Razor Fangs, the leather-clad man-eater of the Goose Lord gang, hissed as Edwige, my kangaroo companion from my misadventures in North America, sent a Ferguson toilet crashing down on his head. She did this by maneuvering the potty with her long tail. The seat cracked in two. Razor Fangs collapsed as Edwige giggled as kangaroos do once they’ve felled an opponent. — To be continued. 

This week’s movie is 1975’s Footprints on the Moon from director Luigi Bazzoni. It begins with what looks like one of the Apollo missions abandoning one of their astronauts on the surface of the moon. A Professor Blackman (Klaus Kinski) is informed that the experiment has already started. The whole thing is in black and white and one is reminded of early Doctor Who episodes. The next scene is in color. We see a woman named Alice (Florinda Balkan) waking up in her apartment in modern day Rome.

Alice is upset that she’s overslept as she is a translator and has to turn in a translated report by noon. On the way to work, Alice tells a friend about a strange dream she had about astronauts on the moon. The dream was inspired by a science fiction movie she never finished watching because it disturbed her. When Alice arrives at work, she’s chewed out by a manager for turning in her report two days late. Alice has been missing for three days and she can’t account for the missing time. I think she recollects running out of the science conference because she thought everyone was staring at her.

While she and her maid look for her grey suit, they find a bloodstained yellow dress. Alice has never seen this dress before. Alice receives a postcard from the city of Garma and decides to take a trip there because the hotel pictured on the postcard seems oddly familiar. Alice packs up her things including the yellow dress and it’s off to Garma. She spends some time at that fancy hotel and the whole thing reminds me of those commercials I saw for the Biltmore Estate. 

Alice runs into a little red headed girl named Mary who insists that her name is Nicole. Apparently, Mary met her three days earlier, but Nicole wasn’t as nice as she is now. Oh, and she had long red hair instead of short brown hair. Alice keeps pressing little Mary for clues which leads her to an old, rich lady that likes to knit on the beach. I’m sure something of consequence is revealed during their conversation, but it escapes me as I try to remember.

Alice gets strange phone calls at the hotel, finds more clues like an abandoned red wig, and has a romantic interlude with a handsome man with a transatlantic accent. She also keeps dreaming about the astronauts on the moon. This giallo movie is just plain weird. You get a grisly death at the end, but I can’t say I was any less confused when the movie was over.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, episode 496, episode 545, episode 546, episode 547, episode 548, episode 549, and episode 575) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.