Five Dolls for an August Moon

This week we're talking about:

Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970).

This Giallo directed by genre stalwart Mario Bava is a fun mess. The story is this:

Rich industrialist George Stark invites two business partners and a professor together with their wives to his private island. The professor who has invented some incredible resin thinks he's there to relax, but he is there so that the businessmen can persuade him to sell them his formula. People starts to turn up murdered, until we reach the end.

As I watched Five Dolls, I got the feeling I was watching an Agatha Christie movie filtered through a Giallo lens, and it turns out I was right. This is essentially a bit of a rip off of Christie's And Then There Were None. The original director dropped out and the producers got Bava instead. He felt the script needed a lot of rework due to being too close to Christie but filming was slated to start two days later and he had no time. No time and no money either. The actors had to wear their own clothes, that's how small the budget was. With all this in mind, it's amazing this movie is not just watchable but even enjoyable, even if only just.

The cinematography is solid, which isn't surprising as this is Bava we're talking about. The actors are pretty solid with some good names like William Berger, Ira von Fürstenberg (who is a genuine princess), Edwige Fenech and more. What isn't good is the soundtrack which alternates between bad 70's jazz and some I don't know what music. I'm not hard to please when it comes to movie music, but this was unfortunately horrible.

As I watched the movie I was being quite hard on it, but upon reading about how hard it was to get anything at all to screen, I feel a lot more forgiving. For a Giallo, Five Dolls for an August Moon is incredibly tame. No real blood and no nudity. If not for Bava's style and experience, there would be no thrills at all. But he manages to pull this movie across the finish line. That said, there are a couple of massive plot holes that did disappoint me. As always, I was trying to solve the mystery but you can't. Not with the information the movie gives you anyway. You might as well just pick a character at random and see if you picked the killer.

So, do I recommend this movie? To completionists, I do. You might wonder why I would recommend Five Dolls for an August Moon at all after everything I just said, but it has heart and Mario Bava was skilled enough to turn a rotten turnip of a script into something edible if forgettable. Hardcore Giallo or Bava fans can find something to enjoy here, but not anyone else. I like Five Dolls for an August Moon but I will probably never watch it again.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!