ARABELLA BLACK ANGEL (1989)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological* 

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

I don't know if at the time ARABELLA was made, giallos were enjoying a comeback, but since the movie was recently released on a DVD volume called "Forgotten Giallos," I'm guessing the movie wasn't overly successful. I've seen no other directorial efforts by Stelvio Massi, though he was a cinematographer on a number of better-known Italian films, including Giuliano Carnimeo's only giallo, THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS. The writer has no other credits on IMDB, which might explain why the script for ARABELLA tends to wander about at times.

As others have observed, ARABELLA amps up the near-hardcore sex right away. Some reviews call Deborah (Tini Cansino, niece of Rita Hayworth) a nymphomaniac, though all one knows from the first few sequences is that she's not getting any at home. (I think the name Arabella is used for a fictionalized version of Deborah.) We only know of one transgression, when the upper-class Deborah goes to a warehouse sex party, looking for love-- though not, as she specifies in the warehouse scene, for pain. Unfortunately for the young woman, Italian cops raid the party. One cop, DeRosa, seizes Deborah, believing her a hooker, and sodomizes her to exchange her freedom. Deborah goes home, and the next day we see her life with husband Frank and live-in mother-in-law Martha (Ida Galli, the only name I recognized from other films, such as THE CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL). Frank, as a result of an accident shortly after his wedding to Deborah, became both wheelchair-bound and impotent. The result is that he's a petty tyrant.to the women, even though he's apparently able to give them a ritzy upper-class existence just by writing popular crime novels.

 The next day, DeRosa finds out Deborah's upper-class background, and he heedlessly beards her in her own lair, hungry for more easy pickings. The cop corners his prey and talks her into having sex on the property. Deborah goes along with the extortion but Frank in his wheelchair spots the assignation. Deborah sees Frank watching, picks up a handy hammer and apparently kills the cop. (I say apparently because a careless end-scene suggests he might have survived, but this incident was probably nothing but a toss-off notion.) 

The killing of the cop has zero consequences; Deborah and Frank simply bury him on the grounds, and he's barely mentioned afterward. What does affect the plot is Frank having seen Deborah interact with another man. Not only does it stimulate Frank on some level, he decides he wants his wife to go around getting into more sexual encounters, so that the author can incorporate them into his book. (If it wasn't a sex thriller before, I guess it becomes one by fiat.) Deborah is either a nympho or an unusually obedient wife, for she goes along with Frank's scheme. However, her sexual peregrinations also supply the movie with the giallo-trope of escalating murders. Some mysterious person begins killing off people in Deborah's orbit-- including a potential blackmailer she didn't have sex with-- and this is what brings in the cops. The film then shifts its focus to an inspector named Gina.         

 

I don't know if the filmmakers thought audiences might add Gina to the movie's very small pool of suspects for the crimes, but the inspector never seems a potential murderer despite being (a) lesbian and (2) psychologically messed-up because her mother killed her father long ago. I doubt anyone was convinced, though, because the script tosses out such details so carelessly that they don't seem to have any importance. Even Gina's quarrel with her lover, female reporter Agnese, just seems contrived to occupy time, up to the point Agnese is one of the killer's victims.

 After a handful of desultory murders, the script jams together three big reveals at the end. One is that Frank, though probably still impotent, isn't actually wheelchair-bound. (It's not explained very well but I think the idea was that he spontaneously healed yet kept his recovery secret from Deborah in order to keep a mental hold over his wife.) The second reveal is that Gina is actually Frank's half-sister, for Frank was her mother's child by a different husband. The third is no surprise at all, because the mother of Frank and Gina is Martha. who's the only possibility left given that both Deborah and Frank would be too obvious. 

Martha's motive is a favorite among makers of sex-thriller films: she's a prude who hates sex. period, with the slight implication that she resents her daughter-in-law getting so much action. To be sure, though, Deborah isn't a good advertisement for concupiscence. Though she's not a developed character and Cansino isn't much of an actress, there are a few scenes that put across how badly women can be used by men, whether they're husbands or casual extortionists. Those scenes are the only reason I grade ARABELLA's mythicity as fair. But if one has any hopes of ARABELLA being a stylish giallo, those hopes are doomed to perish quickly.