A very obscure lowbudget B grade Italian and Turkey co-production art-horror-drama
that can be placed in the Giallo sub-genre of
Strange Giallo maybe, and i like that. Slightly, but
not too much, arty. Luckily the B factor with nudity from a genre icon
actress prevents
it from being too pretentious, God Bless Italian 1970's gialli, eurocrime,
genre actresses and horror films.
This giallo takes place in Istanbul, and this unusual Turkish setting
for a giallo gives it an interesting atmosphere, and Farley Granger
is
surprisingly good as the grumpy and tormented (american?) artist longing
for his red-headed model even though it's Erika Blanc that carries
this film. The short-comings of this film lies instead entirely on the
director and his too slow approach to the story.
The picture quality of this alternative market DVD looks
OK. This film has been released in the US on a now hard to get DVD from
some obscure
company and that was most probably a public domain release too
BEWARE OF SPOILERS BELOW
BEWARE OF SPOILERS BELOW
.............................................................................
.............................................................................
Erika Blanc
A Turkish man (!?) with the name of Manuel Gonzales
(Venantino Venantini) ... eeh ... goes to the police and reports a girl
missing, she has
vanished, a girl he loved and was supposed to go away with. He had the
flight tickets but she never turned up. She lived with an artist,
John Ward (Farley Granger) and she was his model. We're at the police
station and this Gonzales tells the story in Flashback, how he
sleuthed around for the missing redhead. But now something strange happens,
when Gonzales very brief Flashback ....
turns into John Ward's Flashback ? WTF ? How is that
possible ?
John meets a cute prostitute (Ivana Novak, another gorgeous
redheaded actress of the genre) at an Istanbul café, and maybe
because of her
red hair he follows her home. But now, maybe ?, nothing's that clear
in this strange film, John has a Flashback within his Flashback (within
Gonzales Flashback?) and he remembers how his doll turned to life and
into a redheaded woman of flesh and blood.
John had already been given a a mannequin doll from a hippy hanging
around in the vicinity of his house.
Ivana Novak and Granger
John has a hard time selling his art to galleries in
Istanbul, and here we understand that the art of the "art"
in these shops are questionable
and of B quality. They want more sellable art and with half-nude or
nude sexy women in it. John clearly has more artistic goals with his
art
but he needs money and when his faceless mannequin doll suddenly turns
to life his life is about to change.
The doll first transforms into a sweet nude redheaded woman, played
by Krista Nell, and then into another redhead, a sexually advanced
one, played by Erika Blanc and she becomes his model. With his new model
John's paintings are a success and he suddenly earns a lot.
But, his redheaded model doesn't just pose and have
sex with John, she seduces every man she sees, and when a local hunter
passes by
John's house (yes, that Gonzales again) they've sex and become lovers.
She also have sex with the gallery owner Omar Bey (Aydin Terzel)
and with a young man on the beach and snubbed by her John loses his
mind and stabs her to death .... MAYBE ?
This film is very intricately constructed and at the
end you scratch your head and wonders what really happened. Did he have
a redhead
model at all or only a doll ? If his model never existed what about
the Gonzales guy and his flashback ? Was he a figment of John's mind
too?
Maybe you have to watch this film 2 times to get a hold
of what's really happening. An interestingly unusual giallo it was for
sure.
This DVD presentation have an english audio and a probably
slightly cropped ratio (i'm not sure)
The film even starts oddly in the intro credits with a lot of still
image pictures of Erika Blanc who appears a lot in the nude all through
the film.
Krista Nell does nudity too but Ivana Novak is seen very, very briefly
in the nude and one wonders why her scene with Granger up in her
room seems so jumpy. In think i know. There are a lot of nudity in this
film so her nude scene is certainly not cut .... not cut by censors
anyway,
but i know there was a habit among film projectionists to steal frames
out of 35 mm prints .... just a frame or two out of a nudity scene,
no one
will miss that, well, if many projectionists reasoned like that the
print would finally be badly chopped up. Obviously luscious
Ivana Novak
or Ivana Gibilisco, italian genre actress
in erotic horrrors and Eurocrime was too tempting (she's still attractive
today by the way)