dwatts
05-26-2003, 03:06 AM
What Have They Done to Your Daughters?
Gaillo films are either to your liking or not. Personally, I find them very entertaining. This film is a companion piece to What Have They Done to Solange. There is no connection other than the general theme, and the same Director for both.
Story:
The body of a young girl is found hanging in a loft apartment. Apparently a suicide victim, the police note that she is very young (15 years old) and naked. Although it’s a suicide a detective makes some minor enquiries into what might have caused her to kill herself.
During these investigations, a new female district attorney gets involved (some failed sexual chemistry is attempted here). While watching the film of a political demonstration, she see’s a shot of the girl entering another building (not the one where she was found). The timing means that she is seen going into the other building just moments before she died. Hence, the body must have been moved! This sets off a murder enquiry.
While looking over the room where the body was found, the detective, Silvestri, see’s a peeping tom taking pictures from the next building. Arresting the peeping tom, he gets his first clue. When he exposes his film he finds shots of this young girl in the loft apartment, making love with a young man.
In the meantime the autopsy results come in. It turns out the girl had had sex just before she died. It is time to search for the boy in the pictures! It turns out he is a spelunker. A spelunker is someone who climbs down into the ground to find caves etc – and he’s been done there for four days! Obviously, he is not the killer.
Meanwhile the girl is identified, this leads to her parents. Her mother admits that she found out her daughter was on birth control pills. She had sent the girl to a psychiatrist to get help, and was having her followed by a private detective. A visit to the doctor yields a dead end, although the doctor explains that he see’s a lot of girls, and many of them share the same problems.
Meanwhile, an anonymous tip off leads the cops to the apartment where the murders took place. The bathroom in the apartment is covered in blood. Since the girl who hung herself had no bleeding, this pointed to a second victim!
The search is on to find the private detective the mother had hired. He is nowhere to be found, until they find his mistress in hospital recovering from a car wreck. Finally they find his car, but sadly, he’s been chopped to bits and dumped in the trunk. The mistress does however, present the cops with a voice tape recording. This leads to the unraveling of the mystery. We become aware of a schoolgirl prostitution ring. But who is running it?
Without giving away too many plot elements or their conclusion, this film has one of the most coherent plots of any gaillo I have seen. By the end of the film all of the loose ends are nicely wrapped up, and all characters are accounted for. There is not a hole in sight - pardon the pun (unusual for such a film).
What Have They Done to Your Daughters excels in sleaze, an item it has in common with its companion film, Solange. The sleaze is high because both plots revolve around school girls. You can get an idea by my transcribing some of the dialog from the film:
This from the scene on the apparent suicide:
“Look, she was wearing nylon panties.”
This from the scene where the autopsy results are made known:
“She had had extensive sexual activities. No prophylactic was used. She had semen in her vagina, anus, and stomach. And she was pregnant.”
“She was pregnant!”
We are told at least half a dozen times that she is only 15 years old.
From the voice tape recording:
“Lay down face down on the bed, put a cushion under your stomach.”
“Ah! What’s that?”
“That thing you’re so afraid of is going to give you a lot of pleasure.”
“But!”
“Shut up and open your legs!”
We are treated to a long voice sequence where a girl undresses, first a tunic, then her blouse, skirt and panties.
From a statement at the end of the film:
“You said he was impotent.”
“Yes, he used a bottle.”
And so on. This was done, in my view, simply to add gratuitous sleaze to an otherwise normal film. Mind you, it does not ruin it, and sort of adds a charm that is quite unique to this film and Solange. I don’t want to give the impression that this film is all sleaze, because behind all of that we have an excellent Gaillo.
Image Quality
This Salavation release leaves a lot to be desired. Speckles, some missing frames hurt it a bit. Clarity is poor, although color saturation is good. Other sites have compared it to a VHS release. I disagree, since it is shown here in 2.35:1, and with strong colors. There are artifacts all over the place in some scenes though. I won’t pretend this is in any way pristine, or even of standard DVD quality. It is in dire need of attention and improvement.
Sound
Glorious mono. The sound is a bit fuzzy, and there are pops every now and again. He dubbing is nicely done, but clearly obvious.
Supplemental Material
Ack! The cover lists the following extras: Trailer, Stills Gallery, Posters, Advertising Materials, Video Art.
What we get is the Trailer, Stills, Publicity, and Video art. Where are the advertising materials? I don’t know. Worse, in the stills section you get only five shots. There is only one shot in the publicity section, and only 4 video covers. Under whelming at best.
Final Thoughts
Certainly I have to look at this in two ways. First what of the Salvation release (which claims to be “Remastered from the original negative”, and secondly what of the film itself.
Salavation have nothing to crow about here. Their release is barely adequate. Almost any reissue would be better than this one. The film itself though is exceptional, even with the sleazy bits taken out. It has a solid story, some good performances, and a soundtrack of the likes we only hear in Italian cinema. The film is a real gem.
Image Quality – C-
Sound – C-
Supplements – C
Enjoyment – B!!!
