London in the Raw

This is a DVD that I have somewhat mixed feelings about on account of its provenance. The British Film Institute has long been, after all, the gatekeepers of official British film culture, the one who decide what counts and what does not.

Indeed, in the 1960s it was their journal, the Monthly Film Bulletin, which had a policy of reviewing every film released theatrically in the UK, but which also divided these releases up into two categories: those of special interest and everything else, where the best a film could typically hope for was to be acknowledged as a good example of its type.

No prizes for guessing where London in the Raw was placed, nor for guessing the BFI/MFB's general attitude towards mondo-type documentaries as a whole.

As such, the whole project can't help but have a sense of gamekeeper turned textual poacher (or vice versa) to me, of someone within the BFI belatedly recognising the social historical or potential economic value of the kind of material that they would hitherto have preferred did not exist, even as it was often sustaining the British film industry. (The film's producers, after all, subsequently bankrolled Polanski's Repulsion and Cul de Sac and Michael Reeves's Witchfinder General.)



The first thing that differentiates the film from most of its Italian mondo counterparts its its staying fixed within the one geographical location, which helps provide an additional degree of coherence whilst also lessening the exploitative aspect: Rather than witnessing some film-makers overtly intent on acquiring the the weirdest, most sensationalistic footage they could find from around the world, we instead get a more focussed portrait of one particular city at one particular time.

As is common for the form, imaginary continuity is provided by the narrator's voice over and the montage-style juxtaposition of scenes: At one point a sequence dealing with the theme of beauty juxtaposes women in a health club with another buying a figure enhancing bra, with these being followed by a woman undergoing electrolysis to remove 'excess' hair and a man undergoing a hair transplant to treat its absence. At another a group of alcoholic tramps drinking methylated spirits are contrasted with society types an exclusive club ordering expensive vintages of wine.

With no animal or human death footage, the hair transplant scene is also the goriest London in the Raw gets, as the hair surgeon removes plugs of flesh and follicles from the back of the patient's head and inserts them into holes in the front. The tramps meanwhile prove the closest the film-makers get to exploitation of those less fortunate than themselves, precisely because it isn't as clear whether they're "just doing a bit of acting" like many of the other characters featured.

Otherwise we get a number of stage routines including the obligatory nude; she doesn't do a strip-tease routine on account of a legal particularity of the time, that you could have nudity or movement but not both simultaneously. The commentators voice-off doesn't mention this, although elsewhere it does point to the peculiar situation whereby a man playing a penny whistle in the street was committing a public order offence whilst the prostitute above him calling down to potential trade was not. Needless to say this scene, or at least the part with the prostitute, is one of the more obviously staged ones, the camera moving behind her to catch a shot of her bum as she leans out the window.

What the other stage routines lack in exploitation they gain as historical document of the changing city, as with the contrast between the relatively new Cypriot community and the longer established Jewish one. In this regard the skits we see at London's only Jewish theatre are also interesting for their insiders' play upon stereotypes and as a reminder of the origins of a number of those connected with the film, including co-director Norman Cohen, who would later direct three of the Confessions... films amongst others (again: yes, they were shit, but they and other sex comedies also sustained the British cinema in the 1970s), and producers Michael Klinger and Tony Tenser, of Compton/Telki and Tigon note.

In sum, a very British take on the exploitation documentary both in the film itself and the way it has been presented and contextualised here, with the balance between exploitation and documentary further towards the latter than the former.

Or, at least, in the integral version. For also included on the impressive DVD as the main extra is a shorter cut of the film which drops most of the stage routines to concentrate on the sleazier stuff to be more transparently targeted at the normal Soho picture-goer of the time...

El jorobado de la Morgue / The Hunchback of the Morgue / Rue Morgue Massacres / The Hunchback of the Rue Morgue

Which Spanish horror star of the 1970s do you think would be the obvious choice to play the Hunchback of the Morgue?

If you answered Paul Naschy / Jacinto Molina, the one-man horror factory who seems to have made it his mission to play each and every monster he could, you would be right - although the question may also be a somewhat easy one in that there really aren't any other Spanish male horror icons of that time.

