Note: Renato Polselli and Mickey Hargitay died shortly after this review was penned in 2006.

Delirium’s Deranged Debauchery

Delirium (1972), Renato Polselli's sleazy giallo classic, was released in Italy as Delirio Caldo (which translates as “Hot Delirium”). With its demented plot, explicit sexual content and atmosphere of operatic hysteria, Polselli's film is one of the most over-the-top giallos ever made.

Giallo is the Italian word for yellow, referring to the color of the dust jackets of mystery novels published in Italy in the 1950s and 1960s. The word giallo was later applied to a cinematic subgenre of the thriller that is replete with killers adorned in fetishistic attire such as black leather gloves and slouching hats, their faces concealed until the denouement; contrived plots with many detours, red herrings and spectacular murders; tainted investigators suspected by the police; glamorous locations and exotic statuesque women who are often disrobed while being killed.

Delirium is a daring and perverted mystery, but is it really a horror film? You won’t find a crypt, a lurching monster or a haunted house anywhere in sight, although you will find a suburban dungeon.

Polselli is not a very well known director. He helmed The Vampire of the Opera, The Reincarnation of Isabel and The Truth According to Satan before moving on to hardcore sex films with titles like Revelations of a Psychiatrist on the Perverse World of Sex. Although he stopped directing pictures in 1984, Polselli is still around, interviewed for the Anchor Bay DVD extra The Theorem of Delirium. He is such a visual stylist and seems such a canny and perceptive man that one wishes he’d enjoyed a more successful career as a director.

Dr. Herbert Lyutak (Mickey Hargitay, best known to horror fans for The Bloody Pit of Horror and Lady Frankenstein) is a criminal psychologist who works alongside the police. He's also a psychopathic murderer – an impotent serial killer who takes out his sexual frustrations by beating up and killing comely young women. The film opens with a scene in a bar where Lyutak espies a sexy teenage girl as she puts coins in a jukebox. He overhears her talking on the phone, and offers her a lift to the nightclub she mentioned in her not-so-private conversation. In the car, Lyutak begins to act strangely, staring at the girl’s legs and eventually fondling them. Not surprisingly, she becomes worried and wants to get away from this middle-aged creep. Lyutak stops the car in a remote spot and the girl flees. She stumbles across a river, slips and fall into the shallow water. Lyutak catches up to the girl and overpowers her. In a very protracted murder scene at a waterfall, Lyutak tears off the girl’s clothes while strangling her. Then he clubs her repeatedly, leaving no visible head wounds, although blood spatters over the girl’s arm. It is at this point that we realize how truly depraved Delirium is, as the girl appears sexually aroused while being attacked! There is quite a lot of full-frontal female nudity in this picture as well – unusually graphic footage, even for the early seventies. What is quite obvious is that these lovingly lensed scenes of sexual violence against attractive women are meant to sexually arouse the viewer! No wonder Polselli had so many running battles with the Italian film censors and the Catholic church, which at one point threatened to excommunicate him.

Lyutak's much younger wife Marcia is played by the luscious Rita Calderoni, best known for The Reincarnation of Isabel and Nude for Satan. Marcia suspects her husband was responsible for the murder, which we discover was one of a series of brutal attacks on young women. The police confirm Marcia’s suspicions when they arrive to question Lyutak, having been tipped off by the bartender that the victim left with the good doctor.

However, the clueless cops do not suspect Lyutak (who is after all their crime-fighting colleague). While they question him, another murder is committed. Lyutak identifies a small-time crook (the rugged Tano Cimarosa) as the killer from a line-up of suspects found in the park at the time of the murder. It’s a bit confusing as the crook is always referred to as a parking lot attendant, even though we never see him at his workplace. (In the inferior American version of Delirium, this character is given the name “Joe Lacey.” By the time we see the London Bobbies (English policemen), it hits us that this very Mediterranean story is supposed to be set in Britain! More Euro-madness, like the London full of Germans in What Have They Done to Solange?)

