Can anyone recommend any books or articles dealing with the ways in which Hollywood's back catologue from 1940-45, or thereabouts, was presented and received in Italy and/or France in the immediate post-war years?
I'm especially interested in anything about the extent to which films were subjected to the usual processes of dubbing, or were subtitled or even screened without subtitles, and of the extent to which, for example, the emergence of the whole kind of 1950s Cahiers du Cinema style emphasis on the visual over the verbal can be traced back to seeing films in a context which encouraged readings in terms of mise-en-scene (or the director) rather than the screenwriter.
Friday, 18 April 2008
Thursday, 17 April 2008
Dr Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs / Spie vengono dal semifreddo
This was one of those films that I’d been wanting to see for a long time, but approached with a measure of trepidation. On the one hand, it was one of the few films directed by Mario Bava that I hadn’t seen. On the other it had a reputation as something of a 'bomb' itself.
The plot is simplicity itself.
The evil Dr Goldfoot (Vincent Price) has managed to evade capture once again and is soon back to his old tricks with his attractive but explosive girl bombs – i.e. convincing looking fembots equipped with explosive charges.
Working with the Chinese, represented by Hard Job (Moa Tahi), Fong and a bunch of nameless goons, his plan is to precipitate a nuclear war between the USA and the USSR by dropping an H-bomb on Moscow.
Price in the Pit and the Pendulum?
The only ones standing in his way are Bill Dexter, an ex-agent of SIC (i.e. Security Intelligence Command) whose boss Colonel Benson (Francesco Mulé) refuses to believe him when he tells the that Goldfoot is alive and scheming until it is too late; Benson’s secretary and obvious love interest/damsel in distress Rosanna (Laura Antonelli), and two hapless individuals by the names of Franco and Ciccio (er, Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia) accidentally recruited by SIC as the only men with the special talents needed to stop Goldfoot in his tracks…
Franco makes a gesture that means something different to an Italian than a US audience?
Goldfoot and the lookalike General Willis
The results aren’t quite as bad as I had feared, but would hardly qualify as prime Bava by any stretch of the imagination.
The chief culprits are Franco and Ciccio, the extraordinarily prolific and popular Italian comedians who averaged half a dozen films a year at the time by the expedient of doing their usual characters and routines in spoofs of whatever was in favour at the box-office at any given moment (e.g. spaghetti westerns like The Handsome, the Ugly, and the Stupid and Two R-R-Ringos from Texas).
The girlbomb Antonelli
Whilst Franco and Ciccio were clearly very good at what they did, their humour doesn’t appeal to me. Not that it could or should be expected to. There is, after all, a big difference between watching this film as a member of the terza visione in Italy, 1966, caring nothing about its director, and as an Anglophone Bava fan 40 years later.
We are the robots...
Following from this, the larger problem seems to be that the film is simply too much of a mish-mash of elements to particularly appeal to anyone: One could well imagine the same terza visione audience who wanted to see Franco and Ciccio do their thing tuning out when Vincent Price or Fabian were on the screen, and the bulk of the US matinee audience wondering who these crazy Italians were. (Tellingly even the English and Italian titles emphasise different things: Goldfoot and his girl bombs versus the two spies who came in from the semi-cold.)
Franco makes his escape, disguises as a girlbomb
Bava’s direction seems pretty flat and uninspired, though his hand feels evident in the numerous trick shots and the cheap yet sometimes effective designs for Goldfoot’s laboratory, most notably the mirrored room in which the ever-multiplying army of girl bombs exercise.
While Ciccio gets captured and stuck in the duplication machine
At a pinch there is also some characteristic play on the idea of deceptive appearances in a gag where Price is on one side of the mirror frame and Ciccio, as his reflection, on the other, and in the girl bombs more generally, most notably in the sequence where Fabian has to make out the difference between the real and replicant Antonelli’s – part of the difference being that the real one won’t yet make out with him while the mechanical doll double is decidedly more forward – with the result a broken doll/dummy figure on the floor.
Another moment, intriguing in light of the Bava-scripted Schoolgirl Killer with its private girls school setting and cross-dressing killer, is a scene where Dr Goldfoot dresses up as a nun while his girl bombs pose as schoolgirls in order to intercept the bomb from Franco and Ciccio.
The plot is simplicity itself.
The evil Dr Goldfoot (Vincent Price) has managed to evade capture once again and is soon back to his old tricks with his attractive but explosive girl bombs – i.e. convincing looking fembots equipped with explosive charges.
Working with the Chinese, represented by Hard Job (Moa Tahi), Fong and a bunch of nameless goons, his plan is to precipitate a nuclear war between the USA and the USSR by dropping an H-bomb on Moscow.
