26. DANZA MACABRA: Boogie down with some soundtrack heavy Giallo.

Ronald Marvelling (Curd Jürgens) has married a new wife, a much younger one, by the name of Alexa DuBois (Rosalba Neri) but within weeks, she’s making love in the sand with Pietro (Juan Luis Galiardo) and he’s downing J&B and clutching a pistol. This is no happy marriage. His daughter Catherine (Emma Cohen) is worried about all of this but more because she wants her inheritance and not out of any concern for her father.

The film then flashes back to how Alexa went from being Catherine’s friend to marrying her father without giving up the chance to make love to much younger men. Yet to keep up appearances, Marvelling allows her to make love to anyone she pleases, even if he doesn’t understand why. As we make our way through the nightclubs, mansions and love nests that make up the rich lives of the three protagonists, we’re left realizing that even all the money in the world doesn’t mean that problems can’t fester and eat at you.

Marvelling kills himself and locks down his home, as steel covers the windows and doors, trapping them inside. A recorded version of his voice tells them that they will be blamed for his murder and will die with him. There’s no escape.

This was directed by Juan Logar, who also was one of the writers of the script. It’s an interesting movie due to its structure and how claustrophobic it becomes. The Spanish version was obviously made in a time of censorship, so none of the nudity made it into the film that they saw.

Two Males for Alexa is scored by Piero Piccioni, who created a Hammond organ heavy jam that drives the action. He also did the soundtrack for more than two hundred other movies, including Camille 2000, Marta, The 10th Victim and Crazy Desires of a Murderer. Speaking of murder, Piccioni was one of the suspects of in the politically motivated murder of Wilma Montesi. Luckily, he was acquitted when it was discovered that he never Montesi and was on vacation with his lover Alida Valli at the time of the killing. This case inspired La Dolce Vita and the scandal ruined the political career of Piccioni’s father Attilio, who had to step down as the secretary of his party and as foreign minister.

This is just barely a giallo yet it’s enjoyable nonetheless. I mean, Rosalba Neri may be one of the most perfect women to ever walk this planet, so if all she does is eat bread for 90 minutes, I’ll still watch that. She does more than that here.

You can watch this on YouTube.