By
Hank Reineke
Mario Bava’s The
Whip and the Body would enjoy a very brief run – under a new title - on
U.S. theatre screens in late summer of 1965. By spring of ‘66 the film was
already popping up as a late-night programmer on U.S. television. I was belatedly introduced to the film
via a Chiller Theatre telecast on New
York’s WPIX-TV, circa 1971/72. I can no
longer recall if I was impressed by this atmospheric, mostly monster-less mystery
on that first viewing. I was only ten or
eleven years of age. My hazy memories
are further obscured by it having been broadcast under its U.S. theatrical re-title
as What.
The name of now-legendary director Mario Bava wouldn’t have
meant very much to me either at young age. Even if I had been familiar with Bava’s oeuvre – which I most certainly wasn’t at age ten – the directorial
credit of What had been anglicized, ascribed
to one “John M. Old.” The directorial
fake wouldn’t have mattered much to me, really. All I knew was Christopher Lee was one of the film’s star players, and I
was already a big fan of the actor’s horror pictures.
Regardless of the film title in which you accustomed - The Whip and the Body/ Night is the
Phantom/What/The Whip and the Flesh/La frusta e il Corpo etc. etc. - this
was the second of two Bava films to feature Christopher Lee. The first was Ercole al centro della terra
(1961, aka Hercules in the
Haunted World), an Italian peplum. That film pitted the heroic Hercules (Reg Park) against Lee’s villainous
Lichas (or Lyco or Lico, depending on the release). Lichas is variously described as “Lord of the
Hades Underworld” or “King of the Dead.”
The actor’s typecasting made
sense, all things considered. Lee had once
enjoyed playing a diverse number of character roles since his 1947 entry into
the film business. But following the
runaway success of Hammer’s Horror of Dracula (1958), the actor somewhat
frustratingly found himself mostly employed as a heavy in an on-going string of
horror films, fog-shrouded mysteries, and psychological-thrillers.
Lee would later generously deem
Bava as “one of Italy’s greatest cameramen” and, true to form, both Hercules
in the Haunted World and The Whip and the Body, are awash in the eerily
brilliant and fluorescent colors for which the director is acclaimed. Technically, the cinematographer for the
latter film is Ubaldo Terzano, but much of the photography is accepted as Bava’s
own, albeit uncredited. Bava’s greatness
partly lies in his painter’s eye for style: he combines color, shadows and
shadings to create atmosphere and great imagery.
As director, Bava also employs
innovative lighting and lots of blue-tinting to create his striking,
imaginative visuals. On his wonderful
commentary track, author Tim Lucas describes such eerie colorization as Bava’s moonlit
“Blue of Night.” Throughout The Whip
and the Body, Bava’s visual stylings perfectly reflect the film’s moody and
atmospheric aura. His use of purposeful
slow tracking shots and pan photography – abetted by composer Carlo
Rustichelli’s evocative, mysterious score – masterfully evokes a sense of tangible,
shadowy foreboding: who (or what?) lurks behind that candle-lit curtain or
door?
The Whip and the Body concerns the unwelcome return of Kurt Menliff
(Lee) to his ancestral home, a castle nestled on lonesome cliff side overlooking
the sea. His own father, Count Vladimir
(Jacques Herlin) is not pleased to see him nor is Giorgia (Harriet White), the
Count’s servant. Years earlier, we learn,
Kurt had seduced Giorgia’s daughter. His
subsequent cruel rejection of the girl is believed to be the cause of her
suicide. Although Kurt’s bother
Christian (Tony Kendall) is welcoming of his brother’s return, he too will come
to regret such forgiveness. His own wife
Nevenka (Israeli actress Daliah Lavi) falls prey to Kurt’s Svengali-like
attraction – who, true to form, abuses and degrades her with a fetishistic,
sadomasochistic whipping. I can’t say
much more than that plot-wise without risking spoilers. So I’ll just say that following Kurt’s attack
on Nevenka, the film moves from straight-on melodrama to a mostly satisfying scenario
combining elements of ghost story and mystery whodunit.
Budgeted at approx. $66, 500, The
Whip and the Body began production in July of 1960. The film was slated for a seven-week schedule. Principal photography wrapped in six-weeks,
the seventh to begin post-production work. The film was an Italian/French collaboration, a production of Cosmopolis
Films and Les Films Marbeuf. Both
companies had been involved in the exploitation of the then very-much-in-vogue
“sword and sandal” pictures: strongman adventures loosely tethered to tales sourced
from Greek and Roman mythologies. On his
commentary track, Lucas describes the scenario of The Whip and the Body
as essentially akin to “a Greek Tragedy” in its construction.
