Riccardo Freda later rejected the film and disowned it as he had with his THE IGUANA WITH THE TONGUE OF FIRE (1971). TRAGIC................... was obviously edited without his approval, to make a slow moving film seem more sensational. It's his worst horror film, but even a bad Freda film is more interesting than good films by lesser directors. The main problem is that it's written by Mario Bianchi, the bottom feeding hack. This Italian print confirms that since he's listed as story/screenplay author alone. The Spanish print lists Spanish coproducer Jose Maesso and Leonardo Martin as coauthors. Tecisa Executive Maesso took over the preparation of the Spanish version which meant he created new opening and closing credits to include [sometimes fictitious}] Spanish personnel to qualify for larger tax breaks. He also elimated nudity as mentioned, wrote and dubbed in new Spanish dialogue which has more religious references than the Italian and edited out the last scene with Paul Muller. He also retitled it TRAGICA CEREMONIA EN VILLA ALEXANDER, a clumsy handle which speaks to the real reason why this film exists. It was a tax shelter, pure and simple. Freda, always impatient and irritable, arrived on the set frustrated that all his own projects were not getting the go ahead and this would be his last film of the decade, which still had 8 years left to go! He would be plunged into extended umemployment. The extremely bipolar visual style, swinging from indifferently blocked out expository scenes where the talent challenged young cast (with the exception of Tony Isbert) read a lot of very dull dialogue to upshifted moments of gothic atmosphere telegraphed by the occasional striking wide angle shot or finely composed image. There are way too few of the latter. Camille Keaton struggles to be totally ineffective in the lead role and there are some good actors, Luigi Pistilli, Irene Demick, Muller, Pepe Calvo (Clint Eastwood's only friend in town in FISTFUL OF DOLLARS), but in very small roles. The extremely conservative director, who hated the 1960s youth counterculture with the long hair, nouvelle vague and hippie clothes must have felt very uncomfortable with a story where idle, lazy young people are victims of Satan worshipping, wealthy owning class members. This is where the film takes on interest and relates to his previous film and his next one, both of which are notably superior. The film actually works better without the final scene, which just crudely telegraphs what was obsured by poor structuring and scripting. As any professional writer knows you don't bring on a minor character at the last moment to clarify plots which should have been made in the previous act, espeically since that character is obviously a modus operandi whom would have no way of knowing this arcan information. Metempsychosis/soul migration could be a subject for an interesting movie, but this is just a stupid mistake of a movie which should have never been made. No wonder Riccardo Freda was unhappy.
