“The killings are more sleazy than stylish, but fits the film’s overall grindhouse-like texture, and as a giallo, its multi-leveled with the right amount of suspense and enough quirky characters to keep most Euro trash fans smirking.” DVDDRIVE-IN.COM
Who made it? Directed by Carlos Aured | Written by Paul Naschy (as Jacinot Molina)| Director Of Photography Francisco Sanchez | Special Effects Manuel Gomez | Music Juan Carlos Calderon
Who’s in it? Paul Naschy | Diana Lorys | Maria Perschy | Eva Leon | Eduardo Calvo
If you weren’t watching this the week it came out, you might have been watching: The Longest Yard | Appassionata | The Godfather Part II | The Exorcist | Herbie Rides Again
Production notes and whatnot
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069041/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Eyes_of_the_Broken_Doll
What’s it all about?
We are driving through the desert-y French scrubland. Cloudy purple mountains in the distance. The sky is huge and wide. Funky flute and jazz plays as we come across a lone hitch-hiker. Heavy set, dark brooding eyes, chunky leather blouson jacket and clompy heeled boots, he trudges along the empty road thumbing for a lift.
A kindly old farmer stops his tractor and lets our drifter climb on. He explains in dubbed over French, that the man is unlikely to find work around here. Now the harvest is over, there is no farmhands required. But our figure isn’t too discouraged and is dropped off near a small town. Shoving hands in his jacket pockets, De Niro Taxi Driver poster style, he hefts up his small bag (which frankly can’t contain more than some pants, a vest and a small gun), he wanders in long, long, long shots through alley ways and streets like he were Lawrence Of Arabia taking ages to arrive on a camel.
Finally he comes across what appears to be the only shop in the village: A dusty and ratty old café/shop/market/bar sort of place – all dried out sandwiches, Schweppes ads and faded magazine racks. The proprietor of Café Caroline (we assume Caroline) isn’t so happy to have this grumpy drifter clogging up her tables. She is all thick, black, Amy-Winehouse hair, heavy make-up and long cigarette holder dangling over the cheese toasties and in a pair of clacky mules, (as Kath & Kim used to delightfully say).
Our drifter asks about work, as drifters tend to do in these sorts of capers. Caroline dismisses him, so he trudges out with a cheesy baguette and employment on his mind. An old man and a moustachioed Gendarme pass comment as he leaves: Why did Caroline not tell him about the 3 sisters up the hill? The women who are need of farm help and shopping and woodcutting and all sorts of manly assistance? Well, coz Caroline’s a bitch frankly and couldn’t be arsed with that. Nice girl. But the suspicious Gendarme wonders if he’s seen this swarthy chap before? If so, it’s probably in a mail order catalogue advertising vest and pants sets. He’s that sort of chunky chap.
But then who should our drifter come across outside, but one of these three sisters, driving past the café in the obligatory creaky old Citroen. Let’s meet her.
This is Claude. Which is a man’s name, so we’ll assume Claudette. But you need to remember that or it’ll get confusing. Perhaps I’ll call her Claudette for the remainder of this, for fear you will forget and this story will come across a fuck lot more homoerotic than it is. Yes, let’s do that.
Claudette is a glamourous older woman. I say “older woman” – she probably in her 40s. But these movies are so usually packed tight with teenagers, it’s nice to see a grown up. She’s a grown up woman.
Well-kept and with a touch of steely glamour. Not quite your MILF, but certainly getting there. Although, in a key point, she is ashamed and embarrassed by her arm which we see – before she hurriedly covers it – is burnt and withered and she has a clumsy plastic prosthetic hand). More of that later. But not much more.
She is one of three sisters who live up at the “old house”. (There’s always people up at the “old house”). She offers work to our drifter hero – who introduces himself as Gilles. Just household and farm-work, she explains. They had a helper called Jean a while ago but he has since left them. She will pay him well. Gilles likes the look of the dame and hell, a bit of farm work is what he’s looking for (as Caroline doesn’t seem to need kitchen help with the Gauloise or slicing cold quiche) so is happy to oblige. Claudette explains her sisters also need the help: Two women – Nicole and Yvette. Yep, he’s up for all that. Lead the way.
On the winding way to the house as they drive in the dark, there is a thump. Investigating, they find a crippled pigeon who either flew into the radiator grille and is now fucked, or they ran over in the old Citroen, but it being such a tinny and flimsy suspension, it’s given the bird little more than a headache. Weird flashbacks and/or foreshadowing and/or something as Claudette breaks the pigeon’s little neck. This act sends Gilles swooning and we are suddenly in a woozy dream sequence. He is standing in a blank space, hands tight around a blonde woman’s neck.
