Qualcuno l'ha visto uccidere (The Student Connection)

Dr Roger Mell (Ray Milland), a physician and headmaster of a boarding school, is having an affair with the beautiful Sonja (Sylva Koscina), a married woman. He arranges to have the husband murdered, but is mortified to find out that the hitman killed the husband by blowing up a plane on take-off killing 140 people. In a fit of rage, Dr Mell kills the hitman, but realizes that one of the pupils has witnessed the crime. The only question is who...

Rafael Romero Marchent's Qualcuno l'ha vista uccidere is a slightly different giallo since you know who the killer is from the very beginning. Instead of focusing on finding the killer, we follow Milland as he tries to find and eliminate of the only witness to his crime. A fairly slow-moving giallo, but worth seeing. Milland is good in the lead, the script is by revered giallo director Luciano Ercoli and the soundtrack is by Stelvio Cipriani.

L'Uomo più velenoso del cobra (Human Cobras)

I was well and truly surprised when I first saw L'Uomo più velenoso del cobra as the film starts out in my hometown Stockholm, but apart from the opening montage, we don't really get to see anymore of Stockholm in this bottom of the barrel giallo. The script is quite poor to begin with (in spite of co-writing credits from Ernesto Gastaldi and Luciano Martino) and it certainly doesn't help that Albertini manages to botch the few sequences that should have been suspenseful due to poor direction and poor choice of music. The score doesn't really fit the film, but I would suspect that Cipriani recycled quite a few cues here (certainly the Femina Ridens theme anyway). I didn't find much worthwhile about it, but at least is was mercifully short at 82 minutes.
Art work on the fairly rare locandina is by Renato Casaro

La Morte risale a ieri sera (Death Occurred Last Night)

My first viewing of Duccio Tessari's La Morte risale a ieri sera was in Italian with no english subs available. I usually tend to wait and watch films until I manage to find some kind of English option, but being a big Tessari fan I jumped at the chance to finally see it. Even though I only understood a very small part of the dialogue with my very limited Italian, I thought it was a truly excellent film. Tessari film is a very engaging thriller that packs a powerful emotional punch without ever succumbing to melodrama. On subsequent viewings of the film, I've had the pleasure of watching it with subs and my appreciation of the film has only increased.
Part of the success of the film is due to the excellent acting from Frank Wolff and Raf Vallone. The chemistry between the two is great, especially in the scenes in the morgue and when the father cleans out the dead girls things of the flat. This is a hidden gem if there ever were one.
The poster is one of the favourites in my collection, but unfortunately I haven't been able to find any info on who's responsible for the beautiful artwork.

I Corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale (Torso)

Unlike Sergio Martino's previous gialli (which were produced by his brother Luciano) I Corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale was produced by Carlo Ponti. I'm not sure if that's one of the reasons that it's got a slightly different feel to Martino's previous films, but it's nevertheless a great film. You've all seen the fantastic looking sequence when the killer is stalking one of his victims in the woods and the very suspenseful later half with Suzy Kendall locked in a house with the killer.
It's one of the gialli with the most numer of editions available on DVD, but sadly none of the are perfect. Apparently the NoShame had a one in the works as well, but since they seem to have closed their doors, it looks like a definitive version is unlikely to surface anytime soon.
And like all the other posts this week, I haven't been able to find any info on the poster design.

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.

...a tutte le auto della polizia (The Maniac Responsible)

As you can probably tell from the poster, Mario Caiano's ...a tutte le auto della polizia is a poliziesco/giallo hybrid along the lines of Dallamano's La Polizia chiede aiuto. Some people might find this a tad slow-moving for a giallo (since the killer doesn't start dispatching of witnesses until quite late in the film), but hopefully that won't put anybody off. Great direction by Caiano and excellent performances by Enrico Maria Salerno and Antonio Sabato.
I was fortunate enough to be able to see this through an excellent fan subbed dvd made by Martin at the Lovelockandload forums. I think that it's an excellent film and I've already revisited it a couple of times since I got this earlier this year.

No info on the poster artist.

Orgasmo (Paranoia)

I'll start off with one of my favourite acquisitions since I last posted. The locandina for Umberto Lenzi's 1969 giallo, Orgasmo, has been a bit difficult to find, so I was very pleased to finally get my hands on it.
This isn't Lenzi's best giallo (that honour goes to Paranoia if you ask me), but since the copy I own is a decent looking but badly cropped tv print, I feel I owe it another chance. As far as I know this is the only Lenzi giallo that's hasn't received a DVD release anywhere in the world yet, but Lenzi mentioned in this previously linked interview that one is in the works. No info on the poster artist.

And we're back...

Welcome back to Giallo Locandine. I hope you've had a good summer! I had a great and much needed four week vacation that ended last week, so now I'm ready to start posting again.

Even though I took the summer off from posting, it doesn't mean I've been lazy when it comes to picking up new stuff. I've had couple of dozen posters come through during the summer, so I've got lots of good stuff coming up.

It looks like at least one of the DVD covers mentioned in my last post will happen. My locandina for Un Posto ideale per uccidere will be used for the reverse sleeve on Shameless upcoming (September 15th) Oasis of Fear release. Pretty excited about this release overall, since it's the first English language DVD release of the film and Shamless have delivered some great DVDs recently. If all goes well, there might even be a small Giallo Locandine credit on the cover.


The image on the front sleeve is taken from the fantastic looking Japanese poster and is supplied by Jonny from Lovelockandload.


I've submitted scans for Designated Victim and Strip Nude for Your Killer as well, but we'll have to wait and see if Shameless end up using them.

Hope to see you back tomorrow for this week's first locandina post!