was knowing how to relate to the cam- era, how to incorporate light and shadow into his performance. One of his most effective moments is the rev- elation, in his hospital bed, of the theretofore unknown damage to his neck and face—which is put before us at
the precise moment he turns sharply toward Merivale and says the word “face.”
Max’s death was filmed with the
same red/green makeup/lighting technique that Bava had used to age Gianna Maria Canale in I vampiri. As Caltiki’s flesh-eating wattles enfold him, blood gushes from the edge of his mouth as his cheeks and eyes ap- pear to sink in. It’s a very brief glimpse, but more was apparently filmed, judg- ing from a production still that shows Herter in an unused, intermediary pose, wearing more aged makeup and grimacing to accentuate the natural lines in his face and lips. Caltiki also marked Bava’s first ex- perience of working with actress Daniela Rocca, with whom he would work several times on various Galatea productions. Born September 12, 1937, in Catania, Sicily, Rocca started acting in Franco Brusati’s Il padrone sono me . . . and Giuseppe Vari’s Addio sogni di gloria (both 1955), rose to main roles in Robert de Nesle’s French production Marchands de Filles (1957), and played her first peplum role of Naomi in Fernando Cerchio’s Giuditta e Oloferne/Head of a Tyrant (1958). In 1959, she made her first films for Galatea, Caltiki as well as Mario Mattoli’s Non perdiamo la testa, and the affiliation would continue for most of her career. A very glamorous woman, Rocca would give her finest performance as the bovine, mus- tached wife of Marcello Mastroianni in Pietro Germi’s Galatea-produced Divorzio all’ italiana/Divorce Italian Style (1961). In Caltiki, Rocca is badly cast as the dejected Linda, and she responds to the role accordingly, looking appropriately bored and em- barrassed throughout. Her only con- cessions to her character’s heritage are a stereotypical, double-braided hairstyle and stoic attitude, and her prominence in the plot only serves to make her appear more ridiculous
