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2 unusual facts about Mario Bava


Arne Mattsson

The second in the series, Mannekäng i rött (1958), is considered by some to be a precursor of the Italian giallo films, notably Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace.

Daliah Lavi

Lavi's film appearances include Vincente Minnelli's Two Weeks in Another Town (1962), Mario Bava's gothic classic La Frusta e il corpo, or The Whip and the Body (1963), the role of The Girl in Lord Jim and the first Matt Helm film, The Silencers (1966), opposite Dean Martin.


Ernesto Gastaldi

He has collaborated with Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, Riccardo Freda, Tonino Valerii, Sergio Martino and Sergio Leone; as such he can be regarded as a chief architect of the giallo and Spaghetti Western film.

Hatchet for the Honeymoon

Hatchet for the Honeymoon (Italian: Il rosso segno della follia / The Red Mark of Madness); also known as Blood Brides and An Axe for the Honeymoon) is a 1970 Italian giallo film directed by Mario Bava and starring Stephen Forsyth, Dagmar Lassander and Laura Betti.

L'Odissea

An Italian, Yugoslavian, German and French (Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française) coproduction, it was directed by Franco Rossi, Piero Schivazappa and Mario Bava; the cast included Bekim Fehmiu as Ulysses and Irene Papas as Penelope, Samson Burke as the Cyclops, as well as Barbara Bach and Gerard Herter (of Caltiki fame).

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

Argento borrowed heavily from crime thriller literature (some plot elements derive from works of Fredric Brown; Musante's character is named after an early incarnation of Raymond Chandler's iconic character Philip Marlowe) and from previous Italian thrillers (the killer's attire was lifted from Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace, of which he closely imitated the gory murder sequences) but he managed to make the end result fresh and provocative instead of derivative.


see also

Blood Bath

For the 1971 Italian horror directed by Mario Bava, see Twitch of the Death Nerve.

Daria Nicolodi

Also in the same year, Nicolodi participated in some TV productions, such as the serial story Nicotera, Without a Trace with Rossano Brazzi (1972), Portrait of a Veiled Woman with Nino Castelnuovo (1975), the drama Saturnino Farandola with Mariano Rigillo (1978), Rosaura at 10 (1981) and the film Shock (1977), Mario Bava's last work.

Lisa and the Devil

In a desperate attempt to get the film released internationally, Alfredo Leone convinced a reluctant Mario Bava that they should revamp the entire film as an Exorcist clone, in order to cash in on the popularity of that film, complete with new footage being shot of an exorcism involving Elke Sommer and Robert Alda, who was cast as a priest in the new footage.