 |
| French poster for Mario Bava's I TRE VOLTI DELLA PAURA (1963), art by Boris Grinsson. |
My ongoing studies of the TV and Movies pages of THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER from 50 years ago brought to my attention that it was 50 years ago, this weekend, that I saw my first Mario Bava film on local television: BLACK SABBATH, aired on SCREAM-IN, WXIX-TV, Channel 19 on June 21, 1969. Though I didn't recognize it as such at the time, it was obviously a turning point in my life - the first of many that would take place in my 13th year.
 |
| US half-sheet. |
 |
| US insert poster. |
Something that has always perplexed me about this film - originally made as I TRE VOLTI DELLA PAURA ("The Three Faces of Fear") - is that, though Boris Karloff is the dominant figure of the film, in which he appears as both host and lead player, he almost never figured in the film's advertising world-wide. This is true for the original Italian release posters, including the set of fotobusta half-sheets generated for the film, in which I believe Karloff is pictured on only one sheet in the set, and even then obliquely. Here in the States, American International Pictures opted to focus on the misleading image of a decapitated horseman galloping along with (one assumes) his own severed head clutched in a free hand, frightening a bevy of voluptuous young women. AIP reserved Karloff's likeness for their insert poster, which focused on the (green) severed head of Karloff's "Wurdalak" character Gorka being lifted by a victorious fist. No such scene occurs in the picture, but there you have it. This image was also adapted to the UK's dayglo quad poster, which deprived the original art of its original impressive complexion.
 |
| Italian manifesto art. |
All this would later change when I TRE VOLTI DELLA PAURA was reissued in Italy - Karloff is pictured as one of three component images on the poster dating from this period, and it's on a reissue fotobusta that we finally see the now-famous image of Gorka riding on horseback with his grandson Ivan in his arms.
 |
| UK dayglo quad poster. |
 |
| Italian reissue fotobusta. |
 |
| Spanish poster art. |
Likewise, there exists a Spanish poster for LAS TRES CARAS DEL MIEDO that pictures Karloff (not to mention a fanged woman who never appears), but it dates from a much-later reissue.
Boris Karloff - then, as now, widely recognized as the King of this particular genre - is unquestionably the dominant figure in BLACK SABBATH, hosting the three-segment anthology in a manner established by his earlier hosting of the popular NBC-TV series THRILLER, not to mention the other portmanteau series THE VEIL, OUT OF THIS WORLD, and COLONEL MARCH OF SCOTLAND YARD. Part of Karloff's exclusion from the film's international advertising can be explained by the fact that he represented the film's co-production arrangement with American International; it was also produced by Galatea of Rome and Lyre of Paris, who preferred to publicize their homegrown stars in the film's advertising.
This consideration is most beautifully expressed in Boris Grinsson's French poster art for LES TROIS VISAGES DE LA PEUR, which shows us the faces of Jacqueline Pierreux and Susy Andersen adorning that of the centrally placed Michèle Mercier, with all three faces encircled by a pair of menacing male hands. The hands might be Gorka's, or those of the threatening caller Frank in the "Telephone" segment, and Grinsson also takes care to incorporate the key source of unease in the film's most celebrated story, "The Drop of Water." As I noted in my book MARIO BAVA ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, it was Bava's intention with this film to document fear as it existed in three different periods of history and it seems to me that the French poster is the only one of the many generated by this film to honor that intention.
(c) 2019 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.
