1975’s Footprints on the moon (Also known as “Le Orme”, also known as “Primal Impulse” also known simply as “Footprints”) is an experimental mystery Thriller with a hint of Giallo and a dash of sci-fi thrown in for good measure. I’ve been meaning to get around to this one for a while, having picked it up about 4 years ago thinking it was just going to be a sci-fi arthouse movie. I realise now on the back of the box it does make a passing reference to Giallo in the synopsis of this release, but I was sold on sci-fi crazy sexy times and as such what I ACTUALLY witnessed kind of caught me off guard.

Y’see; while the film is heavily grounded in a narrative, it is fairly open ended in terms of interpretation and doesnt give you answers to everything. Which can be a bit frustrating honestly because some of the plot points that are left unanswered are kind of important plot points. With this being a bit on the experimental side, scenes and sequences sometimes happen in such a way that leads the audience to question whats really important and whats a misdirect. So rather than go through a beat by beat plot summary, because doing that will honestly just lead to a lot of “And then she went here and did this, and then she went here and did that” repetition. Im just gonna hit you with a broad overview.

The film follows Alice…I think…It gets convoluted. A woman from Portugal working as a translator in Italy. As the film opens Alice is woken by a bad dream. In the dream an astronaut is abandoned on the moon and slowly dies, it’s later clarified that this is a dream that Alice has had for almost a decade, ever since she went to the cinema as a little girl to watch a scary sci-fi movie called “footprints on the moon”. Anyway; she gets up, wanders around her house for a bit, takes some medication and then finds a torn up postcard in her kitchen, she assembles it and it shows a picture of a Hotel with a caption at the bottom that reads “The Garma Hotel” She doesn’t know how the postcard got there, but she put it to the back of her mind and heads back to sleep.

The next day; she heads out to work only to find that when she arrives at the office, her boss’s supervisor has called her into a meeting because she hasnt turned up for work in a few days. The reason why is unclear but her boss is adamant Alice DEFINITELY hasn’t attended for 3 days, But Alice VERY clearly remembers having attended a function on one of the days she was absent. Alice explains that she was asked to attend a conference as a translator for global speakers, around half way through the conference though she suddenly began to feel very overwhelmed and ended up fleeing the conference via a side door, though exactly what happened after that…noone seems to know.

Her supervisor has a different story, saying that Alice never turned up at all and that her translation tools were all left at the office with no way to contact her to see what was going on. As a result of her not handing her translations over to her boss, shes had to head to a conference unprepared and as a result of this AND Alice’s unexplained absences, its VERY likely that Alice is soon to be an ex-employee. Things get stranger for Alice, as she realises one of her earrings has gone missing and a dress has turned up in her wardrobe that shes never seen before. After talking with a friend about her dreams and the missing three days, Alice is drawn again to the postcard and Garma, she keeps having unexplainable flashbacks of an asian inspired hotel room, a stained glass window portraying a peacock and a balcony overlooking the sea that for some reason, she’s sure is linked to the postcard.

Deciding that whatever is currently going on HAS to be tied to that postcard, Alice travels by plane and ferry to arrive on the island of Garma with the aim of getting to the bottom of what exactly is going on. When she arrives at the port harbour she meets a lovely gent who agrees to give her a lift to the hotel. They make small talk and the man suggests they may well meet again. Alice arrives at the hotel and requests the room with the peacock stained glass, but the hotel receptionist doesn’t really know what shes talking about, he is able to get her a room with a balcony overlooking the sea though, With that, Alice sets up and starts trying to piece things together. Eventually meeting a young girl called Paula who insists on calling Alice “Nicole”. It transpires that this “Nicole” person visited the island on the same day that Alice vanished from the conference, she looked EXACTLY like Alice, but with long red hair and she spent some time with paula… though; what she exactly did, Paula wont say.

As Alice explores the island more and starts trying to make sense of exactly whats gone on, it starts to become apparent that either Nicole has been doing something in Alice’s name, or that Alice and Nicole are one in the same and the key to exactly what happened during Alice’s 3 day memory wipe lies on Garma. With more and more of the puzzle slowly beginning to fall into place and Alice’s scary Astronaut nightmares slowly starting to creep more and more to the front of her mind. Will Alice manage to find Nicole? Does the man who gave her a lift to the hotel know more than he’s letting on? And…why is Klaus Kinsky in this? Guys got like 5 minutes of screen time total and adds almost NOTHING to the main plot…all this and more will be answered if you take a trek with Footprints on the moon.