She screams and writhes. He over-powers her… And then BANG, we’re back on the side of the road. Oh this isn’t good at all. Clearly a chap haunted by a violent past.
But let’s get to the house to meet the other sisters. And what a fine pair they are.
Firstly, it’s Nicole. (Papa? Nicole? Papa! Etc). Nicole is, according to Wikipedia, a Nymphomaniac. Which seems a bit harsh. But boy oh boy, is she a horny sexpot. All knee high boots and tight red sweater and tumbling fair hair, curvy bum and pouty pouts. Blimey. Gilles likes the look of this set up.
Inside we meet sister number three of our sketch – a more sombre and demur woman – Yvette. She is upstairs, creaking about on the landing in a wheelchair, crippled from the waist down. Her, not the wheelchair. Obviously.
There is natural suspicion about Claudette popping out for groceries and coming back with this swarthy gruff loner. So they shall be on their guard. But hell, since Jean fucked off, they’ve been needing someone to milk cows and chop wood and feebly rake leaves. So gift horses and mouths and whatnot. Let’s see how he gets on.
Gilles is shown to the large functional kitchen. Big and plain. Starts getting nosey about the whole set up. Sisters? Wheelchairs? Illness? Hand? But Claudette won’t discuss it. It clearly upsets and disgusts her and she is very unhappy, and not going to discuss it with some “fucking wood-chopping guy” (copyright Peters Friends, 19942 All Rights Reserved).
Claudette feels “repugnant and hideous”. So Gilles is shown to the standard sparce room – sheets and blankets, jug of water on night stand, ironwork bed, thick curtains – just like every loner in this sort of movie gets (See “Pigs” and all the other “troubled loner looking for work” movies). And yes, we were right. Gilles tucks his pants and vest set in a drawer and hides a small handgun under the chest of drawers. A small looking gun, but – in case you’re wondering – one of those handy movie guns that can fire about 140 shots without reloading. As we’ll find out later.
Next day we assume, Claudette has Gilles at work earning his meagre keep. Still in his smart slacks, cotton dress shirt, leather jacket and boots, he’s hunched over milking a cow. And then, not for the last time by any means, young Nicole appears for some red-shirted, big boobied sultry seduction.
Hoo boy. She coyly follows him about, clearly up for some naughty drifter-nookie. But Gilles is smart. Horny, yes. But not an idiot. He doesn’t want to blow the gig on the first day. So he avoids her clutches like Kenneth Williams being pawed by a lusty busty Hattie Jacques. If you know what I mean.
So – let’s meet the doctor who will be reappearing regularly. He’s a classic bluff older chap, all flat hair, trimmed goatee and portly frame in a tight three piece. Leather bag, kindly manner. He’s Yvette’s doctor and clearly spends a lot of time tending to the crippled woman with soothing noises and painkillers.
He leaves a distressed Yvette and makes chit chat with Claudette over a favourite liqueur. Doctor Phillipe, for tis his name, explains he’s working on new treatment for Yvette. Psychotherapy? Hypnotism? He believes the paralysis may all be in her mind. Plus, there is a good new nurse coming to town who can help. A young Nurse Margot De Frayne. (Oh, remember that name…“Frayne! She’s going to live forever!” She’s not, btw. But it’s going to come up again).
But back to Nicole’s pestering harassment of Gilles as he’s now out chopping wood, barrel chested and sweaty. She’s all up in his grille again with the cleavage and the eyelashes and the pouting. “How strong you are!” and running manicured hands through his matted chest. Gilles clearly doesn’t mind the attention and perhaps has some seduction on his mind for later, once the wood is chopped and the milking’s done.
As Dr Phillipe is leaving, a new young woman appears at the driveway. Is this the expected Nurse Margot De Frayne? No, it seems not. This is Margot’s unexpected replacement. Margot won’t be coming. There is some fussing with medical letters and references. But it seems this new nurse – Michelle – a pointy faced lip-glossed popsy with her medical bag and starchy ways, will suffice. Some doctorly harumping about this not being expected. But ah well…
Hmn…
That night, in his bed, Gilles is haunted by murderous dreams again. This time a bright red sound-stage where he is strangling the blonde woman once more. Woozy camera work and lots of twirly whirly focussing. He awakes, sweaty, big fat muscly arms in his navy vest (told you). Then who should appear all glamourous and panting in the doorway but good ole Nicole once more. Her sheer purple nightdress crackling with that 70s polyester and acrylic static as she wafts in, skimpy underwear visible beneath the fabric. She has insomnia.
