PERVERSION STORY (1969) Blu-ray
Director: Lucio Fulci
Mondo Macabro

Lucio Fulci gets kinky with his giallo debut PERVERSION STORY on Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro.

George Dumurrier (Jean Sorel, A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN) runs a San Francisco transplant clinic and is unhappy with ailing wife Susan (Marisa Mell, DANGER: DIABOLIK). He leaves his wife with a nurse (Malisa Longo, A CAT IN THE BRAIN), and clear instructions NOT to mix up her medications, to go on a business trip but he is actually taking a trip to Vegas with his fashion photographer mistress Jane (Elsa Martinelli, BLOOD AND ROSES). George is called back to San Francisco by his brother and business partner Henry (Alberto De Mendoza, HORROR EXPRESS) to discover that his wife has died of an apparent asthma attack after sending her nurse away. Although her death frees him to be with Jane, he is troubled to learn that the recipient of her two million dollar life insurance policy which allows him to pay off the clinic's debts but makes him look suspicious in the eyes of the insurance company. During a date with Jane, he receives an anonymous call to visit the Roaring Twenties strip club where he and Jane see a dancer Monica (also Mell) who is a "dead ringer" for Susan. The striking resemblance is also not lost on the insurance company's private investigator (Bill Vanders, FIVE FOR HELL) who reports George's subsequent sexual involvement with Monica to his superiors who pass on the information to the police. Far from being besotted with Monica, George wants to disprove that she is actually Susan as much as Jane wants to prove that she is. The discovery of a photograph of the nurse as one of the exotic dancers Jane's partner Larry (Jean Sobieski, DEATH LAID AN EGG) has scouted leads both to believe that Monica might be part of a plot to murder Susan and somehow profit from him. When a tox screen of Susan's exhumed body reveals that she was poisoned, Inspector Wald (John Ireland, HOUSE OF SEVEN CORPSES) believes George to be the mastermind behind it, which means a date with the gas chamber unless they can unravel the twisted plot.

Not to be confused with Julio Buchs's Spanish-Italian giallo TRUMPETS OF THE APOCALYPSE which was released in Italy as PERVERSION STORY (which is also the Spanish title of this film), Fulci's first giallo is better known to English-speakers as ONE ON TOP OF THE OTHER. Although the San Francisco setting and Mell's dual role which may be two women or the same one in different disguises seems an obvious homage to Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO, the film shares some themes with Ricardo Freda's DOUBLE FACE made the same year and co-scripted by Fulci. Not only does the film feature two clever bookending scenes in which Mell "performs" literal and figurative stripteases, the theme of doubling is also visually exploited in the contrast between the sex scenes with George and Jane and then George and Monica in which George's exploratory hands and mouth seem to be trying to "uncover" Monica's identity or strip away from her his memories of Susan. The twisty plot is increasingly convoluted – it is quite easy to forget that Susan's sister Martha is played by prominently-billed Faith Domergue (PSYCHO SISTERS) – however, there ultimately is a logic to each of its turns, and the suspense of the finale is genuinely nerve-wracking. The brassy scoring of Riz Ortolani (ZEDER) at first seems disconnected from the film, but its themes are repeated obsessively and take on a resonance once they become associated with Monica. Cinematographer Alejandro Ulloa – whose genre career encompasses the likes of THE DIABOLICAL DR. Z, HORROR EXPRESS, and Paul Naschy's THE CRAVING – lenses the film with bright, saturated colors, occasionally noir-ish lighting, low and canted angles that actually serve to underline power dynamics, some split screen opticals, as well as some compositions in depth that anticipate the ways Fulci and cinematographer Sergio Salvati (ZOMBIE) would divide the foreground and background the Techniscope frame in his later films. The supporting cast also includes Jorge Rigaud (THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS) as George's lawyer, Bobby Rhodes (DEMONS) as a prison guard, Jesús Puente (A HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON) as a police sergeant, Geoffrey Copleston (THE BLACK CAT) as the district attorney, and Riccardo Cucciolla (RABID DOGS) as one of Monica's clingy benefactors. Fulci followed up the film with three more gialli – A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN (also with Sorel, de Mendoza, and Rigaud), DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING, and THE PSYCHIC – before his renowned gory horror films of the eighties.