Naschy imbues his character, named Gotho in apparent reference to the Gothic, with all the familiar traits: He is monstrous, but in a tortured, suffering, Romantic way. His enemies, the normal people who conceal their evil crimes and schemes beneath a virtuous and attractive veneer, are the real monsters.

If Gotho is in the first instance derived from Victor Hugo and Lon Chaney - it is always difficult to say when we are dealing with films that remain far better known than their literary sources - the film as a whole has a distinctly Frankenstein feel to it.

And, while the character of the hunchbacked assistant first appeared in James Whale's Frankenstein via Dwight Frye, the film's immediate models seem more Terence Fisher's Frankenstein films, with elements of The Revenge of Frankenstein and Frankenstein Created Woman particularly evident, along with that same general structural opposition between the good and the ugly on the one hand and the evil and the attractive on the other.


Spanish poster for The Hunchback of the Morgue, with obvious classical horror allusions

Though there are also affinities with Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell these may be taken as coincidental rather than deliberate seeing as both films were released in the same year; the same may also be said of the world-weary Dracula of Naschy and director Xavier Aguirre's Count Dracula's Great Love and his namesake in Hammer's The Satanic Rites of Dracula.

The Revenge of Frankenstein also featured a none-too intelligent hunchbacked assistant, Karl, a hospital worker who was promised a new body by Frankenstein in return for his help. Gotho, who works at the Feldkirch Hospital, is made a similar promise by his mad scientist Dr Orla, involving bringing Gotha's terminally ill and now recently deceased loved one, Ilse, back to him. Yet this also foregrounds a romantic subplot more aligned with Frankenstein Created Woman's Christina and Hans - the two young lovers who together eventually constitute that film's severely troubled monster through Frankenstein's intercessions in the natural order of things.

But for all these intertexts - to which we might also add Joe D'Amato's delirious Buio Omega, as another necro-philiac/mantic entry - The Hunchback of the Morgue is also unmistakably a Paul Naschy film.

In Frankenstein Created Woman the unimaginative authorities went after the ill-fated Hans for a crime he did not commit. Here, by contrast, Gotho is guilty of at least some of the crimes he is accused of. Moreover, those defending him do so not out of a sense of justice, as Peter Cushing's progressive Baron Frankenstein did, but rather because of their own self-interest, in Dr Orla, or liberal naïvete, as in the case of Elke, who is in charge of the Feldkirch Women's Reformatory. (Yes, there's even a bit of WIP thrown into the mix.)

As played by Rosanna Yanni, Elke is also your classic Naschy love interest figure, impossibly beautiful and inexplicably drawn to his doomed character like a moth to a flame.

Were it not for the fact that Naschy was already happily married by the time he made most of his films you could almost believe he was operating some sort of casting couch system through them as a means of obtaining the otherwise unobtainable / unattainable.

The presence of the reformatory also serves to remind us that Gotho's crimes might be excused on grounds of his simple-mindedness, and that the film takes place not in some ambiguous 19th century mittel-European Erehwon but in contemporary 1970s Germany.

This location also affords a hint of political commentary via the caverns where Gotho hides out and Dr Orla establishes his secret laboratory. We are told they once used by the Knights Templar in the Middle Ages and more recently saw service during the Second World War.

But, as with Naschy's other non-Spanish set films, it's difficult to determine the extent to which there is an anti-Francoist point to this or whether it was simply taking advantage of the ambiguities that a more distanced foreign setting afforded.

As it is, the most problematic aspects of the film as far as today's audiences and censors are concerned are surely the rumours that a real corpse was used in some of the morgue scenes, along with some real life animal cruelty as some rats get burned alive. In fairness, the scene with the rats also demonstrates Naschy's commitment to his art, inasmuch as he also let himself be attacked by them for the sake of authenticity - De Niro eat your heart out!

[See also The Mark of Naschy's review at http://www.naschy.com/jorobado.html]

La bestia nell spazzo / Beast in Space

Beast in Space is a title that raises a question: Who, or what, is The Beast?

Well, to explain: The Beast was a 1975 film by Walerian Borowczyk, an offshoot from the previous year's Immoral Tales. It presented a distinctly adult version of the beauty and the beast myth, in which a young heiress fantasised about an 18th century French noblewoman Romilda de l'Esperance's dalliances with a prodigiously endowed bear-like creature, with these encounters then proving to have placed a curse on the noble family, including her feeble-minded, be-tailed husband to be, Mathurin de l'Esperance.

