Mara Maryl (Mrs. Gastaldi) is the Italian sex kitten in the style of Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren and her performance, and Dominique Boschero's performance, gives Libido its energy and forward thrust. Their easy-on-the-eyes beauty and great bodies don't help young Giancarlo Gianni forget the childhood memories that haunt him. His father was a sexual sadist who took pleasure in abusing women and Giancarlo fears he has inherited his dad's sickness. He also fears he is being haunted by his ghost. Mara's character, the wife of the ubiquitous Luciano Pigozzi (the Italian Peter Lorre), is ditsy but that's kind of a facade. Unfortunately, despite the great reputation of Ernesto Gastaldi as a giallo master, Libido is not on DVD or Blu Ray in North America and that's a bummer because it's one of the best of the early giallos. The black and white cinematography and location is excellent. It would have been less impressive in color. If you can find this film on the web or through a DVD vendor, give it a watch. Mara, as Maria Chianetta, wrote the giallo film Scorpion With Two Tails.

Beginning with a quote from some bloke called Freud that is mainly irrelevant to the film that follows, four people travel to an isolated seaside mansion. It includes the current owner who twenty years before had witnessed his father kill someone in the mansion, his wife, his friend who is also the estate manager and his wife too. Then the plot unravels this way and that to a satisfying conclusion. There are only four characters in the film but even with that number the script manages to keep the viewer guessing. The acting is good enough and Carlo Rustichelli provides a suitable plangent music score. Romy Garron's black and white cinematography is excellent, either within the mansion, along the sunny countryside or above the rocky shoreline. It's an early giallo but it's a good one.

If you see this movie to the end, you might want to get admitted to the nearest bedlam. You don't believe in ghosts? Yet they exist, and they do all kind of things in people's houses, they smoke someone's pipe, they use your chair, armchair, lounge or swing, they walk your corridors, etc. Why we find them only in large houses, mansions and castles? In the houses of poor people, never. Neither outdoor in open field, in public squares, in the streets, etc. Only in grandiose interiors, which belong to rich members of the society. And always occurring late after midnight, never in daily time. And if not accompanied by a black cat or creaking door, then they make their presence announced by severe thunder and lightning. OK, I have to confess that I like Italian movies the most. But this is an exception, I waited impatiently to see on the screen the word "Fine"(The End).

Even with all the renewed interest in Italian gialli these days, it's a little unfortunate that this one will probably never be re-released on DVD because it is one of the few gialli filmed in black and white. And that's too bad because it is really an excellent little film. A young boy sees his father murder his mistress during a bondage session in a mirror-filled room. The father apparently commits suicide by jumping off a cliff (although his body was never found)and the boy eventually ends up in a mental hospital. Years later as a young man he returns to his childhood home with his wife, his lawyer, and his lawyer's sexy girlfriend. A number of strange things begin to happen and the man begins to suspect that his father is still alive.For much of the movie it is tantalizingly unclear whether the man is still insane (a la "Repulsion"), the other characters are trying to drive him insane to get their hands on his father's inheritance (a la "Gaslight"), or the father really is still alive. The story is excellent and unusually logical for a giallo, and the end includes some delicious twists. Not surprisingly, the director Ernesto Gastaldi would go on to become one of the most famous screenwriters of these kind of films. Of course, he doesn't quite have the visual panache of more famous gialli directors (i.e. Bava, Argento, Fulci, Martino), but some scenes, particularly the ones in the room of mirrors, are pretty memorable.Gianni Giancarlo is the name actor, but he was pretty young here and seems to play his role a little too seriously. The best thing about this movie though is Maria Chiavetti (Gastaldi's wife)who plays the lawyer's girlfriend. Not only does she give the movie all its sex appeal by dancing in lingerie or strutting around in a kitty-cat bikini, but she provides a lot of Marilyn Monroe-style humor. And while her blonde airhead status would seem to mark her as an early victim, she plays a big part in the surprise twists near the end, proving more charismatic and versatile than the soon-to-be-famous, but here pretty one-note, Giancarlo. And she also apparently was the one that came up with the original idea for the story. This is impressive film, and the version I saw (in Italian with English subtitles) looked great.