Das Geheimnis der schwarzen Koffer / The Secret of the Black Trunk

This was the first krimi to be based on the work of Bryan Edgar Wallace rather than his father and thus to be made by CCC rather than Rialto Film who, together, were responsible for almost all the cycle from 1959 to 1972.


The English credits

Unlike some of CCC's later Bryan Edgar Wallace adaptations, however, the author appears here not to play any role in adapting his material for the screen - a role he was well equipped to perform, having long had a parallel careers in the cinema - nor does he perform an on-screen introduction.


The Hans Reiser here is not the same as his file-system creating, wife-murdering namesake

But barring a few concessions to the contemporary world of the 1960s, with the plot involving a drugs ring and a vengeance-seeking FBI agent - the agency did not take this name until 1935, three years after Wallace senior's death - and the inspector coming from New Scotland Yard rather than Scotland Yard, it is very much a case of like father, like son.

Thus, we have a murder mystery with the killer employing a somewhat rarefied modus operandi. Each victim receives finds his bags packed and then falls victim to an expertly thrown knife in the back. The plot is suitably convoluted and improbable, also featuring a set of disparate characters - including a kindly if absent minded doctor; his assistant, a potential the love interest / damsel in distress type also searching for a brother she believes is still alive; a would-be blackmailer; an expert in the criminal mind, and an Eddi Arent style comic relief "sound hound" who inevitably inadvertently records a vital clue on his ever-present portable tape recorder - whilst the various locations, represented by that familiar mix of stock footage and German studio and streets, include the inevitable dungeon and sleazy nightclub, in turn incorporating a laboratory and nude painting concealing a spyhole respectively.


A contemporary concession?

Another amusing incidental in this regard is the Latin knife thrower the Yard brings in to assist in their inquiries. Though he's neither a suspect nor guilty, as one suspects he would have been in one of Wallace senior's works, he does however still express a somewhat suspect admiration for the killer's unerring accuracy in a manner that a more respectable Englishman never would...

The cast is less memorable than the Rialto krimis, with both the Klaus Kinski style victim or villain and the Siegfried Schurenberg 'Sir John' type conspicuous in their absence. Senta Berger,, however, makes for an entirely adequate Karin Dor stand-in.

Veteran Werner Klingler's direction is restrained and by the book, showing none of the personality or style of Alfred Vohrer and Harald Reinl and thus emerging as very much the competent craftsman rather than the potential auteur. Thus, whereas Reinl undoubtedly relished the opportunity to later work on CCC's Mabuse series as a means of exploring his Lang obsession, one suspects that Klingler, whose other assigmnents around this time include the Nazi 'master race' breeding programme exploitationer Lebensborn and the self-explanatory Notes from a Gynaecologist's Diary, probably just regarded it as just another job.

Cinematographer Richard Angst provides his usual expressionist visuals, though on account of the somewhat less than ideal transfer on the Sinister Cinema copy under review these unfortunately come across as more shades of lighter and darker grey than stark blacks and whites, while composer Gerd Wilden is behind the agreeable crime-jazz beats, albeit understandably less trashy, sleazy and quirky than his later work.

In sum, a reasonably satisfying ersatzprodukt for the hungry krimi completist.

L'Arma, L'ora, il movente / The Weapon, The Hour, The Motive

As any follower of the filone knows, the priest is a common figure in the giallo. More often than not he turns out to be the killer; even if he isn't he's normally a prime suspect / red herring.

Gialli killer priests can by and large be divided into two: those who are genuine the genuine and those who are impostors. Given the cultural landscape, we might suggest that real killer priests were more often the product of Communist filmmakers and impostors the product of Christian Democrats, in broad line with the the post-war division between the two groups and their supporters.

Undoubtedly another condition, necessary if not necessarily sufficient, was box-office potential, of whether taking the more exploitative option when it was correspondingly more likely to be the subject of censure – not necessarily a bad thing, if there's no such thing as bad publicity – and the censor was a risk worth taking.

