May 14, 2026 · 1 hr 14 min · 20 segments
Ciao Secret Handshake listeners! Marten's Italian genre cinema education continues with a crash course in gialli, courtesy of the undersung maestro of the genre, Sergio Martino. It's an episode filled…
... murder mysteries, and it really comes from being rooted in a literary tradition.
Um, you know, because you have the original novels that are published by, you know, Montadori in the '60s when they became super popular.
I mean, and you even go back to even, like, the earliest Italian, uh, murder mysteries that were written, and they were in, like, the late '20s to mid-'30s.
... to, like, hold up the Italians as, like, this great, strong country of men, you know? And as a result, as the censors kind of loosened and loosened, um, you know, and d- and these books became popular in the '60s, you know, they were allowed to explore some more taboo sex and violence right up until when you get to the screen versions of them, which start with Mario Bava and, you know, The, The Girl Who Knew Too Much.
Those are, like, the, the, the ground zero for what we know as, like, Italian gialli cinema.
... murder mysteries, and it really comes from being rooted in a literary tradition.
Um, you know, because you have the original novels that are published by, you know, Montadori in the '60s when they became super popular.
I mean, and you even go back to even, like, the earliest Italian, uh, murder mysteries that were written, and they were in, like, the late '20s to mid-'30s.
... to, like, hold up the Italians as, like, this great, strong country of men, you know? And as a result, as the censors kind of loosened and loosened, um, you know, and d- and these books became popular in the '60s, you know, they were allowed to explore some more taboo sex and violence right up until when you get to the screen versions of them, which start with Mario Bava and, you know, The, The Girl Who Knew Too Much.
Those are, like, the, the, the ground zero for what we know as, like, Italian gialli cinema.
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