Sixties Genres: Gags, Gangsters and Giallo

(Click on an image for an enlargement)

A growing comic cynicism underpinned 1960s assaults on church and state, as well as battles of the sexes turning on marriage and status, satires on corruption and incompetence in the workplace, and farces concerning provincial insularity and national caricatures. Yet despite the disintegration of traditional communities and values exhibited in Pietro Germi's Divorzio all'Italiana (Divorce, Italian Style) (1961), the family remained - unlike elsewhere - the cornerstone of Italian life.

Among the new directors who specialised in these sophisticated social comedies were Dino Risi, Lina Wertmuller and Ettore Scola. But there was also a demand for broader spoofs of spy, gangster and cop movies, starring the likes of Bud Spencer (Mario Girotti) and Terence Hill (Carlo Pedesoli).

Taking their name from 1930s pulp novels that were published in yellow covers, giallo chillers like Riccardo Freda's I Vampiri (The Last of the Vampires) (1957) and Mario Bava's La Maschera del Demonio (Black Sunday) (1960) were notable for their brutality and lavish style. However, they were tame compared to such gore-spattered offerings as Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977) and cannibal movies (spun-off from Gualtiero Jacopetti `mondo' documentaries) such as Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 (Zombie Flesh Eaters) (1979), which had a major influence on the American nightmare movies of the 1980s.

David Parkinson