The Mario Bava Collection Volume 1 (2007)

Bravo for Bava

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy The Mario Bava Collection Volume 1 on DVD

The Italian-born director Mario Bava (1914-1980) worked mainly in the horror genre (as well as Westerns, thrillers and Viking films), worked with international casts who were subsequently dubbed into a single language, and was never very good in the plot department. Because of these three factors, he has been unfairly kept from his proper place in the world pantheon as a master filmmaker. But looking through the five movies in Anchor Bay Entertainment's new box set certainly confirms that there were few filmmakers as gifted as Bava was.

In some cases, Anchor Bay has simply re-packaged already existing DVDs, but in the case of Bava's masterpiece Kill, Baby... Kill! (1966), they have righted a great wrong, by presenting the film letterboxed, remastered and available in both Italian and English instead of the original release, a terrible pan-and-scan, dubbed-only transfer. Giacomo Rossi-Stuart stars as a doctor summoned to perform an autopsy in a remote village, but he discovers that the superstitious natives are frightened over the ghost of a little girl. As with all his other films, the plot takes a back seat to the mood, and Bava has never presented his moods so vividly and with such effervescence. If a character walks down a hallway, they walk through pools of shadow and through multicolored patches of light arranged in such a way as to suggest danger, fear or curiosity. The beautiful Fabienne Dali stars as a local sorceress who places coins in the hearts of the dead, and Erika Blanc plays the hero's love interest.

The set also includes Bava's best-known work, Black Sunday (1960), (a.k.a. The Mask of Satan), which stars Barbara Steele as a resurrected witch and her modern-day double. Though shot in black-and-white, it also demonstrates Bava's extraordinary skill with light and motion and shadow, used to suggest unholy things. It was based on a story by Nikolai Gogol. Because of the success of Black Sunday, American distributors re-titled Bava's I Tre volti della paura (1963) (or, The Three Faces of Fear), as Black Sabbath. Boris Karloff stars as a kind of host to this trilogy of short pieces, and also appears in the second one, "The Wurdalak." The other segments include "The Drop of Water," based on an Ivan Chekhov story, and "The Telephone." I'm not easily scared, but this one gave me chills. Unfortunately, this disc includes only the Italian soundtrack, so we miss out on Karloff's singular line delivery.

DVD Details: Video Watchdog editor and Bava expert Tim Lucas provides commentary tracks on some of the films. Other extras include a Bava biography/filmography and trailers. (Note: Anchor Bay has also released the newly re-discovered and restored Bava film Rabid Dogs, available in two different cuts. I will be posting a review of that disc as well, in due time.)

Starring: Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Ivo Garrani, Andrea Checchi, Arturo Dominici, Boris Karloff, Mark Damon, Michele Mercier, Linda Alfonsi, Jacqueline Pierreux, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, Erika Blanc, Max Lawrence, Leticia Roman, John Saxon, Valentina Cortese, Dante di Paolo, Cameron Mitchell, Jack Stuart, Frank Ross, Louis Polletin, Michael Moore, Lisa Wagner
Written by: Mario Bava, Mario Serandrei, Ennio De Concini, Alberto Liberati, Enzo Corbucci, Eliana De Sabata, Mino Guerrini, Alberto Bevilacqua, Marcello Fondato, Romano Migliorini, Roberto Natale, Franco Prosperi, Giorgio Simonelli
Directed by: Mario Bava
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Language: Italian, English with English subtitles
Running Time: 430 minutes
Date: April 10, 2007