Suspiria (1977)

Suspiria (1977)
Director: Dario Argento
==Plot Synopsis==
An American newcomer (Jessica Harper) to a prestigious German ballet academy comes to realize that the school is a front for something sinister amid a series of grisly murders.
==Male Deaths==
*Flavio Bucci [Daniel]
*Giuseppe Transocchi [Pavlos]
==Female Deaths==
*Eva Axen [Pat Hingle]
*Susanna Javicoli [Sonia]
*Stefania Casini [Sara]
*Lela Svasta [Helena Markos]
*Joan Bennett [Madame Blanc]
*Alida Valli [Miss Tanner]
==Trivia==
# Director Dario Argento's original idea was that the ballet school would accommodate young girls no older than twelve years. However, the studio and producer Salvatore Argento (his father) denied his request because a film this violent involving children would almost certainly be banned. Dario raised the age limit of the girls to twenty years but did not rewrite the script, hence the naiveté of the characters and the occasionally childlike dialogue. He also put all the doorknobs at about the same height as the actress' heads so they would have to raise their arms in order to open the doors, just like children.
# The woman playing Helena Markos was not credited. According to Jessica Harper, she was a 90-year-old former prostitute who director Dario Argento found on the streets of Rome, Italy.
# Director Dario Argento composed the creepy music with the band Goblin and played it at full blast on set to unnerve the actors and elicit a truly scared performance.
# Director Dario Argento had cinematographer Luciano Tovoli watch Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) to have him model the color scheme of that film for this one.
# For the wide shots of the "maggots" falling from the ceiling, the crew would drop grains of rice down onto the actresses from above.
# According to Jessica Harper, since the film was going to be dubbed after principal photography, sound was rarely recorded during shooting. Harper remarked that it was strange to her to be in the middle of shooting a scene and hearing the background sound of a stagehand hammering away on another set in the studio.
# The Dario Argento biography "Broken Mirrors, Broken Minds" takes its title from the line that Udo Kier says in this film.
# The exterior of the dance academy, though constructed on a studio lot in Rome, is based on the Haus zum Walfisch (Whale House), a landmark late-Gothic building in the old town of Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.
# Director Dario Argento cast Joan Bennett as Madame Blanc because of her association with director Fritz Lang, who Argento greatly admired.
# Rudolf Schündler, the West German actor who played the role of Professor Milius, could not speak any English or Italian, so in the scene where he talks with Jessica Harper(Suzy) about witches, she could not understand him as he was speaking in German. Harper later quoted that she tried very hard to keep a straight face as not to flub her lines and that also, he would lightly tap on one of her legs with his foot just out of frame to cue her to speak when he was done finishing his own lines.
==Gallery==
Evaaxen.jpg|Eva Axen
Susannajavicoli.jpg|Susanna Javicoli
Flavio Bucci.png|Flavio Bucci
Stefaniacasini.jpg|Stefania Casini
==Video==
Eva Axen * Suspiria|Eva Axen and Susanna Javicoli
Category:1977 Films
Category:Films directed by Dario Argento
Category:Italian Films
Category:Supernatural
Category:Horror
Category:Giallo
Category:Films
Category:Films based on published works
Category:Saturn Award Nominees
Category:Cult Classics
Category:Art Films
Category:Dead Meat's Kill Count