La Frusta e il Corpo [The Whip and the Body] [Night Is the Phantom] **** (1963, Daliah Lavi, Christopher Lee, Tony Kendall) – 2018 Classic Movie Review 7824

Director Mario Bava’s visually stylish, sadomasochistic themed 1963 Gothic horror La Frusta e il Corpo [The Whip and the Body] [Night Is the Phantom] is set in an isolated castle on the Eastern European coast and stars Christopher Lee as Kurt Menliff, who is ostracised by his father for his relationship with a servant girl and her suicide. Kurt returns to reclaim his title and his former fiancée Nevenka (Daliah Lavi), now the wife of his brother younger Cristiano (Tony Kendall).

After a session of flogging and sex, the masochist Nevenka realises she is still in love with Kurt, who is later found murdered, but the locals believe his ghost has returned to haunt the castle for revenge.

Screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi stated that he wrote the script himself with Ugo Guerra possibly contributing to some of the story early on. The producers showed Gastaldi an Italian print of The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) and asked him to come up with a script for a similar film. Mario Bava was employed as he could both direct the film and photograph the film. But Gastaldi said the film disappointed him. He thought of the story in terms of a psychological nightmare in the style of Clouzot’s films, while Bava saw it as a baroque and decadent drama, and ’emphasised such tones beyond belief’.

La Frusta e il Corpo was shot for six weeks in Anzio and in Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome, with a further week for special effects, for less than 159 million lire (about $66,500).

The film was released in Italy on 29 August 1963 through Titanus but Italian censors prosecuted and banned the film because of its sadomasochistic theme. It was seized on 12 October 1963 charge with obscenity and containing ‘several sequences that refer to degenerations and anomalies of sexual life.’ After it was re-released in January 1964, the law court of Rome ordered the confiscation of  scenes described as ‘contrary to morality,’ the poster  to be destroyed an the chief press officer at Titanus condemned to three months on probation.

The international cut runs 77 minutes and features significant changes, being heavily edited, with all the whipping scenes removed, causing the film to be incomprehensible. It was released is the US as What! (English dubbed version, with none of the actors dubbing their own voices) and the UK (a nearly identical English dubbed version) was called Night Is the Phantom.

Also in the cast are Ida Galli (billed as Isil Oberon) as Katia, Harriet Medin (as Harriet White) as Giorgia, Gustavo De Nardo (as Dean Ardow) as Count Menliff, Luciano Pigozzi (as Alan Collins) as Losat and Jacques Herlin as the Priest.

Many cast and crew were asked to use English pseudonyms because the producers wanted to fool the Italian audience into thinking this movie was British or American. Producer Luciano Martino asked Mario Bava to use ‘an old American name’ as a pseudonym, he jokingly created his credited alias of John M Old.

A Region 1 DVD of The Whip and the Body, sourced from a 35mm print of the film, was released by VCI on 31 October 2000 running 88 minutes.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7824

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