The trouble with covering Giallo and mystery cinema is that the mystery in many ways IS the movie. A poor payoff can make what was otherwise a great movie, awful. And vice versa. The problem I have here is how much exactly to spoil because I cant really offer you proper analysis of this film without spoiling some of the twists and turns. So from here on in, im not going to spoil EVERYTHING. But i’d say watch at your peril. I will be talking a little bit about the ending and some of the elements the film plays with.

What I will say is I do recommend you check this film out if your into Giallo cinema and haven’t seen this one before. Its a fun watch, even if it isnt necessarily the most satisfying one in the world. It was considered “Lost” for years as all that existed was a ropey VHS copy, but as of 2009 the vast majority of the film turned up as a film print allowing for a *partial* restoration. It also has a bit of a wobbly copyright standing meaning that companies like Mill Creek have included it multiple times on their public domain sets under the title “Primal Impulse” so odds are you may have a copy of this movie (unremastered) and not even know it! So as a quick caption, i’d say go check it out.

From a script perspective I think it handles its source material rather well, this film is based on a novel by Mario Fanelli and while they do play up the artier side of things visually, from what I can gather (based on italians discussing this LONG out of print book online) it’s largely faithful. One of the things that’s almost annoyingly endearing about this movie is the fact that it uses its central plot point around the loss of time to really play around with what we’re perceiving as an audience. Events will happen, but we’re not sure if they’re in Alices head, or if they’re flashbacks, if they’re relevant to the main plot or totally negligible. I love it in the sense that the film is REALLY open to playing with the audience. But it’s also annoying in some regards because some important points they raise never ACTUALLY get resolved.
The two biggest points that end up mostly unanswered are HOW Alice ended up losing the 3 days; they explain a rough breakdown of what exactly happened DURING that time, Basically; she left the conference centre after having a breakdown, convinced the astronauts from her nightmares were coming to take her away. So she put on a disguise, adopted a pseudonym and fled to Garma looking for her childhood friend Harry for protection against her abduction. Then she began to believe Harry was in on the abduction attempts, attacked him and fled the house, ditching her disguise, burning any trace of her whereabouts and fleeing back home. (little of this is shown by the way).

But they don’t explain a single JOT of what triggered a bout of 3 day amnesia, nor do they explain how NOONE between Italy and Garma saw her in clear mental distress fleeing the country..Even basic things like her bank statements aren’t bought up…like; I don’t know how rich Alice is, but if I had a blank on my memory for 3 days and checked my bank balance to find that a return flight and multiple ferry trips + expenses had been charged on my account. I wouldn’t be booking another flight out there, I’d be calling my bank to see where ALL my money had gone. The fact we never exactly find out how she lost her memory in the first place bugs me, because it’s kind of the driving force of the film. Just saying “Funny things happen when you have a breakdown” isn’t really a justifiable way to resolve what is really a key plot point.

The other problem, lies with timings…the film doesn’t overtly state the date these events take place, it gives the day and month (the film takes place between the 7th of September and the 11th of September) but the year is left out. That wouldn’t generally matter. But the final shot of the film is a shot of the moon with a caption stating “Since 15th October 1971 Alice has been interned at the neuropsychiatric institute in switzerland” This is a problem for multiple reasons. The original novel was published in 1971. The film adaptation happened in 1975. The only dates shown in the movie are at the very end, and the very beginning of the film. In the beginning of the film Alice sets the date to tuesday the 7th of September before she goes to work and finds out that it’s actually a thursday. Looking online, that would mean the film took place in 1971.

But because it’s such a blink and you’ll miss it scene, and bearing in mind that unless you’re a bit of a weirdo who keeps an eye on calendars across multiple years. Audience members wouldnt be thinking that this film was taking place in ‘71. Audience members would naturally assume that this was happening in ’75. Which makes the caption at the end saying that she was sent to a hospital in ‘71 VERY confusing. Even more so for modern audiences watching it back now who would glance the release date and then hit play. I got SO confused by this end caption because I was thinking “Soooo…does the film take place in September 1971? Has she been in the hospital the entire time and we’re just seeing some kind of weird deluded internal visualisation? Is this a flashback? What is ACTUALLY going on?

