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BLOOD AND BLACK LACE [SEI DONNE PER L'ASSASSINO]Director:
Mario Bava
Starring:
Cameron Mitchell, Eva Bartok, Thomas Reiner
THE WHIP AND THE BODY [LA FRUSTA E IL CORPO]Director:
Mario Bava
Starring:
Christopher Lee, Daliah Lavi, Tony Kendall
Independent American company VCI obviously take their responsibilities as a cult label very seriously indeed, if their first two Mario Bava discs are anything to go by. These two new titles should really make collectors sit up and take notice.
The
groundbreaking Blood and Black Lace (Sei Donne per l’Assassino,
1964) is one of the first recognisably modern horror films, seemingly a
generation ahead of the type of the old-fashioned gothic potboilers that
Hammer would continue to churn out for almost another decade. In terms of
style, too, the film is astonishing, and VCI's NTSC Region 0 disc presents
the film, about a faceless serial killer running amuck in a leading
fashion house, with its beautiful Technicolor hues intact. It’s unlikely
that the film has looked as good as this since the day it was shot. The
disc comes with extensive bonus features: interviews with Cameron Mitchell
(7m) and Mary Dawne Arden (12m), a photo gallery, and a selection of
creaky international trailers (three for Blood and Black Lace, and
one apiece for Erik The Conqueror (Ivasori, Gli), The
Whip and the Body). The disc
Bava’s
1963 film The Whip and the Body (La Frusta e il corpo) has
been released in many forms, under many titles, (including What for
US audiences, and Night is the Phantom in the UK), but has very
rarely been seen in it’s original version, as it is here. Whip, a
romantic ghost story about a sadistic nobleman (Lee) who returns from
exile to discover that his fiancé (Lavi) has married his brother, and is
his father’s mistress, is arguably Bava’s masterpiece, and is said to
be one of Christopher Lee’s favourite films. The
disc includes the American title sequence, a photo’ gallery, a similar
brace of trailers (this time including one for Planet of the Vampires (Terrore
nello spazio), and a recording of some of
Carlo Rustichelli’s music for the film (taken from a contemporary 7”
single). There are also a couple of “deleted scenes”,
if you look hard for them, which turn out to be alternate footage
discarded in the restoration process. Nevertheless, their inclusion gives
you an idea of the thoroughness with which these new discs have been
prepared. The film has a 1.85:1 (non-16:9 enhanced) transfer, and Dolby
Digital 2.0 mono sound, at 192kbps). Both
discs have the option of playback in their original language version
(i.e.: Italian), or dubbed into English, and have English subtitles. Best
of all, both discs come with scholarly notes and a commentary track by
Bava expert and Video Watchdog magazine editor Tim Lucas. VCI have
obviously lavished a lot of care on these discs (giving them a digital
spruce up, and patching together more than one source print to create an
optimum presentation) and they well deserve your attention and patronage.
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