Dario Argento’s Cabal of Lesbian Witches
BOTTOM LINE: Italian director Dario Argento’s supernatural horror sensation! The film stars Jessica Harper as an American ballet student who transfers to a prestigious dance academy but realizes, after a series of murders, that the academy is a front for a coven of lesbian witches who are presided over by legendary actresses Alida Valli and Joan Bennett in her final role. Both actresses were, in a sense, banished from Hollywood – Valli when she didn’t turn out to be Ingrid Bergman despite her obvious talent and Bennett after her husband of the time, Walter Wanger, shot her agent Jennings Lang, whom he incorrectly supposed was her lover, in the groin. Wanger went to jail for a few months but made a successful career comeback by producing “I Want to Live.” Lang survived and successfully segued into producing. However, as is often the case, there was no sympathy for the woman involved, and Bennett’s Hollywood career was over. Valli was also involved in a scandal after she returned to Italy in the early fifties, when her lover at the time was found dead on an Italian Beach. Both actresses are dressed by Argento and his costume designer, Piero Cicoletti, in beautifully tailored jackets and suits. It is interesting to note that after this movie, Valli went on to play another lesbian character in Bertolucci’s failed collaboration with Jill Clayburgh, “Luna,” set in an opera milieu.
As for Harper, she is superb; her opening scene, in which she is caught in a massive downpour of rain during her journey from the airport to the school, is one of the grandest openings in a horror movie. When she arrives at the school, she notices something is not quite right – another student is leaving the building in a panic -but why? Where Bertolucci failed, Argento’s style can only be described as operatic, with a stunning use of
- Editing (Franco Fraticelli),
- cinematography (Luciano Tovoli),
- production design (Giuseppe Bassan),
- sound effects,
- costume design (Piero Cicoletti)
- and music (written by himself and five other composers collectively known as Goblin)*.
