anyone via the telephone? How could a supernatural entity assume corpo- real form to strangle its victims? Why would someone guard themselves against a ghost by placing a knife un- der their pillow? How could Rosy kill Frank when he was already dead? Fur- thermore, by changing the identity of the caller to eliminate the story’s les- bian subtext, the rewrite makes non- sense of certain shots retained in the final cut: Mary’s stalking move behind Rosy as she monologizes her fears, Mary’s mysterious additive to Rosy’s cup of camomile tea, the shot of night turning into day through the transom window (in the Italian version, the equivalent of an averted gaze as Mary takes advantage of Rosy’s drugged body) and, most significantly, the shot of Mary’s black-gloved hand extract- ing a butcher knife from a kitchen drawer and pausing to admire the play of light on the blade as she tilts it left and right. It’s a throwaway shot for Bava, but another seminal moment in the definition of the cinematic giallo. Dario Argento would base his entire career on the reiteration of this single image.
The hopelessly jumbled nature of the rewrite betrays the haste with which it was improvised during pro- duction, and in the context of Black Sabbath (where “The Telephone” is repositioned as the second of the three stories), the episode’s muddled qual- ity causes the middle of the movie to sag badly, despite its prettiness. As originally scored by Roberto
Nicolosi, “Il telefono” defines this composer as better suited for this kind of small combo band music than for classical orchestra. Using a limited jazz ensemble of saxophone, bass, trombone, vibes, and drums, Nicolosi accents the story with suggestively sinful underpinnings, alternatively ro- mantic and menacing, which perfectly support the story’s themes of thwarted love, transgression, and revenge. Once again, AIP hired Les Baxter to replace the Nicolosi score, and his work for “The Telephone” is a par- ticular disappointment. Unlike the Nicolosi score—which is typically spare, allowing Bava to generate