Customer Reviews

What Have You Done to Solange?

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WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE? (1972): Enrico Rossini (Fabio Testi) is a married teacher involved in an affair with one of his students, Elizabeth (Christine Galbó). One afternoon in a park, while enjoying one of their amorous trysts, Elizabeth witnesses the murder of a young woman, a crime that her lover does not see. When the corpse of a student is found at the park, the teacher finally believes Elizabeth and decides to revisit the scene of the murder. More girls are killed and the police begin to suspect that Enrico is the murderer. In a desperate attempt to clear his name, Enrico turns detective and eventually discovers the secret of a young woman named Solange (Camille Keaton), whose shocking past is linked to both the killer's choice of victims and the gruesome manner in which he dispatches them.

This solidly plotted and engrossing murder thriller is easily among the finest giallos ever made. The conventional storyline is enlivened with genuinely surprising twists, strong characters and a shocking, unexpected ending. Slickly directed by Massimo Dallamano, and featuring striking cinematography by Aristide Massachessi (who, as Joe D'Amato, had a subsequent career as one of the most incompetent directors of all time), SOLANGE is an unusually well made and restrained Italian thriller. Excellent performances from Fabio Testi, Joachin Fuchsberger, Karin Baal and the beautiful Christine Galbo raise the movie's quality level even higher. A fine, moody Ennio Morricone score provides some necessary tension enhancement. If you've never seen a giallo before, the film is a great starting point for anyone interested in taking an initial plunge into this fascinating genre.

The Shriek Show DVD is one of this small company's finest releases yet. The widescreen (1.85:1) transfer features gorgeous colors and sharp detailing, with only a few speckles, hair marks and some modest print damage. The movie itself is the real prize here as the extras are fairly skimpy: A poster and lobby card gallery is scored to the movie's main title theme and a nice 12 page booklet is provided with liner notes and quite a few stills. Finally, five trailers are included, for SOLANGE itself and some other related Shriek Show releases. Despite the lack of enticing extras, this is a worthy addition to any horror/suspense enthusiast's DVD library.

I have seen several "giallos", and apart from those by Dario Argento, they can be on the most part, quite dull and routine police dramas. But "What Have You Done To Solange" really surprised me, in fact I would say it's the best non-Argento giallo I have ever seen. A couple taking a romantic boat ride along a river are interrupted when the young woman sees something that frightens her on the riverbank. As she is too disturbed to enjoy the boat trip any more, the afternoon ends on a sour note for the couple, only for them to find out the next day that a brutal murder was indeed commited on the riverbank. Things only get worse from then on.

What I like so much about the film is that the plot unfolds fairly and squarely before your eyes, and you get to see the clues as they appear, the same time as the investigating police do. Unlike some "giallos" where red herrings and ambiguity surround too much of the on-screen action, the clues here are uncovered logically, and you'll find that you take in each new turn of events with growing interest and try to unravel the mystery for yourself. The script and the plot twists are very clever. Very soon after the opening, you learn that the couple on the boat were in fact a married teacher and his female pupil in the midst of an illicit affair, which puts them in trouble straight away as they try and work out how to unravel the mystery without exposing their infidelity. Actually, that's just the very start of their troubles, and I won't reveal any more because I think that everybody should watch this film with as little prior knowledge as possible, and hopefully enjoy it as much as I did.

Beautifully filmed in stunning widescreen, actor Fabio Testi makes for a rather wooden hero, but most performances are good, including a full supporting cast of buxom school girls who put in a lot of full frontal nudity, which should please those viewers watching for some exposure of female flesh. That, and the jaw-droppingly brutal method of murder employed by the killer could have made this film totally depraved, but the stylish plot twists and interesting characters salvage it from being just another piece of Euro sleaze. Set in London, it's particularly nice to see this film with it's soundtrack in English, and the scenes involving the police are often full of very amusing British dialogue. Conversely, Testi's character is an Italian teacher living in England, so he has an authentic sounding Italian accent...it's little things like that that make the difference. Plus watch out for a surprising and effective appearance by Camille Keaton (of "I Spit On Your Grave") towards the end of the film...sorry, but again I can't tell you anymore!
I would recommend this to any Euro horror or Giallo fan. It looks great, has an intrigueing plot and a satisfying explanation to round it off. You'll enjoy it all the way through. But do yourself a huge favour and avoid spoilers!!

This well-crafted 1971 giallo spends more attention on characterization and police procedure than on actual thrills but don't let that deter you. Yes, the gore is minimal but the murders are disturbing and the plot twists pile up to a conclusion that answers the title question in a gripping, beautifully filmed fashion.