Price in the Pit and the Pendulum?
The only ones standing in his way are Bill Dexter, an ex-agent of SIC (i.e. Security Intelligence Command) whose boss Colonel Benson (Francesco Mulé) refuses to believe him when he tells the that Goldfoot is alive and scheming until it is too late; Benson’s secretary and obvious love interest/damsel in distress Rosanna (Laura Antonelli), and two hapless individuals by the names of Franco and Ciccio (er, Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia) accidentally recruited by SIC as the only men with the special talents needed to stop Goldfoot in his tracks…
Franco makes a gesture that means something different to an Italian than a US audience?
Goldfoot and the lookalike General Willis
The results aren’t quite as bad as I had feared, but would hardly qualify as prime Bava by any stretch of the imagination.
The chief culprits are Franco and Ciccio, the extraordinarily prolific and popular Italian comedians who averaged half a dozen films a year at the time by the expedient of doing their usual characters and routines in spoofs of whatever was in favour at the box-office at any given moment (e.g. spaghetti westerns like The Handsome, the Ugly, and the Stupid and Two R-R-Ringos from Texas).
The girlbomb Antonelli
Whilst Franco and Ciccio were clearly very good at what they did, their humour doesn’t appeal to me. Not that it could or should be expected to. There is, after all, a big difference between watching this film as a member of the terza visione in Italy, 1966, caring nothing about its director, and as an Anglophone Bava fan 40 years later.
We are the robots...
Following from this, the larger problem seems to be that the film is simply too much of a mish-mash of elements to particularly appeal to anyone: One could well imagine the same terza visione audience who wanted to see Franco and Ciccio do their thing tuning out when Vincent Price or Fabian were on the screen, and the bulk of the US matinee audience wondering who these crazy Italians were. (Tellingly even the English and Italian titles emphasise different things: Goldfoot and his girl bombs versus the two spies who came in from the semi-cold.)
Franco makes his escape, disguises as a girlbomb
Bava’s direction seems pretty flat and uninspired, though his hand feels evident in the numerous trick shots and the cheap yet sometimes effective designs for Goldfoot’s laboratory, most notably the mirrored room in which the ever-multiplying army of girl bombs exercise.
While Ciccio gets captured and stuck in the duplication machine
At a pinch there is also some characteristic play on the idea of deceptive appearances in a gag where Price is on one side of the mirror frame and Ciccio, as his reflection, on the other, and in the girl bombs more generally, most notably in the sequence where Fabian has to make out the difference between the real and replicant Antonelli’s – part of the difference being that the real one won’t yet make out with him while the mechanical doll double is decidedly more forward – with the result a broken doll/dummy figure on the floor.
Another moment, intriguing in light of the Bava-scripted Schoolgirl Killer with its private girls school setting and cross-dressing killer, is a scene where Dr Goldfoot dresses up as a nun while his girl bombs pose as schoolgirls in order to intercept the bomb from Franco and Ciccio.
Monday, 14 April 2008
Prostituzione / Red Light Girls / Love Angels / Sex Slayer
We open with the murder of a prostitute, Giselle. Nothing particularly unusual about that for a giallo, although the presentation makes it clear that things aren't as straightforward as they seem in that we see both the face of her last client and of the voyeur hidden in the ungrowth.
As such, barring a double-bluff on the part of the filmmakers – and given that the writer-director is Rino Di Silvestro of Naked Werewolf Woman infamy we aren't dealing with an obvious candidate for anything that clever – we can be fairly certain that the guilty party is to be found elsewhere.
The face of the killer?
The face of the killer?
Not that the police can engage in such meta-gaming strategies. All they have to go on is that Giselle is dead, with leads proving difficult to come by on account of her status as scab sex-worker labour whom the other working girls resented. Yet this also helps them determine that Giselle was different from the norm, being a student from a respectable background.
A visit to Giselle's apartment uncovers an expensive gift – complete with what ultimately proves to be the classic classic musical leitmotif to the crime – and a coincidental/convenient appearance by her fidanzato (Elio Zamuto), an obvious suspect but for his own respectable occupation working for Mrs North's (Magda Konopka's) boutique, apparent surprise/shock at news of her death and solid alibi.
Though those who have seen the later Rings of Fear or who are aware of the long history of fashionable glamour in the giallo from Blood and Black Lace onwards may have cause for pause here, however.
To say this isn't really to give anything away because De Silvestro continues to depart from giallo formula in preferring to first introduce the crime and its perpetrators and then have the investigators discover what we already know.
Moreover as the narrative advances to its inevitable conclusion the digressions and subplots, one involving a blackmailing photographer (Luciano Rossi), another a middle aged prostitute who slowly realises that her lover is more interested in her daughter, become increasingly prominent.
