By Nia Edwards-Behi
Arrow Video treat us so well. Hot the heels of many other Bava releases, they now bring us their latest release: Five Dolls for an August Moon. This is giallo in Agatha Christie mode, less black-gloves and forgotten details, more rich people sitting around and getting murdered. Does the title have anything to do with the plot? Beats me. Does the plot make any sense? Not really. Does it matter? Not at all.
A group of wealthy friends and associates gather on an island for a spot of fun and relaxation. There’s something of an ulterior motive: George Stark (Teodoro Corrà), wealthy industrialist and owner of the island, has invited this group in the hopes of investing together in a newly developed industrial resin. Soon enough the business negotiations and wild partying turn sour as, one by one, the islanders are murdered, and suspicions and tensions rise amongst those who remain.
I have a confession to make: though I claim to be a fan of gialli and Italian genre cinema and all that, I’ve never actually seen an Edwige Fenech film. Her role here is a relatively minor one, though, playing the sexpot wife of one of the men waving money around at the potential business deal at the centre of the plot. Two of the other women are secretly having an affair, and another is a teenage girl who just happens to be hanging around the island as well. The men don’t fare much better in terms of nuanced characterisation, but I tend not to judge a giallo on such traditional notions of quality.
While the plot and characters of Five Dolls for an August Moon are a bit, well, forgettable, the film is hugely rewarding for Bava’s direction and Piero Umiliani’s score. And ultimately that’s what makes an enjoyable giallo for me: style and sound – if those two things are the icing on great characters and a tense plot, then all the better, but my primary interest in the genre is a glimpse at a stylish past, and seeing a master aesthetician at work. The architecture and interiors of the large island home which houses the holidaymakers is a sight to behold. From a Danger: Diabolik-esque rotating bed to garish soft furnishings, the world the film inhabits is a sensory overload.
Unusually, there isn’t much violence in the film, though there is a little bit of blood – rather than elaborate murder scenes, corpses are normally discovered after the fact. The really macabre humour that develops as the film goes on comes from the need to move the corpses into the large meat freezer, wrapped unceremoniously in plastic and hung next to the meat. This becomes increasingly entertaining, and it’s a feature of the film I enjoyed immensely, especially accompanied by Umiliani’s broken-piano leitmotif. Death becomes inevitable, and the shock diminishes as the film goes on – Bava’s pacing of the film reflects this in a wonderful way. There’s something quite satisfying watching these rich, bored people wind up in a meat locker, in all honesty, as much as the peek into their opulent world is where a lot of the enjoyment of the film comes from.
As the film’s revelations emerge, certain characters come into their own in a very entertaining way. Indeed, the film’s very ending is curiously funny, and almost makes up for the relatively workaday narrative up to that point. Ultimately, though, Five Dolls for an August Moon is a satisfying treat for the eyes and ears, and being a snappy 87 minutes long, never out-stays its welcome.
Five Dolls For An August Moon is available now in dual format DVD and Blu-ray from Arrow Video.