Why so much hype?

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Don't Believe the Hype

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Massimo Dallamano returns to his dodgy under-age schoolgirl themed Gialli with this one, which starts off with a bunch of cops led by Mario Adorf finding a corpse of a teenage girl hanging from the rafters of a rented apartment. It soon becomes apparent that the girl wasn't killed at all, was pregnant, and apparently very accommodating with men. Turns out there's this child prostitute ring andaalkght lekgajbkga zhdfJesus Christ! Right in the middle of typing this Jimmy Saville's rotting corpse just burst into the room and attacked me, along with several high ranking Conservative MPs, many seventies television presenters, some Rochdale based restaurant owners and taxi drivers, one Australian entertainer, and an undead Max Clifford. Luckily they thought I was a teenage girl, and now they've all gone off, disappointed, to the nearest high school.Child prostitution rings aren't funny, when you think about it, and therefore this film is a bit on the grim and dreary side, even if it is well made and looks great. I've got to say however that it plays down the sleaze factor and concentrates on the police investigation more, which goes in the film's favour. Slightly.Sulky, good-looking Claudio Cassanelli plays the lead detective, who joins forces the Assistant DA Giovanna Ralli in order to track down the girl's killers, which leads them to another house where the girl was actually killed. Here they also find a room totally splattered with blood, so there's another murder to solve too. Round about this time a mystery man on a motorbike starts chopping up various people, including a couple of cops, but what is he trying to cover up? Apart from his face?It's a good film, but there's not enough poliziotesschi action for folks like me who have just watched Cry of A Prostitute, and not enough mystery for folks like me who have just watched Spasmo. Dallamano does throw in a car chase near the end, and has a couple of good stalking sequences, but by straddling both genres he doesn't quite provide enough extremes of either to make a truly great film.It's alright though. Best thing is that when I went to Rome for the third time, I actually managed to track down Dario Argento's shop, Profondo Rosso. It's not too far from the Vatican, as it turns out, and while I went downstairs to the horror museum, my wife and kids sat outside on the pavement, playing some sort of game. Just as they were doing that a bike dressed exactly like the killer in this film mounted the pavement and almost ran them all over. It was like being in my own Giallo where Italians are trying to kill me and my family for not liking Felinni enough. Isn't that cool? My wife didn't think so.But I did. Don't tell her.

What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974) *** (out of 4)A teenage girl commits suicide and at first the two inspectors (Claudio Cassinelli, Giovanna Ralli) think it's just a random case but soon more bodies begin to appear. After questioning a peeping tom the police learn that there's a group of teenage girls being kidnapped for a prostitution ring and a maniac on a motorcycle willing to kill to keep it a secret.This is the second film in the "schoolgirls in peril" giallo series, which started with WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE? Both that film and this one were directed by Massimo Dallamano but whereas the first went for a good classic mystery, this second film is pure exploitation and offers up plenty of nudity and some graphic death scenes. This film certainly isn't a masterpiece but it's slightly entertaining.The best thing the film has going for it is the direction, which includes one terrific sequence inside a parking garage where one of our inspectors is stalked by the maniac dressed in black. The entire sequence is well-directed and really contains some nice tension. The film also benefits from its rather naughty story-line and there's no question that it has a rather perverted feel for the teenage girls and the prostitution ring.The film also benefits from a nice cast who certainly help keep the picture moving. This includes Ralli as the female investigator as well as a supporting bit by Farley Granger as a victim's father. The cinematography is quite good throughout and we're also given a nice score.WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOUR DAUGHTERS? is a rather sleazy entry in the giallo genre and while the mystery isn't the greatest ever written, there's enough here to make it worth watching.

While the original Italian title – THE POLICE ASKS FOR HELP – clearly pigeonholes this one in the then-popular (and incredibly prolific) poliziottesco genre, the English title under which it is better known around the world – WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOUR DAUGHTERS? – implies a giallo in the same vein as Dallamano’s best-known film, WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO SOLANGE? (1972). In any case, while both elements are effectively present – a hatchet-wielding murderer is the subject of the climactic manhunt – the police procedural themes are more prevalent.The film deals with a teenage suicide which eventually uncovers a child prostitution ring which, as usual, includes not just the petty sleazy oddballs (here personified by Franco Fabrizi) but also high-profile professionals (a celebrated doctor) and high-ranking government officials (a Minister). The cast is surprisingly good for this type of genre effort: Claudio Cassinelli (as the investigating Police Chief), Giovanna Ralli (unusually cast as a female D.A.), Mario Adorf as the policeman who finds the first body and also discovers that his own teenage daughter was once a “victim” of these perverts, the afore-mentioned Fabrizi and Hollywood veteran Farley Granger in a smallish role as the first victim’s father.As usual for Italian genre movies, the music score is an asset and here it is provided by Stelvio Cipriani whose motif, while simple and repetitive, is extremely effective given that it involves children singing gibberish (and thus commenting on the main theme of the movie itself even through its performers). Alarmingly, the end titles claim that every year in Italy, 8000 teenagers run away from home but only a small percentage returns to the fold – the majority are never found!

The lifeless body of an attractive teen girl is found in a dusty attic. She's hung and everything points in the direction of a suicide. Closer investigations, however, points out that the girl has been murdered elsewhere before dragged into the attic. The discovery of the corpse slowly unravels a network of teen-prostitution in which several eminent civilians are involved. This hardens the police investigation while the killer (on a motorcycle and carrying an authentic butcher knife) is still on the loose. `What Have They Done to Our Daughters' is kind of like a sequel to `Solange' (or fully entitled: What have you done to Solange'). The stories don't follow each other but they handle about similar events: young schoolgirls caught in a web of unsettling and sleazy affairs. Both films are above average gialli, with an incredibly high tension-level and killer musical scores. Even though `Solange' upholds the mystery longer and more efficiently, this film contains a little more action. Best example to state this is the extended police car versus motorcycle chase through the beautiful streets of Italy. The budgets, however, are low so don't expect blood-soaked murders like the ones featuring in Dario Argento gialli.