Classic signor Rossi
The result is an giallo/mondo/melodrama mix that veers uncomfortably between the comic – the obligatory transvestite – and the tragic – the gang rape of one of the prostitutes (Orchidea De Santis) after she insists that her client wear a condom because she always gets pregnant otherwise and has been advised by her doctor that she can't have any more abortions on account of her anaemia.
Forbidden photos of a Citizen Above Suspicion...
... and a Respectable Lady Above Suspicion
If Red Light Girls thereby fails as serious drama or documentary – though incredibly De Silvestro reportedly received letters from real-life prostitutes praising him for the authenticity of his film – it succeeds, intentionally or not, as trashy entertainment. Again, however, those seeking wall-to-wall sleaze might be better advised to look elsewhere, with the film's aspirational qualities also limiting the extent to which you can expect to see the likes of Konopka and Krista Nell really getting down and dirty.
I watched the film through the evidently cut BBFC X certificated version which runs only 70 minutes. There is also a 85 minute Swedish subtitled edit as Street Angels.
If anyone has any more information on the difference between these versions let me know – especially if there are missing scenes with Konopka, Nell and company...
As such, barring a double-bluff on the part of the filmmakers – and given that the writer-director is Rino Di Silvestro of Naked Werewolf Woman infamy we aren't dealing with an obvious candidate for anything that clever – we can be fairly certain that the guilty party is to be found elsewhere.
The face of the killer?
The face of the killer?
Not that the police can engage in such meta-gaming strategies. All they have to go on is that Giselle is dead, with leads proving difficult to come by on account of her status as scab sex-worker labour whom the other working girls resented. Yet this also helps them determine that Giselle was different from the norm, being a student from a respectable background.
A visit to Giselle's apartment uncovers an expensive gift – complete with what ultimately proves to be the classic classic musical leitmotif to the crime – and a coincidental/convenient appearance by her fidanzato (Elio Zamuto), an obvious suspect but for his own respectable occupation working for Mrs North's (Magda Konopka's) boutique, apparent surprise/shock at news of her death and solid alibi.
Though those who have seen the later Rings of Fear or who are aware of the long history of fashionable glamour in the giallo from Blood and Black Lace onwards may have cause for pause here, however.
To say this isn't really to give anything away because De Silvestro continues to depart from giallo formula in preferring to first introduce the crime and its perpetrators and then have the investigators discover what we already know.
Moreover as the narrative advances to its inevitable conclusion the digressions and subplots, one involving a blackmailing photographer (Luciano Rossi), another a middle aged prostitute who slowly realises that her lover is more interested in her daughter, become increasingly prominent.
Classic signor Rossi
The result is an giallo/mondo/melodrama mix that veers uncomfortably between the comic – the obligatory transvestite – and the tragic – the gang rape of one of the prostitutes (Orchidea De Santis) after she insists that her client wear a condom because she always gets pregnant otherwise and has been advised by her doctor that she can't have any more abortions on account of her anaemia.
Forbidden photos of a Citizen Above Suspicion...
... and a Respectable Lady Above Suspicion
If Red Light Girls thereby fails as serious drama or documentary – though incredibly De Silvestro reportedly received letters from real-life prostitutes praising him for the authenticity of his film – it succeeds, intentionally or not, as trashy entertainment. Again, however, those seeking wall-to-wall sleaze might be better advised to look elsewhere, with the film's aspirational qualities also limiting the extent to which you can expect to see the likes of Konopka and Krista Nell really getting down and dirty.
I watched the film through the evidently cut BBFC X certificated version which runs only 70 minutes. There is also a 85 minute Swedish subtitled edit as Street Angels.
If anyone has any more information on the difference between these versions let me know – especially if there are missing scenes with Konopka, Nell and company...
Sunday, 13 April 2008
A Patrick question
Earlier this week I watched the Richard Franklin telekinetic killer in a coma film Patrick. I knew little about it other than that it had spawned an unofficial and considerably grubbier Italian sequel, Patrick Lives Again; that the latter film is so sleazy is hardly surprising when you remember that it's from the Crisanti/Bianchi team.
The biggest surprise for me about Franklin's film was its music, in that I was expecting to hear Goblin but instead got Australian soundtrack composer Brian May (i.e. not the Queen guitarist). I'd forgotten that Goblin's was an alternative score.
Which brings me on to the question/topic: In his book Nightmare Movies Kim Newman mentions Patrick and Patrick Lives Again as an example of the spin-off/rip-off mentality in Italian popular cinema of the time, suggesting that what they show was that a film didn't need to be particularly successful at the box-office to spawn an Italian imitation.
