Review by Gary Tooze

Production:

Disc:

Video:

Audio:

• Audio Commentary with Film Historians Derek Botelho and David Del Valle
• Original Theatrical Trailer (3:350)

• Liner notes by Julie Kirgo

Limited to 3,000 Copies!

Bitrate:

 

Description: Mauro Bolognini, that master of Italian costume and period dramas, gives us a peculiar slice of Grand Guignol with Gran Bollito (Black Journal, 1977). The film stars Shelley Winters as a mother so insanely over-protective of her grown son that she decides to make a deal with death by offering alternate victims, plucked from among her fellow tenants in a 1938 Italian apartment building; among these are several men playing women, including the one and only Max Von Sydow. Laura Antonelli and Rita Tushingham also star.

 

 

Gran Bollito unravels secrets of a pre-war Italian condominium with the skill of a cartoon magician. It is as though the sentimental treasures in Rimbaud’s ‘Le Buffet’ are brought back to life. The faded laces, the locks of hair, the dried flowers: they are all given a second chance. However, the glamour and camaraderie conceal some dark dealings.

Shelley Winters plays Lea, as she begins to piece her life together following a spate in a sanatorium. She enthuses all around her, but her priority is to protect her son: mostly from death. Her methods are unconventional, her execution flawless.

The story, based Leonarda Ciancuilli, culminates in a cryptic juxtaposition of the two follies: Lea’s, with all its bizarre twists, emerging as less absurd than the brewing war.

Synopsis:

Lea, a native of southern Italy, emigrated to a northern town to join her husband Rosario. She has to sell lottery tickets. As soon as she arrives, she feels an aversion to her new home chosen by her husband, who soon suffers a paralyzing stroke. Lea had thirteen children, all of them dead either after an abortion when they had only a few months, except one, Michele (Antonio Marsina) for whom Lea is taking a sickly affection. She receives in confidence Berta Maner, one of her clients who won the lottery lottery that she must join her husband in the United States after years of separation.

Michele is in love with Sandra (Laura Antonelli), a beautiful dancing teacher to cry. His mother can not resolve to let him leave the house, ready for all wickedness. Cursing, for example, in order for Sandra's mother to die suddenly (which, she says, will force Sandra to leave Michele to take care of her father), and then throwing into the arms of her son Tina a girl Deaf and dumb (Milena Vukotic). Michele led the girl gently but firmly. In the end, unable to achieve the desired result, Lea decides to remove the women who hinder his exclusive love to Michele. The first victim is Berta Maner, who on the eve of her departure for America, is killed by Lea who cuts it in pieces, boils it and transforms it into soap that it then sells. The same sad fate is reserved for the sweet Lisa, full of religious repentance after having known love with a man for the first time, and this although she helped a lot Rosario when he lived alone with Michele, before arrival of Léa in the North. Then it is the turn of the sparkling and lively Stella Kraus, a cabaret artist.

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BOTTOM LINE:
I had never seen Gran Bollito before and it is an odd genre-mixing horror or 'Black Comedy'? - often labeled as a 'naturalistic horror' - not a typical Giallo being devoid of mystery or supernatural features. Shelly Winters' performance is worth the viewing and it creeps along subtly. The Twilight Time Blu-ray provides an authentic transfer for the film and essential value with the commentary and liner notes. It's a complete package of a very unusual but watchable film - no masterpiece, but a peculiar film curiosity. To those keen this is recommended!