Lyutak connives to set a trap with the police, as he believes he can predict the time and place of the next murder. (He must be profiling himself!) A policewoman is to be the bait, but a prostitute in the area is killed instead, and the murderer escapes. Can the stupid cops (who have long sideburns, dress like pimps and work in a very strange “police station”) unravel the mystery of the murders before more victims are found? Not bloody likely, as they obstinately refuse to consider Lyutak a suspect even when all the evidence points in his direction. Will Lyutak be unmasked as he helps out with the investigation (in a plot twist that reminds one of crime reporter Ray Milland hunting for himself in The Big Clock)? Who is the second killer?

This is a particularly convoluted giallo that sweeps the viewer along while making no sense. What sets Delirium apart from the plethora of gialli released in Italy in the early 70's are the surprisingly good acting turns from Hargitay and Calderoni, whose wild-eyed performances are strangely suited to the feverish ambience of the film. Hargitay drips menace and registers a sweaty self-disgust at his own sexual pathology. Despite his homicidal proclivities, Lyutak is tortured by the fear that he may lose control and kill his lovely wife, to whom he is completely devoted, perhaps as compensation for his unexplained inability to make love to her.

Also giving Delirium its special cachet is the excellent cinematography by Ugo Brunelli. The driving electro-synth score by Gianfranco Reverberi is another plus. There is nudity a-plenty, with sustained pornographic scenes of naked lesbians enjoying playful, uninhibited sex in a dungeon-like environment. As Marcia’s longing for a man who cannot satisfy her intensifies, she starts having visions of lesbian orgies, chains and a naked Lyutak laughing dementedly. One assumes that these scenes of Sapphic lust are Marcia’s hallucinations. Later, when the parking lot attendant breaks into the Lyutaks’ home, he enters through a secret passageway that leads into a… dungeon, filled with medieval torture instruments and chains hanging from the walls! This means that the erotic moments between Marcia and two very buxom women (her niece and her servant) were not fantasies at all, but memories! This casually revealed twist gives you some idea of the many dimensions of weirdness in Delirium.

I prefer not to discuss at any great length the American release cut of the film, with its silly Vietnam War framing device. This cut is a mutilation of Polselli’s sleazy masterpiece. In the much shorter U.S. version, Lyutak is injured on the battlefield and airlifted from the jungle by helicopter. The medic is played by Calderoni, who appears in clumsy, poorly lit inserts. Other Vietnam flashbacks were added, along with a tacky alternative ending. (Yes, it was all the dream of a dying G.I.!) As well, two extra murders alter Lyutak’s character considerably, making him far less sympathetic.

The Anchor Bay DVD release of Delirium features the U.S. and European releases, though the murky and truncated U.S. cut is almost unwatchable after one views the pristine print of the original Italian version.

I recommend the fascinating 2004 featurette in which Polselli and Hargitay discuss the film's production. Hargitay wonders whatever happened to Calderoni, saying he would look for her in Italian films for years after their collaboration. (She stopped acting in films in 1983, when she was only 32.) The far superior European version of Delirium is presented in Italian, with optional English subtitles.

Sadly Tano Cimarosa died suddenly on Friday night in Messina,Siciliy.
Link
Death of Tano Cimarosa

Look out for a big Italian language interview with Calderoni in the next issue of Cine 70,issue #11 due out in the next couple of weeks.

Very sad to hear of the passing of Tano Cimarosa, Stephen. Thanks for breaking this news piece for us!

Great review, Harv!

Yeah it's a real shame,i think his last public appearence was at a 2 day festival of Polselli films in Rome a few months back where he did a Q & A session about working with Renato.

Seconded on that review as well Harv.

Tano was a great character actor. I also enjoyed his work as a director - DEATH HUNT is ultra-trashy and fun!

It's sad to note that several of Polselli's collaborators are no longer with us. I wonder if Mirella Rossi and Katia Cardinali are still around...