Rivelazioni di un maniaco sessuale al capo della squadra mobile (1972)

Director:

Roberto Bianchi Montero

Writers:

Luigi Angelo (screenplay)
Luigi Angelo (story)

Release Date:

July 1975 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

One day you'll get closer to the violence of death... but THIS IS AS FAR AS WE DARE TAKE YOU... with any hope of bringing you back!

Plot:

A serial killer is on the loose. His victims are unfaithful wives and he always leaves compromising photographs at the crime scene.

Plot Keywords:

Murder | Serial Killer | Unfaithfulness | Topless Female Nudity | Slow Motion Scene

Cast

Farley Granger	...	Inspector Capuana
Sylva Koscina	...	Barbara Capuana
Silvano Tranquilli	...	Paolo Santangeli
Annabella Incontrera	...	Franca Santangeli
Chris Avram	...	Professor Casali
Femi Benussi	...	Serena
Krista Nell	...	Renata
Angela Covello	...	Bettina Santangeli
Fabrizio Moresco	...	Piero
Andrea Scotti
Irene Pollmer	...	Giannina
Luciano Rossi	...	Gastone
Ivano Staccioli	...	The Liar
Nino Foti
Jessica Dublin	...	Rossella - the fortune-teller

Also Known As:

Bad Girls (USA) (reissue title)
Penetration (USA) (USA) (X-rated version)
Confessions of a Sex Maniac
La morte viene dal buio (Italy) (video title)
Revelations of a Sex Maniac to the Head of the Criminal Investigation Division (Europe: English title)
So Naked, So Dead
The Slasher ...is the Sex Maniac! (USA) (dubbed version)

Runtime:

95 min | Australia:90 min | USA:88 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian | English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | USA:X | Australia:R | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Elios Studios, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Produzioni Cinematografiche Romane (P.C.R.)

Trivia:

A re-edited version released in the U.S. was called "Penetration", and featured hardcore porno footage with adult-film stars Harry Reems and Tina Russell. It was advertised as a porno featuring actor Farley Granger, who was in the original film but had nothing to do with the re-edited version. Granger threatened the distributors with a major lawsuit for the unauthorized use of his name in the new version, and they subsequently withdrew the film from US distribution, but not from Europe.

Not good, but somewhat misunderstood, giallo

The rap on this giallo is that it is especially moralistic and misogynistic; however,I found the first charge to be untrue and the other greatly exaggerated. A crazed killer is murdering unfaithful wives and leaving photographic evidence of their dalliances next to the bodies. This certainly SEEMS pretty moralistic. But the betrayed husbands don't come off any more sympathetically than the wives. Many knew about their wives' infidelities and/or were playing around themselves (one husband of a murder victim is himself having an affair with another murder victim). Moreover, the killer doesn't turn out to be motivated by vengeance. He is killing these women because he can get away with it, because their high society husbands will thwart the investigation of the beleaguered inspector(Farley Granger) at every turn lest they themselves be publicly exposed as cuckolds! This kind of deep cynicism is typical of later period gialli and Italian poliziani films, but there's nothing especially moralistic about it. Viewed in this way, even the final actions of the detective, which are certainly appalling and take away the only remaining likable and sympathetic character in the movie, are clearly more a final act of despairing cynicism than of righteous anger.

As for the misogyny charge, the raison d'etre of this movie seems to be to show a lot of attractive European actresses (Silva Koscina, Femi Benussi, Annabella Incontrerra, Nieves Navarro, Krista Nell) in various states of undress, and the filmmakers don't seem to care too much whether these women are alive, dead, or dying at the time. The movie lacks the flair, the garish delerium, and the stylized violence of better gialli, but it's not really all that different in it's attitude toward women--they're a decorative canvas for a painting of depravity and brutality. But just because the painting isn't very good doesn't make this film any more or less morally reprehensible than other gialli. In fact, the only really sympathetic character in the whole movie is the college-age daughter (Angela Covello) of one of the murder victims, who hilariously admonishes her boyfriend's "bourgeois politics" while he fumbles with the buttons on her blouse. The incompetent filmmakers, however, inexplicably drop this potential heroine halfway through. An appealing female protagonist would have done a lot to mitigate the lingering misogyny, but here this movie once again suffers from its own incompetence.