GIALLO SOURCE CODE [SOLANGE, ENIGMA ROSSO, and Kim Newman]

In my last review, I touched on the “Schoolgirls in Peril” sub-genre that’s become so well known to fans of the Giallo. Though some identify only the three key titles as comprising the sub-genre—the loosely linked trilogy of WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE? (1972), WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOUR DAUGHTERS? (1974), and ENIGMA ROSSO (aka, RINGS OF FEAR [1978])—there are a number of other films that qualify, including the Poliziotteschi/Giallo hybrid WITHOUT TRACE (aka, CALLING ALL POLICE CARS [1975]), which picks up the schoolgirl prostitution ring of DAUGHTERS and does an equally disturbing variation on the theme.

The other angle that’s interesting, in the context of this site, is the Krimi connection—i.e., how the ingrained Krimi-ism of the ingénue-in-distress plot is made more extreme in the guise of sexualized schoolgirls and the consequences they face because of their promiscuity. And how the Giallo SOLANGE was recut, retitled, and resold as a Krimi in Germany.

On the audio commentary for Arrow Video’s recent Blu-ray release of SOLANGE, Kim Newman touches on these points:

“I think the real reason this is set in London is not to do with the Italian side of it, but to do with the German side of it. In Germany this isn’t a Giallo called WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE?, it’s a Krimi, called THE SECRET OF THE GREEN STICK PIN … one of the last entries in a very long series of 1960s grotesque crime movies based on the works of the British author, Edgar Wallace. This is notionally based on a book of his called THE CLUE OF THE NEW PIN … those movies [the Krimis] were all set in London and mostly starred the star of this movie, Joachim Fuchsberger, playing the man from Scotland Yard …”

Though Neman sees a distinction between the Krimi and Giallo in the *degree* to which they’ll push their sexuality and violence, he sees SOLANGE as a kind of quintessential example of that dual genre citizenship held by so many Krimi/Giallo Hybrids from this era:

“… although sort of seamier and rougher than those movies [Krimis], [SOLANGE is] very much in their tradition. There are imperiled schoolgirls, there’s a crime in the past that has to be solved, there’s a series of baffling crimes, and Scotland Yard—in the person of Joachim Fuchsberger—and an innocent personage who is suspected of the crime—in the person of Fabio Testi—have to investigate, independently, to come to a solution. That’s the template for the Krimi.”

His conversation with Alan Jones also covers the tendency, especially in British films of the day, for schoolgirl thrillers “where the likes of Suzy Kendall or Jenny Agutter are wearing short skirts and being stalked”. Newman then goes on to relate a fascinating “true” story that is the supposed source for all of these films:

“It all dates back to a tabloid story, from the early 1960s, which may or may not be true—it’s probably newspaper nonsense. Which was that, in a particular school, girls who were sexually active would form a kind of secret society that they would signify by wearing … the little badges that came with Robertson’s Jam, which were Golliwogs, stylized representations of black minstrels. This was a huge thing throughout the 60s and 70s and is now kind of culturally suppressed and forgotten.

“Even when Robert Hartford-Davis, one of Britain’s few exploitation filmmakers, made a film in the early 60s about this phenomena—it was called THE YELLOW TEDDY BEARS—it replaced the Golliwog badges with Teddy Bear badges. In this movie [SOLANGE], it’s the green pins that the girls in the secret society wear … that signify their involvement in sordid, sexual activity.”

And, in the “Schoolgirls Trilogy”-proper, we see this theme taken up again. In ENIGMA ROSSO—the final entry, meant for Massimo Dallamano but directed by Alberto Negrin after Dallamano was killed in a car crash—we get not a Golliwog or Teddy Bear or Pin, but a cartoon cat. Fabio Testi—returning to the series as the official detective this time, effectively combining his and Fuchsberger’s role from SOLANGE—first finds the mysterious cat image in the diary of a murdered girl.

After that, driving on the highway with his partner, he realizes the cat symbol is a logo used to advertise a particularly popular brand of jeans. 

And that a posh store that specializes in this brand of jeans is actually a front for the teenage prostitution ring. Combine this plot point—along with Testi's reprisal of role(s), and the fact that the film’s amateur detective is essentially a child—and you get a strange conflation of the first two entries in the trilogy making this third. 

Leonard Jacobs

December, 2015

ps. For those interested in tracking down a copy of the film, the old German Eyecatcher release is in widescreen. It’s a roached print—and only the English track is included—but even in this less-than-stellar form, it’s still a fair sight better than the cropped versions I’ve seen sold elsewhere