What Have You Done to Solange

What Have You Done to Solange? may not be the giallo's finest hour - Bava and Argento serve as genre's bookends - but it certainly takes the category of sleazy Italian mysteries to a new level artful exploitation. Director Massimo Dallamano (who helped created the look of Sergio Leone's first two Dollars movies) takes all the tropes fans have come to expect - a black gloved killer, memory impaired witness and sexually charged murders - and whips them into a flashback frenzy of plot twists and character shifts.

The opening scene finds Enrico Rosseni (Fabio Testi), the gym instructor at an all-girls Catholic school, sharing an intimate moment with one of his students, Elizabeth (Cristina Galbo), in a rowboat along the river Thames. But their lovemaking is interrupted when Elizabeth claims to have caught a glimpse of a brutal stabbing somewhere on shore. Loath to reveal what they saw to the police (underage sex and all, you know), the couple keeps quiet until even more student bodies begin to pile up.

Rosseni and other members of the faculty are soon suspects. But a mid-film shift casts blame on a member of the priesthood (or someone pretending to be) as a secret clique among the students is revealed through the confessional; a clique trying hard to keep the terrible secret about what happened one of their own.

Solange doesn't hold back on the nastiness. Its murders, although mostly committed off-screen, are so blatantly sexualized that even giallo fans might be taken aback. But Dallamano shoots with such a polished style that the film rarely looks as seedy as it feels. Even the opening sequence, which cribs the typical Argento quick cut glimpse of the central murder, is photographed with a dreamy, elegant approach.

The plot loops around itself several times in typical giallo fashion, but also asks the viewer to shift sympathies several times with the death of one main character and the unexpected assistance of another. At times Solange feels like two scripts stitched together, but expertly so. Especially the finale, as the school secret is revealed (in a disturbing flashback sequence) and the film's opening credit montage (set to that chilling Ennio Morricone score) becomes an important piece of cinematic evidence.

Arrow Video's Blu-ray / DVD combo features a brand-new 2K restoration with both English language and Italian options. It's the perfect way to experience the film and is supported by a great slate of extras including interviews with stars Fabio Testi, Karin Baal and producer Fulvio Lucisano along with a great 30-minute narrated exploration of the film and its themes. Legendary film critics Alan Jones and Kim Newman team up for an audio commentary that goes along with new liner notes from Howard Hughes.