Available on DVD/ Blu-Ray Dual-Format
Arrow Video is currently undertaking a prolific series of beautifully-packaged reissues of classic Italian giallo films. Known for heady imagery that melds the gory and the dreamlike, often nonsensical plots, and acres of exposed flesh, the gialli revelled in their own disreputable nature. Death Walks Twice collects two outings by the late Luciano Ercoli, Death Walks on High Heels and Death Walks at Midnight, released in 1971 and 1972 respectively, around the time Dario Argento was establishing the quintessence of the sub-genre with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage.
Both films star Nieves Navarro (credited as Susan Scott), Ercoli’s wife and cult scream-queen extraordinaire, and both are wholly insalubrious, borderline demented detective tales, that are nevertheless surprisingly restrained and tasteful in comparison to the likes of Argento’s Tenebrae or the earlier work of Lucio Fulci, which stalk similar ground. In fact, while Navarro is the murder victim around whom the plot revolves in …High Heels, her heroine in …Midnight feels rather progressive, and is characterised by her strength and refusal to be cowed by the heavy misogyny she comes up against rather than the force of her scream. Admittedly, this strength mainly takes the form of punching any poor sap that pisses her off, but it is refreshing for a style of film often dismissed as retrograde trash.
Of the two films, Death Walks at Midnight holds up best. The story is more coherent, and Navarro is entirely watchable in her extended role. The premise is admittedly insane; Navarro takes a new hallucinogen for a ‘Doors of Perception’ type magazine article, and sees a vicious murder that turns out to have taken place six months before; but it is rather good fun, and as twisty as the A7. Although, overall a weaker offering, that is not to say Death Walks on High Heels doesn’t have anything to offer; it’s the more stylistically adventurous, with a gorgeous pastel colour palette, and some directorial trickery utilising various lenses at which Hitchcock himself would have wobbled his chin in approval. Be prepared to wince however, for a number of reasons, at a scene featuring Navarro performing a striptease in blackface. Even Al Jolson would have blushed. The story-telling is bewildering, even by giallo standards, but it retains a certain bonkers charm, and the juxtaposition between the onscreen weirdness, and the relentlessly jaunty jazzy score is brilliant.
Neither film is likely to convert any casual viewer to the seedy joys of this peculiar, curious movement, but they are certainly fine examples and more than competently made and actually a lot of fun.
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