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Starring: William Berger,  Ira von Fürstenberg,  Edwige Fenech,  Howard Ross,  Helena Ronee, 
Directed By: Mario Bava, 
Rated: Unrated
Release Date: 1969
Studio: Image Entertainment
Format: Color,  DVD-Video,  Subtitled,  Widescreen,  NTSC, 

Editorial Reviews and DVD Information about 5 Dolls For an August Moon

Description
George Stark, a wealthy industrialist and playboy, gathers a group of bourgeois friends at his isolated island beach house for the weekend. His guest of honor is Gerry Farrell, a brilliant chemist who has discovered a remarkable new formula. Farrell doesn't care to discuss business, but the businessmen in attendance are determined to talk money--in the millions. Each of them angers the others with secrets bids and back alley deals, spawning an atmosphere of distrust, exacerbated by the sexual intrigue in the air between the men and their various wives and mistresses. Suspicions begin to rise when the guests begin to turn up dead, one by one! Mario Bava strikes again--and again, and again--in this stylish and wicked whodunit, never before released in America!

Customer Reviews for 5 Dolls For an August Moon

.....and then there was Bava
While this film has it's moments, and probably should be viewed by all Bava enthusiasts, I wouldn't recommend this as your Bava intro if you're a newcomer. It's got alot of the Bava trademarks and such, but most reviewers are correct when they say this is one of Bava's lesser films. Of course a lesser Bava film is infinitely better than a "good" Michael bay film anyday. This movie plays out like Bava's version of Clue. It's a bunch of folks holed up in a snazzy house on an island. One of these guests has developed a very important formula for industrial purposes(it's never clearly explained just what it is). A trio of high falootin rich guys are persistent in trying to get the inventor to sell it to them. He don't wanna sell! He wants to do it for the benefit of humanity and not personal profit. How noble. Soon, the guests start dropping off like flies and the question is, who's doing it? Is it because of this formula? Marital infidelity? Detroit? Is the professor as noble as he seems? Ya know, honestly you really don't care all that much. While the movie's never exactly boring, it's never that interesting either. Only a handful of characters stand out, and unless you've seen it many times, alot of the female characters seem interchangeable, and it's sometimes difficult to determine who was who and what their part in the whole thing was. On the positive side, it's got some groovy music, some succulent women and of course, those Bava visuals. Hardcore bava fans-see it for sure, everyone else-optional.5 Dolls For an August Moon

Not very interesting.
This early giallo from Italian master Mario Bava concerns a party of rich sophisticates who are gathered on holiday at a luxury island home. One of them is a scientist who has invented some highly useful scientific thing that could earn him a fortune. It turns out that the other men in the group want to offer this character large sums of money to cut them in on the discovery, but the scientist refuses, and soon afterwards the guests start turning up as corpses. With large money sums at stake and nobody trusting anyone, the holiday becomes a cat and mouse game as all the guests try and stay one step ahead of the murderer among them.

What we have here is really quite a mundane thriller in which we watch 8 or so unlikeable people argue and fight with each other, while trying to avoid becoming the next corpse, in the style of the old "Ten Little Indians" chestnut. As is the norm for an Italian thriller from this era (1970), the women are all impossibly gorgeous and the men are all kind of ugly and brutish, plus there's also a lot of great 1970's detail (I loved the revolving bed which really enlivened a couple of scenes!). Much screen time is allotted to filming the female cast members in various glamorous outfits and locations, and it has to be said that this pays off with some very lovely women filling the screen, including cult favourite Edwige Fenech. However, apart from the beautiful actresses and a certain amount of expectation youi may have for finding out who the killer is, there isn't really a lot else worth watching this for. The pace of the film seems devoid of any tension or excitment. The plot twists are more confusing than entertaining (you'll know what I mean when you reach the part where all the cast pass out on the sofa, then disappear, and then reappear again!), and you won't find any of the characters likeable or interesting enough to care whether they make it to the end alive or dead.

As a giallo or thriller, the film fails to engage. The murders are all off screen and only a freezer full of corpses provides any sense of chills. As a Bava film, it has to be considered a poor effort, but due to his considerable talents, this still means it's a better film than a lot of others out there. Still, after my introduction to Bava was via such masterpieces as "Blood and Black Lace", "Lisa and the Devil" and "A Bay of Blood", I was expecting something a bit more interesting than this. I would only recommend this if you have to see everything that this director has produced. Otherwise, stick with his other, more successful releases5 Dolls For an August Moon

Superior Mario Bava black comedy
Ruthless businessmen compete for a professor's new formula on a remote island. Then, the bodies start piling up (literally). High-powered businessmen, beautiful women wearing 60s fashions, and 60s lounge music on the soundtrack all add up to an enjoyable black comedy in the Bava style. Just when you think you have it all figured out, something unexpected happens. Highly recommended - one of my favorite Bavas.5 Dolls For an August Moon

I loved this movie... if even for the soundtrack.
More like 5 hits of LSD for the best use of zooming and camera lenses in the history of talkies...
It's experimental nature coupled with a Who-Killed-Mr.-Body-esque feel and the unparalleled music accompanying the action make this movie an irkingly riviting and undeniably awesome. If you like good things, you'll like this flim.5 Dolls For an August Moon

I love this bad little movie that has a lot going for it.
The plot (such as it is) is lifted from Agatha Christie - which hardly matters as much as the fact that it has a great, utterly whack euro-lounge score by Piero (Muh-nah-muh-nah) Umiliani. The characters are all... Oh, who gives a crud? Certainly not the director. Bava just screwed off for this one - but that's a big part of what makes it so irresistible. The crash zooms and zip pans are all over the place. The avoidance of onscreen bloodshed is somehow more perverse than the gory set pieces he arranged in other films. What we get are some imaginative murder tableaux and the occasional wild visual that seems to have been thought up on the spot. (Watch out for rolling glass balls! Why, you ask? Ha ha ha ha - foolish earthling...) Edwige Fenech does a wild go-go dance just before becoming a virgin (hah!) sacrifice for her rich bored friends - and that's just the beginning. The costumes and interiors will make your eyes water. The lush exteriors will make your mouth water. For a slipshod labor of hate this is one bouncy and colorful picture. Just don't expect it to make a lot of sense or engage you on anything more than a purely sensory level. While Bava reviled this picture, I hear it isn't anywhere near as bad as "Doctor Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs."

This is actually one of the better Image releases of a Bava picture, offering English, Italian and an M&E audio track, with English subs. The picture isn't perfect, but it's quite luscious and more than acceptable - and the menus are pretty nice featuring complete cues from the score (now available on CD - whoopee!) taken from an LP. HOWEVER (!!!), the cool "5 Dolls" trailer, which has some AWESOME music that is not from this score, is not included here or on any other Bava DVD.

For casual viewing, this is pretty tasty. My heart wants to give this five stars, but my brain is looking at four and saying, "Aw, come ON!"
5 Dolls For an August Moon