Giallo Essentials

[DarkImbecile]

Alongside the spaghetti western, the giallo is one of the most famous Italian export genres: films steeped in mystery and intrigue, delivered with stylised violence and unforgettable musical themes.

The Possessed (1965) masterfully combines noir, mystery and giallo tropes in a proto-giallo based on one of Italy's most notorious crimes. It tells the story of a depressed novelist (Peter Baldwin) in search of his old flame (Virna Lisi) who has disappeared under suspicious circumstances, prompting an investigation that finds him plunged into a disturbing drama of familial secrets, perversion, madness and murder. The Fifth Cord (1971) boasts a complex, Agatha Christie-esque plot of investigation into a series of brutal assaults. As the body count rises, whisky swilling journalist Andrea Bild (Franco Nero) finds himself under suspicion, making it all the more imperative he crack the case. The Pyjama Girl Case (1978), inspired by a real-life case that baffles to this day, takes us to Australia where former inspector Timpson comes out of retirement to crack the case of a young woman, found on the beach, shot in the head, burned to hide her identity and dressed in distinctive yellow pyjamas...

In the first of a multi-volume series of Giallo Essentials these films feature a raft of talent in front and behind the camera with each film restored from the original camera negative and presented with a range of contextualising interviews and featurettes.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:

• Brand new 2K restorations of the film from the original camera negative for The Possessed, The Fifth Cord and The Pyjama Girl Case
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentations of each film
• Original lossless mono Italian and English soundtracks
• Newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtracks
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtracks
• Rigid box packaging with newly designed artwork by Adam Rabalais in a windowed Giallo Essentials Collection slipcover

THE POSSESSED

• New audio commentary by writer and critic Tim Lucas
• Richard Dyer on The Possessed, a newly filmed video appreciation by the cultural critic and academic
• Cat’s Eyes, an interview with the film's makeup artist Giannetto De Rossi
• Two Days a Week, an interview with the film's award-winning assistant art director Dante Ferretti
• The Legacy of the Bazzoni Brothers, an interview with actor/director Francesco Barilli, a close friend of Luigi and Camillo Bazzoni
• Original trailers
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sean Phillips

THE FIFTH CORD

• New audio commentary by critic Travis Crawford
• Lines and Shadows, a new video essay on the film’s use of architecture and space by critic Rachael Nisbet
• Whisky Giallore, a new video interview with author and critic Michael Mackenzie
• Black Day for Nero, a new video interview with actor Franco Nero
• The Rhythm Section, a new video interview with film editor Eugenio Alabiso
• Rare, previously unseen deleted sequence, restored from the original negative
• Original Italian and English theatrical trailers
• Image gallery
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Haunt Love

THE PYJAMA GIRL CASE

• New audio commentary by Troy Howarth, author of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films
• New video interview with author and critic Michael Mackenzie on the internationalism of the giallo
• New video interview with actor Howard Ross
• New video interview with editor Alberto Tagliavia
• Archival interview with composer Riz Ortolani
• Image gallery
• Italian theatrical trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Chris Malbon

[Mr Sausage]

Unlike a lot of recent giallo releases, these are genuinely the top of the heap of giallo cinema. The two Bazzoni's are off-kilter epistomological exercises where the effort to disentangle memory from dream and hallucination energizes the thriller narratives. The Pyjama Girl Case is a weird movie with a novel structural conceit that did genuinely surprise and fool me. For sure this is worth getting.

[What A Disgrace]

The third volume of this was announced and delayed without any fanfare, but it's currently delaying my DIabolikDVD order containing, among nine other things, Second Sight's Dog Soldiers. Out August 30.

• Brand new 2K restorations from the original camera negatives of Smile Before Death and The Weapon, the Hour, the Motive
• 2K restoration from the original camera negative of The Killer Reserved Nine Seats
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentations of each film
• Original lossless mono Italian and English soundtracks on Smile Before Death and The Killer Reserved Nine Seats
• Original lossless mono Italian soundtrack on The Weapon, the Hour, the Motive
• English subtitles for the Italian soundtracks
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtracks
• Rigid box packaging with original poster artwork in a windowed Giallo Essentials Collection slipcover
• Reversible sleeves for each film featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Adam Rabalais, Peter Strain and Haunt Love

DISC ONE: SMILE BEFORE DEATH
• Brand new audio commentary by authors and critics Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson
• Original Italian and English front and end titles
• Smile of the Hyena, a brand new video interview with Stefano Amadio, film journalist and son of director Silvio Amadio
• Never-before-seen extended nude scenes, not used in the final film
• Image gallery

DISC TWO: THE WEAPON, THE HOUR, THE MOTIVE

• Brand new audio commentary by author and critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
• A Man in Giallo, a brand new video interview with actor Salvatore Puntillo
• Front and end titles for the lost English-language dub
• Image gallery

DISC THREE: THE KILLER RESERVED NINE SEATS
• Brand new audio commentary by author and critic Kat Ellinger
• Hanging with Howard, a video interview with actor Howard Ross
• Writing with Biagio, a video interview with screenwriter Biagio Proietti
• Italian theatrical trailer (in Italian and English)
• Image gallery

GUARANTEED THROUGH PREORDERS FIRST PRESSING ONLY: individual illustrated collector’s booklets for each film, featuring new writing by Rachael Nisbet, Barry Forshaw and Peter Jilmstad”

[zedz]

Maybe it's a problem with my disc or my player, but the 'Smile of the Hyena' extra on Smile Before Death doesn't seem to have any English subtitles. Could somebody else with the disc double check?

It's a ludicrously entertaining movie, by the way, with an epically cheesy and repetitive score, hipper-than-thou art direction that one could probably date to the month, and wall-to-wall gratuitous nudity. Plot-wise, it's bracingly venal. Whoever gets killed, you'll be cheering!

SpoilerShow

Oh, except for the low-rent Mrs. Danvers. Whoops!

[brundlefly]

Maybe it's a problem with my disc or my player, but the 'Smile of the Hyena' extra on Smile Before Death doesn't seem to have any English subtitles. Could somebody else with the disc double check?

Missing on mine as well. Googled some reviews. Looks like those note the problem. There's mention release was supposedly delayed to fix it, and though some obviously got through this poster says his copy's fine.

Guess I'll be writing Arrow. Thanks for bringing this up.

[Adam X]

The subtitles are present on my copy, though there’s no indication the disc is a second printing on the label.

I do however have the subtitle issue with ‘$10,000 Blood Money’ referred to in that linked (other) forum post.