It is not exactly an obvious piece of material to combine with space opera, even if the form does affords the possibility by virtue of going "to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations [...] where no man has gone before," just as the presence of The Beast's Sirpa Lane explains the thinking behind the title.

Beast in Space could perhaps have just about worked worked as a parody or a sex film, as the two options its model presents. It is neither. Instead it's a space adventure that's played essentially straight, even when the most ridiculous pseudo-scientific dialogue is being spoken. But it definitely isn't suitable for children on account of the nudity and sex scenes. These scenes themselves present an odd combination of softcore and hardcore material to further distancing the film from mainstream audiences whilst probably being insufficient for their raincoater counterparts.

Though the DVD of the film presents two and a half minutes of generally harder material as deleted scenes, these images are largely indistinguishable from what appears in the film itself, being close-up of genitalia and mouths that are never re-attached to a specific body via pans, only cuts, in that time honoured inserts manner.

Beast in Space might also have worked had Lane had the kind of name and recognition value that could be used to actually sell it, a la Laura Gemser or Sylvia Kristel.

But in The Beast Lane played the noblewoman without dialogue and in the kind of 18th century wigs and underwear that don't really allow for making any immediate connection to her character here, whether she's wearing a flimsy about-to-come-off dress or a figure-hugging space/jump-suit and helmet. True, Lane had been more exposed as herself in the likes of Nazi Love Camp 27 and Papaya of the Caribbean in the interim, but these were hardly productions with the same kind of profile as The Beast and her debut film, Roger Vadim's 1974 The Assassinated Young Girl.


The poster

The plot, that thing which provides an excuse for the inanity and the sex, sees the crew of the MK31, led by Captain Larry Madison (Vassili Karis) being sent on a mission to the planet Lorigon where a rare and strategically vital metal, Entalium, is to be found.

Rivalling them in the race is the Han Solo-esque rogue Juan Cardoso (Venantino Venantini).

A personal edge to the rivalry is provided by the fact that Madison and Cardoso have already come to blows with one another over their rival positions - Madison doesn't like civilians and Cardoso doesn't like the space navy - and sexual possession of the beautiful Sondra Richardson, a lieutenant aboard the MK31 (Lane).

Lt Richardson finds herself plagued by strange dreams - some culled from Borowczyk's film, including the horse copulation footage - in which she encounters a giant robot, has sex with a hairy man-beast in some woods, and generally sees the crew of the MK31 (who also include Marina Frajese) going at it like their lives depended on it...

The MK31 is drawn towards a mysterious planet Lorigon where they re-encounter Cardoso, who has got there first, and his host and friend Onaf (Claudio Undari), one of the figures from Lt. Richardson's vision...

There are probably all sorts of subtexts that could be drawn out of The Beast in Heat - the implied existence of a primitive subconscious, with creatures and planets from the id even in the ostensibly civilised far future; the relationship between the military industrial complex and the rest of the world (or indeed universe) - but it's questionable whether the film-makers ever seriously thought about them.

Or, to paraphrase Freud, sometimes a light sword is just a light sword...

What's there, then, are the surface pleasures: the bad dialogue (this must be the only film where someone actually says "Quickly! A bottle of Uranus milk!" with a straight face), acting, costumes, production design, effects, direction and scoring (courtesy of the inimitable Pluto Kennedy).

Or, in other words, one hell of a lot for the Euro-trash fan, especially if he or she is already familiar with any of director Al Brescia's other sci-fi epics of this period.

[More reviews and information on the film: http://robertmonell.blogspot.com/2008/04/beast-in-space-dvd.html and http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-qzcELew6frWBZspks_7SsnUuv9VNTUA-?cq=1&p=268]

Un buco in fronte / Hole in the Forehead

A nicely executed deliberately paced, mood-heavy opening sequence sets the scene as gunman Bill Blood (Antonio Ghidra) arrives at a monastery and takes advantage of the monks' hospitality.

