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August 01, 2023

So Candy, So Useless

Rivelazioni di un maniaco sessuale al capo della squadra cellular / The Slasher is the Intercourse Maniac
Roberto Montero – 1972

Each on occasion, somebody makes a publish about watching the cinematic equal to consolation meals. For myself, this implies checking on Tubi. The temporary business breaks don’t disturb me, particularly because the movie returns to a few seconds previous to the break so no a part of the movie is misplaced. Whereas it’s typically shocking what number of good and even nice movies pop up on Tubi, what I like to hunt out are beforehand unseen or unknown gialli or Italian westerns. I can’t clarify my attraction to Italian style movies from the Seventies. Each genres had been thought-about critically disreputable on the time with the attainable exceptions of Sergio Leone and Dario Argento. Each genres have gone below appreciable crucial reevaluation previously fifty years. Within the intervening years, the trashiness of the Italian thrillers has develop into a function and never a bug.

I’ve not learn Farley Granger’s autobiography, however I might not be shocked if he by no means talked about this movie. After starring in movies directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Nicholas Ray and Luchino Visconti, why hassle? Not solely was Granger’s stardom fairly diminished despite the fact that he was solely 47 years outdated, however the U.S. distribution was by William Mishkin, a specialist in grindhouse releases. Granger seems to have a ragged hair minimize or a nasty toop, plus a mustache in his position as a police inspector. A person wearing black, his face obscured by a black stocking, is murdering the untrue wives of the elite in an unnamed metropolis. The ladies have their throats minimize. The killer leaves images of the ladies, nude with their respective lovers. The lads within the images have their faces scratched out. As these items go, So Candy, So Useless is comparatively restrained with the violence save for close-ups of slashed throats, however beneficiant on the nudity with actresses Sylva Koscina, Susan Scott and Femi Benussi.

There are the anticipated purple herrings, misdirection and J & B Scotch product placement. There are additionally a few scenes involving the daughter of one of many victims the place it appeared like nobody observed that they made no sense. In a single scene, the daughter has returned from faculty on the similar morning time as her father is leaving the home to go work. The followup to the scene of the daughter witnessing her mom’s homicide made me surprise how nobody on the set observed its incongruity. The clues all appear to level to a person whose job is to reconstruct and restore the our bodies of the victims. He’s performed by Luciano Rossi, a supporting participant in lots of style movies. Rossi bodily seems to be considerably just like the man you’ll rent should you needed Klaus Kinski however needed to rent a less expensive actor. Rossi’s English dubbed voice sounds at occasions just like the cartoon model of Peter Lorre. Rossi is so creepy and deranged that solely somebody who has by no means seen a film would peg him because the mad slasher. A shocking apart, Luciano Rossi is the topic of a guide written by horror movie specialist Kier-La Janisse.

What little I find out about director Roberto Montero is present in Wikipedia and IMDb. Like many Italian administrators, his profession was largely dictated by no matter style was in favor on the time. The one little bit of creative flash right here is a few shade tinting in a flashback. Montero might not be in the identical league as Sergio Martino or Umberto Lenzi, however that shouldn’t be held towards him. Not all consolation meals is of dietary worth. Neither ought to all films have to have any significance past their existence.

Posted by Peter Nellhaus at August 1, 2023 07:00 AM