All The Colors Of Giallo — All The Colors Of Giallo( Blu Ray, DVD, CD)
The first Blu ray disc takes in the documentary All The Colours Of Giallo- this is ninety two minute Italian language doc with English subtitles. The films directed by Federico Caddeo, who has an impressive history of directing genre docs- racking up 99 directional credits since the early 2000. The main talking head & Lead through the whole doc is genre fan & film historian Fabio Melelli- who makes for an interesting & inform commentator on the genre. The film moves from discussing the origin of the genres name, and the Italian crime novels that influenced it. Moving onto briefly discussing Krimin’s, before getting into discussing the development of the genre. Along the way key films & their directors are quite lengthy discussed- and we get brand new interviews with the likes of Dario Argento, Sergio Martino, Umberto Lenzi, Lamberto Bava, discussing the work of his father Mario- as well as lengthy archrival interview with Luci Fulci- talking about his addition to the genre, as well as his rivalry with Argento in the Italian Giallo/ horror. Along the way, we also get a fleeting mentions of a few other important films in the genre. As you’d expect the doc is laced with trailers, and films clips, as well as interviews with key genre actors like Edwige Fenech. For the most part, the whole thing flows in an informative & interesting manner, though a few of the actors interviews do drift off track a bit. If I had one main criticism is it seemed to suddenly end after an interview with Umberto Lenzi, and really it didn’t seem long enough- as there was no real in-depth discussion about the all-important soundtracks of the genre, and the key composers- also the more modern Giallo don’t get any mention at all. As genre documentaries go it’s certainly worthy- with Melelli managing to keep a nice balance between information & passion, and the big plus here is the new interviews with key directors from the genre. I’d say it’s certainly a great introduction to the genre, as well as worthy for long term fans as well.
Also on the first disc, we have Giallothon- a just over four hours of Giallo trailers- these are laid out in chronological order- from Black & white proto Giallo's, onto later full on examples of the genre, as well as more bizarre & weird twists on the form. There’s an option with the trailers to listen to all four hours of them with commentary from Kat Ellinger genre expect, and author of All The Colors Of Sergio Martino – and this is most fascinating, with ms Ellinger giving you a nice potted history of the genre- and along the way mentioning neat things to look out for in certain films- so you’ll need to have your pen & paper handy to make a list of what you want to check out next, as I’m sure even the most hardcore fans of the genre won’t have seen all of these- so a really nice addition to the release- I won't say extra, as this really stands on its own- due to its length, and of course the commentary track.
Also on this first disc, we get a nineteen featurette with John Martin- the editor of English genre fanzine The Giallo Pages- this sees him discussing the development of the genre- it’s height in the early ’70s, and a few worthy mentions in the genre from the ’80s.
The second DVD disc takes in ninety minutes of Krimi trailers- and as with Giallothon these seem to be laid in chronological order- going from the 1930’s up to the 60’s- in all, they are thirty trailers. Sadly no commentary tracks for these, but like the Giallothon you can select each trailer. Next, we get a twenty-three-minute featurette which finds German film historian talking about how the Krimi's developed, the way the books they were influenced by featured red covers, and the films in general.
The final disc is, of course, the CD- this takes twenty tracks, and has a runtime of sixty-seven minutes. This was compiled by Alfonso Carillo from the achieves of highly respected Italian soundtrack label Beat Records- and it really is a great comp- that’s nicely varied, often offering up some fairly obscure tracks, and not wholly concentrating on the bigger names in Italian scoring. We open the urgent & tight grooving organ meets malevolent string swoon of "Nightmare" by Carlo Savina from 1968’s The Young, the Evil and the Savage. By track six we’ve come to a classic example of darkly sensual female vocal laced Giallo soundtracking from Ennio Morricone’s "La Lucerola" from Fulci’s A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, which sees the master adding to the wordless vocals tense string darts, tolling orchestration, and melodic moody hornpipes. By just over the comps midway point we’ve come to sprightly moody "Perche’ Quelle Strane Gocce Sul Corpo Di Jennifer" ( by Bruno Nicola for 1972 The Case of the Bloody Iris)with it’s jaunting harpsichord keys meets atmospheric string lushness. Or there’s the dramatic & bombastic wow funk guitar ‘n’ organ meets grooving horn work of "Tony’s Magnum" by Armando Trovaioli from 1976’s Strange Shadows in an Empty Room. With the second to last track finding things turn decidedly sleazed & sinister with "The Ripper" from Francesco De Marsi Soundtrack for Fulci’s New York Ripper- with it’s brooding & loose blend of bass wonders, eerie flute trails, sudden horn rises, and wirey-to- cold twanging guitar tones. The CD’s track listing comes on a glossy yellow, black, red & green double sided inlay card that’s at the front of the blu ray case.
All in all, this is a great little package- full of hours of fun for any genre fan- and those who want to find more about the Giallo form- all told we get over five and a half hours worth of material- plus of course the over hours worth of music.