Though the frequent references to Dario Argento as "The Italian Hitchcock" can be misleading and often wildly off the mark, the two did share one approach rare among directors: the drive to be a recognizable public personality on TV. Following his auspicious appearance on the horror and thriller scene with his "animal trilogy" of gialli, Argento veered into unexpected territory in 1973 with his tragi-comic period film The Five Days and a move into the macabre TV anthology with Door into Darkness (La porta sul buio), both scored by composer Giorgio Gaslini stepping in after a split with Ennio Morricone. The four-episode series was an obscure footnote outside Italy for a long time until it finally hit English-friendly home video, while Argento would turn up on Italian TV again along with appearing in multiple documentaries about his work as both a director and producer starting with 1985's Dario Argento's World of Horror. Around the time of Opera and Demons 2, Argento became a familiar face of Italy's RAI with a slew of appearances including a wild horror variety show, Giallo, which was never shown outside Italy until its inclusion in a mammoth four-disc Blu-ray series from Severin in 2024, Dario Argento's Deep Cuts. Featuring all of his significant television output in various capacities from these two periods, it's a fascinating and essential treat for Argento fans highlighting work that falls outside the scope of his much more famous and beloved classics.

Disc one is devoted to the first half of Door into Darkness, a series previously released on DVD by Mya Communications and looking better here (relatively speaking -- it was shot cheaply on 16mm) with all but one of its episodes newly scanned from film. Directed by frequent Argento collaborator and Profondo Rosso shop owner Luigi Cozzi, The Neighbor (Il vicino di casa, 58m36s) is a fairly standard tale about a nice, wholesome couple, Stefania (Almost Human's Laura Belli) and Luca (The Cat o' Nine Tails' Aldo Reggiani), who have just moved into an apartment with their newborn baby. Unfortunately, the neighbor upstairs (peplum and spaghetti western staple Mimmo Palmara) has just killed his wife and, in the best Rear Window tradition, is trying to come up with a way of disposing of the body without arousing the suspicion of the new arrivals. The gimmick of confining the story to a single apartment is always a fun one, and this gets the job done with a reasonable amount of suspense on the way to its obligatory sting in the tale ending. As with subsequent episodes, Argento introduces this one with a fun, spooky segment playing up his presence as an unassuming maestro of suspense, setting things up well for what is to come. Next up is the best episode of the series by a long shot, The Tram (Il tram, 54m28s), the only one with direction officially credited to Argento himself. One night on a busy commuter tram, a young woman is murdered in the midst of all the passengers without anyone noticing the homicide or its perpetrator. The case poses a challenge to Inspector Giordani (The Five Days' Enzo Ceruscio), who decides to stage a reenactment with the passengers -- which doesn't seem to help much either until he has an epiphany. Clever and stylish, this lively mystery (expanded from a sequence originally written for Crystal Plumage) boasts a terrific climax, Gaslini's most enthusiastic score, and a slew of familiar character actors from Argento's films to that point including Tom Felleghy, Fulvio Mingozzi, and Corrado Olmi. This is the only one taken from a preexisting tape master as film elements appear to be gone, but it looks okay here and a bit better than the DVD. The Tram comes with a new commentary by this writer and Troy Howarth, so no comments on that but hopefully you'll enjoy it. Also included is the two-part Dario Argento: My Cinema (Il Mio Cinema) (58m23s and 63m32s), a 1999 TV documentary by Cozzi subtitled here for the first time. The bulk of it is newly-shot interview footage with Argento chatting about his artistic influences, his childhood fears, and the highlights of shooting his most iconic films, plus some new bits with names like Claudio Simonetti and a smattering of film clips and excerpts from the Soavi doc. It also covers Argento's 1987 foray into TV, but more on that below, as well as his belated patching up with Morricone.

Disc two starts off with episode three, The Doll (La bambola, 61m41s), directed by Mario Foglietti who basically offers an urban mood piece about an escaped homicidal lunatic on the streets and a guessing game as the cops try to close in before the next murder. That's about it but the main attraction here is seeing another odd cast headlined by Robert Hoffmann (Spasmo) with appearances by favorites like Erika Blanc (The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave) and the always wonderful Umberto Raho (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage). Otherwise this is basically a gritty art piece hinging on the twist ending, which is a nifty little piece of misdirection. Finally Eyewitness (Testimone oculare, 55m44s) was basically directed by Argento who stepped into shoot the whole thing over after original director Roberto Pariante wasn't up to the task. Later Argento's girlfriend for a brief period, Marilù Tolo stars as Roberta, whose drive home at night turns into a nightmare when she comes across a dead woman's body in the road. By the time the cops show up, the corpse has disappeared without a trace -- and now she's struggling at home to remember any vital details while the killer closes in to stop her. It's fairly standard woman-in-peril material elevated by the star's performance and a nice bag of thriller tricks Argento pulls out including a protracted nocturnal home alone climax riffing on his Four Flies on Grey Velvet. This one also features a commentary by Howarth and yours truly. Next on the same disc is 1991's Dario Argento: Master of Horror (87m23s), Luigi Cozzi's shot-on-video doc tribute and basically a continuation of Dario Argento's World of Horror (to which this was even marketed as a sequel in some ares). Previously available as a bonus on the Mya Door into Darkness DVD set, it's a worthwhile snapshot of the maestro at the height of his popularity with interview footage and extensive production footage of Opera, The Church, Two Evil Eyes, The Sect, and more, including a significant focus on special effects (via Sergio Stivaletti) and the creation of music and sound effects. "A Streetcar Named Fear" (19m51s) is a new interview with Argento focusing on this initial experiment in television, attempting to bring the popularity and style of the giallo into viewers' homes. He notes how the positive reception caused some disruption at Fiat after the first episode, which led RAI to slightly trim the other three slightly to tone them down. (What we have now is completely uncut though, as well as fairly potent given the strict nature of TV censorship at the time.) Additionally, he notes how the episodes were filmed in color but intended to be broadcast in black-and-white, still the more common TV format at the time, so try watching them that way if you're curious. Finally, "On the Other Side of the Door" (33m41s) features Cozzi looking back at the project's origins in 1972, the involvement of Argento's producer father Salvatore, the experience of working with RAI at the time, and the assembly of the cast and crew for each episode.