Yeah, sure. She climbs onto Gilles’s bed and they have very oddly filmed sex. Lots of faces and kissing, camera spinning clockwise and back again. Hands on boobs. Gasps and swirls again. Then finally, lying next to each other like Harry and Sally the morning after. Neither of them seem into it. Perhaps it’s the vest.
Now we’re with the suspicious new nurse Michelle. She is tending to a complaining Yvette giving her a milky looking concoction that she tries to get Yvette to down in one. Yvette, sat up in bed, sheets and blankets, is not having it. “You’ll sleep well after this…” Nurse Michelle reassures her in a fucking suspicious manner. A spying Claudette watches her leave the room and hurry to the phone to make a whispered call. Hmmn. What can this be?
Meanwhile, in his bed, post swirly shag, Gilles and Nicole talk about the sisters. They are all weird freaks and neurotic failures, unwanted, miserable types. Nothing to nobody. All wheelchairs and withered hands. Christ these gals could do with 12 weeks of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Or at least a Paul McKenna confidence building audio tape.
Jump cut to violent chopping of a chicken with a cleaver. Loud hacking and banging as irritated Claudette takes it out on a poor bird at the kitchen table. Gilles, bringing in the wood he has chopped, asks about her mood. Jealousy? Well pretty much, as he was told NOT to go messing around with Nicole. But Gilles claims she started it. Which, to be fair to the chap, she did. But he didn’t put up much of a fight. He took off his own vest, for fuck’s sake.
Next day Gilles is back at work. Cows are milked, wood is chopped, so he’s now busy – still in his snappy slacks and shirt – raking up some dusty leaves half-heartedly. Nicole is back, once again in the slutty red sweater and pointy boobs, watching him and cooing with obvious intentions. Once was clearly not enough.
When… at last! Some actual action! Or plot! Or something! Who is this coming over the hill, is it a monster? Nope, it’s another almost identical middle aged man from the same swarthy acting agency they got Gilles from. Floppier hair, fair, moustache, dark black blouson this time, he grabs at an unsuspecting Gilles and a violent fist fight commences! Slap! Punch! Oof! Thwack! Swinging the rake and punching hard, they rough and tumble, gruff and dusty and scratchy in the dirt. A knife appears! A struggle. A frightened Nicole watches aghast from the window! The moustachioed man is stabbed in the stomach, deep by the knife and makes a stumbling run for it. Gilles is cut badly in his torso, and the woman gather him in to tend and wash his wounds.
Our cop – he of the Chez Café Caroline – is on the scene to investigate this attack. Yep, it appears it was Jean, the old gardener/helper they fired after he messed around with Nicole. Seems he has a jealous grudge. But the cop is more distracted by another killing. A young nurse. Margot De Frayne, (told you!) who was strangled on the highway a few nights ago. But… Margot De Frayn was the nurse who was expected! Mysterious! Sort of! Curiouser and curiouser…
Meanwhile, as she’s been enough trouble frankly, Nicole is locked away in her room to tend to her red jumper, darn her purple night gown and drink alone. Claudette likes her kept away for everyone’s safety. Or rather, so she can perhaps claim Gilles for herself? Let’s find out.
Yep. Claudette comes to visit Gilles in his room. Explains about Jean the gardener. She perches on the end of Gilles’s bed, and Gilles begins to hit on her, loosening her hair and slipping off her clothes. Claudette – clearly with a self-image “a notch below Kafka’s” (copyright W. Allen, Manhattan, 1979 All Rights Reserved) complains, not able to understand why any man would want her and her deformed arm and hand.
She is very unhappy. But Gilles is taken with her and they get it on. Some nice boopy electric Bontempi piano sounds and home-organ trills as the smooching begins in gusto.
Oh, we’re halfway through by the way. 40mins ish. And yep. Lots of set up. Lots of weirdos. Lots of potential. But not much in the way of plot. And certainly no sign of any broken dolls or blue eyes. Hmm, the screenwriter needs to get a move on. Let’s cross our fingers for a more action-packed second half. Here we go.
So. Next day. Lots of exposition and backstory as Doctor Phillipe and the new Nurse Michelle stroll and talk in the grounds of the house. Yep, the sisters are all neurotics. There was an accident. Their mother went insane. Their father committed suicide. The sisters refuse to talk about what happened or when or how. And to top all that, Yvette’s future beloved husband Francois went off with her best friend. Oh they’re all pretty much screwed up, and all the Doctor can do is sooth and assist. Helpless cases these three.
As Doc Phillipe heads off again, back to his office, Gilles asks Nurse Michelle to help him with “something”. Off to the barn, where an angry and rapacious Gilles forces himself on her. Shock, gasps among the mooing cows and dry straw as she fights his violent advances. Michelle reaches for a hay-bailer, a handy sharp hooked thing…but before she can strike him Gilles is struck suddenly by yet another flashback of his past actions: Woozy, swoony, stranglatory, badly lit… Disgusted, he steps away, angry, collapsing against the wall while Michelle makes a run for it. Boy oh boy, this guy needs help.
