Mutant Chicken Aphrodisiac

Genetic experiments on chickens, the serial murders of prostitutes, and a love triangle. All of these things are contained succinctly somehow in the the title of 1968's Death Laid an Egg (La morte ha fatto l'uovo). A stylish film with beautiful stars, it's as captivating as it is weird despite a discordant soundtrack and distractingly experimental framing. Sometimes seeming to lose its train of thought in dead end digressions, the film nonetheless seems to be making some kind of point about sex and nature. Sort of.

The beautiful Anna (Gina Lollobrigida) is the wealthy owner of an egg farm run by her handsome husband, Marco (Jean-Louis Trintignant). When Anna's young, beautiful cousin, Gabri (Ewa Aulin), visits, the relationship between Anna and Marco is disrupted.

It's not that Marco's attention seems distracted by Gabri's beauty. Probably because he's busy secretly paying for prostitutes in a hotel across town where he role-plays murdering them (many reviews and synopses of the film seem to feel we're meant to think at first he's actually murdering them but I never had this impression). Instead, it's Anna who become fixated on Gabri and tangentially with the idea of Marco having an affair with her. When Anna discovers Marco's prostitute habit, she and Gabri gleefully initiate a scheme to have Anna pose as a prostitute.

The commentary on sex and relationships here seems almost a Vertigoian statement on the role of fantasy and ideal in relationships. With this context, the fact that a scientist is breeding headless, wingless chickens at the egg farm takes on new significance.

Anna sees this as a revolutionary development with a promise of increasing profits. Marco, meanwhile, sees only abomination. Is there an implied connexion here between how each one sees relationships? Kind of. Anna is fixated on discussions of wigs and Gabri's young skin, of dressing up and modifying, the effect of beauty being more important than the process to achieve it. Marco, meanwhile, enacts a relationship that places him in power. How that's connected I'm not sure unless it's to say that a body needs a head.

Death Laid an Egg is available on Amazon Prime.

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A horde of hoards were many marching coins.
A walkie talkie took the cell to phones.
Official pants report the legal loins.
Banana banks begin to peel your loans.
A tower leans to shelter little trees.
The acre plate controls the breakfast land.
A bigger thought contained a hive of threes.
A double deck could deal a triple hand.
A walking head connects the footed necks.
Repeated guys redeem the mushy lunch.
Rewards involved bikini cargo wrecks.
The frothy waves advanced to test a hunch.
Extracted words create a second sea.
Vacation hives return a strident bee.

Death Applies the Cut Up Technique

Murder is one way to please Death, I suppose. Thus the title of 1973's Death Smiles on a Murderer (La morte ha sorriso all'assassino). But there was certainly a lot in it for me to smile about, too. It's like a dream after a night binging on 19th century gothic horror; the film's plot seems composed completely of improvised alternate scenes required by sudden losses of funding and actors, requiring director Joe D'Amato (credited as Aristide Massaccesi) to toss in the concepts from several Edgar Allan Poe stories, Carmilla, and Frankenstein. None of the characters take solid hold, there's too much concept being introduced, but it's even more dreamlike for that and some anchor is provided by leading actress Ewa Aulin.

I'd only seen the beautiful Swedish star as the dopey title character of the amusing 60s satire Candy so it was fun seeing her play someone so sharp here. Someone with amnesia who might be undead who has an affair with the master of the manor where she's staying and also his wife and her own brother.

Enter Klaus Kinski who receives top billing despite having a small role. It is refreshing to see him playing a basically nice guy, aside from the fact that he's basically Victor Frankenstein.

There's an intriguing three level voyeur scene at the beginning where, as Greta's doctor, he asks her to undress, at which point he surreptitiously watches her through a mirror. He doesn't know a serving maid is watching him through the half open door. No-one knows about the butler who's revealed to have secretly been watching everything that happens in the film at the end, a revelation that comes for no apparent reason.

"I don't understand," a police inspector says at one point while examining another body. "It doesn't make any sense." That's an understatement.

A lesbian romance ends in an amalgamation of "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Black Cat"; an abruptly introduced masked ball abruptly turns into "The Masque of the Red Death"; there's a carriage accident and an omnipresent cat. A sly look from Greta now and then assures us it's all according to some devious plan from Hell. But I'm pretty sure she's making up her rambling phantasmagoria as she goes.

If you want a bleary, drunken tour of Edgar Allan Poe, you might enjoy this film. I did. It's on Amazon Prime.