Disc three jumps ahead to 1987 with Night Shift (Turno di notte), an anthology series produced by Argento with episodes directed by Cozzi and Lamberto Bava. Each mini-mystery is short (under 20 minutes) and was designed to be broadcast as part of a larger project engineered with popular TV host Enzo Tortora, Giallo, which also featured Argento as a co-host along with a very enthusiastic Coralina Cataldi Tassoni (Demons 2, Opera, Mother of Tears). The idea of Night Shift is a collection of connected murder mysteries rotating between three taxi drivers -- Red 27 (Body Puzzle's Matteo Gazzolo), Calypso 9 (The Church's Antonella Vitale), and Tango 28 (Franco Cerri) -- who cross paths with various homicidal shenanigans. Sometimes the drivers are directly involved and play detective, while in others they simply brush by in one way or another; one common denominator is the sighting of a glowing "ghost cab" that cruises the streets at night and which plays a pivotal role in the completely spacey last episode that plays like a dry run for Cozzi's The Black Cat. The guest stars here are a real treat for horror fans of the era, with David Brandon turning up for a fashion-themed mystery in the first one and both Daria Nicolodi and a very young Asia Argento in a family-oriented circus one aired for the holidays. Image quality is fine considering these are from broadcast masters and were created in SD, with English subtitles for the first time. For the record, the episodes include "È di moda la morte (Death in Fashion)" (14m29s), "Heavy Metal" (15m15s), "Buona fine e miglior principio (A Good Ending and a Better Beginning)" (13m55s), "Giubetto rosso (Red Jacket)" (15m33s), "Il bambino rapito (The Kidnapped Child)" (16m34s), "Babbo Natale (Santa Claus)" (17m54s), "L'impronta dell'assassino (The Killer's Fingerprint)" (15m46s), "Ciak si muore (Lights, Camera, Death)" (14m27s), "Sposarsi è un po' morire (Getting Married is a Bit Like Dying)" (15m36s), "Delitto in rock (Murder Rock)" (18m33s), "L'evasa (The Fugitive)" (18m17s), "La casa dello Stradivari (The House of the Stradivari)" (16m19s), "Giallo Natale (Christmas Giallo)" (18m44s), "Via delle Streghe (Witches Road)" (15m), and "Il taxi fantasma (The Ghost Cab)" (17m14s). In "TV Nightmares" (9m31s), Argento looks back specifically at Tortora (including his bizarre temporary fall from grace just before Giallo) and some highlights from his hosting duties, as well as his tentative plans to do a new show. In "Giallo on the TV" (18m51s), Cozzi goes into more detail about the broadcasts on RAI 2, the quick turnaround time, and the participation of Tortera, with this marking a comeback for him and unfortunately marking one of his last projects before his death soon after. Lamberto Bava turns up next for "Taxi Drivers" (10m56s) explaining how he approached TV assignments despite not being much of a viewer himself, as well as his working relationship with Argento and his thoughts on the cast and the one story he remembers. In "Big Giallo Taxi" (12m7s), prolific screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti puts the show in context with his multiple collaborations with Argento and his role in coming up with stories, characters, and dialogue for these little small screen gialli. Finally in "Calypso 9" (6m43s), Vitale recalls taking on this recurring role just after Opera and her warm reaction to playing a resourceful student working part-time to cover her tuition.

Disc four focuses on the other Argento component of the Giallo series, Dario Argento's Nightmares (Gli Incubi di Dario Argento), a series of bite-sized horror shorts he directed himself. Each one runs 3-4 minutes, complete with intros and audience reactions, and the gore level is a lot higher than you'd expect for Italian TV including some splashy disembowelments, beheadings, and so on. There isn't much here in the way of plot, but they're gruesome blackout sketches featuring lots of familiar music (especially Simon Boswell's for Phenomena, which gets quite a workout). Episodes include "La finestra sul cortile (Rear Window)" (4m7s), "Riti notturni (Nocturnal Rites)" (3m23s), "Il verme (The Worm)" (3m30s), "Amare e morire (To Love and To Die)" (4m14s), "Nostalgia Punk (Punk Nostalgia)" (2m58s), "La strega (The Witch)" (3m3s), "Addormentarsi (Fall Asleep)" (2m26s), "Sammy" (4m56s), and the amusing "L'incubo di chi voleva interpretare l'incubo di Dario Argento (The Nightmare of the Person who Wanted to Star in Dario Argento's Nightmare)" (6m49s) in which a lucky young viewer gets to star in his own segment. Then the one special feature here is an 85m10s "Giallo Argento" reel of the show's other special segments from various episodes with Argento and Tassoni along with Anthony Perkins, an awkward remote chat with Pink Floyd, Cozzi going on a Loch Ness monster hunt, Mirella D'Angelo, Lara Wendel, Fiore Argento, Lamberto Bava, Antonela Vitale, and Stefano Di Sando, among others. If only U.S. television was this much fun.

Reviewed on August 26, 2024