The film’s screenplay is
credited to Ernesto Gastaldi, Ugo Guerra and Luciano Martino, with the film
produced (without credit) to Federico Magnaghi. Upon the film’s release in English-speaking markets the writing credits
for the original Italian trio were anglicized as “Julian Berry, Robert Hugo and
Martin Hardy.” Bava too did not escape
such name-change ignominy, his directorial credit ascribed to “John M. Old,” a
pseudonym used on several of his films. The time-period and country in which this Gothic mystery is set is
indeterminate. This was, according to
scenarist Gastaldi, entirely intentional. Though the seaside locations were filmed in Italy near Anzio, the main
characters are given Eastern European-sounding names and the set dressing peculiarly
mixes period styles and time-dates.
A prolific screenwriter of
horror, pirate and peplum films, Ernesto Gastaldi had already written scripts
for such Italian melodramas as The Vampire and the Ballerina (1960), Werewolf
in a Girls’ Dormitory (1961), and The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962). Following production on The Whip and the Body, producer Magnaghi would team with writers Guerra
and Martino (in addition to writer-director Brunello Rondi) to bring Daliah
Lavi back in the obscure but sultry exorcism flick II Demonio (1963).
The Whip and the Body was not a huge success. Lucas describes the film as Bava’s “biggest
box-office flop,” the picture’s final tally generating back only half of its investment. Upon the film’s release, critics gave any
number of reasons why the film’s box-office was disappointing. Variety was mildly impressed,
describing the film as genuinely suspenseful if best suited for “sophisticated
audiences.” But the trade also thought the film flawed in execution: “The
Gothic-novel atmosphere and trappings of secret passages, muddy footprints from
the crypt and ghost lover, probably will draw more laughs than gasps.”
London’s Monthly Film
Bulletin was far more withering in its assessment of Night is the
Phantom (the film’s British re-title). Their critic described it as “Another of Italy’s prankish simulations of
a British horror movie, the film is slow, repetitive, verging on parody. Censor or distributor cuts have rendered much
of the plot incomprehensible, though one doubts if it ever made sense
entirely.” In fairness, the same critic conceded
the film’s “weird and doom-laden claustrophobia” was, in retrospect,
“unfailingly compulsive, mainly because of the redolent Freudian
associations.”
The more uncomfortable Freudian
moments of Menliff’s fetishistic abuse of Nevenka were cut from the film’s continental
version. Christopher Lee only reminisced
that he and Lavi shared “some very torrid love scenes” in the making of the
film, but left it at that. Most of those
scenes would not be made privy to either continental or western cinemagoers. Upon the film’s initial release in Italy, that
country’s censors would come down hard on it, deeming several sequences obscene
due to “degenerations and anomalies of sexual life.” There were demands that these
moments be cut from the film. Though the
filmmakers complied in making such trims, producer Magnaghi still found himself
standing before a Rome court. He was
subsequently acquitted of obscenity charges in January of 1964.
Though Lucas does bring up the
censorship issues surrounding The Whip and the Body, he does not make
the issue a centerpiece of his commentary. He does points out in his very informative analysis that the film was
very much influenced by the earliest of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe
productions for American-International. Which, in turn, had been very much styled after such continental
productions as Bava’s Black Sunday (1960).
Though A.I.P. had distributed earlier
works of Bava’s in the U.S., they balked on The Whip and the Body –
likely due to the film’s sadomasochistic salaciousness. Though mild by today’s standards, the film was
thought unsuitable for young and impressionable theatergoers. The film was eventually picked up for U.S.
distribution in 1965 by Richard G. Yates’ Futuramic Releasing. The film, now curiously re-titled as What,
was doomed to play the U.S. drive-in circuit in the summer of 1965. Accompanied by a rather gray and cheapish exploitation
campaign, What was top-bill to a second Futuramic import from the
continent, Isidore M. Ferry’s Face of Terror (Spain, 1964) (original
title La cara del terror).
One needn’t be a particularly
avid fan of Christopher Lee (or any of the others on screen) to notice that all
dialogue is dubbed throughout. As with
many of Bava’s films, his work was intended for wide international release. To that end, many of his films were shot sans
sync-sound, with foreign-language market dubbing scheduled long after the original
cast had moved on. Upon viewing The
Whip and the Body, Lee was left aghast by his character’s misplaced
American-affected voice-over dub. He would
insist afterward that all of his foreign-language film contracts included the
proviso he handle any necessary dubbing himself.
This Kino Lorber Studio
Classics Blu-ray issue of The Whip and the Body is the company’s second
issue of this title, the first being released in 2013. The set features a 2023 4K scan and a 2K
restoration by 88 Films from an HD master from an original 35mm print. The set includes both the original Italian
and English dubs as audio options as well as optional English subtitles and the
film’s theatrical trailer as well as trailers from other Bava films. As referenced above, Tim Lucas of Video
Watchdog fame and author of the exhaustive one-thousand plus page tome Mario
Bava: All the Colors of the Dark delivers a masterful commentary – though
one familiar as it has been ported over from Kino’s 2013 Blu-ray release via
VCI’s DVD issue of 2007. The new release
is also fitted with the now inevitable cardboard sleeve protector, which
apparently are prized by some collectors.. Without question, essential viewing for fans of Bava and Christopher
Lee.
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