Not released until 1973 stateside, PERVERSION STORY was released on tape in the UK, and that release served as a source for American gray market releases in the nineties. The film was initially announced as a DVD release by Anchor Bay but came out from Severin Films years later. While that HD-mastered anamorphic transfer featured erotic scenes not included in the English version, it was missing scenes included in the 105 minute English export version and Italian original. It was suggested that the 97 minute cut represented the erotic French version, but the source had a German Cinerama logo and Italian credits. It may indeed have also represented one of the French versions, but the version released to videotape in Franch as LA MACHINATION was an even shorter version that nevertheless featured both the erotic scenes and some of the scenes from the export version. Mondo Macabro's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen transfer is a composite of the negative for the "erotic version" and a 35mm print of the ONE ON TOP OF THE OTHER version. The jump between the vibrant and colorful body of the transfer and the slightly flatter, slightly faded additional footage are only occasionally jarring as the content of the scenes is involving and the color work does what it can to make the differences less noticeable. English and Italian LPCM 2.0 mono tracks are included along with optional English subtitles. The English dub is recommended here as the dialogue is often clever while the Italian is more direct. Branching options play the film with English or Italian opening credits, and it appears as if the English credits are also more suited as they are better timed to the music with the animated title appearing as the music halts and all we hear is a metronome while the different billing of the Italian credits has de Mendoza's credit appearing at that point.

The Severin disc included the film's theatrical trailer and the bonus of an entire soundtrack CD – the eleven tracks of which reflected the 1973 LP minus its three bonus tracks despite a fifteen-track CD release in 2001 and an expanded twenty-one track edition in 2017 double-billed with DON’T TORTURE THE DUCKLING – while Mondo Macabro has carried over the theatrical trailer (4:20) and included three new interviews. In "On Death Row" (29:47), Sorel recalls how Italian co-productions meant more work for actors who had the right faces or physiques, and that only Luchino Visconti really allowed him to play against type in SANDRA (although even there his character's issues are offset by his looks for the viewer). Of his giallo films – including Romolo Guerrieri's THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH and A QUIET PLACE TO KILL with Carroll Baker – he found them enjoyable so long as one stuck to the script and knew what to expect of the genre. Of the film, he recalls Fulci's temperament, shooting in San Francisco – including the San Quentin gas chamber – and his intimate scenes with Mell and Martinelli. In "The Last Diva" (9:58), Martinelli voices her dislike for horror and only seeing some of Fulci's work out of "morbid curiosity" although she recalls his sense of humor and intelligence, her long friendship with Sorel and his wife actress Anna Maria Ferrero (who died last May), and her feelings about Mell.

Most informative is the featurette with Stephen Thrower (38:22) which is both an appreciation and analysis of the work. He notes that it was one of Fulci's first serious works, apart from the western MASSACRE TIME, after a string of comedies and the first of his gialli (the first three of which were made with producer Edmondo Amati). He notes that the original setting was Louisiana and that a Variety article said shooting was to commence in New York, although his notion that the film was an overt homage to VERTIGO is perhaps why he expresses puzzlement about how the alternate setting might have been utilized (although you would be more likely to come across an American with the surname Dumurrier in Louisiana than San Francisco). In discussing the shorter "French version" and the longer English one, he notes that what was lost was not merely travelogue footage of San Francisco and the importance for Fulci in utilizing setting in his first international film (as well as his use of American locations for his subsequent horror films). He also offers up a defense of Sorel's passive performance, and notes that the French poster illustrates a scene in the film but seems to misunderstand or reject the power dynamics of the scene and within the film. The disc closes out with Mondo Macabro's usual clip reel. Before Mondo Macabro's blue case standard edition, a now-sold out numbered limited edition with a slipcover, thinner red case, a 12-page booklet with new writing on the film by Roberto Curti, 8 postcard reproductions of the German lobby cards, and poster for the film (the cover of which violated Facebook's standards when advertised). (Eric Cotenas)

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