DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING/ COME SI SEVIZIA UN PAPERINO

Italy, 1972, 102 minutes, Colour.
Florinda Bolkan, Barbara Bouchet, Thomas Milian, Irene Pappas, Marc Porel, Georges Wilsdon.
Directed by Lucio Fulci.

Don’t Torture are Duckling is considered one of the best films by prolific director Lucio Fulci, who moved from the giallo (Lizard in a Woman’s Skin) to rather more explicit horror films in the 1980s. He is often compared to Dario Argento.

This film captures the atmosphere of an Italian village in the mountains, the autostrada passing by, television coming in, yet very much stuck in the traditions of the past, especially religion and superstition.

Several boys are murdered and various characters are under suspicion. There is suspicious witch played by Florinda Bolkan. There is a young woman, provocatively sexy in the village and with the boys, overcoming drug addiction, played by Barbara Bouchet. There is also the man who is mentally disabled and mocked by the boys. There is some suspicion at the end about the mother of the parish priest, Irene Pappas in a few scenes.

It is surprising to find such big international names in the production.

Thomas Milian and portrays a journalist coming from the outside who continues his investigations and ultimately has to confront the murderer, a highly melodramatic sequence on the edge of a mountain cliff. And with the special effect of the murderer falling to his death, with flashbacks illustrating his life and motives as he falls.

Very much of its times and of Italian style – and with a very offputting American dubbing, making the film seem more American than it should be.

1. The popularity of the Italian giallo in the 1960s and 1970s? This film considered one of the best?

2. Italian sensibilities, crime, horror, religion and superstition, morality and sexual issues, police work, the media, the role of the church?

3. The title, the final explanation?

4. Life in the village, isolation, homes, police work, the church, the parish priest, children and sport? The surrounding countryside, the mountains? The scenes of cars on the autostrada? The musical score?

5. The opening, the witch, alone, the children, the bones, the graves, the dolls and pins, the overtones of voodoo? Her place in the village? Under suspicion? Relationship with Francesco? His being reclusive, interest in magic? No co-operating with the polilce? The child and its death? Her arrest, questioning, her sentencing the children to death, but not killing them, her being freed, the brutality of the attack, her death at the side of the autostrada and cars hurrying by?

6. The boy watching the cars, warning the others, the arrival of the prostitutes, the conversations, with the men in the house, Giuseppe and his watching, the boys mocking him, his own spying? His arrest, the phoning and the blackmail, the small amount causing suspicion? The distraught parents and the funeral, police interrogations?The fact that he buried the boys but did not kill them?

7. The boys, on the lookout, the inappropriate behaviour? Michele at home, his parents? The girl upstairs, naked, her sexual advances, his response? His own room, the drawings? His parent watching television, his going out alone, in the countryside, his murder? The range of the boys, playing sport, friends with the priest, the range of deaths, offscreen, the final killing on screen?

8. The police, the officer, the interviews, the theories, on the sites of the killings, the interactions with the journalists?

9. The journalist, coming in, on the site, his questions, staying, discussions with the police, theories? His discussions with the priest? The girl and her cigarette lighter? Questioning her? The little girl who was mute, her mother? Suspicions, the couple going to the mountains, seeing the mother, seeing the priest with the little girl, the fight on the cliff, the tactics, the priest’s death?

10. The priest, his mother, sport with the boys, in the church, confessions, bonds with the children? The fact that there was no molestation?

11. His mother, odd, living with him, protecting him? The mute daughter? The dolls and breaking their heads? Locking her in? The mother’s fears?

12. The climax, the priest, his madness, his mother calling out? His motives of preserving the boys from future sin, the reverse of molestation? The role of religion? In comparisons with the people, their superstitions, their fears of voodoo?

13. The priest and the vicious struggle on the cliff? Falling to his death, the long fall and the flashbacks of his life?

14. The combination of themes, the murder mystery, the solution, the motives?