What Have You Done To Solange? - The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.

What Have You Done To Solange?
Italy 1972. Director: Massimo Dallamano
Cast: Fabio Testi, Camilla Keaton, Karin Baal, Christine Galbo
Aka: Cosa Avete Fatto a Solange?

Everybody has probably heard the beautiful and sad Ennio Morricone theme, which frequently pops up on various Morricone compilations, and this is the piece of movie which once came attached to it. It's a sometimes beautiful film, sometimes gruesome and brutal film with a handful of really grissy killings. Taking place in London and revolving around a school for girls, Fabio Testi plays a teacher, Henry, who is at first suspected for being responsible for the killing of a girl from his school, then freed of all suspicions. When Henry's mistress is also killed he joins the police in the investigation. And who is this Solange then? Well, she's played by Camille Keaton, the rape victim from I Spit On Your Grave, and I can't tell you more about it. Sorry.

Solange is a typical giallo, with all the ingredients the initiated have come to expect from a film in this genre. It has the killer dressed in black, the stabbings of beautiful women (obviously) and the revelation of a mentally disturbed perpretator with a revenge motive. Nontheless, it has never been one of my favorites. Though it looks fairly good thanks to the framing by then cinematographer Joe D'Amato (director Dallamano is also a good cinematographer, by the way, he shot A Fistful of Dollars) and the London location gives it a nice atmosphere. The misogynistic murders and the generally voyeuristic tone, however, feels too weird. Naked schoolgirls are spied upon through a hole in the shower room wall. They are stabbed, drowned and tied up, all eventually ending up with a long knife crammed up their you know what on a black & white photography at the police station. No, this killer is not very cool.

Further on, I'm a really big fan of Fabio Testi (as an actor, nothing else), but this film isn't his best work. Too often it feels like he's just standing in a park scratching his Sean Connery-ish beard, or admiring the schoolgirls in their little blue outfits while he's trying to figure out why he's the main suspect. In my eyes Solange is only talky, boring and overlong. I won't tell you to avoid the film, I know many people like it very much and it is a classic, but don't spend all your savings on it. Buying a soundtrack album is a better investment I think.