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Five Dolls For An August Moon is a film I’d not heard of before, but amongst Arrow’s vast back-catalogue of slasher horror cult classics, I’m slowly working through them one by one and filling in the gaps of my horror knowledge.
It’s based on the Agatha Christie story Ten Little Indians, which was recently remade by the BBC as the three-parter, And Then There Were None. However, Christie originally titled it “Ten Little Niggers”. Can you imagine the BBC using that title today? Thankfully, attitudes have changed over the years.
The film begins with a party, and one of the guests is dishing out knives with which to pretend to stab each other. They’re on a deserted island, too, so this is clearly weird from the start and, rightly, some guests abstain from choosing one. Elsewhere, all the men want to pay chemist professor Farrell (William Berger) $1m apiece for a formula which led to certain experiments, but he claims he won’t sell as his best friend died during those. So what’s he got to hide?
Being a slasher movie, the partygoers die off one by one, but by whose hand? Or gun? Or knife? Or all of the above? However, the first time we saw a body wrapped in plastic and put in the cold storage room on the island – given that they had nowhere else they could put him, it was weird because, they didn’t really have to string them up like a piece of meat. Surely it’s better to just lie them down on the ground? Clearly, in the ’70s, health and safety went out the window for the actors in question.
Five Dolls For An August Moon also includes a typically daft scene, late on, when the culprit is revealed, and they explain their dastardly plan to one of the few remaining, just before they bump them off. Really! I mean, why spend several minutes explaining things when you’re about to kill them? Do you think they’re going to remember once they’re dead??
And don’t forget, there’s a spinning bed, later championed by Austin Powers, which is utilised for making sexy time.
There are two versions of this film available to view – an Italian version with Italian credits, while the English version has English credits, showing that Arrow go the extra mile where a lot of other companies wouldn’t, as most of them would just default to the original credits and then add additional subtitles for the credits. That said, I put the English language version on and it’s clear that the dialogue was English, too, although whether the actors onscreen were doing the original voices is questionable.
With music that sounds like it came from an old porn movie from decades ago, this piece of Italian exploitation slasher cinema (or ‘Giallo‘) didn’t do a lot for me – especially as the ensemble cast seems to struggle to find a single actor between them, so when one of them dies, you don’t really care why. In fact, some of them made the cast of defunct British soap opera Eldorado look like The Revenant. However, it’s a cult film and there’ll be a lot of people eager to get their hands on this movie given what a stunning print it has.
And one final observation which I’ll hide behind a spoiler tag:
Go to page 2 for the presentation and the extras…
The film is presented in the original 1.85 widescreen ratio and in 1080p high definition and while the picture is occasionally jumpy – for example at a reel/scene change (something from the original print), for the most part it’s blemish-free, which is quite something for a 46-year-old slasher flick. I’m watching on my Panasonic 50″ Plasma TV with a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.
When it comes to the audio, the film was originally shot in mono, and that is what you have here – as previously stated in both Italian and English language versions. Dialogue is clear without any issues. Well, as mentioned earlier, it looks like the actors aren’t always doing their own voices so the sync isn’t perfect, but as with any jumps in the print, that’s something from way back when that can’t be changed and the blame cannot be laid at Arrow’s door.
Taken from the Collector’s booklet about the video and audio transfer:
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“Five Dolls for an August Moon (5 bambole per la luna d’agosto) was remastered in High Definition from original film elements. The HD master was made available for this release by Alfredo Leone.”
So, I’m still not quite clear about my queries, but it could just be the way Mario Bava made it.
The extras are as follows:
- Mario Bava: Maestro of the Macabre (60:07): A documentary from 2000, looking back over the director’s career, who’d passed away twenty years earlier, and is narrated by Mark Kermode. Sadly, there are no chapters for this extra, which is rather a surprise. However, Mr Kermode does make a good documentary. In fact, while I wasn’t a big fan of The Exorcist, I enjoyed much more his 1998 documentary, The Fear of God: 25 Years of ‘The Exorcist’.
- Music and Effects track: One for the completists. You can’t select subtitles during this, or even alter the audio tracks, so it’s rather odd that this disc bucks the trend.
- Trailer (2:55): In the original 1.85:1 widescreen ratio. There’s plenty of clips which some of the characters dead, so it’s best NOT to watch this until after you’ve seen the film. Bizarrely, some of the sound effects in it, including drumbeats, have been remastered in 5.1 and echo around the speakers. Quite cool.
- Collector’s booklet: Featuring new writing on the film by Glenn Kenny and a new essay by Adrian Smith on the Fancey family and their efforts to bring international exploitation titles, including Five Dolls for an August Moon, to a UK audience during the 60s, 70s and 80s.
- Audio commentary: with Tim Lucas, Mario Bava’s biographer.
Subtitles are in English and Italian, the main menu features clips from the film set to the end credits music – Ti risveglierai con Me by Il Balletto di Bronzo, and while there are often just a mere 12 chapters to film, this time there are just SEVEN! That makes them as spaced out as some of the actors!
Five Dolls For An August Moon is out now on Blu-ray/DVD Double Pack Limited Edition and check out the full-size cover by clicking on the packshot.
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FILM PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
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Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 81 minutes
Year: 1970
Distributor: Arrow Films
Released: February 1st 2016
Chapters: 7
Cat.no: FCD1199
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: DTS-HD 1.0 Master Audio (Mono)
Languages: English, Italian
Subtitles: English, Italian
Widescreen: 1.85:1 (35mm)
Disc Format: BD50
Director: Mario Bava
Producer: Luigi Alessi
Screenplay: Mario di Nardo
Music: Piero Umiliani
Cast:
Prof. Gerry Farrell: William Berger
Trudy Farrell: Ira Furstenberg
Marie Chaney: Edwige Fenech
Jack Davidson: Howard Ross
Peggy Davidson: Helena Ronée
George Stark: Teodoro Corrá
Isabel: Justine Gall
Jill Stark: Edith Meloni
Charles: Mauro Bosco
Nick Chaney: Maurice Poli
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
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