written music so successful as it was in La frusta e il corpo—music of such lyricism, such romanticism, pushed to the extreme.”7
Bava never spoke on the record about his working relationship with Rustichelli, but there is no doubt that “the Italian Hitchcock” had finally found his Bernard Herrmann. After this film, he never looked back, never worked with Roberto Nicolosi again. Bava’s regard for this score was so great that he actually recycled some spe- cific, non-romantic cues in other mov- ies, also scored by Rustichelli, because he felt they were so perfectly evoca- tive of the uncanny moods he wished to create—and continually create. “We used a lot of the music from La frusta e il corpo in two other mov- ies [Sei donne per l’assassino and Operazione paura] we did together,” Rustichelli confirmed. “He actually asked for that music because . . . well, because he was very happy with the music I had written.”8 A snippet of “The Winsor Concerto”
later found its way into the soundtrack of Carlos Aured’s Spanish horror film La Venganza de la Momia/The Mummy’s Revenge (1973), starring Paul Naschy. The entire La frusta e il corpo sound- track was issued on CD by Digitmovies in 2005.
Commentary
La frusta e il corpo differs from the other films Bava had directed up to this point, because it was ap- proached purely as a work-for-hire proposition. The script was com- pleted by the time he signed on, and he did very little to change it, even as the production wore on, though he usually tinkered with scripts to keep himself spontaneous and inter- ested. Bava’s own name does not ap- pear in the credits and yet, despite its seeming impersonality, La frusta e il corpo stands out as an unusu- ally passionate and heart-felt state- ment by its director, who was per- haps emboldened by his anonymity to put aside his usual defenses of humor and irony and wear his heart on his sleeve.
THIS STUNNING portrait shot of Daliah Lavi provided the basis for the film’s Italian poster art.