In all these terms L'Arma, l'ora, il movente is something of an oddity.

Its victim is a priest, Father Giorgio. And, indeed for a time in which the film follows the police detectives Franco Boito (Renzo Montagnini) and Moriconi as they attempt to establish the exact motive for his murder – they quickly think they have established the weapon and the hour, as per the title – it seems that he will be also the only one, more in lines with the classic tale of raciotination than the contemporary serial murder thriller. Furthermore Further Giorgio doesn't quite fit into any of the taxonomies outlined above.

For, unlike the detectives, we're immediately made aware of possible motives for the priest's murder in that he's been carrying on with two different women, Giulia (Eva Czemerys) and Orchidea (Bedy Moratti), both of whom he has just tried to break up with – in Giulia's case with an evident lack of success, seeing as they then make love. For, as Father Giorgio's self-flagellation attests, he's also deeply troubled by these sins of the flesh and betrayals of his priestly vow of celibacy.

Priestploitation? A serious comment on the situation of the priesthood in an increasingly secular society? Or, as seems most probable, a bit of having things both ways?

But, just in case these two female suspects and their motives are insufficient we've also got an ex-convict gardener with anger management issues, who had earlier threatened the priest and generally seems to have a habit of popping up out of nowhere; a fortune teller whose readings of the tarot often seem suspiciously accurate in their foretellings; the potentially jealous husband; the resident anti-clerical and, above all, Sister Tarquina (Claudia Gravy).

Suffice to say that some of them are eliminated from the enquiries by dint of being eliminated themselves.


The boy who saw too much and is thus threatened with symbolic castration?


The boy who is an orphan and thus has unresolved Oedipal issues?


Not the sort of thing you want to hear in a giallo

The only one who is not a suspect is the sick orphaned child who lives in the convent, Ferruccio (Arturo Trina). For he saw the crime being committed. Unlike him, however, we don't know who did it – assuming, that is, he knows for sure, would tell Boito the truth if he did, and be believed by the detective, given that with his enthusiasm for reading Diabolik and company any such information could easily be construed as the workings of an overactive imagation.

Though featuring the occasional mistep by way of an awkward zoom here or lowest common denominator moment of bumbling cop comedy antics there, the latter also foregrounding some nuns in the shower type material – cheap exploitation or the detailing of quotidian convent life? – Francesco Mazzei's direction is essentially solid and occasionally downright stylish.


A shock zoom that doesn't convey anything beyond shock to the viewer, since Ferrucio is already aware of the animal mask.

One moment that comes to mind here is the terrified Ferruccio's flight from his attic hideout after witnessing the murder, where a display of stuffed animals assumes a nightmarish quality through extreme close ups, zooms and random handheld camera movements. While the effect is reminiscent of a similar stuffed animal attack scene in Jesus Franco's Count Dracula it works a whole lot better because in context it can be read as Ferruccio's imagination understandably running riot.


Part of the stuffed animals come to life moment, which works intersubjectively

Another is the way in which he introduces the priest and the suspects and then, later, emphasises Boito's entry into the group as the priest's replacement as compromised voice of male / patriarchal authority through the tellingly constructed al fresco dinner table sequences. Though the characters are arranged all around the square table, the way Mazzei pans from one to the next and back again makes it seem like they are all in a line with the priest and detective occupying the central position to emphasise the Last Supper type iconography.










Casual chat, or something more significant?

More generally, Mazzei shows an eye for the little details, making the film the kind you can watch again once the issues of guilt and motivation have been revealed, and a good understanding of the mechanisms of suspense and shock alike, with long build ups that don't necessarily have any murderous payoff and occasional unexpected moment of violence, most notably a graphic throat slashing in which the killer knife suddenly penetrates the frame and then, a split second later, the throat of their victim.


The all-seeing eye?

The writing, courtesy of Mazzei, Mario Bianchi, Bruno de Germino, Vincio Marinucci and Marcello Aliprandi, presumably in that basic idea to extended scenario to dialogue specialists type manner, is not quite as accomplished.

