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Door Into Darkness (1973)
By lngway2go | April 7, 2009
Director: Dario Argento, Luigi Cozzi, Roberto Pariante, Mario Foglietti
Starring: Aldo Reggiani, Laura Belli, Mimmo Palmara, Enzo Cerusico, Paola Tedesco, Pierluigi Apra, Marilu Tolo, Riccardo Salvino, Glauco Onorato, Marcella Elsberger, Mario Foglinetti, Erika Blanc.
This long awaited release of Dario Argento’s Door Into Darkness was originally planned for it’s US DVD premiere by No Shame last year, but after the labels sudden demise the release was left in limbo. Luckily, Mya Communication stepped in, a label formed out of the ashes of No Shame, and one that is quickly establishing itself as a forced to be reckoned with where it’s catalog of Euro horror is concerned.
Door Into Darkness is a collection of short films produced for RAI TV in Italy in the early 70’s. These tales of murder and mayhem are a mixed bag, but supposedly pushed the boundaries of violence on TV at the time, which might not be saying much when viewed by today’s standards. Unfortunately the original materials are no longer around, so this release is from pulled from the RAI TV masters. Although the quality isn’t as nice as we might hope for, it’s not horrible even though the quality oh each episode varies slightly. Door Into Darkness in an interesting collection of thrillers and seems very much in line with other TV productions of the time, including an introduction for each tale by Argento himself; reminiscent of the American TV shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents or the Night Gallery. There were four episodes produced for this series, each episode was directed by a different director and ran approximately one hour, a few might say that some of the episodes over stay their welcome, but for the most part this is an enjoyable collection of tales.
The Neighbour
Directed by Luigi Cozzi
The first episode to air in the series was directed by Luigi Cozzi (Contamination, The Killer Must Kill Again), and actually a very weak start to the proceedings. A young couple with a child move to an isolated villa by the sea, when they arrive it’s dark and their car gets stuck in sand outside the villa. When they enter their apartment inside the villa, there is no power, the house is completely empty and they have nothing to sleep on. Their neighbour upstairs appears to be in, so they decide to ask for some help, little do they know that the husband just killed his wife earlier that day! Thankfully the neighbour isn’t that helpful and they are back where they started. But when the neighbour leaves the villa they notice a wet spot in the ceiling, so they go upstairs to investigate the source of the leak and discover the body of the wife in the bathtub. Luca accidentally leaves his lighter in the apartment, so has to return to the apartment to retrieve it and that is when the neighbour returns.
The Neighbour sounds interesting, but it just fails on a number of levels. The script is pretty bad, with long boring dialogue segments that really don’t go anywhere; the character development felling very forced. There are moments of ‘tension’ which are just silly, the young couple thinking they hear screams or noises and the music suddenly has to get overly dramatic to compensate for the absurdity of it all. When the neighbour catches up with the young couple, tying them up, he lumbers around for so long that they really should have had plenty of time to find a way to escape, but Luca is busy sleeping or something, leaving his wife to make a feeble attempt to take charge of the situation. The only interesting moment is the finale, which is somewhat Poe inspired. It is at this point the baby finally makes it presence noticed because the majority of the film it’s left in a room and forgotten about.
The Tram
Directed by Dario Argento (as Sirio Bernadotte)
Door Into Darkness was created at a time when Argento was putting out some very interesting works, and had managed to really make a name for himself in a short period of time. The Tram features many of Argento’s trademarks of the time, from interestingly shot scenes to his quirky characterization.
A young woman is murdered on a tram one evening and her body is left hidden under a seat. The body isn’t discovered until the next day, which puzzles Detective Giordani because no one reported the murder. It’s hard to imagine just how anyone could fail to witness the murder of the young woman which took place in front of the other passengers on board the tram. He interviews the driver and ticket collector but both claim neither saw a thing. Giordani is forced to rounding up the people who were on the tram and re-enacting the journey the young woman made. This leads them to accusations against the ticket collector… But during the trial something doesn’t sit right with Giordani and he makes another re-enactment to try and discover a key to the crime he has overlooked.
The Tram displays just how confident a director Argento is. Although the episode has it’s flaws, it manages to be continually engaging and entertaining as Giordani investigates the crime. Argento manages to squeeze in plenty of his trademarks. There is his obligatory comedy moments, this time coming from someone who claims to be the killer, and another during the second re-enactment on the tram. Both scenes fail to have any real pay off, but add some balance to the over all piece. One of the more interestingly filmed sequences comes during a chase scene which takes place under the tram carriages in the hanger, the camera following the victim to be down a narrow passageway. Giordani has a nasty habit of clicking his fingers, so much so we are waiting for a singing/dancing number from him. This gets a little much. Still, The Tram is a fairly well crafted story, with a decent script. We don’t expect a masterpiece to come from a TV episode, and this isn’t, but it works well enough. The killers true identity seems a little obvious, but it’s still fun to watch the whole thing play out.