While I agree with Newman's point in the main, I'm wondering how successful Patrick was in Italy specifically (whether the Goblin score boosted its prospects/signalled its relative importance; perhaps a kind of inversion of the treatment the likes of Rustichelli's scores for Bava received in the US, where they were habitually replaced by the more marketable/audience appealing Les Baxter) and the importance of local conditions.
Was Patrick Lives Again really one of those nationally specific sequels, never particularly expected to receive distribution internationally or in English-speaking territories specifically?
I'm also thinking here of the likes of Faces of Death, purportedly a bigger success than Star Wars in Japan on their initial releases; or of the substrata of spaghetti westerns that never circulated in the US or UK; or of the relative box-office success of Dawn of the Dead in different markets and the relative delay in releasing it in the US against Italy, with the question of whether the international prospects for Zombi 2 were really known at the time it was put into production compared to the domestic ones.
The biggest surprise for me about Franklin's film was its music, in that I was expecting to hear Goblin but instead got Australian soundtrack composer Brian May (i.e. not the Queen guitarist). I'd forgotten that Goblin's was an alternative score.
Which brings me on to the question/topic: In his book Nightmare Movies Kim Newman mentions Patrick and Patrick Lives Again as an example of the spin-off/rip-off mentality in Italian popular cinema of the time, suggesting that what they show was that a film didn't need to be particularly successful at the box-office to spawn an Italian imitation.
While I agree with Newman's point in the main, I'm wondering how successful Patrick was in Italy specifically (whether the Goblin score boosted its prospects/signalled its relative importance; perhaps a kind of inversion of the treatment the likes of Rustichelli's scores for Bava received in the US, where they were habitually replaced by the more marketable/audience appealing Les Baxter) and the importance of local conditions.
Was Patrick Lives Again really one of those nationally specific sequels, never particularly expected to receive distribution internationally or in English-speaking territories specifically?
I'm also thinking here of the likes of Faces of Death, purportedly a bigger success than Star Wars in Japan on their initial releases; or of the substrata of spaghetti westerns that never circulated in the US or UK; or of the relative box-office success of Dawn of the Dead in different markets and the relative delay in releasing it in the US against Italy, with the question of whether the international prospects for Zombi 2 were really known at the time it was put into production compared to the domestic ones.
Malabimba / Satan's Baby Doll
What we have here are two films made for the same producer, trash-king Gabriele Crisanti, with the same lead actress, Crisanti's then-wife Mariangela Giordano, playing naughty nuns, by two brothers, Andrea and Mario Bianchi.
Many of these names appear in both films' credits
Moreover 1979's Malabimba and 1982's Satan's Baby Doll also utilise the same atmospheric castle exteriors and interiors and tell more or less identical stories of an innocent young woman's possession by a malign, vengeance-seeking spirit; that this innocent is played by different actresses – Katell Laennec in Malabimba, JJacqueline Dupré in Satan's Baby Doll – is perhaps explicable on account of the three-year gap between the productions and the correspondingly limited range of 'barely legal' looking talent the filmmakers could draw upon and then discard.
This 'fresh flesh' aspect, in turn emphasises another aspect that only adds to the viewers' confusion, with both films also existing in softcore and hardcore versions.
Though I viewed the latter versions, released on DVD by Severin, the hardcore footage is hardly essential in either occasion, being very much comprised of obvious inserts where you never see any shots actually attach the sets of genitalia seen in the penetration shots to the name performer like Aldo Sambrell (Baby Doll's drug addicted, wife-murdering paterfamilias) they are supposed to belong and where the money shots that would be foregrounded in a conventional porn production of the period are conspicuously absent.
The bear
The teddy bear...
Attraction and repulsion, sex and violence...
Following from this it's probably fair to say that the softcore versions – which still include plenty of female nudity, masturbation and faux lesbian activity – better represent the filmmakers' intentions, were it not for the fact that their intention was plainly to make as commercial a film as possible.
Plot- and character-wise there's not a lot to be said: the basic rule is that all the male characters are unpleasant and the females sex-crazed, either in their own right or through possession, with the narratives in both cases progressing through a succession of sexual and/or supernatural encounters that frequently precipitate the deaths of those involved – including, in both films, by blow-job and plunge from a height.
There are however a few moments amid the zoom and close-up dominated mise en scène in both films that hint at a aspiration to do a touch more than get the film in the can.
The female voyeur; no doubt we could also talk about the barred signifier here...
In Malambima, for instance, one of the sex scenes with Webley takes place on a bearskin rug which the camera zooms in on. It seems odd at first, but then allows for a neat connection to be made with the following sequence in which the confused Bimba, who had been secretly observing her aunt, indulges in a spot of frottage with her teddy bear – before taking a knife to it.
