Dacosta Carayan (Kostas Karagiannis), director of both of the films featured in this post, was a very prolific director through the golden age of exploitation cinema. While he didn't always work in genre cinema, according to Mondo Macabro's excellent biography, he seemed to have a knack for it, and Tango of Perversion is a unrelentingly entertaining film that the world is better for having.
The Tango club is the favorite hangout for a group of swingers who live for nothing but pleasure. Rosita, a beautiful lesbian, seduces Joanna by giving her dope. Stathis, Joanna's sleazy boyfriend catches the two women in bed together and takes his brutal revenge on them, ending in Rosita’s death. All this happens in the house of Joachim, a rich playboy who gets his kicks by secretly filming Stathis having sex with girls from the Tango club. Joachim believes he is impotent, until he makes love to Rosita's dead body. After that, things start to get weird...Sex, drugs, necrophilia, voyeurism and a dose of Greek psychedelia, this film has it all. One of the legendary exploitation films of the early 1970s now makes its US home video debut in a brand new print, complete and uncut.
With such an amazing synopsis, it's hard to believe that the film lives up to the description, but Tango of Perversion does just that. With wonderfully over the top performances from each of its leads, the film presents us with a beautiful, greasy look at a world of exploitation that I never knew existed. Sure, one assumes that every country has its own film industry, but most distributors focus on the more well known regions when it comes to selecting their products. Greece has never been on the map for me, but with director Karagiannis's affinity for European genre cinema, the film takes on a distinctly Italian feel, and it's a wonderful combination.
Star Larry Daniels (Lakis Komninos) is a mustachioed terror in polyester who likes his women kept in check. His buddy Joachim (played by Vagelis Voulgaridis in what is either an awful wig or the worst haircut ever) is the rich voyueristic sleazeball who allows the playboy to use his pad to host his wild sexcapades. When sex, drugs, unwillingly lesbians, voyeurs, and necrophiliacs meet, the results are unavoidably stellar as Tango of Perversion lays out a complex web of betrayal that will leave you giggling in your seat.
Tango of Perversion is not a particularly well-written or well-shot film, in fact it's pretty workmanlike. No fancy camera work, no standout performances, nothing spectacular of note at all. However, the combination of the banal elements with the outlandish plot makes for a lot of kitschy fun. If polyester suits, big '70s hair, beards and mustashioes for days, and goofily misogynistic psychedelic rock excite you as much as they do me, you'll just fine here. Definitely a recommendation.
The Disc:
Mondo Macabro's DVD of Tango of Perversion starts off with a warning about the quality of transfer being at the mercy of the existing materials. However, there's nothing to apologize here. While this isn't the glowing transfer of something like Grindhouse's An American Hippie in Israel, or even Mondo Macabro's own Countess Perverse, it's a perfectly satisfactory 4:3 presentation of a film that hasn't looked anywhere near this good before.
In terms of extras, Mondo Macabro has provided several enlightening features on this disc. The best of the lot is a 25 minute documentary that appears on both discs called Sunshine and Shadows in which Greek cinema expert Akis Kapranos takes us through 30 years of Greek cinema, including this wave of exploitation films. They've packed a lot into this featurette and I found it very engaging. The remainder of the film specific features are text based writings and interviews with cast and crew as well as bios to go along with them. Mondo Macabro are one of the last distribution companies holding on to the practice of putting text based extras on their discs, and I'd much rather them include this material in a booklet or insert in the disc. However, I can see that presenting a cost issue with films are obscure as this. Still, I'm glad the information is there, even if flipping through the screens can get tedious.
Tango of Perversion is a very fun, entertaining, and strange film from a cinema scene I know nothing about, and that's enough to recommend this disc highly.
Kostas Karagiuannis also directed the other film in this Grexploitation twofer, The Wife Killer, and it makes for an interesting companion piece to Tango of Perversion. The Wife Killer, as Mondo Macabro states, much more clearly aligned with the Italian "giallo" trend of the mid '70s than Tango was, however, this may prove to be the deciding factor in why it is less engaging overall. Here's what Mondo Macabro has to say:
Penniless playboy Captain Jim is in hock to his rich older wife, Helen. She has even bought him the fancy yacht that now bears his name. But Jim does not want to be Helen’s toy boy any more. He wants to marry his lover, Laura. He pays a psychopathic killer of women to murder Helen so that he will inherit his wife’s millions. But the psycho killer has his own plans. Suspecting Jim will double cross him, he engineers a complex scheme that will give him the upper hand.Very much in the style of the violent and baroque “Giallo” thrillers from 1970s Italy, The Wife Killer is a twisted, shocking and brutal exploration of the devious male psyche. Previously only released to cinemas in a cut version, this is the first official DVD release of the film in the U.S., complete and uncensored.
The Wife Killer (1976) feels very Italian in its construction, with the exception of the same kind of pedestrian cinematography that hampered Tango of Perversion. The film, again, feels very workmanlike, however, there are some bright spots, not least of which is the reappearance of Lakis Komninos as "Jim", the penniless playboy. Komninos feels like an Italian film star with his looks and general machismo demeanor, and his performance is work the trouble of seeking this film out. However, of the pair, The Wife Killer is definitely the lesser partner.
What The Wife Killer lacks that makes Tango of Perversion so entertaining, is the crazy premise and kitchen sink exploitation attitude that elevates it to must-see material. The Wife Killer, while certainly more plausible and arguably more violent, is also a far more conventional narrative which means that it would really require exceptional execution to bring up to the level of entertainment that Tango of Perversion manages simply by virtue of its insanity. The comparison is only necessary though, because the films are being released together, if they weren't so closely linked by this collection, they'd each be recommendable on their own merits.
While definitely enjoyable for the fan of '70s exploitation deep cuts, The Wife Killer will probably not deliver for casual fans. I liked it, but if you're shopping on a budget, Tango of Perversion is definitely the way to go.
The Disc:
I could easily copy and paste the entire evaluation from Tango of Perversion in this spot, but I assume you already read that. Just know that my comments for The Wife Killer are identical.