Italian giallo. Original title: “Perché quelle strane gocce di sangue sul corpo di Jennifer?” The Italians seem to love their long titles. The literal translation is “Why are those strange drops of blood on Jennifer’s body?” I think Bergman made entire films where fewer words were spoken. 1
Having recently escaped the clutches of her ex-husband’s sex cult, a beautiful model is stalked by a masked killer whose previous victims include the former occupants of her new apartment.
Aesthete just did some new 1080HD videos from this film.
And as you would expect, Tuna was all over this film in his day:
Carla Brait
Edwige Fenech
Paola Quattrini
Edwige Fenech is a nudity legend. She was the queen of two exploitation genres: commedia sexy all’italiana and giallo (sexy, violent pulp thrillers). I haven’t tried to count her career total of nude scenes, but I’m guessing it is 50 or more, which may be a record for non-porn actresses. She is still around, still acting from time to time, and still looks great. (She was 74 in this video.)
Footnote 1: I have previously recounted my experiences watching American movies with subtitles when I lived in Europe.
In going from English to Norwegian, some cowboy would say something like “You boys circle around and cut them varmints off at Danger Pass. The rest of you – follow me and we’ll cover their rear.” That would be translated into Norwegian as “Kom.” (I didn’t make that up. I can’t remember the sheriff’s precise verbiage, but I got it as close as I could. It was at least two long, complex directions that were translated as “Kom.”)
Meanwhile, in Italy … A person would say something like “maybe,” and the Italian subtitles would fill the screen, then continue to the next page, covering in detail all the various reasons why the speaker could not give a definitive “yes” or “no.”
I was always curious what it would be like to watch an Italian movie with Norwegian sub-titles, with the Norwegian translator skipping all the fluff and covering only the bare essentials, as is their wont. I imagine it like this:
First sub-title, ten minutes in:
Grevinnen er død (“The countess is dead”)
Next, and final subtitle, two minutes before the end, as the police inspector gathers the suspects:
Morderen var deg, oberst. (“The killer was you, Colonel”)
Edwige Fenech, simply one of the best ever. Seen many of her thriller/horror movies, but much harder to find the sex comedies. Sometimes find those movies on youtube without subtitles or dubbing so can’t really watch. Hopefully someday they will be made more available.
In Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe,” there is an alien character who adopted the name Ford Prefect on Earth. In the Americanized version it’s Ford Escort. (It is explained that when he arrived on Earth, he made a mistake about what the dominant species was.) He was actually from Betelgeuse VII, but he grew up on Betelgeuse VIII, because he and his father were the only survivors of the destruction of Betelgeuse VII in the Great Collapsing Hrung Disaster. On Betelgeuse VIII he was give the nickname “Ik”, which meant “Boy who cannot satisfactorily explain what a Hrung is, nor why it should chose to collapse on Betelgeuse VII.”
Very concise translations always remind me of that.