Part of me kind of liked the end caption because I took that to mean that the entire film was just someone reliving bits of a past life from within a secure facility. But part of me was BEYOND annoyed that they effectively did the “It was all a dream” line. Now having looked into things a little more I know that the whole thing takes place in 1971. But I feel its a bit much to expect the audience to research the film, find that it’s based on a novel written in 1971 and that the filmmakers decided not to draw the dates in line with the film adaptations release.
There’s a man referenced throughout the film called “Matthew” that we never really meet or find out anything about despite him being referenced as being involved with Nicole. Towards the end of the film, Alice tries to flee the island when she becomes convinced that the astronauts from her nightmares are real. They then ACTUALLY appear and try to take her, but the film isnt clear as to whether they’re actual astronauts or if they’re even really there. They don’t clarify if Alice was actually AT the conference or not, they don’t clarify if Nicole is the dominant personality or Alice and they don’t really explain how the personality swap is triggered, I mean; I’m not precious, I don’t want to be spoon fed. But it would have been nice to not have such glaring key plot points left unanswered or left in a state where you need to spend half an hour on google looking at calendars, maps and reference guides from 1971 to figure out what’s ACTUALLY going on.

Grumbles aside though, I did enjoy this script, Im hesitant to call this Giallo because it kind of lacks the blood, guts and nastiness that Giallo tends to invoke, a stabbing scene with a pair of scissors with no blood at the very end of the film is about as nasty as it gets…But given that everyone else has already labelled it a Giallo movie, I realise im probably in the minority. As a mystery movie, it’s structured solidly enough. but because of the messing around with time and what is or isn’t real, it kind of free’s itself to tit about without invoking too much wrath. I think the characters all have a decent level of development and growth, Alice in particular really gets a broad range to work with in this script. I’d say that range lends itself to a well paced character development arc from wallflower-esq cubical girl to forward and border aggressive woman on the edge.

There’s a clean 3 act structure and the pacing (barring a little bit of 2nd act flab) is slowburner but satisfying. This isn’t something racing to get you to the end line. It’s happy to let its audience stew in Garma, its people and the world built into the island to really let you savour the clues in order to make the audience savour the reveal as to what exactly’s been going on. And barring my own hang ups around some aspects needing closure…Im kind of okay with this.

The film was directed and written by Mario Farelli and Luigi Bazzoni, as mentioned the film itself was based off a novel Mario wrote in 1971 called “Las Huellas” but he came on board here to help adapt the novel to screen and he also had some uncredited work on here in a directing capacity. He has 73 directing credits almost ENTIRELY for italian TV movies. Non of the titles jumped out at me honestly, BUT! If I had to pick another work he was probably famous for it would probably be “The Fifth Chord” which was also based on a novel he wrote. He has 12 writing credits and He sadly passed away in 1991. As for Luigi, he has 14 directing credits and 8 writing credits. His best known work is probably either this, “The Possessed” or his work with Mario on “Fifth chord”. He too sadly passed away in 2012.

On the direction front, we have a pretty decent looking movie! Its a stylized production that uses block colours, particularly dark blues, blacks and browns in a thoughtful and powerful way throughout to help create a moody piece that I think really gives the film it’s own sense of identity. The scenes involving the astronauts are shot in greyscale and stylised to look like old 50’s B movies which is a really nice touch that helps contrast against the sleeker more nuanced work 70s sequences. Visually i’m actually kind of disappointed that the film isnt *Entirely* immaculate, it looks like the grade is slightly off in places,it almost has an olive tinge to it. Which did rather take me out of what was otherwise a fairly immersive experience.
Luigi’s style of film making is seemingly to focus on BIG scenes, complex and gorgeous looking sets and locations are shot as wide as possible to get from floor to ceiling in the shot and that distinctive look used throughout the film when coupled with the colour choices really helped sell me on this. I think a less kind critic would say that this doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. Admittedly this isn’t really anything we haven’t seen before in “Blood and Black Lace” or “Cat O Nine Tails”. But I feel that for an early to mid 70’s mystery movie at a time where Giallo as a genre was just coming down from its first peak and heading into their gorier, nastier second wind in the 80’s. It does the job in keeping you on board right up to the big end reveal. It’s no “Bird with the Crystal Plumage”…but it’ll do.

Direction of the cast is solid enough. With this being a moodier piece, cast reaction is critical here and I feel that Mario and Luigi have both worked particularly well to get the absolute best they can out of the cast. The language barriers that are present in most of italian cinema are present here, but that makes it all the more impressive that the pair were able to pull the range out of the cast that they did. While they could have utilised set space just a tiny bit more, they aren’t afraid of those spaces either. Their guidance ultimately could have been better. But its far far from awful.