It's the kind of thing which recalls Jess Franco at his best, where the bold improvisation and experimentation lead further into the kind of psychosexual territory than most filmmakers would be willing to venture.
The séance is also well presented, though the lowest common denominator aspect again inevitably comes through when one of the presence's first manifestations is to make Webley's breasts fall out of her dress – not that they needed much help, since her costumes admittedly tend to be of the threw something on and nearly missed varietal...
The agony and the ecstasy as Sister Sofia is assaulted by the presence...
Satan's Baby Doll is the more atmospheric and effective of the films on the whole, in large part because its score is both better suited to the material and more stylistically coherent and consistent, with gentle Beyond-style piano and vocal pieces that build to harder rocking crescendos as required. Malabimba by contrast uses a less well matched selection of cues plainly culled from the library, with several familiar from other (Andrea) Bianchi entries including Strip Nude for Your Killer and Zombie: Nights of Terror.
An image that incorporates lesbianism, necrophilia and satanism...
The most consistently impressive aspects of both Malabimba and Satan's Baby Doll are Giordano's performances. It's not just the evident commitment and lack of inhibition with which she strips off and gets down to business, but also the sense of distress and despair that pervades her delivery, gestures and expressions. She really makes you believe that she knows she shouldn't be doing these things but just cannot help herself – a state of mind perhaps curiously reminiscent of that of the Eurotrash fan himself, who knows that these films aren't great art by any means, but nevertheless can't help falling under their spell...
Many of these names appear in both films' credits
Moreover 1979's Malabimba and 1982's Satan's Baby Doll also utilise the same atmospheric castle exteriors and interiors and tell more or less identical stories of an innocent young woman's possession by a malign, vengeance-seeking spirit; that this innocent is played by different actresses – Katell Laennec in Malabimba, JJacqueline Dupré in Satan's Baby Doll – is perhaps explicable on account of the three-year gap between the productions and the correspondingly limited range of 'barely legal' looking talent the filmmakers could draw upon and then discard.
This 'fresh flesh' aspect, in turn emphasises another aspect that only adds to the viewers' confusion, with both films also existing in softcore and hardcore versions.
Though I viewed the latter versions, released on DVD by Severin, the hardcore footage is hardly essential in either occasion, being very much comprised of obvious inserts where you never see any shots actually attach the sets of genitalia seen in the penetration shots to the name performer like Aldo Sambrell (Baby Doll's drug addicted, wife-murdering paterfamilias) they are supposed to belong and where the money shots that would be foregrounded in a conventional porn production of the period are conspicuously absent.
The bear
The teddy bear...
Attraction and repulsion, sex and violence...
Following from this it's probably fair to say that the softcore versions – which still include plenty of female nudity, masturbation and faux lesbian activity – better represent the filmmakers' intentions, were it not for the fact that their intention was plainly to make as commercial a film as possible.
Plot- and character-wise there's not a lot to be said: the basic rule is that all the male characters are unpleasant and the females sex-crazed, either in their own right or through possession, with the narratives in both cases progressing through a succession of sexual and/or supernatural encounters that frequently precipitate the deaths of those involved – including, in both films, by blow-job and plunge from a height.
There are however a few moments amid the zoom and close-up dominated mise en scène in both films that hint at a aspiration to do a touch more than get the film in the can.
The female voyeur; no doubt we could also talk about the barred signifier here...
In Malambima, for instance, one of the sex scenes with Webley takes place on a bearskin rug which the camera zooms in on. It seems odd at first, but then allows for a neat connection to be made with the following sequence in which the confused Bimba, who had been secretly observing her aunt, indulges in a spot of frottage with her teddy bear – before taking a knife to it.
It's the kind of thing which recalls Jess Franco at his best, where the bold improvisation and experimentation lead further into the kind of psychosexual territory than most filmmakers would be willing to venture.
The séance is also well presented, though the lowest common denominator aspect again inevitably comes through when one of the presence's first manifestations is to make Webley's breasts fall out of her dress – not that they needed much help, since her costumes admittedly tend to be of the threw something on and nearly missed varietal...
The agony and the ecstasy as Sister Sofia is assaulted by the presence...
Satan's Baby Doll is the more atmospheric and effective of the films on the whole, in large part because its score is both better suited to the material and more stylistically coherent and consistent, with gentle Beyond-style piano and vocal pieces that build to harder rocking crescendos as required. Malabimba by contrast uses a less well matched selection of cues plainly culled from the library, with several familiar from other (Andrea) Bianchi entries including Strip Nude for Your Killer and Zombie: Nights of Terror.