In particular, there is little sense of the amount of time that elapses in between episodes, as when the proprietors of a restaurant are alive and well in one scene and dead through an accident in another shortly afterwards with their place showing signs of longer-term abandonment.

This is somewhat curious since time also proves very much of the essence in another, decidedly more specific way. If the specific device featured might feel a bit old – I won't say any more – it works because of that aforemetioned self-referential aspect, with the filmmakers also later throwing in a classic locked room mystery subplot along the lines of S S Van Dine's The Benson Murder Case (one of the first English language mysteries to be translated into Italian in the earliest years of Mondadori's i libri gialli) or the attemped murder of Signora Wardh, she of the The Strange Vice.

Featuring solid to impressive work from the entire cast and crew – Carlo Rambaldi provides the effects, Francesco De Masi the score – L'Arma, l'ora, il movente is a giallo that deserves to be better known.

[The film is available for download from Cinemageddon, complete with English-language fansubs]

Addio ultimo uomo / Cannibalo brutalo / The Last Savage / World of the Last Man / Farewell to the Last Man

If watching exploitation films can sometimes be described as a kind of macho endurance test, akin to seeing who can order the hottest curry on a drunken night out, then Addio Ultimo Uomo is one of those films that will sort the men out from the boys.

For away from instructional films on surgical and autopsy procedures, the art of the Vienna Aktionists or certain niche / fetish pornography, it is quite possible the most extreme film you will ever see – and that statement includes more usual Italian exploitation suspects like Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox, Buio Omega and Emanuelle in America.

The opening sequence, that of the killing and butchering of an elephant by African tribesmen, sets the scene, being unflinching and yet comparatively sombre and reasoned compared to the more usual mondo film.

There is still some maudlin musical commentary, most notably in the plaintive theme song why – “Why? Don't ask me why” – but also more apparently diegetic / authentic music.

Likewise, there is again that familiar mondo juxtaposition of 'primitive' and 'modern', whether of the unexplored surface of the moon and the African desert; the clubbing to death, cooking and eating of a dog with vivisection footage; ritual scarification and breast reconstruction surgery, or the spearing to death and severing of the hand and penis of an enemy tribesman with stock Vietnam combat and aftermath footage.

But the mondo's sneering, supercillious aspect is lacking in the voice-off commentary, which appears rather more factual and serious than most of its type, with the various rites of passage shown – which include funeral and burial rites and coming of age and fertility ceremonies – being treated with dignity and respect.





A dead elder is prepared for burial

Always assuming, that is, that you don't regard the very presence of a camera recording and representing such material, details of which include young women in one tribe being ritually deflowered with a dildo and an deceased elder of another being partially skinned, for gain to be unacceptable, full stop.

While I don't feel this myself, where I felt the filmmakers, Alfredo and Angelo Castiglioni, didn't quite succeed was in contextualising the different peoples depicted: we're told their names often mean the people or similar in their own languages, but at times there is that awkward tendency to jump from one group to another without fully identifying where we are in Africa and the more specific details pertaining on this occasion.

We see one tribe building huts and then jump to another where the constructions are evidently different; note the differences in dress, ranging from those tribes who are essentially naked to those who wear the odd western-style cap or sunglasses; or even the way in which a steel fishhook and disposable razor blade are used to perform scarification.

We may ask why. But, alas, the filmmakers have already implicitly answered that question with a don't ask us.

Nevertheless, I must again reiterate that Addio Ultimo Uomo goes further than most of its counterparts in presenting something other than just mondo shockumentary.

In this regard it is perhaps most fascinating to see the body modification material and feel that, rather than merely witnessing a one-way passage of thoughts and practices, that they have become like us as seems implied by the farewell of the title, we have also become that bit more like them, recovering atavistic aspects of our shared human past – or modern primitive future?

[A video-sourced AVI copy of the film is available from Surrealmoviez]

Spanish Strange Vice of Signora Wardh poster

Quite cool, in my opinion and interesting to see the prominence given Manuel Gil and Alberto de Mendoza.

