WHAT HAVE YOU DONE
TO SOLANGE?
(1972, dir: Massimo Dallamano)
(1972, dir: Massimo Dallamano)
Enrico Rossini (Fabio
Testi, Heroin Busters) is a teacher who is a bit of a
naughty boy. Whilst trying to get down on a row boat (of all places)
with young student Elizabeth (Cristina Galbó, The Living Dead
at Manchester Morgue), their extra curricular activities come
to a halt when Elizabeth claims that she has just witnessed the
murder of a young girl. Dismissing this is as Elizabeth not wanting
to seal the deal, it's not until Enrico is back home with his wife
Herta (Karin Baal, Lola) that he hears about the murder
on the radio. What starts out as an unfortunate isolated case, soon
becomes the first of many gruesome murders. The only connection; all
the victims are students at the Catholic girls school in which Enrico
works. With the reputation that he has with his students, it's not
long until Enrico becomes prime suspect. However, when Elizabeth is
continually haunted by visions of a priest and becomes a victim of
the sadistic killer, Enrico is soon deemed innocent. With his nubile
plaything and career in tatters, he's on the case to solve the
mystery once and for all. His marriage? Well, thanks to Elizabeth's
frigidity, the pair never actually had sex and that's fine by Herta
apparently! The plot thickens when Enrico becomes aware of a
mysterious young girl named Solange (Camile Keaton, I Spit on
Your Grave). What does she have to do with recent slayings?
What exactly happened to Solange?
What Have You Done
to Solange? Is nothing short of a giallo masterpiece. What we
have here is a solidly written murder mystery very loosely based on
Edgar Wallace's The Clue of the New Pin. Alongside
Dallamano we have Bruno Di Geronimo (Flavia the Heretic)
and Peter M. Thouet (The Legend of Tim Tyler) on
writing duty. Their screenplay goes from sleazy to violent, but is
always atmospheric and consistent. There are red herrings a plenty to
be found, but thankfully, they actually work and don't feel too
forced or ambiguous. Morally however, I do believe it's confused at
points. Some may find real problems with our amateur sleuth being
what we would now call a sexual predator. Just like Fulci's Don't
Torture a Duckling and Bido's The Bloodstained Shadow,
there's a real sense of distrust to Catholicism here. It would be
morally corrupt (HA!) of me to go in to detail, so I will just say
that wether the killer is indeed a priest or not, the fact that a
character would don the disguise of a priest says a lot. There have
been much more eloquent writers who have covered the aspect of
Catholicism in cinema, Shelley F. O'Brien's essay Killer
Priests: The Last Taboo makes for interesting reading! Moving
away from that, what really struck me about Solange was how
aesthetically satisfying the experience is. It's no surprise that
Morricone's (Do I really need to name drop here?) score is amazing as
always with so much range, but quintessentially Morricone. Chances
are, you heard extracts of the score before even being aware of the
film itself. That combined with some fantastic cinematography from
Joe D'Amato (Porno Holocaust), who also has a fun cameo
in the film, makes London feel melancholy, yet beautiful and
ultimately mysterious. I'm reminded of the empty morning streets
found in Bido's Watch Me When I Kill
as I watched.
I said that the film goes
from sleazy to violent, that's true. That being said, aside from some
genuinely nasty sexualised deaths, the gore is somewhat restrained
and often fuels the imagination of the viewer. Those looking for
flesh will be very happy with this as there is plenty of schoolgirl
action throughout (especially some innocent, yet seductive shower
fun). There are plenty of sleazy characters about too. The film is a
great example of having some sinister themes and overall nasty
moments without it being trivialised by being too exploitative.
Plenty of directors could have just gone for all out gore and overly
graphic sex. There's a real sense of maturity throughout. Considering
that is a somewhat early example of the gialli, I really found
this film to be quite a head of its time. We all know that Mario Bava
drew up the plans and Dario Argento began building on the
foundations, but as much as I have heard many great things about this
film, I don't think this film gets the overall credit it deserves. Of
course, it's not classically considered a perfect film and even I
almost cringed at some of the British dubbing, so many silly accents.
All in all, this is an entertaining, often shocking thriller that has
to be seen.
Thankfully, the film is
presented beautifully both in terms of picture and sound. We have a
2k restoration that is pretty much flawless. Both Italian and English
dubs are included with the Italian being the better quality of the
two. In terms of on disc special features this is a fantastic
release. First of all we have newly edited interviews with Fabio
Testi and producer Fulvio Lucsiano from 2006, a new interview with
Karin Baal, in which she has some interesting things to say about the
film, a fantastic video essay from Michael Mackenzie that looks at
Dallamano's “Schoolgirls in Peril” Trilogy, a
trailer and to top it off an audio commentary with Alan Jones and Kim
Newman.
Of course, Arrow have included a booklet with writings from Howard Hughes and Art Ettinger and reversible artwork with a fantastic piece of art from Malleus. Overall, this is a must buy for fans and newcomers. If you are yet to dip your toe in to the world of the gialli, this is a great place to start! For the people who had to buy that cheap cardboard sleeved version on Amazon (you know who you are!), you can throw that version away now!
Of course, Arrow have included a booklet with writings from Howard Hughes and Art Ettinger and reversible artwork with a fantastic piece of art from Malleus. Overall, this is a must buy for fans and newcomers. If you are yet to dip your toe in to the world of the gialli, this is a great place to start! For the people who had to buy that cheap cardboard sleeved version on Amazon (you know who you are!), you can throw that version away now!
What Have You Done
to Solange? Is available as a DVD / Blu-Ray combo from Arrow
Video.
PDx
PDx