An image that incorporates lesbianism, necrophilia and satanism...
The most consistently impressive aspects of both Malabimba and Satan's Baby Doll are Giordano's performances. It's not just the evident commitment and lack of inhibition with which she strips off and gets down to business, but also the sense of distress and despair that pervades her delivery, gestures and expressions. She really makes you believe that she knows she shouldn't be doing these things but just cannot help herself – a state of mind perhaps curiously reminiscent of that of the Eurotrash fan himself, who knows that these films aren't great art by any means, but nevertheless can't help falling under their spell...
Tuesday, 8 April 2008
Tough to Kill
Written by Paul Cooke and David Zuzelo of Tough to Kill and Tomb it May Concern and available through Lulu.com, this 120 page PDF/print-on-demand book/ebook examines The European Action Cinema Explosion of the 1980s or, more specifically, the contribution made by Italian productions and co-productions to it.
The bulk of the volume is comprised of 80+ reviews of films like Alien From the Deep, Ark of the Sun God, The Atlantis Interceptors, The Barbarians, The Black Cobra (and II and III), punctuated by cheesy video sleeve artwork, almost invariably of grimacing steriod-amped types wielding large phallic weapons.
The write-ups tell you what you want and need to know about a particular film – who made it, who's in it, what it's ripping off (if the title alone doesn't give this away), how much action there is and how far things get bogged down by niceties such as characterisation and plot etc. – and finish up with an “exploding huts” rating of one to five to help the new viewer work their way through the minefield of the good, the bad, the ugly and the frankly inept.
They are also pretty damn entertaining in their own right:
“Ettore Spagnuolo and Alfonse Brescia, the gruesome twosome of European trash cinema, try to add together zero budget and zero market desire to equal a good feature film. It doesn’t compute. However, Miami Cops is the most entertaining movie with Miami in the title that NEVER goes near Miami. And it has chainsaw slashed bad guys going for it.”
“A film that defies description without begging for hyperbole, Strike Commando is action-sploitation that pounds outrageous and entertaining mischief in every minute. Really. The brain trust (read: they trust that you will not use your brain!) of Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso fired on all genre conventions, burping out this incredible entry.”
Reading as someone more familiar with gialli and horror from the 1960s and 70s, it's interesting to see how the pantheon of filmmakers changes somewhat with the shift in time and place. While Castellari and Margheriti are prominent names of the ever-reliable type, the likes of Larry Ludman (i.e. Fabrizio De Angelis) and the above-mentioned Mattei emerge as solid second rank figures at their best delivering brain-dead action fun.
Indeed, one half wonders in this regard if the decline in Fulci's fortunes wasn't correlated with De Angelis's emergence as a director in his own right, as if the canny producer worked out that by directing his films himself he could save money on hiring the likes of Fulci.
It was also useful to begin to piece together the flow of the action-adventure cycle over the course of the decade, with a prevalence of entries sullo stesso filone Raiders of the Lost Ark, Mad Max, Conan the Barbarian or Rambo etc. depending on the exact point in the 80s.
In this regard, however, I also wondered whether it might have been preferable had one of the concluding essays, “Pastapocalypse 80: After they Baked the Big Apple,” which gives something of an overview of key films and stages in the the cycle, come at the start to facilitate access for the newcomer.
Then again, it could be said that part of the joy of this kind of cinema is discovering things for yourself and that providing a short cut to finding out about the delirious like of The Last Match – which I won't describe here so as not to spoil things for you – not only takes some of the fun out of things but also makes it that bit easier for those who don't understand to misappropriate and mock.
The other concluding pieces comprise a tribute to Bruno Mattei and to some of the most notable performers within the cycle – Brent Huff, Lewis Collins (whom many UK viewers may find it hard to disassociate from The Professionals, as I did), Reb Brown and Mark Gregory – and an interview with Edoardo Margheriti, discussing his own work and that of his father, Antonio.
Or, to put it another way, the kind of things which will please the fan and leave the other 99 per cent nonplussed.
The point, of course, is that the internet and the ability to self-publish means that this majority reaction really doesn't matter any more: it's now so much easier for the other one per cent of us to make contact, support one another's endeavours and spread that Eurocult love...
Monday, 7 April 2008
Il Cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco, ovvero: Dracula in Brianza / Dracula in the Provinces
Il Cavaliere Costante Nicosia (Lando Buzzanca) just about has it all: a beautiful wife, Mariu (Sylva Koscina) and mistress, Liu (Christa Linder) and a profitable business, Italy's largest toothpaste manufactory. Mariu and the business came together – by marrying Mariu Costante inherited the factory from her father; clearly nobody thought that Mariu might venture into the world of business in her own right nor ever assume anything other than decorative and familial roles. Perhaps the risk of contamination was too great; as proof, we can look at the example of Wanda Torsello (Francesca Romana Coluzzi), the militant communist union organiser.
