In between his brilliant crime films We Still Kill the Old Way and the Oscar-winning Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, filmmaker Elio Petri took a surprising detour into horror with a long-gestating project loosely inspired by Oliver Onion's psychological ghost story, "The Beckoning Fair One." He had the good fortune of casting one of Europe's hottest couples at the time, Franco Nero and Vanessa Redgrave, who had starred in 1967's Camelot and would go on to team up again in two consecutive films for Tinto Brass, the sadly obscure Dropout and La vacanza. The result is one of the most experimental and unsettling genre films of its era, mixing avant-garde techniques and a deliberately agitating score by Ennio Morricone and the collective Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza.

As with the Onions story, Petri's film flips the unstable female-centered ghost story concept (a la The Turn of the Screw and The Haunting of Hill House) to center around a neurotic male artist, Leonardo (Nero), first seen in the grip of a bizarre sadomasochistic, capitalist dream involving his art dealer girlfriend, Flavia (Redgrave). He's been creatively blocked for some time due to the rampant social unrest and commercialism around him in the big city, as well as whatever internal issues he's having, so he decides to rent a place out in the countryside to collect himself. The initial property he chooses soon falls by the wayside in favor of a strange, dilapidated villa owned by Attilio (Géret), and Flavia decides she doesn't feel welcome there and leaves Leonardo to his own devices. A string of uncanny occurrences lead him to investigate the villa's past, which involves a young countess named Wanda who was supposedly mowed down by airplane artillery during World War II. Eventually he learns that Attilio was one of her numerous lovers in a scenario with numerous disturbing twists and turns, all of which seem to be having a negative effect on Leonardo's mental stability.

From the opening minutes with the main titles edited into a Stan Brakhage-style assault of film leader and flashes of classical art, it's obvious this won't be your typical Euro horror film. Petri's ongoing dissection of tension between men and women (already given an operatic treatment in The 10th Victim) gets a twist here with the contrast between Leonardo's artistic impotence and Flavia's mercenary need for new product, a situation that only resolves itself in the darkly amusing final sequence. As with many ghost stories, there's deliberate ambiguity about whether anything supernatural is indeed happening at all -- but the film is really much more interesting if you believe there is, especially if (spoilers, maybe) you approach it as outright possession starting with the seance sequence. As was common practice at the time, there was even a tie-in novel released to coincide with the film, offering an additional little spooky flourish at the end. Either way, this is essentially the story of a voiceless, maligned woman who's been long dead whose existence infiltrates the cracked psyche of an artist, something very much at home with Petri's approach at the time. The film also marked the Petri collaboration with cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller (following We Still Kill), paving the way for groundbreaking work to come on titles like A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, Deep Red, Flesh for Frankenstein, and many more Petris. Though this is almost entirely Franco and Redgrave's show (with the latter getting top billing in the U.S.), the supporting cast has a few welcome faces including a young Rita Calderoni as an ill-fated housekeeper, before she became Renato Polselli's crackpot muse in films like Delirium and Black Magic Rites.

Released theatrically by United Artists as part of an ongoing relationship with producer Alberto Grimaldi (which also included The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Burn!, Fellini Satyricon, Last Tango in Paris, and Pasolini's Trilogy of Life), A Quiet Place in the Country didn't really set the box office on fire at the time and fell into obscurity for many years. A fan-subbed version turned up on the gray market on VHS in the late '90s which led to a resurgence of interest in the title, with MGM striking a new print that made the repertory rounds in 2001. Interestingly, that version (now the standard one) is slightly longer than what had been seen before with some extra footage showing the populace shopping and protesting on the streets of Milan. As the film was shot in English, that's also the ideal way to watch this even though the Italian track is worth checking out for some mixing variations. A VHS popped up soon after from MGM sold directly through Amazon (a la the U.S. debut of the uncut version of The Burning), followed by a widescreen DVD-R from MGM in 2011. Scream Factory gave the film its global Blu-ray debut in 2017 (now discontinued) featuring a solid transfer supplied by MGM, albeit with a moderate amount of specks, dirt, and single-frame tears on and off throughout the running time. Both the English and Italian tracks are included (DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono) with optional English translated subtitles), along with a new audio commentary by Troy Howarth who works in lots of info about the source story, Petri's trademarks as a filmmaker, Kuveiller's work, Nero and Redgrave, and connections to other genre films. Also included are the English trailer (which tells you zilch about the film's plot) and a new interview with Nero (32m7s) about his fateful first encounter with Petri in a car in 1966, his ease working with the director, his first dinner with Redgrave at a starry house party, and his approach to playing his character here in English.

In 2024, Radiance Films brought the film to U.K. Blu-ray for the first time with its own special edition. The scan used here is the same, though it's clearly been cleaned up quite a bit with no more flecks and tears on display. Both the English and Italian tracks are here again, this time LPCM 1.0 mono, with English SDH and improved English-translated subtitles. A select-scene commentary by Kat Ellinger (39m42s) can be played in one batch or in separate scenes as she goes over the theme of "the man in existential crisis" running through Petri's work and the film's function as a genre piece. The trailer and Franco Nero interview are ported over here, while Stephen Thrower provides a new analysis (49m24s) about the project's genesis in 1962 intended for Marcello Mastroianni, the visual nods to Antonioni, the definition of the art on display here, and the peculiar role of sexuality in the story. Also included is an interview with make-up artist Pier Antonio Mecacci (13m54s) which weirdly has the subtitles from the Nero interview instead. The limited edition (3,000 units) also comes with a booklet featuring a new essay by Simon Abrams.

RADIANCE Blu-ray

SCREAM FACTORY Blu-ray

Reviewed on September 2, 2024.