The scope photography is excellent and the widescreen transfer is sharp, colorful and accurately framed. The mono audio track is a bit 'hissy' but it's more than passable for such an incredibly rare film. Extras are on the slim side with a handful of trailers and nice display of artwork and stills over Ennio Morricone's haunting theme.

If you're a fan of the film or the genre then this disc is a definite buy,

There are about eight billion giallos out there, and thanks to companies like Media Blasters, we get to see great versions of ones we've seen before and ones that never were available in the U.S. before. Solange I had never seen until recently, but I'd say this is one of the better giallo films to come out among the many we've seen in the last few years. While I haven't seen a giallo I though was crappy and not worth the time, some were a little more uninteresting than others. Solange is a pretty cool murder mystery involving a killer who's modus operandi involves stabbing schoolgirls in their.....elbows. That's it, their elbows. A small band of schoolgirls all hide a secret that puts them in the killer's crosshairs, and the secret involves a girl names Solange(obviously). Italian hunkster Fabio Testi is a teacher who digs chicks in uniform....schoolgirl uniforms that is. He's the one trying to solve the case, and we all know Fabio is just the guy for this kind of thing. Why don't you check it out? I can't think of a reason for you not to, especially if you dig giallo films, heartbreaking romances or Death Wish 4: The Crackdown.

A well done 'Giallo' picture. Great casting and a disturbing plot. Great atmosphere and a shocking ending in the tradition of the great Italian horror/suspense films. Highly recommended.

"What Have You Done To Solange?" is one of the greatest entries in the Italian Giallo genre. It has everything that a giallo should have including a suspenseful, intricately woven plot: A black-gloved killer is stabbing to death beautiful girls at a Catholic high school in London. How are the deaths connected? Most importantly, who is the mysterious Solange and what happened to her? If you like movies centered around vigilante justice or revenge, you will enjoy this feature from director Massimo Dallamano (who also directed the sequel, "What Have They Done to Your Daughters?")

"What Have You Done to Solange" has a great cast of actors that includes Italian hunk Fabio Testi who is the star of numerous crime dramas and Italian Spaghetti Westerns (Lucio Fulci`s "Four of the Apocalypse"); Testi is a teacher at the high school and is the number one suspect. He is having an affair with one of his pupils, Christina Galbo. (Galbo is one of my favorite euro babes. She is the star of such Spanish horror fare as "The House That Screamed" and "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie;" she also starred in the Italian giallo, "The Killer Must Kill Again.") A young, child-like Camille Keaton (niece of Buster Crabbe) is Solange; she later became the star of the notorious "I Spit On Your Grave."

A haunting score is provided by Ennio Morricone who has provided the scores for over 400 movies in his long, illustrious career. (Read the collectable booklet that is inside the DVD case.). Despite the beautiful scenery, the film is dark and depressing. The ending is tragic and will stay with you long after the movie is over. It reminded me of the ending for "Watch Me When I Kill," another giallo favorite of mine involving revenge.

If you enjoy gialli that take place at a private girls' school, you will also want to see Narcisco Ibanez Serrador's uncut masterpiece of "The House That Screamed" (not the Elvira version) and Antonio Margheriti's "Naked You Die."

Shriek Show, as always, has done a wonderful job of restoring "What Have You Done To Solange?" My only regret is that it doesn't contain the original Italian audio with English subtitles. The Amazon listing is wrong. At the price of $24.95, you think it would have. Shriek Show's release of "A Lizard in a Woman's Skin" had the Italian audio with English subtitles.

"What Have You Done To Solange" is highly recommended for anyone who loves Italian gialli. In my opinion, it ranks up there with Dario Argento's "Deep Red," Emilio Miraglia's "The Red Queen Kills 7 Times," and Sergio Martino's "Torso."

The opening to "Solange?" has the ring of familiarity to it. The setting is outdoors on a riverbank, the characters are Elizabeth (winsome English Rose) and Enrico (passionate Italian male). The camera closes in on Elizabeth's eyes as she finally succumbs to the older man's advances when images flash suddenly across the screen - a girl running, an outstretched hand, the flash of a blade - courtesy of some seamless editing. It's an exercise in how unsettling something can be when occurring on a bright sunny day. It also employs Argento's recurrent motif of skewed perception. Elizabeth (Cristina Galbó) is unsure of what she's actually seen and Enrico (Fabio Testi), exasperated by what he assumes are delay tactics, brings the boat to shore.

The following morning a body has been found on the same stretch of the Thames. A girl from Elizabeth's school has been knifed to death in a manner that will have you crossing your legs for the duration. Having left behind a piece of evidence which places him near the scene of the crime, and later caught on camera among a throng of onlookers by a TV crew covering the story, Enrico (the girls' tutor) finds himself with some explaining to do. It's not long before others fall victim to the maniac, and as pieces of the puzzle are uncovered little by little, the mystery seems tied to a particular clique of students and their association with the enigmatic girl in the title, who left the school suddenly the year before.