At his charming bright office, Doc Phillipe is working away. Only who should arrives for an unexpected “examination” but old lusty Nicole, this time complaining feebly of shoulder and back pain. Doc has seen this all before but before he can object like an awkward uncle, she has slid out of her tight tank top and it’s all bare boobs all up in his grille. He laughs her off like a child. Pouty, she accuses Doc of liking a more mousy type of woman? Nicole motions to the picture on his desk. Ashen faced, Doc admits this is his late daughter. A tragedy. She died during an operation. There was some mal-practise. A bad day for everybody. Nicole would show sympathy if she wasn’t such a randy nut-job.
Hey, you know what we haven’t had yet? A traditional courting couple who can be interrupted in a copse or shrub land or doorway and one of them get murdered for no reason we can think of. So let’s put that right! Snogging and canoodling under the bridge at night, church bells ring, signalling it’s time for the nameless woman to leave. She will keep the ghosts away from her cemetery walk by singing to herself, the schoolroom tune of Frère Jacques. You know it. “Frère Jacques, Dormez vous? Soggy Semolina, ding dang dong.” Etc. Past dark crypts and stones and plaques and flowers, the soon to be murdered woman walks hurriedly. The tune is picked up by the soundtrack and the Frère Jacques gets spooky and childlike, so they might as well be singing “One two Freddy’s coming for you.” In French. “Un, deux, Freeedy est arrive por vous, trois quatre….etc.”
And yep just as the trope insists, she’s followed by a shadowy figure. An attack! Hit! Screams! Falls! Dead.
Next day, we are back in Caroline’s café – still peddling Schweppes and magazines. The cop and doc Phillipe are discussing last night’s attack. They have the autopsy of the young girl murdered in the cemetery: The killer CUT OUT HER EYES! Is this murder linked to the nurse Margot De Frayn who was murdered on the street? Maybe?
But meanwhile, as the professional men chat about theories, three nubile teens arrive. They’re all pervy hot pants and sleeveless tops and coy slurping at coca-colas through nymphetty Lolita straws and they laugh and flirt and giggle and twirl. The timid French locals are discombobulated by all this raw sexiness, girls not seen so distractingly sexy/victim-prone since the Hostel series.
But Doc and Cop have their sleuthing interrupted as Gilles bursts in. Something is wrong up at the old house! (yeah, no kidding). It is Yvette! She is very ill! Which we know, of course. But he means even more ill than usual. The trio scuttle out busily, leaving proprietor Caroline sucking on her cigarette holder, face weighed down by mascara and hairspray. She doesn’t trust this Gilles fellow. Things haven’t been right since he arrived in town. And she’s got a point, who are we kidding, let’s face it.
Back at the sisters’ house, Yvette is on the bed, writhing and convulsing like she’s being egged on by William Friedkin. The 2 sisters surround her. Doc doesn’t want a fuss so tells the girls to leave, to make the place quieter. He and the nurse Michelle tend feebly to the whimpering Yvette. Which involves saying “shush” and “there there” and “calm down, woman,” over and over. But that’s privatised healthcare for you.
Hell, now we’ve got the murder plot started (about time), we’d better have another victim to keep the body count mounting, so let’s cut to a farm nearby. Gruff farmhands bring a struggling, squealing live pig into the barn and, with a bowl under its neck, slash open the pig and let pints of blood wash and splash out all over the place in a scene that looks pretty convincing, albeit gratuitous. I will check to see if this was a real pig, as movies of this era are pretty renowned for bunging in animal cruelty to upset the censors and add some gore to the video box. As the pig dies, a young blue eyed broken doll…I-I mean, blue eyed young woman carries the warm blood in a bowl to the kitchen…but is attacked by the dark gate. A blade to her neck, pig-mirroring style and a slash. Lots of gore and down she goes. And we see the gloved shadowy hands of the killer carry two dead eyes across a white room and drop them like pickled onions – plop – into a petri dish. Nice.
