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What Have They Done to Your Daughters? AKA La Polizia chiede aiuto (1974)
R2 - Germany - Koch Media Review written by and copyright: Jari Kovalainen (1st January 2006). |
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The Film
 Italian director/co-writer Massimo Dallamano started as a cinematographer, making e.g. two Spaghetti westerns for Sergio Leone. As a director, he´s probably best known for his “Giallos” for similar names; “What Have You Done to Solange? AKA Cosa avete fatto a Solange? (1972)” and “What Have They Done to Your Daughters? AKA La Polizia chiede aiuto (1974)”. The story of “What Have They Done to Your Daughters?” begins to unravel quickly from the start, when the hanged body of a 15-year old girl is found. Inspector Silvestri (Claudio Cassinelli) is eventually signed on to the case, and he receives help from the Assistant District Attorney Vittoria Stori (Giovanna Ralli). It´s soon quite obvious that the death of the girl is no suicide, and when the investigations go further, the grim truth is starting to surface; Inspector Silvestri is on the heels of a teenage prostitution ring, and when they get closer to the truth, District Attorney Stori is also in danger, when the motorcycle killer dressed in black is on the loose with a meat cleaver.. Despite of the partly controversial aspects of the story, Dallamano doesn´t just want to shock the viewer with nudity and violence, but rather take them on a mystery ride into crime and murders. The film also deals with some of the hard questions in our society, like how to guide and protect our children, who want to be “adults” right from the teenage days. When the story deals with issues like young girls in the hands of the sleazy “customers”, they´re portrayed through the audio tapes and the expressions that we get from the actors who are listening to them. The film also uses more suspense rather than gory murders, but there are a few quite effective scenes by the hand of the motorcycle killer and his meat cleaver. Also the scene where they place the body parts of the poor victim “back together” on the coroner´s table is quite gruesome, with added black humour at the same time. Certain familiar places that are often used to create suspense, like a car garage and an elevator, have been put to good use here also, and the music by composer Stelvio Cipriani is there right from the opening credits, creating mood throughout the film. Cinematographer Franco Delli Colli does a great job with very controlled and smooth camerawork, and in this film there are very little shaky handheld camera or restless images generally. This film often takes the full advantage of the 2.35:1-frame, putting e.g. the lead characters in the edges of the frame, so this film would look probably horrible in 4:3 pan&scan (which I´m sure has been the case in the old VHS-tapes). This is not a very colourful film though, keeping the colour palette quite neutral, but that works for the story, bringing it more to the level of the average viewer, rather than making slick images non-stop (not that there´s anything wrong with that). “What Have They Done to Your Daughters?” is not pure “Giallo”, but more of combining some aspects of that genre, and adding some flavour from the Italian police-films into the mix, and also some political and social aspects (which is clear when you read the statement at the end of the film). The film is not a masterpiece nor will it be as remembered as some other similar films from Italy, but a very recommended piece of work still.
Video
German “Koch Media” has released a very good looking disc, that preserves the OAR of 2.35:1, and the transfer is Anamorphic, like it should be. I was a little worried during the opening credits sequence which is a little faded, but after that the transfer was in most parts very pleasing. It´s clean, relatively sharp, and no complaints about the black levels either. There are glimpses of edge enhancement in some scenes, and some of the exterior-scenes looked a bit pale when it comes to brightness issues, but this is a fine presentation of the film by the German company. The disc runs 87:03 min (PAL), is coded “R2”, and it´s using a “dual layer”-disc. There are 18 chapters.
Audio
The disc includes three Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono-tracks: English, Italian and German. There are full (optional) German subtitles included, and there are also optional English subtitles for the few parts of the film where there is Italian written language in the film, and there is also one scene in the English track, where approx. 2 sentences are spoken in Italian. There are no huge differences with the audio tracks, but perhaps the English track (which I listened to) is slightly better than the Italian one, with German being the best. All tracks have some minor background noise, but not that distracting since the overall level of the audio is quite good.
Extras
There is not much in the extras-department, but we have 3 Theatrical trailers: German (2:38 min), Italian (3:45 min), and US (3:28 min), all in Anamorphic 2.35:1. Photo gallery consists of 18 stills from the film. Finally we have DVD credits on the disc. The package is a digi-pack in slipcover, which has an eye-catching reddish cover. Inside you can find an 8-page booklet, with liner notes in German from Christian Kessler and some photos. The release can be found under the name “Der Tod trägt schwarzes Leder”.
Overall
For the people who like Italian Giallo and crime –movies, they need to seriously consider getting this release. German “Koch Media” includes a very nice transfer, but is light on the extras. Note that the disc is rated “FSK 18”, so it´s not available in places like Amazon.de. For more info, please visit the homepage of Koch Media.
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