Bakterion / Panic / I Vivi invidieranno i morti

The most memorable thing about Bakterion / Panic is surely the name of David Warbeck's special agent: Captain Kirk.

Otherwise it's pretty much your standard MIC experiment goes wrong leading to a monster running amok 50s sci-fi stuff, brought up to its 1970s date by the distinctly cynical treatment given the selfsame authorities, who are concerned more for covering their own backs over the location of a bacteriological warfare lab in the middle of a city than the welfare of its citizens.

The putative location is Newtown, England, resulting in some awkward non-integration of stock footage of iconic London buses and location shooting with clearly Spanish locations and extras elsewhere and the concomitant displacement / generalisation of any political point compared to the more specifically grounded likes of The Quatermass Xperiment, Quatermass II and The Crazies.

Admittedly, however, any such point is also decidedly secondary insofar as we're still very much in the realm of individualising conflict, with Kirk the representative of a more benevolent face of authority who takes up the cause of the people of Newport and saves them from themselves, the monster and the excesses of his masters, all whilst finding time to establish the classic heterosexual romantic outcome with Janet Agren's research scientist in that don't-worry-she's-also-a-woman-as-well manner.


The monster

Those scenes which don't feature the good and bad guys emphasise the scientist turned monster stalking and slaying, each being announced by the introduction of two or three stock types who we know are there solely for the purpose of being slaughtered.

There is one exception. This is the priest who saves his choirboys at the cost of his own life, who get an establishing scene before they are attacked – a scene which one suspects must have played differently to Catholic Spanish and Italian audiences than an Anglican one.

Having said all this, it's also worth noting that if the IMDB can be believed the film wasn't released in Italy and Spain until late December 1982 and March 1983 respectively. The possibility of political factors playing a part here are, however, countered by the likelihood that the film sat on the shelf because of its overall poor quality. If so, its belated release might then be speculatively attributed to some combination of the relative prominence of Nightmare City – whose end "the nightmare becomes reality" coda is recalled by the "this could already have happened" one here – Zombie Creeping Flesh and other monster-cum-disaster movies in the early 1980s along with the higher profiles enjoyed by its stars at this time.

With the direction throughout characterised by a perfunctory quality – the one sign of imagination seems more accidental than anything else, as the monster's attack on a crowded cinema sees everything go black in a reductio ad absurdum of the old don't show the monster trope – Panic is a film which strongly suggests the success of the only other Ricci film I can remember seeing, the 1971 giallo Cross Current, was down more to Flavio Mogherini's production design and its impressive ensemble cast.


Don't have nightmares, do sleep well...

With no Mogherini on board, more weight is placed on the performers here. Warbeck and Agren are game, but don't quite seem as comfortable in their roles – or the co-production way of working – as they would given a few more years experience. Franco Ressel, something of a regular in Ricci's films, again proves to the manner born as the sleazy scientist in charge of the biological warfare programme, while Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue's Jose Lifante is very welcome as the Newtown police sergeant out of his depth – even if his presence also reminds one of another, far superior, English set, Italian-Spanish made science gone bad horror movie of the period.

Paper on Opera wot I wrote

Recently I wrote a paper on the theme of haunting in Dario Argento's Opera, which can be found here:

http://forum.llc.ed.ac.uk/issue7/brown.html

It might be a bit theory-heavy compared to the usual posts here, but feel free let me know what you think.

Un Uomo dalla pelle dura / The Boxer / Counter Punch / Murder in the Ring / Ripped Off / Tough Guy

Un Uomo dalle pelle dura / The Boxer is a film that cannot but play differently in hindsight through the casting of the notoriously troubled Robert Blake in the titular role of the tough-skinned pugilist. For Teddy 'Cherokee' Wilcox is a man with some severe anger management issues, seemingly tailor-made for the perfectionistic, method-to-madness actor.

