Yellow Fever: The Rise and Fall of the Giallo
                           
Director: Calum Wadell
Year: 2016
Rating: 7.0
I have never embraced the Giallo film. I would guess that I have seen less than ten of them, maybe less than five - basically Argento films. They are spectacularly visual - wonderful use of color, blood, beauty, stylish sets and costumes and of course graphic violence unlike anything that came before it. The murders are their grand operatic set-pieces - tense, intricate, artistic, a pulsing hypnotic soundtrack and very violent. The plots often make little sense, a murderer whose identity is often kept secret till he has killed numerous people. Nearly all the violence is directed towards women in which they are brutally murdered - usually by a knife or axe replacing the male organ. Some think misogynistic. That is a complicated question. Perhaps not from the directors but to segments of the audience. Nudity, sex and violent death of women is the definition of misogyny - and in a society where misogyny seems to be on the rise with creeps like Andrew Tate and their toxic masculinity. At the same time they can be very tense and are beautifully shot and as one of the commentators said, women in film have always been a target for male killers in suspense films. This just take it to a more exploitive place. 



The term Giallo (yellow) came about because of a series of suspense novels published in Italy going back to the 1920s that had yellow covers. Most of the authors were American or British - Christie, Woolrich, Spillane, Edgar Wallace, Goodis. The genre came out of Italy in the 1970s though there were films that built up to it. Hitchcock, Bava, Antonelli (Blow Up), a 1959 film titled The Facts of Murder from director Pietro Germi is cited as an influence, Bertolucci's The Grim Reaper (1962), The Krimi's out of Germany in the 1960s certainly influenced them. The first Giallo differs among the many talking heads - Bava's The Evil Eye aka The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) and Blood and Black Lace (1964) are mentioned - but most of them said the first true Giallo's came from Argento with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) and his follow-up The Cat O' Nine Tails (1971) which were both big hits worldwide. Everyone who followed basically followed Argento. By the mid-1970s the genre was running out of gas, budgets were getting smaller, they didn't play outside of Italy. They were also being incorporated into other non-Italian films - primarily the Slasher films of the 1980s and directors like Brian De Palma.




Here are some of the films that were favorites of the commentators. A list for me to perhaps watch some day.

Dario Argento - most of the documentary focuses on his films and he is interviewed. Beside the two mentioned above:

Deep Red (1975)

Suspiria (1977)

Tenebrae (1982)

Opera (1987)



Lucio Fulci

A Woman ins Lizard's Skin (1971)

Don't Torture the Ducklings (1972)

Murder to the Tune of Seven Black Notes (1977)



Sergio Martino

The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971)

Torso (1973)

All the Colors of the Dark (1972)



Umberto Lenzi

Seven-Blood Stained Orchids (1972)

Spasmo (1974)

Eyeball (1975)



Massimo Dallamano

What Have You Done to Solange (1972)



Aldo Lado

Who Saw Her Die (1972)

Short Night of Glass Dolls (1971)



Antonio Bido

Watch Me When I kill (1977)



Francesco Mazzei

The Weapon, the Hour and Other Motives (1972)



Andrea Bianchi

Strip Nude for Your Killer (1975)

A solid documentary - some extremely violent clips, a few spoilers, what appear to me to be authoritative commentators. It is directed by Calum Wadell who somehow has managed to direct 148 documentaries - mainly about film. A few I have seen and enjoyed were Category III - The Untold Story of Hong Kong Exploitation and 42nd Street Memories.