Piero Schivazappa's The Frightened Woman on Blu-ray in January
5 December 2023
Shameless has announced the January Blu-ray release of Pirector Piero Schivazappa's 1969 Italian thriller, The Frightened Woman (Femina ridens, aka The Laughing Woman). This hypnotic exploration of passion and power blurs boundaries delving into gender dynamics, dominance, and submission with a provocative and playful approach. Prepare for an uninhibited journey into eroticism, where nothing is taboo, and everything is possible.
The captivating Dagmar Lassander (Hatchet for the Honeymoon, The House By The Cemetery) shines as Maria, a young journalist working for Dr. Sayer (Philippe Leroy, The Night Porter, Nikita), the head of a philanthropic foundation with peculiar views on humanity's issues.
When Maria is drugged and imprisoned by Dr. Sayer, she is subjected to increasingly sadistic acts by her captor, but she endures the horrors of her ordeal and unravels her boss's twisted beliefs and vulnerabilities. Using her intelligence and cunning, she shifts the power balance between them in a scintillatingly stylish game of cat and mouse.
The director ofThe Frightened Woman, Piero Schivazappa, praised the version released by Shameless, saying, “...this is the version which you should watch,” when Shameless initially reconstructed and released the film, revealing it as he’d originally intended. This is the version which is now presented on Blu-ray – pristinely restored from a 4K scan – finally doing justice to the exuberant 60s pop-art images and set design.
This definitive edition is further enhanced by a unique new interview with the iconic Dagmar Lassander where she relates the groundbreaking and provocative nature of the film.
The Frightened Woman will be released on Blu-ray on 8 January 2023 by Shameless Films at the price on the Shameless website of £19.50.
