Five Dolls for an August Moon Blu-ray Review – Mario Bava’s 1970 Poor Attempt At Agatha Christie

five dolls for an august moon blu-ray review

It’s time for another of Mario Bava’s Italian giallos. This time I’m looking at his 1970 offering, here’s my Five Dolls for an August Moon blu-ray review. Released by Arrow Video back in 2016 in a dual blu-ray/DVD release it’s time to find out whether it’s worth a look.

  • Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970)
  • Genre: Horror / Giallo
  • Directed by Mario Bava
  • UK Rating 15
  • Discs: 2 (Blu-ray & DVD)
  • Released By Arrow Video
  • Blu-ray Released: 1 February 2016

Plot

Several prominent people including scientist Professor Gerry Farrell are invited to wealthy industrialist George Stark’s Private Island. Soon after the murders begin…

Style / Direction

The film was directed by Mario Bava whilst Antonio Rinaldi took on the director of photography duties. There’s certainly some style to the filmmaking in fact I think Bava spent way too much on the style of the movie rather than making a fully rounded story.

This results in rather poor storytelling and dialogue. Let’s be clear it’s a who dunnit like Agatha Christies ‘And Then There Were None’. However it does most things pretty badly.

Music / Audio Effects

The music is provided by Piero Umiliani.

Acting / Characters

There’s pretty poor performances all-round whether it’s the English or Italian version you watch and listen to.

Cast

  • William Berger as Professor Gerry Farrell
  • Princess Ira von Fürstenberg as Trudy Farrell
  • Edwige Fenech as Marie Chaney
  • Howard Ross as Jack Davidson
  • Helena Ronee as Peggy Davidson
  • Teodoro Corrà as George Stark
  • Justine Gall as Isabel
  • Edith Meloni as Jill Stark
  • Mauro Bosco as Charles (Jacques)
  • Maurice Poli as Nick Chaney

Conclusion: Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970) Film Review

To be honest it’s a really bad attempt at a Agatha Christie who dunnit style story. Personally I found it to be pretty awful. The film moves along quickly but there’s no real panic at the murders, the story is badly told and generally poor. Oh and my biggest criticism has to be that I found it all rather boring.

There are a few nicely put together shots from a filmmaking perspective but it really doesn’t matter as the film is woefully constructed.

five dolls for an august moon blu-ray review

If you’ve enjoyed my Five Dolls for an August Moon blu-ray review so far you may want to check out the following films:


Conclusion: Five Dolls for an August Moon Blu-ray Review

This is an Arrow Video release from 2016 and therefore is not to the standard of their currently releases. It really does require a 2K restoration. It has white marks and vertical lines that appear throughout the film. Overall the image is pretty sharp whilst the colours seem reasonable.

On the extras side Arrow do deliver a lot of content including a documentary hosted by Mark Kermode titled, Mario Bava: Maestro of the Macabre. This is certainly worth a look.

Extras

  • Audio Commentary
  • Mario Bava: Maestro of the Macabre (60 mins)
  • Music & Effects Track
  • Theatrical Trailer

Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970) Blu-ray

Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970) blu-ray is available now from Amazon.

Five Dolls for an August Moon Blu-ray

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Popcorn Cinema Rating:

Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970)

MOVIE RATING: POOR

BLU-RAY PICTURE: AVERAGE

EXTRAS: EXCELLENT


Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970) Film Trailer

For those of you yet to see the film I’ll leave you with a little taster…

Clip NOT be representative of the blu-ray version

That concludes my Five Dolls for an August Moon Much blu-ray review, I’m aiming to review more Mario Bava films soon. What’s next? Check back soon…

What Do You Think?
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Summary: Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970) Blu-ray Review
Five Dolls for an August Moon Blu-ray

Movie title: Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970)

Duration: 71/78 mins

Director(s): Mario Bava

Actor(s): William Berger, Princess Ira von Fürstenberg, Edwige Fenech, Howard Ross, Helena Ronee

Genre: Horror, Giallo

  • Movie Rating
  • Blu-ray Picture Rating
  • Extras
3.3

Summary

A pretty poor Mario Bava giallo that’s still in need of restoration