Movie Ads of the Week: The Many Faces of SOLANGE (1974-1977)

Massimo Dallamano's COSA AVETE FATTO A SOLANGE?, featuring Fabio Testi and Camille Keaton, was picked up for U.S. distribution by Hallmark Releasing Corporation in 1973 and apparently screened as both WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE? and then SOLANGE before arriving in Pittsfield, MA as BLOOD RELATIONS on April 5, 1974. Like other Hallmark horror releases of the period, the ads recycle the "It's only a movie" tag line from the company's most notorious hit, Wes Craven's LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. Craven later borrowed the BLOOD RELATIONS title for a screenplay that eventually became his second film, THE HILLS HAVE EYES.

At the same time this beloved giallo was playing some areas as BLOOD RELATIONS, American International was sub-distributing it as TERROR IN THE WOODS. The ad above is from Louisville, KY on April 17, 1974.

If you've watched Garagehouse Pictures' Blu-ray TRAILER TRAUMA, then you already know that THE RAH RAH GIRLS is yet another title for Dallamano's '72 thriller (That trailer came from the Temple of Schlock Archives, by the way). The ad above is from Bloomington, IL on July 17, 1977. SEX ON THE GROOVE TUBE (1976), another Hallmark release, is a downright fraudulent re-titling of THE CASE OF THE FULL MOON MURDERS (1973) a.k.a. THE CASE OF THE SMILING STIFFS, with voiceovers added to trick viewers into thinking it’s a sequel to THE GROOVE TUBE. It's also heavily edited from a self-applied X rating to an MPAA-approved R.

Yet another title for the film is THE SCHOOL THAT COULDN'T SCREAM, seen above playing in Chicago on October 21, 1977 co-billed with LAST HOUSE PART II, a reissue of Mario Bava's BAY OF BLOOD, which Hallmark had already released as CARNAGE and TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE.

Since Hallmark sometimes used the same title for more than one movie (DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT and HORROR HOSPITAL were both released as DEATH WARD #13, for example), we'll assume in the ad above that THE RAH RAH GIRLS is another Hallmark release and not the Massimo Dallamano film mistakenly booked with itself as THE SCHOOL THAT COULDN'T SCREAM in Limerick, PA on June 3, 1977. Our guess is that it was PRIVATE SCHOOL GIRLS (GEFÄHRLICHER SEX FRÜHREIFER MÄDCHEN).