5 Dolls For An August Moon

Cinque Bambole Per La Luna Di Agosto

Five Dolls For An August Moon

Italy 1970

D: Mario Bava

P: Luigi Alessi for P.A.C.//St & Sc: Mario Di Nardo//DP: Antonio Rinaldi//E: Marisa Agostini//M: Piero Umiliani//Art D: Giuseppe Aldobrani//Costumes: Liani Maffai//

Cast: William Berger, Ira Furstenberg, Edwige Fenech, Howard Ross (Renato Rossini), Helene Ronée, Teodoro Corrá, Justine Gall,  Edith Meloni, Mauro Bosco, Maurice Poli.

A group of rich industrialists, their wives and lovers are at the island retreat of Gerry Farrell, a chemist who has developed a synthetic resin. Each one attempts to buy the rights to the formula, but Farrell refuses to sell. Soon after, the men and their companions are found dead in a variety of imaginative set pieces. The bodies are kept on ice in the walk-in deep freeze and just when you think there'll be no more room, the murderer is caught. His young admirer however has absconded with the cash to Switzerland.

A film that gets no respect from most critics, viewers will find it's a very entertaining variation of Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians." Because Mario Bava usually worked with a larger budget, longer shooting schedule and better known cast, this film is dismissed as hack work. I thoroughly disagree. While not a work of art like THE WHIP AND THE BODY, FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON is never boring and moves like a jackrabbit. Edwige Fenech has never looked better, dancing with wild abandon one minute, feigning violent death the next. William Berger shows no sign of the abusive lifestyle he was living at the time (though it no doubt influenced his decision about making this piece of fluff) that would soon send him to prison. Here he has the pensive look of an intellectual down pat. It is a shame that Bava abuses the zoom lens here (due no doubt to the low budget and need for speed between camera setups), but Piero Umiliani almost makes up for it with his kitschy score. You'll be humming the damn thing for weeks after hearing it. No masterpiece, but if you check your critical faculties at the door, you will have a good time.