Doc is getting cosy with the sisters, all very familial and caring when Nurse Michelle takes yet another in a line of suspicious whispery phone-calls and, what a shock, the cop turns up again. Christ they should start charging him rent. Guess what Doc? There has been this new murder at the pig-farm. And again with all the eye-gouging business. Doc and Cop are suspicious. All of this started when this Gilles turned up in town. But then what of Jean the ex-gardener? Suspects, suspects…
But onwards with the action. Claudette is tidying up the spare room and is “casually” fussing with Gilles coat. She finds some papers and naturally for this sort of caper, has a bit of a nosy about. Shock! The cuttings reveal the truth! No! Say it can’t be?! She confronts Gilles! “Is this true?! Attempted rape and murder? Strangulation?!” Well Gilles is contrite and it comes spilling out. Yes. His lawyer got him off. But he has been on the run and on the move ever since. Cue another studio flashback. Crazy red lighting as flutes and guitars get funky. A blonde woman is teasing him, laughing at him. It is all too much and he dives in to strangle her. He snaps back again. Man what a life.
Claudette admits she loves Gilles. Which is a bit of a surprise, to be honest. Especially with this new revelation about past hobbies. Although to be fair, he is the only man who has not been disgusted by her and shown her affection. And her sister affection, of course. And the nurse. Oh for fuck’s sake, let’s keep going.
Claudette and Nicole argue about Gilles. She doesn’t want Nicole to take him away, in the manner we presume she usually does. Flashing her ample boobs and falling on-top of them in purple acrylic. She pleads with Nicole to allow them to be in love. But being a nymphet nut-job with a screw loose, Nicole is bored of Gilles anyway. Because reasons.
Now the murder mystery kicks more into gear and we get our first glimpse at a hunch, a clue or somekind of action that isn’t cops drinking wine with Caroline and staring at teenage thighs. Doc Phillipe asks Caroline if she still keeps old news-papers? She does, she says. For the last 2 years or so. Hmn..?
Another quick killing as we haven’t had one for a while. Similar trope. Young blonde blue eyed woman in a wine cellar, fussing and fetching. We are back with Frère Jacques on the soundtrack. Not a good sign. A man in black approaches…Grabs a short hand-held rake thing. Claws and stabs and scrapes at the screaming woman who collapses, smothered and streaked with scarlet blood.
And we get a repeat of the gloves and eyes and petri dish scene. Possibly the same footage actually.
But now we lose a suspect (doh!) as the cop is led to a corn field where the remains of a bled-out Jean is lying. Clearly the fight with Gilles killed him and he has run, collapsed and bled to death.
Cross him off the suspect list. Which pretty much leaves just Gilles as Suspect Number One for the murderey eye kills.
Nurse Michelle makes a tearful admission to Yvette. She must go! Her son is sick! Having an operation! She is ashamed of her single mom status and tried to hide it. Hence the secret phone calls. Yvette understands and lets Michelle leave to be with her sick boy.
Then a discovery! Horny Nicole, bored out of her mind, is creeping around the house. Or a house. It’s not clear. Behind a heavy wall-hanging, she finds a hidden door. As jazz flutes and bongos create a creepy mood, she wanders through plaster walls, staircases and arches. All painted white. The tell-tale Frère Jacques is back on the soundtrack. She wanders into a room. Painted white, airy and bright. She sees something we don’t see. “I knew it!” she cries! And we watch the killer’s POV as he approaches her.
She screams for help! A blade again! The throat is opened with a slash! Blood gushes and blubs out of her pale neck and down she goes, landing on the white stone floor.
A storm grows outside. Wind and thunder. Yvette is wheeling herself around the spooky house, around the landing, near the stairs. Something is up? Someone in the house? She nearly falls down the stairs. Nosferatu shadows creep and glide up the staircase towards her. Terrified, Yvette attempts to climb out of her chair, but she has no ability to walk. Puffing, frightened she falls to the floor. And the light shows us the figure of…Gilles!
Doorbell! Claudette is at the door. Gilles lets her in, explaining his presence scared Yvette and she has fallen from her chair. Innocent?
Cop and Doc are in discussion of the case at the GP office. Now Nicole is missing. But hell, she’s a tramp so she’ll be off with some suitor. Hardly worth worrying about. She’ll be back. But then! As Doc peers and paws through the papers…a face! It’s Gilles! Alert! He’s a wanted killer! OMG! A call to the sisters’ house to warn them!
But they underestimate Claudette’s love for this mysterious traveller and she runs to tell him. They’re coming for him! He grabs her wrist and his gun from beneath the dresser (her wrist isn’t beneath the dresser) and they flee as wanted lovers!
An elaborate chase through the snowy, slushy mountains. Sunset. On foot as funky jazz keeps a beat. Running awkwardly but cautiously, hands out like Nicholas Hammond used to do as Spider-Man in the 1970s. Funky and stealthy. Over streams, across rivers, splashing and running through dense forest and mountain passes. Bumbling Keystone cops in Gendarme hats follow a pace, guns drawn, rifles blasting. Melting snow and splashes of greenery. Very long sequence as they run.
