary with star Peter Baldwin, Scott Spiegel and Lee Christian, an interview with Baldwin, a still gallery and the original trailer

And finally, another must have release is The Sweet Body of Deborah that Fin de Siècle have announced that they'll be releasing later on this year (along with Margheriti's Killers are challanged and Lenzi's Daughter of the Jungle)

So there's some good stuff coming our way later this year (along with the ones on the list posted at Mirek Lipinski's Mya blog).

So a lot of good releases on the way, but still a few essential ones missing. When are we going to see English friendly releases of the rest of Lenzi and Tessari's gialli? And La Controfigura, La Volpe dalla coda di velluto...?

I'll have the first new locandine up by monday. While waiting for it, make sure you check one of the great mixes avilable from the newly started Sonny & Girly blog.