The Frightened Woman [1969] [DVD]

Product Description

Shameless Screen Entertainment is proud to announce that their 14th April DVD release of The Frightened Woman (aka Femina Ridens) has been approved by Piero Schivazappa, the director of the film. Witness the ultimate subjugation of a woman to serve the most twisted desires of man in the achingly hip n horny Femina Ridens, where the kinkiest urges are played to a deadly conclusion...

The beautifully sensuous Dagmar Lassander stars as Maria, the living sex toy of Dr Sayer (Philippe Leroy) who delights in killing women at the point of orgasm. Sayer s prolonged campaign of degradation pushes Maria right to the edge of death but the spell she casts on him will lead to the most extraordinary climax of a lifetime!

Stylish, imaginative and deliciously twisted, this kitschy 60s pop art erotica-fest boasts gorgeous set design, an even more alluring leading lady and a heady desire to please the viewer with increasingly bizarre and dangerous sex games.

Rebuilding The Frightened Woman has been a labour of love but thanks to the work of genre expert Marc Morris the Shameless version of The Frightened Woman runs at 86m 03secs compared to the 83m 25 secs run time supplied by the licensor.

What became clear as Shameless compared all the known versions of The Frightened Woman was that various moments had been lost at different points in all of them. Some were merely shaved seconds; others changed the nuance of a scene or missed out important footage. These have been more than enough to prompt fans on the web to start cataloguing the differences with a prime example being this thread on the respected DVD Maniacs forum:

In order to create this new Shameless version they have used a wide variety of source materials that widely vary in quality but they believe that the end result shows off the film in the complete form it has long deserved to be celebrated in including the correct colour palette.

Shameless have kept director Piero Schivazappa informed throughout the process and asked him to watch through it for them and see if he could give it his seal of approval. He kindly sat through it, with script in hand and felt that, it is as faithful as it can be to the original script , and was very happy to see the film brought back to life in this Shameless version declaring, This IS the version of my film to watch.

The Shameless director approved cut will run at 86m 03secs and is being released uncut by the BBFC for the first time in the UK.

Presentation of the film is in restored 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen with a restored 2.0 mono soundtrack, in region 0. The DVD includes an original theatrical trailer. Also included on the disc is a Shameless original trailer gallery.

A new DVD sleeve celebrating elements of original artwork has been created but as is now a regular feature of Shameless releases, purists can enjoy reverse artwork using an unadulterated Italian poster bearing the Femina Ridens title.