She tires and falls as she is destined to do in these moments. He must go alone! He can travel faster. She wants to keep up so he punches her hard in the face and down she goes. That’ll do it. She lies in the snow as he escapes across the frozen river.
Cops find her body. An absurd gunfight with short range handguns and preposterous distance as he runs and runs, 500 meters away at least. They stop and hunker down like Rebels on Hoth, banging away with smoking rifles. Gilles fights back, blasting his never-emptying revolver until…BLAM! Right in the back! Boom, a blood squib and then in odd, soft focus, echoey vapour-trail echoes, Gilles falls in a Sci-Fi Top Of The Pops wash of camera effects about six times. And then down he goes. A sobbing Claudette and the tired cops survey the body and we pull out to reveal the full scene. Well we’ve only got 16mins to go and we’ve lost all our suspects. So this is going to take some hurried cleaning up…
We’re back with Nurse Michelle, walking home to see her sick son, with single-mom troubles on her nursey mind. Early evening, owls and sunlight. Her bright red “Don’t Look Now” Shiny waterproof mac makes her visible through the trees with red flashes. Oh, but now it’s Frère Jacques again so something’s going to happen. She pushes through ferns and forest, but we know she is being followed. Ahh! The man in black again! He grabs her and strangles her. But Michelle has some life in her and fights back, grabbing a spike of discarded fence post from the floor, plunging it in to the killer’s leg! Scarlet blood spurts from the leg wound!
Back at the house. Nurse Michelle makes it back, desperate and panicky. It’s dark, the storm has killed the power. She sees Yvette’s wheelchair…but over-turned. No Yvette? Has the killer got her too? There is blood on the stairway and she follows the trail upstairs. The killer stands in the shadows, all black gloves and balaclava. Slowly, the killer unmasks themselves to reveal…Yvette! Holy shit! The fuck?
Standing tall, no chair needed, angry wild and powerful. She leaps on Michelle and tries to kill her, screaming!! “You took my Francois!” She lunges at her eyes! Her Hair! A stair-based fight, struggling, screaming. “I’ll kill you! Again! Again! And Again! A thousand times I will kill you!” In a final fight, she presses young Michelle’s neck under the wheelchair wheel frame, killing her.
And then, in what has to pass as something of another twisty shocker, another black gloved hand stabs Yvette in the back! Down she goes. The gloved hand places the bloody knife in Nurse Michelle’s dead hand, leaving them both bloodied and twisted in a violent tableau. Stabbed and crushed at the base of the stairs.
Doc and cop arrive with Claudette to see the shocking scene! They murdered each other! My God! But in French! La God! Or something. What has happened here?!
Then for no reason but to tie up loose ends, anther second courting couple of the movie are lying about on rocks, fully clothed and cuddling half-heartedly, when the loose rocks fall away and a frozen face is revealed, buried in the rocks! It’s Nicole! Much screaming!
Back at the house, Doc is trying to manage the chaos. He tells Claudette she must go, leave, find a new home and try and get over all this unspeakably unlikely horror and trauma. She agrees, stressed and tearful. But our gallant Gendarme arrives, all twirling moustache and Sherlock theories. Hmmm. Just one more thing! He is not happy with the evidence. There is no way Michelle could have stabbed Yvette, not from the angle of the knife. There had to be a second killer? Plus the autopsy found wooden spike splinters in Yvette’s leg…from the fence some distance away! What? But Yvette cannot walk? Much confusion, obviously.
But Doctor Phillipe of course has an explanation. As he feared, Yvette’s paralysis was in her mind. Psychosomatic? She could walk! Always! But only in a trance like state. Her parents’ trauma had convinced her she was paralysed. Could Yvette have been the eye-gouging killer all along? Where is her motive?
Well…her lost fiancé left her for her best friend…who had blonde hair and blue eyes! She must have been overcome with jealousy and driven insane.
Case all wrapped up. Credits? No! It wouldn’t be the movie it is if there wasn’t another exhausting final twist! The Gendarme speaks up. He has been investigating the murder of Nurse Margot De Frayne. She was involved in a scandal. Medical malpractice. Many years ago. She killed a girl during poor medical care after…an eye operation! Who was this girl? The Doctor’s daughter!
Noooo! As Darth Vadar likes to say. Doc NEVER forgave Margot for her negligence! He had to keep his dead daughter alive! Bring her back! Give her life! Give her…eyes! Doctor Phillipe had slowly hypnotized Yvette to commit murders for him every time she heard Frère Jacques played on the tinkly clock. A reflex! She has been killing for him all the time. Blonde women! With blue eyes! Like his daughter!
And bringing him…their eyes!
