To Kill in Silence (Extremely Rare film from 1972)

Yes, I've seen that site during my search. It looks like the quote is by Ottavia, the lead actress.

As far as Uccidere in Silencio's reputation goes...it seems the consensus is mixed to negative. Besides the dismissive reviews I linked in my first post, I also came across this review from a French book which calls it "execrable." And yet, there were a few positive reactions to balance out the average on this other site I recently discovered in my search. Basically, the consensus of the negative reviews is that Uccidere is an anti-abortion screed thinly veiled with manipulative melodrama. There are frequent cuts to the omniscient (and unacknowledged by anyone) unborn child-to-be. For the first two thirds of the film these are mostly cute and harmless, but towards the end they start getting obnoxious. The baby makes sad puppy dog eyes after his mom considers abortion and at the very end, the film dissolves to the image of the baby clapping and cheering as his mom decides to carry the pregnancy to term. It truly is one of the most bizarre and distasteful endings I've ever seen, both for the ham-fisted message and how hideous the shot looks.

As far as my own review of Uccidere, not to self-promote too hard but I wrote my thoughts down in my blog. Basically, I found it to be an average film. There's nothing in it I would consider masterful beyond the score, though the cinematography and acting are often well-done too. I particularly enjoyed several sequences, like the opening credits, the young couple's "love montage" and when they have a heavy conversation about the decision they're about to make in a nightclub. There's a lot of genuine feeling in the movie and some thoughtful pieces of craftsmanship, like the unborn child standing at a roadside intersection to represent the choice our protagonists face. I don't think there are any issues with Giuseppe's direction, but there are a few with the script.

A lot of the second and third acts are just the young woman moping around, looking sad or angry at the world. Ottavia portrays it well, but after awhile it gets to feel pretty tedious. That said, the only part I found vehemently disagreeable was the ending, and not because it was anti-abortion so much as the fact that it was abrupt and poorly done. My opinion was that, for much of the film the story is pro-choice, just in the case of a woman who happens to choose motherhood. The protagonist makes up her own mind to keep the child, isn't swayed by her mom or boyfriend expressing their disapproval, and even the abortion doctor she first consults with tells the girl it's her own choice to make. It's just that last 10-15 minute stretch where things get hamfisted and clearly biased against women who choose differently.

Even if Uccidere is "just" average as far as movies go, it deserves a restoration and preservation in my opinion; even Manos the Hands of Fate doesn't deserve to be forgotten.




Incidentally, since my first post I did some more digging and found a few more helpful leads. There's this other source also selling the same '80s vintage Italian VHS. I found another two of Giuseppe Rolando's movies on YouTube as well as screencaps for two more. The most significant by far is that the production company Rolfilm survived as Novarolfilm, and is currently run by Giuseppe's son, Juan. They have a promo video on their site with high quality footage of Uccidere and Rolando's other projects. I have sent them an email kindly asking for information and possibly selling/uploading a copy of their superior print of the film. I will update this thread if there are any developments of that front. Unfortunately it's been several days now and I still haven't heard back 

Anyway, I also found out that Giuseppe Rolando directed several more films than his IMDb profile has listed. I found references to several more on various film aggregates and databases across the web. No two lists I found included all of the same films, each has gaps in their catalog. What's known is that Rolando was an independent filmmaker who mostly did religious films. He never achieved mainstream success and (judging by the complete lack of posters/soundtracks/home-video/information, etc) it's debatable if his early stuff ever enjoyed widespread release in cinemas. Since Uccidere at least has those surviving elements, and featured a well-known composer and two respected actresses, it seems that was Rolando's work which came the closest to a wide-release and mainstream attention. I speculate that Uccidere was supposed to be his big break and its lack of success drove Rolando back to making super-obscure low budget independent films (some of which were direct-to-video in the 80s) for the rest of his career. Of course, without more concrete information, I'm just filling in the blanks between the few scraps I could piece together.

As best I can determine, this is Giuseppe Rolando's complete filmography and each entry's current preservation status. I am going to assume Novarolfilm has no clean master prints to donate/upload until they get back to me to confirm:

1949: Petrolini
(According to one source he worked on this, but according to another he didn't direct and if he had some minor role in the production I couldn't find it. I couldn't easily find the film itself either, although admittedly I didn't do as comprehensive of a search for this one. It's production date is earlier than when Rolfilm was established, in 1959. I suspect this may be a faulty credit, or he was just some kind of minor assistant or something.)

1959: Sotto il cielo di San Marcer
(Besides Nova Rolfilm's own website I could find only one additional source corroborating that this movie ever even existed. It seems it was shot on 8mm and was probably more of a "proof of concept" film for Rolando, it may not have even been publicly screened.)

1960: Appuntamento in paradiso
(All I found were screencaps but the movie itself is not coming up in English or Italian Google searches nor DuckDuckGo.)

1965: Suor Anna Rosa
(I found references to this in some film aggregates and sites but no physical proof of its existence.)

1966:
L'albero verde
(All I found were screencaps but the movie itself is not coming up in English or Italian Google searches nor DuckDuckGo.)

1969: Tralci di una terra forte
(The whole film has been uploaded to YouTube.)

1972: Uccidere in Silenzio
(I found four vendors selling the film, two in hand-me-down VHS' from the '80s, one in the form of bootleg DVDs/downloads and another as a 16mm film print. I found the soundtrack on CD, several posters from 3 different countries, screencaps and a newspaper ad. The problem is my/DVDLady's print is in bad shape, the two vendors selling 40 year old VHS tapes are almost certainly as bad or worse, and we can't be sure of the 16mm's quality.)

1973: Simona
(I could find no physical proof of this film's existence and only like two film aggregate sites mention it.)

1987: Giovanni, il ragazzo del sogno
(The whole film is uploaded to YouTube in several parts. This seems to have been a direct to video film.)

1988: Laura un amore così grande
(The whole film has been uploaded to YouTube. This seems to have been a direct to video film.)

2005: Juan, el chico del sueño
(I could find no physical evidence this movie still exists and its production date is after the year Novarolfilm lists as Mr. Rolando's year of death, 2001. It may have been posthumous.)

^I cannot stress enough, this is the only site on the cached internet where this man's entire known filmography has been painstakingly cataloged in its entirety. I suspect there may be a few more Rolando projects out there somewhere I missed; notice the gap between Simona and Giovanni for example. 

I will if you want, but it will take a few days. I'm away from home right now and my desktop has the original file on it. I tried downloading the video again through YouTube but the loss in quality was too significant. (From 2 GB to 400 MB.) When I have access to my original file again I'll hit you up.

Since theCarbonFreeze is seemingly not active on here these days, could anyone else take a shot at that DVDLady link and rip the contents from that DVD?