Libido

This well-made four-person thriller follows on the tradition of such films as "Gaslight" and "Diabolique", while at the same time anticpating later gialli motifs such as the haunting music tune and the black gloves. Slow-paced first half, entertaining second half, with enough plot twists to get your head spinning. **1/2 out of 4.

The great Mario Bava is often credited with introducing the Giallo genre with The Girl Who Knew Too Much, and then refining it two years later with his masterpiece Blood and Black Lace; but Ernesto Gastaldi would go on to become one of the premier Giallo screenwriters with such classics as The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh and The Case of the Bloody Iris under his belt; and this little film is his first contribution to the genre. Libido is certainly not as 'Giallo' as Blood and Black Lace; but many of the genre trademarks are present, and it is a very nice little thriller. The film begins with a sequence that sees a young boy witness his father kill his mother inside a room lined with mirrors. His father later kills himself and the boy winds up in a mental hospital; his estate entrusted to his lawyer until the boy turns twenty five. Its years later and the boy is a man and married. He goes to stay in the old house (not really sure why) along with his wife and the lawyer and his wife. However, it's not long before he starts finding clues that maybe his father has returned...

The surreal, dreamlike quality is a feature of many Giallo's - and it's a big part of this one too. The screenplay ensures that the audience is always kept guessing and we're never sure of exactly what is going on; and this ensures that the proceedings are always interesting. The film is shot in black and white and obviously very cheaply too (the film was allegedly shot in just eighteen days for a bet), plus the fact that the copy I saw was extremely poor quality means that the cinematography is not particularly nice looking; and so the film may not appeal to the fans of the some of the higher quality genre entries. The cast is very small and features just four performers; and all of them perform well enough. Giancarlo Giannini is the lead actor and is decent in the role; although he would go on to much bigger and better things, while Dominique Boschero and Mara Maryl provide eye candy and the cast is rounded off by Luciano Pigozzi. The film is good for the duration and then things are really kicked up a gear in the final third when the twists start to come into play. Overall, Libido is a very good, if not quite brilliant Giallo, and is recommended to fans of the genre.

Even with all the renewed interest in Italian gialli these days, it's a little unfortunate that this one will probably never be re-released on DVD because it is one of the few gialli filmed in black and white. And that's too bad because it is really an excellent little film. A young boy sees his father murder his mistress during a bondage session in a mirror-filled room. The father apparently commits suicide by jumping off a cliff (although his body was never found)and the boy eventually ends up in a mental hospital. Years later as a young man he returns to his childhood home with his wife, his lawyer, and his lawyer's sexy girlfriend. A number of strange things begin to happen and the man begins to suspect that his father is still alive.

For much of the movie it is tantalizingly unclear whether the man is still insane (a la "Repulsion"), the other characters are trying to drive him insane to get their hands on his father's inheritance (a la "Gaslight"), or the father really is still alive. The story is excellent and unusually logical for a giallo, and the end includes some delicious twists. Not surprisingly, the director Ernesto Gastaldi would go on to become one of the most famous screenwriters of these kind of films. Of course, he doesn't quite have the visual panache of more famous gialli directors (i.e. Bava, Argento, Fulci, Martino), but some scenes, particularly the ones in the room of mirrors, are pretty memorable.

Gianni Giancarlo is the name actor, but he was pretty young here and seems to play his role a little too seriously. The best thing about this movie though is Maria Chiavetti (Gastaldi's wife)who plays the lawyer's girlfriend. Not only does she give the movie all its sex appeal by dancing in lingerie or strutting around in a kitty-cat bikini, but she provides a lot of Marilyn Monroe-style humor. And while her blonde airhead status would seem to mark her as an early victim, she plays a big part in the surprise twists near the end, proving more charismatic and versatile than the soon-to-be-famous, but here pretty one-note, Giancarlo. And she also apparently was the one that came up with the original idea for the story. This is impressive film, and the version I saw (in Italian with English subtitles) looked great.

This thriller by renowned Italian screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi is a very early Giallo - made just shortly after Mario Bava's first modern Italian thriller SEI DONNE PER L'ASSASSINO (1964) that is considered being the first real Giallo at all. But LIBIDO, shot in black and white, is not only one of the earliest Gialli. It is also one of the most accomplished - even though it was made in less than three weeks according to Gastaldi.

Christian (Giancarlo Giannini in his first movie) returns to the house by the sea where he grew up. He's accompanied by his fiancée and a befriended couple. As a child, he witnessed his father killing his mistress before jumping over a cliff. With the return, Christian should finally overcome his childhood trauma that emerged. As soon as he is back in his old home, though, Christian sees strange things that lead him to the assumption his father must still be alive.

Only one location (the house and the immediate environment), only four actors for most of the time - plus plenty of thrills and psychological terror make this one a winner. LIBIDO starts with a quote by Sigmund Freud. It can't get much more appropriate than that, because of all Gialli, this is the most Freudian one (and there are quite a bunch). Towards the climax, the plot twists pile up, of course, and they all do not only work, but are also clever and surprising (and try to do that with only a quartet of characters).

LIBIDO is a classic of its genre - essential viewing for Giallo fans and thus not to be missed.

Libido is the kind of film that proves I'm totally justified in obsessively tracking down every Italian horror film I can find in chronological order, because it's a Giallo that fools you into thinking you've got the plot all worked out, then turns it all on its head, then turns it all on its head again, then boots you in the balls with a sufficiently nasty ending.

Christian is one of those unlucky kids who accidentally witnesses his father murdering some floozy in a mirrored room. Seems his dad took a header off a cliff shortly afterwards, leaving his creepy mansion in the hands of Paul until Christian turns 23 in three months time. Now the time is closing in, Christian, and his wife, and Paul, and his really, really ditzy wife all head off to the mansion to do the admin before the fortune falls into Christian's hands.

Paul's wife Bridgette (played by gorgeous Mara Maryl) finds the mirrored room and wants to sleep there, so later on Christian gets an eyeful when she dances in her pants for Paul, while Christian's brain juice is getting all donked up with a mixture of desire, trauma from a flashback, and wondering how six hundred year old actor Pigozzi isn't cracking a fatty right there on screen.

Also it seems that Christian's dad might not be dead at all as his pipe turns up and his favourite chair starts moving on its own (wouldn't be a mid-sixties Italian film without all that crap happening I guess!). So is Christian mad, or is someone trying to drive him mad, or has his father actually returned from the dead to tie up another floozy? This film starts off very intriguing (the credits are played out over various images of the murdered woman) and then fools you into thinking it's a mediocre Scooby Doo type thing before making you care about characters you were suspicious about from the start. I only spotted one single clue in the dialogue that may have pointed to the ending but that was that. So many twists in this one and the dark ending makes this one of the best Gialli from the sixties I've watched so far. They should have given Luciano Pigozzi bigger roles like the one he as here - He ditches the 'Igor' type act that he had in Terror Creature From the Grave and comes across as initially a bad guy to a guy perhaps discovering too late that he been made a mug of.

One last note: Dario Argento must have had his notebook out for this one - children witnessing murders, creepy toys, kid's music - all of these turn up in Profondo Rosso!