ORGASMO (1969) / THE COMPLETE LENZI BAKER GIALLO COLLECTION (Severin Films Blu-ray Review)

ORGASMO (1969)

THE COMPLETE LENZI BAKER GIALLO COLLECTION

Label: Severin Films
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 97 Minutes (Director's Cut), 91 Minutes (U.S. Version)
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Audio: Italian & English DTS-HD MA Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Director: Umberto Lenzi
Cast: Carroll Baker, Lou Castel, Colette Descombes, Tino Carraro

In Umberto Lenzi's psycho-sexual thriller Orgasmo (1969) Hollywood star turned Euro-cult goddess Carroll Baker (Baba Yaga) stars as wealthy socialite Kathryn West, who has been recently widowed. Her husband left behind a vast empire of wealth and property, helping her sort through the estate to liquidate his assets is family friend/lawyer Brian Sanders (Tino Carraro, Cat O' Nine Tails), who also seems a bit sweet on her. I don't blame him, Carroll Baker was a stone-cold fox, and she has so much screen presence. I've always loved her as an actress, doesn't matter what film either, and it helps that she's willing to get put through the wringer, and Lenzi definitely had some fun roles for her in the four films they collaborated on, this being the first of the bunch.

As Kathryn lays about her gorgeous villa she attempts to get back to normalcy, day drinking and painting on canvas, all the while attended to by her loyal house servant and groundskeeper. The monotony of her day to day is a bit boring, but that changes with the arrival of a free-spirited, handsome young man named Peter Donovan (Lou Castell, A Bullet For The General), who ingratiates himself into her life after his sports car breaks down in front of her house. The pair quickly strike up a physical relationship, and Kathryn seems only too happy to be enjoying life, and sex, once again. Not long after Peter's nymph sexpot of a "sister" Eva (Colette Descombes, Monika) shows up, and Kathryn finds herself plunged headfirst into a world of sexual and drug-fueled depravity, kept a prisoner in her own home, and slowly being driven into madness by the controlling siblings.

Orgasmo is not so much a traditional black-gloved gialli as it is a delirious sexed-up thriller with some fantastic twists and turns, the principle cast is wonderful, the script is clever enough, and it's got plenty of sex and depravity to go around, but it is light on the violence, saving most of that till the last few minutes of the film. Baker is absolutely wonderful, playing the emotionally fragile socialite who is only looking for happiness, but what she finds is kinky danger, being drug-addled for a large swath of the film lost in haze of intoxicants, and she does a great job at it. The final series of shocker twists, including casting shade on Kathryn's own innocence, are delicious and perverse. I definitely had such a smile on my face when the end credits started rolling on this one. 

Audio/Video: The director's cut of Orgasmo (aka Paranoia) arrives on region-A Blu-ray for the very first time from Severin Films as part of their limited edition 6-disc The Complete Lenzi Baker Giallo Collection. Scanned from the internegative and framed in the original 2.35:1 scope aspect ration the image looks quite good. Grain is not the best resolved you will ever see, and the original lensing tends to lean towards the soft side, but colors are terrific, blacks are more than adequate and skin tones look natural. Audio comes by way of both English and Italian DTS- HD MA mono with optional English subtitles on both the director's cut and the accompanying x-rated U.S. version.

Onto the extras we get a pair of audio commentaries, the first with with Mondo-Digital's Nathaniel Thompson & Troy Howarth, Author of 'So Deadly So Perverse: 50 Years Of Italian Giallo Films' on the director's cut, and Film Critic, Author & Academic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas on the x-rated cut. Nathaniel Thompson & Troy Howarth are a always a fantastic team-up, both offering great insights into the film, the director's body of work and more. I have not got to the x-rated cut commentary, but looking forward to giving it a spin in the near future.   

Also included is the shorter running U.S. x-rated version of the film with a bit more nudity included, but also trimmed about six-minutes, excising the good stuff at the end. Be forewarned that this x-rated version may have been strong stuff in '69 but it's r-rated material today, don't come into it expect a Jess Franco level of x-rated-ness. There's also an 11-min 'Giallo Fever', an interview with the late director Umberto Lenzi who speaks about the casting of Carroll Bakers who was a big Hollywood star, discovering sexpot Colette Descombes, the re-titling of the film from the original title 'Paranoia' by dimwitted producers, and the films success and distribution, and how he made another film under the name 'Paranoia', which we know better as A Quiet Place To Kill, also starring Baker. Lenzi also gets into the story, which he wrote after being influenced by a short story he had read, and working with writer Ugo Moretti on the finished script. The disc is buttoned-up with a 2-min trailer for the film, and we also get a bonus CD containing the 22-song lounge soundtrack by composer Piero Umiliani, which was licensed from Beat Records.

The 2-disc Blu-ray/CD release comes housed in a black keepcase with a single-sides sleeve of artwork. Inside are the Blu-ray and CD discs accompanied by a postcard sized insert with the track listing for the CD soundtrack. This film accompanies three others as part of Severin Films's The Complete Lenzi Baker Giallo Collection, housed inside a wonderfully eye-catching and nicely designed rigid slipbox that has some serious shelf appeal.

Special Features:
- Director's Cut (97 min) HD
- Audio Commentary with Film Critic, Author & Academic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
- US X-Rated Version (91 min) HD
- Audio Commentary with Mondo-Digital's Nathaniel Thompson & Troy Howarth, Author of 'So Deadly So Perverse: 50 Years Of Italian Giallo Films'
- Giallo Fever - Interview with Director Umberto Lenzi (11 min)
- US Trailer (2 min)
- CD: Orgasmo Remastered Soundtrack (22 songs, 53 min)

Orgasmo (1969) is a terrific slice of psycho-sexual euro-sleaze starring the wonderful Carroll Baker, it's highly recommended stuff, and it's not even my favorite film on The Complete Lenzi Baker Giallo Collection, but it's still pretty great. This set has gone a long way toward changing my opinion about Lenzi as a director, having known him for years as the director of trashy but fun gut-munching 80's exploitation films like Nightmare City (1980), Eaten Alive! (1980), and Cannibal Ferox (1981), but my thinking on his body of work began to evolve having not too long ago watched Eyeball (1975), The Tough Ones (1976) and An Ideal Place to Kill (1971). Now having checking out these even more stylish early giallo offerings I'm sort of wowed by what I have been missing out on, which is the glory of this 4-films, 6-disc set, I cannot be the only one who thought a bit less of Lenzi than I should have.

More review on the way for the other three films on this set soon, stay tuned!