Blood's first distinctive feature is that he does everything with his left hand. We soon learn his second, and what is his right hand is reserved for as bandit Murienda arrives at the monastery with an acute case of lead poisoning courtesy of General Munguya's men: Blood is a deadly shot with his right hand, invariably planting a bullet in the forehead of his target, right between the eyes.

With Munguya's men dealt with, we learn that Blood had been waiting for Murienda because was in possession of a playing card on which is written one-third of the location of a fortune in stolen pesos.

General Munguya has the second of card and clue, another bandit, Garrincha, the third. Bill thus goes in search of Munguya to see if they might make a deal and share the treasure...

Yes, what we are dealing with here is essentially a The Good, The Bad and the Ugly knock-off. It is also, however, one distinguished from its model in that, once the leisurely opening sequence is out of the way, everything else comes at us quickly and with a minimum of fuss.

Blood, the General and Garrincha are already aware of the treasure and that it is somewhere nearby. Nor are there any external obstacles in their way: Though Munguya's title and acquisition of some arms hint at civil war in Mexico, and thus the possibility of discussing revolution and social banditry in the manner of the more political spaghetti, no such context or subtext emerges. Munguya remains thus just being another Mexican bandit whose excessively large sombrero is only matched by his excessive sadism, cruelty and talent for betrayal. (Yes, the arms include a Gatling gun and, yes, it is used for some summary executions, amongst other things.)

Hole in the Forehead's attitude towards its model is made most clear at the finale: It momentarily looks like we are going to get a truel, or three-way duel, as one of the characters (I won't say which) makes an unexpected entrance from out of frame to establish a triangular rather than linear re-arrangement of figures. Then, before we get any serious discussion of the dynamics of the situation, of the possibilities for alliances and betrayals, or the building of tension through the score and the ritualised close-ups, the three are reduced back to two by the summary removal of one (again I won't say which).

Hole in the Forehead also has a distinctive approach to the kind of figures who would have represented its primary Southern Italian audience. Leone's film is ultimately more Tuco's than Blondie's. Here, by contrast, we are placed with the non Mexican Blood against unsympathetic Mexican antagonists in Munguya and Garrincha. Crucially, however, note that I do not say Anglo: If Blood is an Anglo he's also appears to be a decidedly Catholic, non-WASP one considering his relationship to the monks whose monastery has the misfortune to be located right at the centre of the treasure hunt.

Joseph Warren / Guiseppe Vari's direction is efficient and effective, if a touch heavy on the shock zoom - a trope which, ironically, undercuts its impact precisely because we come to expect it.

The dialogue is agreeably pared down and the production design, costuming and cinematography pleasing. Roberto Predagio's contributes an memorable Morricone-styled score. Coupled with Serbian-born actor Anthonio Ghidra's / Dragomir Bojanic's successful conveyance of Blood's self-confident invulnerability, the net result is to make one wish Vari had been more thoughtful in his own contribution at times.

Robert Hundar plays the General with his customary gusto, making for a nice those who talk / those who don't talk 'two kinds of people' pairing with the taciturn Ghidra.

Some subtleties

While Argento's writing is of variable quality, he has a knack for the short, multi-layered line of dialogue:

The Card Player: "I know everything about you"

Opera: "I don't think it's wise to use movies as a guide for reality? Do you, Inspector?"
/ "That depends upon what you mean by reality"

One I'd never thought about until now was the headmistress's insinuation in Phenomena, that Jennifer Corvino, after the flies incident, is some sort of devil-spawn via "Beezelbub, the Lord of the Flies"

Doesn't Lord of the Flies also relates quite nicely, via William Golding's novella, to the petty cruelties and bullying of the other girls towards Jennifer?

Dogs / German Shepherds

A common trope in Italian horror seems to be the Alsatian or German Shepherd which cannot be trusted and has a negative role in the narrative (e.g. Suspiria, The Cat with the Eyes of Jade, The Beyond).

What other films can you think of that refute this? And which confirm it?

Tenebre / Giallo

Lara Wendel, in Tenebre:

Why don’t you say something?
Go fuck yourself!
Bastard! [Spits]

Emanuelle Seigner, in Giallo:

You’re so selfish!
You’re just like him! [repeat, ad nauseam]

What is the difference, quality of dialogue wise, other than the ad nauseum?

Do we just forgive Tenebre its faults and criticise the same in Giallo?