GIALLO CINEMA: SEX AND MURDER, ITALIAN STYLE

In my last column, I discussed Italy's sword-and-sandal movies.  These movies yielded to Italian ("Spaghetti") Westerns by 1965.  But the Westerns yielded to giallo movies ("gialli" in plural) by 1970.  The first gialli actually appeared alongside the first Westerns, around 1964.  But it wasn't until 1970 that the subgenre really came into its own, and gialli dominated Italian cinema from 1971-1975.

Now, 40 years past their heyday, gialli still hold a broad fascination for fans.  They are sexy, scary, bloody, funny, and twisted.  Below, I'll describe the subgenre, I'll note some prominent patterns, and I'll recommend 10 standouts for your viewing pleasure.

Giallo films are basically pulp thrillers.

The word "giallo" means "yellow" in Italian, and it referred originally to the yellow covers of the pulp detective novels on which the first giallo films were based.  A typical giallo hero or heroine was a regular person who found him or herself drawn into a crime scheme or murder scheme, as in Hitchcock films like The Lady Vanishes or Strangers on a Train.

Convoluted trick endings would often reveal the murderer to be the most unlikely suspect possible; at times the murderer might be a new character who popped up in the final minutes. 

One might fault gialli for lacking in logic, but not for lacking in thrills: some sex, some blood, a little humor, and lots of surprises.

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