The Whip and the Body
It is an unhappy homecoming for Kurt Menliff to his ancestral home, a castle perched atop the rocks above the sea, but he had not expected otherwise, unwelcome and unwanted, his presence never missed, disowned by his father following the suicide of Tania, daughter of the housekeeper Giorgia, whom he first courted then abandoned.
His brother Christian recently married to Nevenka to whom Kurt was once betrothed, neither are they happy with his return, a malicious and conniving sadist immediately returning to his old games, yet when he chances upon Nevenka riding alone on the sandy shore she does not resist his advances, the alarm raised when she does not return by nightfall, found by the search party who return to the castle to find Kurt dead.
Credited to John M Old, a pseudonym for Caltiki and Danger: Diabolik director Mario Bava, The Whip and the Body (La frusta e il corpo) was released in late August 1963 then seized only six weeks later under charges of obscenity, heavily cut to seventy seven minutes for its re-release and distribution in the United States and Britain as What! and Night is the Phantom, all the overt sadomasochistic violence removed, fifteen minutes of film excised.
A handsome production in terms of the sets and costumes, in big dresses and flowing gowns Nevenka (Dahlia Lavi) runs through corridors and cowers in the catacombs of the castle, lit in lurid colours, convinced that she is haunted and pursued by the ghost of Kurt, Christopher Lee capitalising on his post-Hammer bankability but not stretched in any way by leaving muddy footprints and lurking in shadows and through windows.
Released almost concurrently with Robert Wise’s monochrome masterpiece The Haunting, there are visual parallels, Nevenka lying in her ornately carved bed with ghostly whispers and the door handle slowly turning, but while The Whip and the Body is in glorious Technicolour it is sluggish and without atmosphere or sense, nobody even asking the question of who murdered Kurt until the second body turns up, Carlo Rustichelli’s score trying hard to fill the void but coming across as melodramatic.
With Tony Kendall as Christian, Harriet Medin as Giorgia, Luciano Pigozzi as dutiful servant Losat and Gustavo De Nardo as Count Menliff, the Gothic grandeur is undisputable but it is also derivative and dull, Nevenka’s face glacial as she drifts about in the gloom in her nightgown, the screams heard from behind closed doors, creaking doors and scrape of the coffin lid distractions rather than advancing the slim story mounted on the dubious premise that fragile women need to be dominated by men.
The Whip and the Body is streaming on Shudder now
