A
Whisper in the Dark is a personal favorite of mine. It has been
referred to as the Italian The Turn of
the Screw (1898) and is a subtle take on the haunted family category of storytelling,
focusing on a wealthy family living in a gorgeous and at times spooky villa
that’s like a hotel resort (probably because it was filmed at a hotel, the
five-star Hotel Villa Condulmer near Venice). It’s got that gothic horror
aesthetic but downplays the horror in favor of exploring family dynamics with
shades of the supernatural that are symbolic of unresolved family problems. The
supernatural is always kept ambiguous; almost everything strange that happens
can be explained, but the circumstances do leave a lot to the imagination. As
is usually the case, the ambiguity is the film’s strength and its weakness.
The
cinematography by Claudio Cirillo is really
the main attraction, and with Marcello
Aliprandi’s direction, the visuals, coupled with Pino Donaggio’s sweet and melancholic score, end up being the stuff
of fairytales, comprising some of the most majestic locations and set pieces. The
villa and its somber exterior and grounds, dating back to the sixteenth
century, have a deep, haunting presence, a rich sense of past generations
emanating from it. And the children’s ball is an enchanting segment, with costumes and
constantly falling confetti, which concludes with a phantasmagoric night time
burning of an effigy floating on the river. According to Cirillo the different weather conditions, such as the foggy
atmosphere seen during the opening credits, were by chance. Listening to Cirillo vibrantly talk about his craft
on the NoShame DVD interview, you can tell the man is an artist.
Lightning, angry mobs, grave robbing, and a criminal’s
brain, like so many Frankenstein offshoots / spinoffs / parodies, Lady Frankenstein owes more to James Whale’s classic 1931 horror film
than Mary Shelley’s 1818 literary
masterpiece. Despite its many fitting references to, and retreading to an
extent, some of the plot points to its trendsetting predecessor, Lady Frankenstein is far from feeling
like a gory, colored remake, primarily thanks to the addition of Frankenstein’s
biological daughter, Tania (Rosalba Neri),
a little novelty with a lot of potential, like reimagining the classic 1931
movie with the doctor’s attractive but even more ambitious daughter written
into the story.
In a time when females were grossly underrepresented in science, Tania
Frankenstein shatters what must’ve been a prominent stereotype, enduring her
pursuit as a surgeon, even when faced with sexist instructors at the University;
as she puts it, “the professors have a lot of old fashioned ideas about a woman’s
place.” When she returns home from the University after becoming a licensed
surgeon, her father, Baron Frankenstein (Joseph
Cotten), expresses admiration for her accomplishments, and yet he and his
assistant, Dr. Charles Marshall (Paul Müller),
still treat her as if their work involving cadavers is too much for her
delicate senses to fathom. They seem to not want to involve her in their
gruesome work, but, to their surprise, she’s all for it. They attempt to make
her think they are working with animals, but she has been thinking along the same
lines as her father the entire time, being more interested in human transplants;
“I am my father’s daughter.” Not only does she thoroughly understand her
father’s work, she ends up refining it.
