A WHITE DRESS FOR MARIALE

Ida Galli and Ivan Rassimov

A WHITE DRESS FOR MARIALE (aka Un bianco vestito per Mariale/1972). Director: Romano Scavolini.

Paolo (Luigi Pistilli), who lives in a cluttered castle on an isolated estate, is married to the emotionally-disturbed Mariale (Ida Galli). Unbeknownst to her husband, she has invited several of their friends to their home. These include Massimo (Ivan Rassimov of The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardj), Mercedes (Pilar Velazquez), Sebastiano (Ezio Marano), Jo (Giancarlo Bonuglia), Semy (Shawn Robinson), and her rather racist boyfriend Gustavo (Edilio Kim). As the evening proceeds the guests indulge in fun and games, dressing up in costumes they find in the basement. After an hour -- yes an hour -- of what mostly amounts to sheer tedium, at last there is a murder (and the almost obligatory lesbian love scene), after which virtually the entire cast is violently dispatched. Is the killer Mariale or Paolo? Who do you think? (The sinister butler, Osvaldo, played by Gengher Gatti, is one of the first to go.)

Luigi Pistilli

I would not be surprised if the ugly estate featured in this movie came first, with a script being hastily built around the location. Poor Luigi Pistilli [Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key], who was a serious theater actor in addition to being in several of these giallo films, has little choice but to wander around the castle in a state of bored ennui, just waiting for the damn thing to be over -- like the audience. One sequence shows an apparent wind storm that somehow manages to occur in the basement, but even this doesn't stay very interesting for long. There is absolutely no elan to the many murder sequences, and the whole thing has a disjointed, cheapjack ambiance to it. 

Verdict: Simply terrible giallo. *.