The Eyewitness
Directed by Roberto Pariante
Pariante was Argento’s Assistant Director on his first few films. Here Argento gives him the opportunity to direct an episode, this would turn out to be the only directorial credit Pariante would receive and be the last project he worked on with Argento. According to Alan Jones (Profondo Argento, 2004) Argento was unhappy with Pariante’s work after just a few days and finished the episode himself, with Luigi Cozzi re-shooting some early footage. So what we have is essentially another Argento episode. It shows too, this is yet another extremely well paced and intriguing episode, with more moments of interesting camera work on display. At one point in the film Guido gives him wife Roberta a ring with a picture of a fly on it for their anniversary - suggestions of Four Flies On Grey Velvet perhaps, which has been released shortly before this aired.
While driving home one evening Roberta manages to stop just in time as a woman jumps out in front of her car. The woman lays dead in front of the vehicle, Roberta discovering that the woman has been killed, and not by her car. She suddenly looks around for the killer, and the darkly dressed figure begins to approach from the bushes holding a gun. Roberta runs for help, and when the police show up the body is missing and there is no evidence to be found. Her husband returns from out of town to be with her and when the killer threatens Roberta they set up a trap to catch the killer, but things don’t quite turn out as planned.
The Eyewitness is fairly run of the mill story wise where giallo is concerned, but it still manages to entertain. There identity of the killer is unfortunately fairly easy to guess, but there is still some surprises to be had so all is not lost. The interesting thing with giallo films is that even if you know the killers identity there’s still the reveal and capture to be witnessed. The acting if fairly good in this episode. Roberta (Marilù Tolo) does a good job when people aren’t fully believing her story, and Glauco Onorato who plays the police inspector is effective also. Unfortunately, Guido (Riccardo Salvino) is a let down for the most part; he gives a very wooden performance. Still this is one of the better episodes.
The Doll
Directed by Mario Foglietti
Foglietti was a writer on Argento’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet, and this like Pariante’s episode this is his first directing credit. Unfortunately, it’s another fairly weak entry into the series. There is some interesting Argento inspired camera work to keep things a little interesting, but the story is just directionless and the episode ends up being as schizophrenic as it’s characters; you never really know who any one is until close to the end of the episode.
A schizophrenic patient escapes a psychiatric institution, and things turn deadly when a woman turns up dead. But who is the patient? And, why are they killing? Is the challenge Argento has given us in the episodes introduction. A professor/doctor of the institute and the police are trying to track down the escaped inmate, but there are a lot of strange characters in the film. A man arrives in town, checks into a hotel room and is very unfriendly to the hotel owner. He begins to follow an attractive red-head, Elena Moreschi (Erika Blanc), who later turns up dead. His attentions are then brought to another attractive redhead, who he follows and then forces his way into her home and begin to psychologically torture her. It seems obvious that he’s isn’t going to be the escapee, but he’s a pretty strange guy and definitely has a thing for redheads.
This is just one of those episodes that tries to be a little too clever, but ends up being confusing and hard to follow. The premise is simple enough, and the character’s vague identities are meant to be part of the mystery, but this just alienates us from the film - you can’t really develop a connection with any characters. Towards the end of the episode all becomes somewhat clear, but we are still then subjected to a long explanation at the episodes end to fill in the gaps in the plot. It’s all an interesting idea idea, just doesn’t work that well.
So, unfortunately it’s left to Argento to pull this collection of short films out of the mud, although the two lesser efforts are not totally pointless and still worth watching; there is always something intriguing with Euro crime dramas. Mya Communications have put together a nice package, and appear to have done the best they could with the film elements they had. Presented full screen with a mono soundtrack, this is how the series would have originally aired back in the 1970’s. As already mentioned the quality of the print varies, but it’s okay for what it is. The Mya Communications disc is fairly light on extras, but to add some weight to this pretty barren release the “Dario Argento - Master of Horror” documentary directed by Cozzi is included on the second disc is. Unfortunately the lone extra on this package, but there are no real complaints from this release. Another must have purchase in a year that is already becoming overwhelmed with great new titles.
Topics: Dario Argento, Giallo, Italian Horror |