Nocturnal Forum

Has anyone else seen this intriguing 5-part television series produced by Oscar Brazzi and starring his more well-reputed brother Rossano Brazzi?

It's a title that has fascinated me for a long time since - not just because it's a collaboration between the Brazzi brothers but also because Renato Polselli worked on the project as a production manager and the title song is sung by none other than Frank Sinatra! And unlike most Italian TV productions from this time it's actually in color, is nicely shot and has good production values - no doubt a result of it being a co-production with Germany and France.

I finally caught up with CORALBA through the (Italian language only) 2-DVD release by Fabbri Editori, who have been specializing in releasing Italian TV serials (so-called sceneggiati) and found it to be well worth seeking out. Rossano Brazzi stars as a wealthy doctor who is happily married to a beautiful, blonde and much younger wife (Valérie Lagrange), and who starts having a hard time when a mysterious blonde woman with big, black sunglasses starts relentlessly blackmailing him with a scandal from his past. In spite of big pay-offs, the mysterious woman refuses to leave the good doctor alone and so he decides to bring a gun when he is to meet her for a pay-off at a deserted house. Once he gets there, though, the doc finds the house seemingly abandoned. But when he goes to check the bathroom, someone slams the door shut behind him and locks him in. With no other way of getting out, the doc shoots the door open and then discovers a blonde woman lying face down on the floor - having apparently been killed by the shots he fired to break open the door. The doc panics and flees the scene but it doesn't take long before the cops come knocking on his door - telling him they've got a dead woman that they think is connected to him. He accompanies them back to the house where there is indeed a dead, blonde woman but it's not the blackmailer - it's the doc's beloved wife! Suddenly, the poor man finds himself the police's number one suspect and is caught in an intricate web of mystery and double-crossings.

While CORALBA is a tad to chatty at times, I have to say that on the whole, it is actually very engaging as it has a good story; attractive locations in Hamburg, Venice and Chamonix; super-funky costumes and decor; and a nice score. The international cast is top-notch too - with great performances by Brazzi as the long-suffering doc, the gorgeous Valérie Lagrange as his highly adored, dead wife, Glauco Mauri (the professor from DEEP RED) as the sympathetic cop on the case and the always wonderful Venantino Venantini as Brazzi's colleague, who soon turns out to be just as shady as he looks!

Most of the Italian sceneggiati are probably never going to see any sort of English-friendly releases as they probably wouldn't hold too much appeal to non-Italian viewers but CORALBA - being a co-production with Germany and France, and featuring a pretty solid international cast - is actually a very strong candidate for an English subtitled DVD. It's definitely worthy of some love!

So, has anyone else seen or even heard of this one? Or some other mystery/crime TV productions from Italy? These works are sadly quite neglected by most Euro-cult fans outside of Italy.


Anyway, here are a few screenshots to wet your appetites!

This looks rather interesting and bizarre Johan, nased on your synopsis and the pictures that you have provided. One of the better (and possibly more polished) Italian TV series from the late 1960's - most of the ones I have seen from the early 70s have that cheap, somewhat homemade quality. Have any other good series come out on this label? I believe they were going to release a sweries which featured Janet Agren (the name escapes me - La contessa or La baronessa di something or another).
I might well check this out, it's also interesting that Polselli did work for TV as well. Also that this was produced by Oscar Brazzi - because so many of the films he produced seem to be almost untraceable despite having interesting casts and the presence of his brother - I am talking about stuff like TRITICCO, etc

You're right, Kit. A lot of the Italian TV productions from this time were cheap-looking due to flat camera technology and poor studio sets full of cardboard panel walls etc. CORALBA looks noticeably nicer because it clearly had a larger budget due to being a co-production with Germany and France, but also because Oscar Brazzi brought in a crew of technicians with extensive background in cinema. Usually, Italian TV productions used a TV crew with no cinema background, so it really makes a huge difference that the director of photography on CORALBA was Luciano Trasatti, who had worked as a DP in films since the early 1950s and who also shot several other Brazzi productions such as PSYCHOUT FOR MURDER (1969), VITA SEGRETA DI UNA DICIOTTENNE (1969) and TRITTICO (1971). I think this is also the reason for Polselli's presence as he had recently worked for the Brazzi brothers in PSYCHOUT FOR MURDER, on which he was the production manager. It's also worth noting that Polselli's frequent collaborator Bruno Vani is credited as a production secretary in CORALBA, and Polselli regular Marcello Bonini Olas has a tiny role. Oscar Brazzi, too, plays a supporting role but because the cast list doesn't include character names, I don't know who he plays. Does anyone happen to have a picture of him??

Not that CORALBA is perfect (I would have preferred the denoument to be less dialogue-heavy and used more flashbacks instead) but on the whole I think it is really good! It was a big success in Italy when it was first broadcast (in black and white as I don't think there was any color TV in Italy at the time) and I think it did well in Germany and France too, but it is rarely talked of today. But this seems to be the rule and not the exception for most of Oscar Brazzi's productions. I agree with Kit - it's really weird that most of Brazzi's films are so hard to find. I, too, have long wanted to see TRITTICO but it doesn't appear to have had a VHS release anywhere in the world, even though Rossano Brazzi and Sylva Koscina were considerable stars.

Fabbri, the label that released CORALBA, have put out a lot of old Italian sceneggiati but their releases always come with that RAI logo which you can see in the screenshots I attached. I don't know the reason for this but it's possible that they have made a deal with RAI that lets them license the titles cheaper if they keep the RAI logo on the prints. That would make sense since I think they put out a new disc almost every week! It's not that obtrusive, though.

However, there's also another company called Elleu that have been specializing in releasing sceneggiati. Their releases are a bit more expensive (and include some of the same titles) but their prints come without the RAI logo. Elleu have the one with Janet Agren - called L'AMARO CASO DELLA BARONESSA DI CARINI, and which also stars Adolfo Celi, Ugo Pagliai and Gisela Hahn. I haven't picked it up but - like CORALBA it is in color - and it looks very interesting and seems to have decent production values.

I have IL SEGNO DEL COMANDO (1971) from Elleu, though, and I strongly recommend that one. It's in black and white, and some of the studio scenes look a little cheap but it features a lot of good-looking Roman location shooting, a good musical score and a has a great mystical atmosphere with some nice gothic images, a bizarre nightmare sequence and an outstanding cast that includes a lot of favorites like Ugo Pagliai, Carla Gravina, Paola Tedesco and, in particular, Rossella Falk.
They also have RITRATTO DI DONNA VELATA (1974) with Daria Nicolodi, which I'm curious about. Check out their website here: http://elleu.com/customer/home.php