From a cine standpoint what we have here is a wonderful piece that seemingly isnt afraid to experiment. The camera is CONSTANTLY moving throughout with silk smooth pans and tracking shots that carry us through the film effortlessly. It’s SO nice to see camera work be so thoughtful and creative in terms of trying to hold audience interest, sequences blend seamlessly into one another using the sense of “timelessness” in its favour, we’ll smoothly glide from Alice in her bluelit bedroom pondering what exactly is going on in her life, to the nightmares that plagues her sleeping moments. This is a definite step above most of the fodder I cover on this channel with a curated and thoughtful shot list being used to really drive the emotion and thoughts within the scene to the forefront.
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When coupled with some decent editing that really takes its time to let the scenes breathe without overstaying their welcome. The end result is some wonderfully composed shots, excellently arranged into sequences that have been given the loving care they clearly needed in order to be presented as best they could. And here, i’d say they absolutely achieved that. Is it the most original work in the world? That might be a reach, though theres definitely a debate to be had here and and my GOD it’s pretty in places.

Performance wise. It’s pretty much the Florinda Bolkan show, the vast majority of the film is pretty much solely hers, and she REALLY gets to stretch out, giving a performance that manages, successfully I might add, to REALLY invest you in the character and her situation. You genuinely feel the wooziness she feels along the way as she tries desperately to make sense of the situation she’s found herself in and honestly; shes just a delight for most of the run time.

Given this movie has Klaus Kinski in it, I actually found his *VERY* brief appearance in this to be largely unremarkable. He does a good job of playing that kind of 50’s B-movie archetype…but honestly, there isn’t much more to say other than that. Equally; the rest of the cast all do fairly reasonably but ultimately feel unremarkable too. I wont say they’re bad because they’re not. But they do rather remind me of NPCs in video games. They don’t really go above and beyond saying their lines with conviction and then sort of…wandering off. Nicoletta Elmi is probably the only standout additional cast member as Paula, who REALLY gets put through the ringer by Alice and Nicole and gives a believable reaction to this weird situation of split personalities. Shes a natural performer that I feel for a child actor, was actually quite impressive.

And finally; The Soundtrack. Its decent! Its got a classical edge to it, but there are some electronic elements that do break through occasionally. It isn’t TOO intrusive on the film, it’s just a relatively solid piece that helps to keep the flow of the film going during key points and while, it is possibly a touch on the generic side for movies of this genre, i’ll take stable and a bit generic over no music or irritating scoring any day.

Footprints on the moon was largely considered a “Lost” film until a print resurfaced in the 2000’s. Before that it did the rounds on bootleg circuits as a ropey and incomplete VHS dub under the title “Primal Instinct”, I cant find any evidence of an official VHS release having ever happened for this film, but I can trace an “Unauthrosied” DVD bootleg back to as early as 2006. So its to be presumed that bootleg VHS copies were floating around for a few years before then. As mentioned, Mill creek has released this multiple times on their public domain 50 movie film packs. But it wasn’t until 2009 that the film would be “Restored” and OFFICIALLY released on DVD by shameless films under the name “Footprints on the moon”.

The film print located was missing some scenes which have been restored using a good quality VHS rip. And…well…the restoration work isn’t amazing. Shameless pride themselves on a more “rough and ready” aesthetic. That’s not to say they don’t bother restoring their releases. It’s just that they believe that films like this SHOULD have a bit of grit and grime thrown back in…for character. Given their remit is generally for gory and overly violent movies like Cannibal Holocaust and The New York Ripper. I do feel somewhat inclined to agree that these movies do feel “right” with a little bit of grit thrown back in. But at the same time with movies like this one, it maybe would have been nice to see it fully “ground up” restoration…really giving it a proper polish, and then offering this release with the option of either seeing the fully cleaned version or a cut with a rougher around the edges look. Extras on here are a bit thin on the ground, but there’s trailers, multiple subtitle tracks and a scene select soo….its something!

I don’t think ardent Giallo followers will rush out to catch “Footprints on the moon” while it is a quite well made production in my opinion, I don’t feel it offers anything unique enough that hasn’t been seen or done before better in other films. What this film IS good for though, is as an entry level picture for people new to the genre who’ve maybe seen a couple of staple entries and want to see something that’ll make them sound a bit more confident about their Giallo knowledge. It has a good, solid and unusual script, Gorgeous cine, decent direction and a good range of performances. To some; it may be retreading old ground. But if you’re new to the genre or maybe a casual viewer who isn’t 100% invested in every work of giallo ever released. I think you might get a kick out of it so I’d say, check it out.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/footprints-on-the-moon-1975/