Right from the start we're in very assured hands. This is a giallo which pretty much has it all, balancing the stranger in a strange land figure (Enrico) compelled by circumstance to find out his own answers to a series of brutal murders by a black-gloved killer, with a police procedural element which for once is treated with absolute seriousness and a deft touch. Joachim Fuchsberger (Inspector Barth) gives arguably the best portrayal in the genre of an investigator in charge, being neither bumbling comic relief nor bullish, misogynist caricature. Everything is treated with care and reverence, relying on solid fingerprint policing rather than outlandish pseudo-science, which in itself raises the film a few notches above average. Every clue, every red herring, every motive is duly noted and accounted for and used to drive the story along a series of ever darker revelations.

Along the way, Dallamano is careful to anticipate our anticipation and gives little twists throughout to narrative and character. Enrico's wife Herta (Karin Baal) starts life almost as a parody of both the wronged wife and the Teutonic blonde (think Helga from 'allo 'allo with her blouse buttoned up) gradually becoming a more nuanced, genuinely sympathetic individual. Enrico (as the tutor engaged in an affair with one of his students) is painted in shades of grey, rather than as the complete louse we might expect, and when the illusive Solange (whose presence here is something akin to Hitchcock's "smoking gun") makes her entrance via a quirk of serendipity shared with the viewer alone, she resembles a pallid version of Botticelli's Venus, the subtlety of which only becomes clear with time. Even perfectly innocent London street names ("Evelyn Gardens") take on more sinister connotations.

What impresses most is how Dallamano - mindful of his choice of victim - manages to foster a feeling of genuine shock in everyone right down to the minor players, and makes some effort to deal with the after-effects of the killings. A scene where Barth interviews the shell-shocked parents of the first girl is sensitively handled and admirably underplayed. In a neat piece of editing the father's reaction to the facts of his daughter's demise is transported into the following scene at the girl's funeral. The sleazier aspects of this "schoolgirl slasher" are, on the face of it at least, mitigated somewhat by the fact the schoolgirls are actually eighteen (and everyone looks about five years older than they are). The requisite nudity is largely confined to the girls' shower room, and beyond mere titillation these scenes epitomise the film's undercurrents of secrecy and confession, as the girls share whispered confidences while we are led by the camera into collusion with the local peeping tom, POV-style, through a hole in the wall.

In doing so the film points to the viewer and to itself via a form of oblique morality play. It's no coincidence that the river bank murder and Elizabeth's further recall occur during the film's two seduction scenes, symbolically the threat being as much to Elizabeth's virtue from Enrico's ardent wedding tackle (intent on a little death of its own) as much as from the killer's knife. Placed in context, "Solange?" is set in a period when society was still coming to grips with all the swinging that began a decade before. On the surface it's a gripping Italian thriller with all the key elements in place and where the killer's true motive holds water, but at its core it can be viewed as a subversion of the giallo genre, lamenting on innocence lost and the accelerated haste with which child becomes adult (often stumbling in the process) both then and now, leaving its audience to ponder some uncomfortable truths. This is an outstanding entry in the genre and an affecting slice of cinema with a widescreen presentation that makes the most of its outdoor settings, creating a nostalgia for a London long gone. This edition from 01 Distribution is the only version with both Italian and (nicely dubbed) English languages and is by far the best in terms of colour and picture quality.

Strongly plotted horror thriller, with a fine cast and excellent Ennio Morricone score. The violence is more subdued than normal for a giallo but still graphic enough to be disturbing. Highly recommended for all horror fans.

"Giallo" films (from the Italian for "yellow", referring to the yellow covers of paperback suspense novels sold in Italy) almost always center on the mysterious deaths of attractive young women.

"Solange" is no different, but adds a startling degree of social relevance. Made in 1971, "Solange" tackles the abortion legalization issue 2 years before Roe v. Wade (a similar horror film examination of abortion is 1974's "Black Christmas").

This is one of the finest of the giallo genre.

The blood and gore are very minimal, though the killer's methods are positively disgusting.

Ennio Moricone's score alone makes WHYDTS worth a viewing, but the film is actually more interesting and more sophisticated than a majority of films of the time. That being said, there are trappings of the genre that this film does not entirely escape. The mystery is deep rooted in the film and once you find out you will feel silly for trying to guess because it is something that doesn't readily come to mind. The one drawback is when everyday players decide to take the law into their own hands and become shrewd detectives. That happens here. The effects are not disastrous, but verge on laughable. This is a fun exercise in secrets, perversion, mystery, and exploitation. It may not be a bloody and brutal, though not for the faint of heart, What Have You Done to Solange? is a substantial giallo in so many ways.