DVD
Salavation Entertainment
Running Time - 1 hour 27 minutes
Black and White
Region 0, PAL
Not Rated
Glorious mono
Gaillo films are either to your liking or not. Personally, I find them very entertaining. This film is a companion piece to What Have They Done to Solange. There is no connection other than the general theme, and the same Director for both.
Story:
The body of a young girl is found hanging in a loft apartment. Apparently a suicide victim, the police note that she is very young (15 years old) and naked. Although it’s a suicide a detective makes some minor enquiries into what might have caused her to kill herself.
During these investigations, a new female district attorney gets involved (some failed sexual chemistry is attempted here). While watching the film of a political demonstration, she see’s a shot of the girl entering another building (not the one where she was found). The timing means that she is seen going into the other building just moments before she died. Hence, the body must have been moved! This sets off a murder enquiry.
While looking over the room where the body was found, the detective, Silvestri, see’s a peeping tom taking pictures from the next building. Arresting the peeping tom, he gets his first clue. When he exposes his film he finds shots of this young girl in the loft apartment, making love with a young man.
In the meantime the autopsy results come in. It turns out the girl had had sex just before she died. It is time to search for the boy in the pictures! It turns out he is a spelunker. A spelunker is someone who climbs down into the ground to find caves etc – and he’s been done there for four days! Obviously, he is not the killer.
Meanwhile the girl is identified, this leads to her parents. Her mother admits that she found out her daughter was on birth control pills. She had sent the girl to a psychiatrist to get help, and was having her followed by a private detective. A visit to the doctor yields a dead end, although the doctor explains that he see’s a lot of girls, and many of them share the same problems.
Meanwhile, an anonymous tip off leads the cops to the apartment where the murders took place. The bathroom in the apartment is covered in blood. Since the girl who hung herself had no bleeding, this pointed to a second victim!
The search is on to find the private detective the mother had hired. He is nowhere to be found, until they find his mistress in hospital recovering from a car wreck. Finally they find his car, but sadly, he’s been chopped to bits and dumped in the trunk. The mistress does however, present the cops with a voice tape recording. This leads to the unraveling of the mystery. We become aware of a schoolgirl prostitution ring. But who is running it?
Without giving away too many plot elements or their conclusion, this film has one of the most coherent plots of any gaillo I have seen. By the end of the film all of the loose ends are nicely wrapped up, and all characters are accounted for. There is not a hole in sight - pardon the pun (unusual for such a film).
What Have They Done to Your Daughters excels in sleaze, an item it has in common with its companion film, Solange. The sleaze is high because both plots revolve around school girls. You can get an idea by my transcribing some of the dialog from the film:
This from the scene on the apparent suicide:
“Look, she was wearing nylon panties.”
This from the scene where the autopsy results are made known:
“She had had extensive sexual activities. No prophylactic was used. She had semen in her vagina, anus, and stomach. And she was pregnant.”
“She was pregnant!”
We are told at least half a dozen times that she is only 15 years old.
From the voice tape recording:
“Lay down face down on the bed, put a cushion under your stomach.”
“Ah! What’s that?”
“That thing you’re so afraid of is going to give you a lot of pleasure.”
“But!”
“Shut up and open your legs!”
We are treated to a long voice sequence where a girl undresses, first a tunic, then her blouse, skirt and panties.
From a statement at the end of the film:
“You said he was impotent.”
“Yes, he used a bottle.”
And so on. This was done, in my view, simply to add gratuitous sleaze to an otherwise normal film. Mind you, it does not ruin it, and sort of adds a charm that is quite unique to this film and Solange. I don’t want to give the impression that this film is all sleaze, because behind all of that we have an excellent Gaillo.
Image Quality
This Salavation release leaves a lot to be desired. Speckles, some missing frames hurt it a bit. Clarity is poor, although color saturation is good. Other sites have compared it to a VHS release. I disagree, since it is shown here in 2.35:1, and with strong colors. There are artifacts all over the place in some scenes though. I won’t pretend this is in any way pristine, or even of standard DVD quality. It is in dire need of attention and improvement.
Sound
Glorious mono. The sound is a bit fuzzy, and there are pops every now and again. He dubbing is nicely done, but clearly obvious.
Supplemental Material
Ack! The cover lists the following extras: Trailer, Stills Gallery, Posters, Advertising Materials, Video Art.
What we get is the Trailer, Stills, Publicity, and Video art. Where are the advertising materials? I don’t know. Worse, in the stills section you get only five shots. There is only one shot in the publicity section, and only 4 video covers. Under whelming at best.
Final Thoughts
Certainly I have to look at this in two ways. First what of the Salvation release (which claims to be “Remastered from the original negative”, and secondly what of the film itself.
Salavation have nothing to crow about here. Their release is barely adequate. Almost any reissue would be better than this one. The film itself though is exceptional, even with the sleazy bits taken out. It has a solid story, some good performances, and a soundtrack of the likes we only hear in Italian cinema. The film is a real gem.
Image Quality – C-
Sound – C-
Supplements – C
Enjoyment – B!!!
DVD
Salavation Entertainment
Running Time - 1 hour 27 minutes
Black and White
Region 0, PAL
Not Rated
Glorious mono