| Solange (1972) 102 min. |
| aka What Have You Done to Solange? Cosa Avete Fatto a Solange? Das Geheimnis der Grunen Stecknadeln (The Mystery of the Green Pin) The School That Couldn't Scream Terror in the Woods Who Killed Solange? Who's Next? Savage Unge Piger Far Kniven (Young Girl Gets Stabbed) Mais qu'avez-vous a Solange (But What Happened to Solange?) Que habeis hecho con Solange? (What Have You Done With Solange?) Terror in the Schoolyard |
| If you've made it through that epic list of alternate titles then you must be interested in this movie, so I'll get right down to business. To begin with, What Have You Done to Solange? appears to be the most common title for this movie. I reviewed it under Solange simply because that is the title on the DVD from EC Entertainment that I watched. Massimo Dallamano wrote (along with Bruno Di Geronimo and Peter M. Thouet) and directed this from the source novel The Clue of the Green Pin by Edgar Wallace. Other notable crew members include Joe D'Amato (credited as Aristide Massaccesi) as cinematographer and Ennio Morricone providing an excellent score. It's also interesting to note that Camille Keaton of I Spit On Your Grave makes her feature film debut with a very strong (albeit small) performance. |
| The film itself in an excellent example of an early 70s giallo. The story begins with a teacher having an affair with one of his students from an all girls catholic school. The girl thinks she sees someone in the woods, then catches what appears to be the glint of a knife out of the corner of her eye. The next morning the teacher hears that there was in fact a murder in the woods. He rushes to the scene and in doing so becomes the prime suspect. He finds a good deal of difficulty maintaining his innocence while keeping is promiscuous activities hidden from his wife and the school board. The mystery unravels at a slightly more leisurely pace than later works in the sub-genre and has more of an accent on the police investigation than the actual murder set pieces. This structure works well though, and the build up to the climax is well worth it (one of the most uncomfortable scenes I've seen in a while). |
| Like I said earlier, I watched EC Entertainment's (R2 PAL) DVD released in 1998 in the original aspect ration of 2.35:1. I haven't seen any other releases to compare this to, but I was more than satisfied with this print. The extras are a bit confusing, the disc contains two trailers but neither are for Solange (Stage Fright and The Black Cat are included). The director biography that it mentions is on the inlay card. Both the picture and the sound on the disc are good. The shot compositions where all very nice and I would hate for anyone to have to see this one full frame. |
| To Recap - Solange is an excellent thriller and I'm looking foward to watching it again. Worth a full 5 dead catholic schoolgirls out of 5! |
| review 01/18/2002 Joe Canistro |
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