At this bizarre revelation, there is the final chase through the house, behind the wall hanging to the white painted cellar beneath. Where they find…a child’s room. Kept perfectly preserved. A dead young woman frozen in a child’s bed, surrounded by dolls and toys. The Doctor collapses with grief. More Frère Jacques. He pleads to the corpse of his dead daughter. She will never die! He will keep her alive by giving her fresh eyes! We see the empty dull sockets where the killer has been placing victims’ eyes to keep the illusion of life. Sobbing, we pan out to see the doctor stand in the centre of the room, watched by the cop and Claudette.
He is alone. She is gone He is caught. All is lost. Head in hands, we END.
See? It WAS about blue eyes. And his dead daughter was sort of, y’know, a broken…doll. Thing. Right?
Is it any good?
Hahahahaha. It’s a lot of things. Some are fun. Some are expected. Some are standards. Some are daft. Some are funny. Some are ridiculous. Many are all six at once. Let’s get into it.
You’ll remember we discussed the Italian Giallo genre at length in our review of Mario Bava’s 1971 slasher “Bay Of Blood.” A lurid set of movies based on the yellow-coloured paperbacks of Italian pulp literature. To recap, you can spot a Giallo movie from its key tropes, all of which are gloriously on show in Blue Eyes Of The Broken Doll: A murder mystery, lots of creepy footsteps, black gloves, a slashy murder or three, some topless romping, dozens of second-guesses and red-herrings, sultry femme fetales, psychological trauma, odd behaviour, storms and lightening, nonsensical twists and all that glorious over the top drama.
BEOTBD, as we’ll call this for short, is a 1973 Spanish entry into the genre, unusually for its type never released to its target Italian market who definitely would have eaten this shit up by the reel-full.
Opening in Spain in ’73 under the original title we have here, Los Ojos Azules de la Muñeca Rota, it saw a number of re-titles and re-edits in its short life.
In the US you could have picked it up from the video rental store in 1976 under the more obvious “The House Of Psychotic Women” – which you’d be hard pushed to argue didn’t tell you exactly what you were getting. In Belgium you would have had to hunt for “Mystery of the Blue Eyes”. And finally it was chopped of most of its T&A and blood for American TV release under the dull moniker “House Of Doom.”
BEOTBD is a fine vehicle for our lead star Paul Naschy who not only puts in a dark, broody and tormented performance as misunderstood murderous drifter on the run, Gilles, but also wrote the script. Naschy is better known in Spain, due to his build and demeanour, as the man who played a Werewolf 12 times in movies across his career. And he certainly had the scowly eyebrows and full barrel-chested figure to pull it off.
Director Carlos Aured is doing his best with Maschy’s script which, as we’ve said, has been jigsawed together from every Italian Giallo script he could get his hands on. His script disobeys almost all of screenwriter William Goldman’s script-writing rules. That is to say, all the scenes are about exactly what the scene is about. No subtext, no hints, no allusions or imagery, dialogue just spits out, explains what’s going on in Soap-Opera efficiency and gets on with it. All required tropes are here and ticked off one by one and Aured does his best to tell the story straight, with minimal artsy flourishes.
Which frankly is to be admired as the plotting of these sorts of capers is so obscure, convoluted and nonsensical, the last thing you need is a director adding bewildering casting and disjointed imagery. No, Aured pretty much tells the story from beginning to end and doesn’t do too much to make it more confusing than it is.
That said, this appears to run to asking the cast to simply “say the words quickly and get off.” The performances are largely flat and perfunctory, with only the odd burst of amateur dramatic eye-rolling, gasping and feminine swooning to slow down the steady plod of the silly plot.
Whether Aured was padding for time or just fancied himself as the Spanish John Ford, he certainly likes to linger and shots of Gilles walking, tractors chugging or cars passing take a mind-bending age to get where they’re going. Edgar Wright, this guy is not.
When Aured gets fancy, he does it with restraint. Gilles’s haunted flashbacks are swoopy and swirly, bathed in thick red light, and he overworks the panning and zooming and push-ins and pull-outs to give us a woozy hallucination feel. In fact every time Aured has something to shoot that isn’t dialogue (murders, sex etc) he allows Director Of Photography Francisco Sanchez to pull out his film-school box of tricks and the camera swoops and twists and swirls to headache inducing effect.
The suspense is minimal, despite the usual effects. No real sense of tension or danger. A couple of nice jump cuts (the chicken chopping scene is a nice shock). Plus good looming shadows and use of darkness to keep you guessing. The gore is nicely handled in close-up for the slasher crowd and blades go in, and blood spurts out juicily for some “woooragh!” moments of murder. Nicole’s boobs are thrust into the camera because the genre suggests it, rather than in any sexy way and this is not a movie to get you going in the pants department if that’s what you’re after.
