El techo de cristal

Despite being almost devoid of action this Spanish giallo keeps you wondering right up until the end just what the hell is going on. Plus, it's not about how women only get so far in their careers in the world of cigar chomping fat businessmen, but rather what happens when housewives get bored while their husbands are away working. And what do bored housewives do? That's right - they suspect each other of murdering their husbands.

Marta is that very woman. She lives in an apartment complex with her husband and cat, but mainly the cat as the husband is off working. Above her lives Patty Shepherd and her husband Viktor, and while bored Marta speculates what is going on above her, listening to Patty's footsteps, then her husband's. Strangely, Patty states the next day that her husband has been away working, so who was upstairs. And who is taking pictures of both Patty, Marta, and Rosa, the girl who delivers milk to the milfs?

Not only do we have a few suspects kicking about (the moody sculptor/landlord, the horn dog supermarket guy...err...that's it really) but we also have a huge number of ways to dispose of a body about the place too. So if Patty did murder her husband, as Marta quickly suspects, then the body could have either been fed to the pigs out back, or fed to those dogs who are strangely off their regular food, or even thrown into the furnace that the sculptor has. Or maybe even stashed in Marta's own fridge, seeing that Patty's always asking to store meat in there!

I suppose the fun lies in wondering if Marta should maybe take up some sort of hobby instead of wondering what her neighbours are up to, or whether she's right and Patty has killed her husband, or even if the sculptor is up to something. The plot only gets more complex as it goes on as nothing is really revealed until the last few minutes, and even then you might be left wondering what happened after the film. Not bad at all.

Patty Shepherd (also known as the Barbara Steele of Spanish horror) is rather good as the chirpy and possibly sinister neighbour (Shepherd stalkers take note: she does a bit of nude sunbathing). The most sickening bit for me was when Rosa the milk maid drank milk directly from a cow's teat - blech!

I actually would classify this as a Spanish giallo, even it doesn't slavishly imitate the stereotypical Italian model like some of the Paul Naschy efforts (i.e. "Seven Murders for Scotland Yard"). This film by Eloy de Inglesias and a couple films by the equally talented Spaniard Jose Maria Forque are superior to any of Naschy's attempts at a Spanish giallo and make for interesting variations on the standard giallo formula. Of course, this movie is also somewhat inspired by Hitchcocks's "Rear Window", the Hollywood paranoia classic "Gaslight", and the director's own "Week of the Killer" (released under the absurd and inappropriate English title "Cannibal Man").

Carmen Sevilla is an attractive wife living in an apartment building. After her husband leaves town on a business trip, she hears noises in the apartment above her and comes to believe the woman living there (Patty Shepherd) has murdered her own invalid husband. Adding to her suspicions, the woman keeps asking to put stuff in her fridge, even though her own fridge is clearly working, and someone is secretly feeding something to the landlord's dogs. Of course, there are other strange characters that might be involved, starting with the handsome bachelor landlord, who seems to another of the director's closeted gay protagonists since he rebuffs most of the beautiful women who throw themselves at him, but he also seems to have a stalker-ish thing for Sevilla's character. There's also a nubile young milkmaid (Emma Cohen)who keeps coming around with her jugs (and occasionally a few bottles of milk too).

It becomes increasingly unclear whether there really has been a murder, whether the protagonist is going crazy, or whether someone is trying to drive her crazy--and it might be more the one of these. The ending is different, although maybe a little too different for its own good. This movie doesn't seem to have quite the visual style of one of your better gialli (but it's kind of hard to tell given the substandard presentation of the bootleg I saw). It is generally a pretty effective film though, however, you want to categorize it.

Another excellent offering from De La Iglesia, this is even more of a slow-burning thriller than THE CANNIBAL MAN (1972) but the scenario it conveys of place, characters and situations holds one's attention, even if there is a definite slackening during the last act (picking things up again with a stunning climax that not only marries the REAR WINDOW {1954}-inspired proceedings up to that point to a STRANGERS ON A TRAIN {1951}-type twist but also takes care to produce one additional ace for the finale!) and which now seems to be something of a directorial trait.

The GLASS CEILING, in fact, is confidently Hitchcockian but also presenting concerns that obviously interested the film-maker, such as what sort of mischief may be going on within the walls of a house (which, in this case, is amplified by making the central setting a condominium). However, the script merely uses fanciful conjecture as a means to an end, which is another character study of a lonely figure (here leading lady Carmen Sevilla, and for which performance she won the Cinema Writers Circle award) whose grip on reality is quickly fading (depicted via a notable dream sequence) and how the people she comes into contact with react to this (there is even a disturbing subtext, which one hopes is not quite true, of landowning studs and horny errand-boys preying on such abandoned wives!). Still, unlike THE CANNIBAL MAN, the protagonist is now a victim who soon finds that she cannot really trust anyone, not even family, preferring to keep company with her amiable white cat (which, unfortunately, comes to a sticky end).

Once again, the cast includes lovely Emma Cohen: at first, I thought she would have an even lesser role than in CANNIBAL, since her name is much further down the cast list this time around, but also because she plays the unflattering part of a farmer's daughter delivering milk to the various tenants – however, enamored of the landlord, she also frequently pays him visits at the condominium's back-yard, where he conducts his extracurricular activity of sculpting. Though he certainly does not discourage her attentions (even accepting to be fed – and playfully sprayed in – milk by her directly from a cow's teat!), the man really favors Sevilla (to the point of taking the latter horse-riding in order to alleviate her ennui), so that Cohen is cross when a sculpture he has made of her luscious body (voyeuristically caught by camera while the girl is sleeping in the nude, one more of the landlord's hobbies, which he also directs at Sevilla and another pivotal female character, thus linking the film to the remarkable "Cannibal" flick I watched at the very start of this "Halloween Challenge", WELCOME TO ARROW BEACH {1974}) actually sports SevIlla's head!

However, Cohen's character still vanishes from the proceedings well before the end – which serves to put at center-stage an attractive neighbor of Sevilla's, whom the latter suspects all through the picture of having committed foul play upon her invalid husband (whose body the heroine frantically suspects of being stashed either in the back-yard or the couple's own fridge!), even contriving to periodically check with the bus depot whether he was seen leaving town as his spouse claims.

This is the second Eloy de la Iglesia film I have seen (the first being CANNIBAL MAN) and I found it to be an excellent thriller. Lonely housewife Carmen Sevilla begins to let her imagination get the best of her when she hears a man's footsteps in the apartment above her late at night. Her upstairs neighbor (Patty Shepard) insists it was her husband who had returned from business, but Sevilla doesn't believe her and begins to investigate. This is a great film, with lots of nice twists along the way and an incredible dream sequence. The final revelation is one that will have you thinking for hours afterwards. I enjoyed this much more than the straight forward CANNIBAL MAN.

I thought I was going to enjoy this much more, having very much enjoyed the same director's later, Cannibal Man, many years ago. I became slightly concerned during the credits when the camera repeatedly panned an outer building and it may have been my print, the dubbing or my lack of attention but I found this very slow and largely lacking in atmosphere. I'm assuming a low budget accounted for some of the darkness and repetitions for the characters are well formed and introduced well. We begin to get a good picture of a small community living in each others pockets and a smouldering sexuality between this one and that but as the main character begins to theorise her feeling that there has been a murder in the flat above, the fact that she is talking to her cat is not great. The ending is astonishing and if I had been more in touch with what was going on I would have enjoyed it all the more.