Within two minutes Teddy has walked out on his manager after discovering, in time honoured fashion, that boxing is a dirty game where his chances of a shot at the big time are not as much in his own hands as he would like.

Hitting the road Teddy meets a hippy stranger who asks him for a lift; that he's played by Tomas Milian suggests less a casual encounter than one which will prove important. Teddy declines, less because he fears the stranger is a Manson type – remembering the counter-counter cultural reaction against the hippy around the time of the film's release – as that he's not one to help his fellow man out: “I got my own troubles pal,” as he explains.

Arriving at a diner, Teddy then shows how much of a jerk he can be when, given admittedly slow service, he makes a mess of the counter and almost punches out the guy behind him before realising he is in fact an old friend, Mike.

As the two catch up on each other's lives we learn that Teddy is a college graduate, a decorated Vietnam veteran – he caught a bullet in the leg four months into his tour of duty and was invalided out, but killed 13 Vietcong on one occasion before this – and an ex-con; if an odd combination, it's one that is telling in terms of his personality.

As it so happens Mike also knows an old-time trainer, Nick, who worked with some of the greats, lives nearby and is always looking for young prospects. Under Nick's tutelage Teddy soon back in the ring and climbing the ranks. “We'll make boxing what it used to, what today's kids don't know.”

At this point Nick is approached by the syndicate who make threats on his life – we might wonder why they don't threaten his daughter were it not that she is the obvious love interest figure in the otherwise male-dominated tale – and tell him that Teddy must lose his next fight.

With Teddy not one to take dive, the trainer impairs his vision part of the way through the fight but the boxer somehow manages to prevail.

Realising that he has been betrayed by Nick, Teddy goes to sort things out. Arriving, he is is taken by surprise and knocked unconscious. He comes to to find Nick dead, beaten to death. in what Captain Perkins, assigned to investigate the case, surmises to be the manner of a professional...

If The Boxer unfolds like a piece of cheap pulp fiction that plays every cliché of the boxing / crime film it at least acknowledges this fact, as when Perkins proclaiming that Teddy's file “reads like a cheap novel”.

Indeed, given that Tarantino referenced Blake's TV character Baretta in Reservoir Dogs and has a long-standing interest in Italian trash cinema, one wonders if the film had in some way influenced Pulp Fiction's boxer story alongside the more obvious likes of The Set Up.

Where The Boxer departs from Hollywood formula is in the inclusion of a certain giallo touches, including fetishistic close-ups of the real killer donning black gloves before he goes to work, along with the wider investigative scenario that develops as Teddy tries to prove his innocence to the sceptical Perkins.

This in turn leads to a number of scenes of the investigators scrutinising still photographs, tapes and film clips for that vital clue, including a a neat variation on the classic giallo “testimone oculare” formulation as a lip-reader makes out some enigmatic remarks – “There may be some broken gears in the cash register. The firm sent me to fix the machinery.” – in a cinesthetic modulation from the aural to the visual back to the aural.

More generally the film benefits from mondo specialist Franco Prosperi's distinct ability to modulate between documentary and fiction styles, that knack for making his documentary material more visually exciting through more obvious interventions and the fiction material more realistic through use of documentary-style techniques.

Thought some moments like an apparent breach of the 180 degree rule don't quite come off, the montages depicting Teddy's ascendancy in the ring, accompanied by Carlos Pes's signature theme, are effective. The frequency of awkward pans in the panned and scanned version under review also suggests an effective use of the widescreen space.

Though all the cast, which also includes Ernest Borgnine as Perkins and Gabriele Ferzetti as Nick, are good the other stand-out beside Blake is Catherine Spaak as Nick's daughter. Whilst obviously there as eye-candy roles, that she otherwise portrays a character whose appearance, personality and mannerisms are very different from her role in Cat o' Nine Tails – indeed, the viewer who has seen both films may need a double take – serves to indicate her underrated abilities as an actress and that casting for one set of considerations need not preclude another.

[The film is available for download from Cinemageddon]