As I say, the cast are being told to “get on with it,” and they all do a job and earn their standard minimum wage. The sisters in the house play it fairly low key and avoid too much “Baby Jane” shrieking or hamming, given the mad neuroses they’ve been asked to portray.
Maschy is a great turn, which may be more due to the age of the movie than his hulking performance. But I don’t know about you, it’s great to see what I call a “proper bloke” on the screen. The high blocky heels, the Jeremy Clarkson jacket, the tight dress slacks, he’s the type of man we don’t see much anymore. A man’s man. No pecs or abs, just a chunky broad shoulder and some heft. He probably smokes Embassy, he smells a bit of Denim and engine oil. He watches reruns of Minder on UK Gold. For the look, actually, if you can remember our grizzly beast from Night Of The Bloody Apes? Yep, he’s that.
Doc Phillipe is another great 70s man’s man. Rotund, portly, squeezed into a three piece suit. Slip-on shoes and an attaché case, he’s a type normally seen bellowing at goons in bouncy town cars as they squeal around corners in LA Cop shows. Nice work.
But let’s talk music because here…well, I don’t know what Aured was thinking when Juan Carlos Calderon played him his ideas on a flute. It could be the ironic and disjointed juxtaposition that Wes Craven played with in Last House On The Left: deliberately odd and jarring, comic when it should be sinister? But it appears, in all honesty, that Aured approached Calderon with the following brief: “Have you seen British sitcoms? Man About The House? Robin’s Nest? Terry & June? Or have you seen the Confessions movies with Robin Asquith? Can you do that? With a touch of airport travelogue. Y’know lots of jolly sing-a-long flute and bouncy bongos. A little trill on the hi-hat?” I mean, it’s a good theme. I found myself humming it long after the movie had run its course. But it’s never going to put Jerry Goldsmith’s Omen or Herrman’s Psycho at any risk. If the name Ronnie Hazelhurst means ANYTHING to you, then it’s that.
Man, THAT guy could write a theme tune.
Production design places the movie firmly in the 1976 era. Boy oh boy, you can smell the woodchip and Pledge. Everything in the house is over lit, over painted, heavy and either bright orange pine or purple velour. It’s the cinematic equivalent of wearing a too-tight itchy polo-neck for 127 mins.
Nasty?
Well that’s why you’re here right? Well it’s the reason the British Board Of Film Classification came a’ calling during the Video Nasty scare and was seized from stores and distributors under the Obscene Publications Act. But let’s face it, it was for the lurid VHS box art, nothing to do with the contents.
Manuel Gomez’s gore is regular and steady and there are some bland if bloody kills. As I say, knives thankfully go into flesh and the blood is bright and spurty. The scrape and slash of the short rake is particularly nasty and there are cuts and slashes galore as the victim hits the ground in a screaming mess.
Plus of course we have the gratuitous pig-culling scene as the poor porker appears to have a real knife sliced into its real throat and it bleeds messily to death in the arms of the struggling farm hands. A scene cut from the US version.
The eyes in the petri dish are floaty, like poached eggs. Ugly rather than horrible. And straight out of…
What does it remind me of?
Well it’s “Headless Eyes.” Absolutely Kent Bateman’s 1971 “Headless Eyes.” A guy murders young women and steals their eyes. It’s that. Fascinating of course to see the same trope handled so differently as style wise, BEOTBD and HE could not be more different. We are also very much in Marc Lawrence’s 1973 “Pigs” aka “Daddy’s Deadly Darling” territory. The murderer on the run? Finding menial work in a small run down town. Fingers of suspicion? Terrified visions? Hell even the pigs. So there’s plenty of over-lap there if you enjoyed Marc Lawrence’s picture. Naschy’s wood-chopping manly manual labour has a touch of Joe Dallesandro’s Mario from Blood For Dracula (1974). Although without the brooding homoeroticism or heavy-handed politics. We have the “following the trail of spilt blood” scene from Lawrence’s 1974 “AXE.” Plus Wes Craven twice: the disjointed musical comedy score and the eerie children’s singing of his later epic “A Nightmare On Elm Street.” It’s a greatest hits of all this stuff, with somehow both more and also less. A daft Giallo-y treat.
Where can I see it?
Well it took some hunting down this one. YouTube which is normally good for this sort of stuff was no help. There’s a “watchalong” here if you fancy having other people talk all the way through it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jsJZhI3nkY
But I had to follow this tedious link and hit refresh and “block” and “no porn thanks” a hundred times before it would let me play it:
https://www.film1k.com/blue-eyes-of-the-broken-doll-1974.html
Enjoy.
letsgetthebannedbacktogether.uk 