''The Unnaturals'' ( it, Contronatura, german: Schreie in der Nacht) is a gothic horror film directed and written by
Antonio Margheriti
Antonio Margheriti (19 September 1930 – 4 November 2002), also known under the pseudonyms Anthony M. Dawson and Antony Daisies ("daisies" is "margherite" in Italian), was an Italians, Italian filmmaker. Margheriti worked in many different film ...
. It is loosely based on
Dino Buzzati
Dino Buzzati-Traverso (; 14 October 1906 – 28 January 1972) was an Italian novelist, short story writer, painter and poet, as well as a journalist for '' Corriere della Sera''. His worldwide fame is mostly due to his novel ''The Tartar St ...
's short story "Eppure bussano alla porta" from the collection ''
The Seven Messengers
''The Seven Messengers'' () is a collection of short stories written by Dino Buzzati and published as a book in 1942. It contains nineteen short tales, in which the characters often interact with the presence of the fantastic and/or death
...
''. The film is an Italian and West German co-production between Super International Pictures S.l.P, Edo Cinematografica, and CCC Filmkunst GmbH.
Plot
On a stormy night, set in the early 20th century, a group of members of London's high society are traveling home from a social event and their car gets stuck in the mud in the countryside. They seek refuge in a remote country house. There they are received by the mysterious Uriat and his taciturn mother. Uriat explains to the guests that his mother has the powers of a medium and can communicate with the dead. Some of the guests are amused and are persuaded to take part in a seance. But when the old woman begins to tell those present details from their own past, the mood quickly changes. It turns out that everyone present carries a dark secret with them and the group is entangled in a web of mutual deception, affairs (including lesbian affairs) and acts of violence. The hosts are also part of this network, as it finally turns out. As former servants, they were once charged with a double homicide for which those present are responsible, and seek their own justice.
Cast
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Joachim Fuchsberger
Joachim "Blacky" Fuchsberger (pronounced ; 11 March 1927 – 11 September 2014) was a German actor and television host, best known to a wide German-speaking audience as one of the recurring actors in various Edgar Wallace movies (often a Detecti ...
: Ben Taylor
*
Marianne Koch
Marianne Koch (; born 19 August 1931) is a German actress of the 1950s and 1960s, best known for her appearances in Spaghetti Westerns and adventure films of the 1960s. She later worked as a television host and as a physician.
Career
Betwee ...
: Vivian Taylor
*
Helga Anders
Helga Anders (11 January 1948 – 30 March 1986) was an Austrian actress.
She was born Helga Scherz in Innsbruck, to an Austrian father and a German mother, and she grew up in Ruhpolding and Bielefeld after her parents divorced. She made her ...
: Elizabeth
*
Claudio Camaso
Claudio Camaso (born Claudio Volonté; 3 February 1939 – 16 September 1977) was an Italian actor, noted as much for his troubled, violent life as for his performances. He was the younger brother of Gian Maria Volonté.
Early life and career
C ...
: Alfred
*
Luciano Pigozzi
Luciano Pigozzi, also known professionally as Alan Collins (10 January 1927 – 14 June 2008), was an Italian character actor. A long-time staple of Italian genre cinema, Pigozzi was noted for his resemblance to Peter Lorre and appeared in s ...
: Uriat
*
Dominique Boschero
Dominique Boschero (born 27 April 1937) is a French-Italian actress.
Life and career
Born in Paris by Italian parents, Boschero spent her childhood in Frassino, Italy with her grandparents until the age of 15, when she returned to Paris.Mauriz ...
: Margareth
Production
Margheriti stated the shooting title of the film was ''Trance''. ''The Unnaturals'' was aimed at a German market and stars
Joachim Fuchsberger
Joachim "Blacky" Fuchsberger (pronounced ; 11 March 1927 – 11 September 2014) was a German actor and television host, best known to a wide German-speaking audience as one of the recurring actors in various Edgar Wallace movies (often a Detecti ...
and
Marianne Koch
Marianne Koch (; born 19 August 1931) is a German actress of the 1950s and 1960s, best known for her appearances in Spaghetti Westerns and adventure films of the 1960s. She later worked as a television host and as a physician.
Career
Betwee ...
who were very popular actors with German audiences. Margheriti added other Italian actors of his choice including
Luciano Pigozzi
Luciano Pigozzi, also known professionally as Alan Collins (10 January 1927 – 14 June 2008), was an Italian character actor. A long-time staple of Italian genre cinema, Pigozzi was noted for his resemblance to Peter Lorre and appeared in s ...
, a close friend of his.
The film was shot at
Tirrenia Studios which was owned by
Carlo Ponti
Carlo Fortunato Pietro Ponti Sr. (11 December 1912 – 9 January 2007) was an Italian film producer with more than 140 productions to his credit. Along with Dino De Laurentiis, he is credited with reinvigorating and popularizing Italian cinema ...
. Margheriti used sets left over from several other films ranging from costume dramas to Westerns. For the seance scene in the film, cinematographer Riccardo Pallottini was hung upside down from the ceiling with the camera in his hand and slowly let him descend from the ceiling. He would then bend over backwards to raise the camera to the actors' faces.
Release
''The Unnaturals'' was shown in West Germany on May 30, 1969.
It was later released in Italy on September 12, 1969, where it grossed 287 million
Italian lire
The lira (; plural lire) was the currency of Italy between 1861 and 2002. It was first introduced by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1807 at par with the French franc, and was subsequently adopted by the different states that would eventually f ...
.
Reception
In his book ''Italian Horror Film Directors'', Louis Paul dismissed the film as an " uneven but still interesting tale of revenge".
See also
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List of horror films of 1969
A list of horror films released in 1969.
References
Citations
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External links
Horror films of 1969on Internet Movie Database
IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information relate ...
*
List of Italian films of 1969
A list of films produced in Italy in 1969 (see 1969 in film):
References
Footnotes
Sources
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External linksItalian films of 1969at the Internet Movie Database
IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie ...
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List of German films of the 1960s
This is a list of the most notable films produced in Cinema of Germany during the 1960s.
For an alphabetical list of articles on West German films see :West German films. For East German films made during the decade see List of East German f ...
References
Footnotes
Sources
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External links
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1969 films
1969 horror films
1960s Italian-language films
Films based on works by Dino Buzzati
Films directed by Antonio Margheriti
Films scored by Carlo Savina
Italian horror films
West German films
German horror films
Films shot at Tirrenia Studios
Films based on short fiction
1960s Italian films
1960s German films
{{1960s-horror-film-stub