Costante's good fortune in turn highlights the other dominant aspect of his make up: all manner of superstitious quasi religious, pre-capitalist beliefs, ranging from having a hunchback on the company payroll so that he can rub the man's hump for luck to getting the homely looking – and thus, by the logic of the genre, assuredly still virginal – live-in maid to urinate on the pieces of broken mirror as a means of counteracting the seven years bad luck it would otherwise bring.
“Dinner in Transylvania's always in the nude,” explains Dragalescu...
The Brides of Dragalescu close in
Costante falls asleep with one of the women...
The aforementioned contamination, meanwhile, could be considered a dominant theme of the film, emerging at just the point when Costante's luck runs out as, following a business trip to Romania and a half-remembered evening with Count Dragalescu (John Steiner) that begian with the count's three vampire brides but ended with the two men waking up in bed together, Costante comes to suspect that he has be infected with homosexuality.
Then awakens besides
Dragalescu!
Back in Brianza and finding himself gazing longingly at the buttocks of the company basketball team as they shower, Costante goes to see Dr Paluzzi (Rossano Brazzi) for advice:
“As I was saying about my cousin [...] he found himself in bed with the man who was his host.”
“Naturally”
“No doctor, it isn't natural at all. This person isn't that kind of person. Well, anyway, he drank something. As a matter of fact I don't know what, but a whole bottle. He fell asleep smashed out of his skull. He didn't know what he was doing. That's the real truth of it doctor, that is the catch! He didn't know if he...”
“If he was penetrated or not.”
“I didn't want to put it that way exactly. Anyway, from that moment he gets these funny sensations any time he sees a naked man. He's afraid of becoming, he's afraid of turning into a...”
“Queer?”
“No”
“What do you mean no, well then exactly what is he afraid he's turning into?”
“A queer”
“Naturally”
“How can you say naturally! He isn't that kind of person, you understand! The man is happily married, a very influential person, financially secure. He has a mistress.”
Etc:
“After your return from Romania, have you been to bed with a woman?”
“Me? Why do you want to know? I thought we were talking about my cousin. No I don't think he's been to bed with anyone because he's feeling miserable. He's probably afraid to go to bed with anyone in case his you-know-what doesn't work any more.”
“Ah yes, that's natural. But he shouldn't worry about it. Talk to your, em, cousin and reassure him. [...] The fact is that one doesn't turn into a homosexual like that in only two hours.”
“Yes, that's what I told him too, but the jerk he wouldn't listen.”
“But you said he was having an affair on the side. That's great: he should go straight to her, do what comes naturally. I guarantee he'll feel better right away unless... unless he's unable to perform. Then we know that on that night you described in such detail he was ...”
“Deflowered”
“Naturally”
“Oh...”
When Liu then accidentally cuts herself and Costante sucks the blood out the wound less it result in an infection another truth thus begins to dawn: he has become a vampire.
Whether this is better or worse depends, of course, on if this condition has taken is a distinctly masculine oral-sadistic or more worryingly polymorphously perverse form.
Or, in less Freudian terms, is Costante a heterosexual vampire or not?
This 1975 comedy forms a natural companion piece to The Eroticist, a satirical fantasy-comedy one-two that showcase Lucio Fulci's versatility and the evident rapport he had with leading man Lando Buzzanca.
The main difference between the two films is perhaps that whereas The Eroticist's affinities with the rest of Fulci's work were evident at both the levels of form and content, the balance in Il Cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco, ovvero: Dracula in Brianza / Dracula in the Provinces shifts somewhat towards the latter, with a more restrained – if still excessive - mise en scène and fewer set-pieces.
Another way of saying this might be to suggest that if The Eroticist was the film of a Surrealist-Marxist, Dracula in the Provinces is the film of a Marxist-Surrealist, premised on the notion that “Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks,” to quote Marx, albeit a Marx clearly in more poetic than scientific mood.
Given the to-and-fro of influence between Fulci and Argento, it's worth nothing that the film also features a German shepherd guard dog called Gestapo with a tendency to attack people according to its own distinctive unfathomable logic, two years before Suspiria.
Il Cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco, ovvero: Dracula in Brianza is essential viewing for anyone working on a comparative study of political and sexual subtexts in the European horror-comedy/satire of the period (alongside Vampire Sterben Nichts, Dance of the Vampires, Hanno cambiato faccia and the Warhol/Morrisey/Margheriti Dracula and Frankenstein pair etc.) or who just enjoys something a bit more immediately thought-provoking than the usual T&A driven Italian comedies of the 1970s.
Costante's good fortune in turn highlights the other dominant aspect of his make up: all manner of superstitious quasi religious, pre-capitalist beliefs, ranging from having a hunchback on the company payroll so that he can rub the man's hump for luck to getting the homely looking – and thus, by the logic of the genre, assuredly still virginal – live-in maid to urinate on the pieces of broken mirror as a means of counteracting the seven years bad luck it would otherwise bring.
“Dinner in Transylvania's always in the nude,” explains Dragalescu...
The Brides of Dragalescu close in
Costante falls asleep with one of the women...
The aforementioned contamination, meanwhile, could be considered a dominant theme of the film, emerging at just the point when Costante's luck runs out as, following a business trip to Romania and a half-remembered evening with Count Dragalescu (John Steiner) that begian with the count's three vampire brides but ended with the two men waking up in bed together, Costante comes to suspect that he has be infected with homosexuality.
Then awakens besides
Dragalescu!
Back in Brianza and finding himself gazing longingly at the buttocks of the company basketball team as they shower, Costante goes to see Dr Paluzzi (Rossano Brazzi) for advice:
“As I was saying about my cousin [...] he found himself in bed with the man who was his host.”
“Naturally”
“No doctor, it isn't natural at all. This person isn't that kind of person. Well, anyway, he drank something. As a matter of fact I don't know what, but a whole bottle. He fell asleep smashed out of his skull. He didn't know what he was doing. That's the real truth of it doctor, that is the catch! He didn't know if he...”
“If he was penetrated or not.”
“I didn't want to put it that way exactly. Anyway, from that moment he gets these funny sensations any time he sees a naked man. He's afraid of becoming, he's afraid of turning into a...”
“Queer?”
“No”
“What do you mean no, well then exactly what is he afraid he's turning into?”
“A queer”
“Naturally”
“How can you say naturally! He isn't that kind of person, you understand! The man is happily married, a very influential person, financially secure. He has a mistress.”
Etc:
“After your return from Romania, have you been to bed with a woman?”
“Me? Why do you want to know? I thought we were talking about my cousin. No I don't think he's been to bed with anyone because he's feeling miserable. He's probably afraid to go to bed with anyone in case his you-know-what doesn't work any more.”
“Ah yes, that's natural. But he shouldn't worry about it. Talk to your, em, cousin and reassure him. [...] The fact is that one doesn't turn into a homosexual like that in only two hours.”
“Yes, that's what I told him too, but the jerk he wouldn't listen.”
“But you said he was having an affair on the side. That's great: he should go straight to her, do what comes naturally. I guarantee he'll feel better right away unless... unless he's unable to perform. Then we know that on that night you described in such detail he was ...”
“Deflowered”
“Naturally”
“Oh...”
When Liu then accidentally cuts herself and Costante sucks the blood out the wound less it result in an infection another truth thus begins to dawn: he has become a vampire.
Whether this is better or worse depends, of course, on if this condition has taken is a distinctly masculine oral-sadistic or more worryingly polymorphously perverse form.
Or, in less Freudian terms, is Costante a heterosexual vampire or not?
This 1975 comedy forms a natural companion piece to The Eroticist, a satirical fantasy-comedy one-two that showcase Lucio Fulci's versatility and the evident rapport he had with leading man Lando Buzzanca.
The main difference between the two films is perhaps that whereas The Eroticist's affinities with the rest of Fulci's work were evident at both the levels of form and content, the balance in Il Cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco, ovvero: Dracula in Brianza / Dracula in the Provinces shifts somewhat towards the latter, with a more restrained – if still excessive - mise en scène and fewer set-pieces.
Another way of saying this might be to suggest that if The Eroticist was the film of a Surrealist-Marxist, Dracula in the Provinces is the film of a Marxist-Surrealist, premised on the notion that “Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks,” to quote Marx, albeit a Marx clearly in more poetic than scientific mood.
Given the to-and-fro of influence between Fulci and Argento, it's worth nothing that the film also features a German shepherd guard dog called Gestapo with a tendency to attack people according to its own distinctive unfathomable logic, two years before Suspiria.
Il Cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco, ovvero: Dracula in Brianza is essential viewing for anyone working on a comparative study of political and sexual subtexts in the European horror-comedy/satire of the period (alongside Vampire Sterben Nichts, Dance of the Vampires, Hanno cambiato faccia and the Warhol/Morrisey/Margheriti Dracula and Frankenstein pair etc.) or who just enjoys something a bit more immediately thought-provoking than the usual T&A driven Italian comedies of the 1970s.
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