Bray Studios, Hammer's home studio for The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy and many others, is under threat of being demolished:
http://braystudios.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Sunday, 18 July 2010
Saturday, 17 July 2010
The Hands of Orlac
My review of the 1960 version here, as part of Cinefantastique Online's project of looking at that year's horror releases 50 years on:
http://cinefantastiqueonline.com/2010/07/hands-of-orlac-a-celebration-of-1960-review/
http://cinefantastiqueonline.com/2010/07/hands-of-orlac-a-celebration-of-1960-review/
Friday, 16 July 2010
OK Connery / Operation Kid Brother
Being from Edinburgh, Scotland, being a regular attendee of the EIFF whose patron has long been Sean Connery and living approximately half a mile from his birthplace (we also went to the same primary school, 40 or so year apart admittedly) it's difficult to avoid the man and his at times uncomfortable influence on Scottish film culture, such as it is. (When I hear the word culture I reach for my...)
Without Bond, Connery would likely be little more than a footnote: Hell Drivers is a great film in its own way, but it's also more a Cy Endfield and Stanley Baker film, while the less said of Darby O'Gill and the Little People the better...
Bond made Connery an international star: Marnie, The Hill, The Molly Maguires, The Offence, The Man Who Would Be King, and other great films ensued.
Plus Outland (High Noon in space, how original), The Rock and just as many, if not more, not so great ones...
All this is a long preamble to wondering what Sir S. thinks about OK Connery AKA Operation Kid Brother, starring his younger brother Neil alongside Adolfo Celi, Lois Maxwell and Bernard Lee from the Bond films. (Moral of the story here: Sign all your cast to contracts which prohibit them from appearing in pastiches, parodies and passing-offs; put them into bondage...)
Superior to Casino Royale - and I say this as a Val Guest fan - it's the XXX of its time, with tongue firmly in cheek.
Dr Neil Connery, a plastic surgeon, is recruited by the British secret service after his more famous brother, 00X, proves unavailable, the final digit presumably being unmentionable for legal reasons.
All sorts of weird stuff happens thereafter, which I won't pretend to understand or to have fully taken in.
This doesn't matter, however, as it's all a Mcguffin. (Hitchcock was annoyed at the way Dr No / Bond drew upon North by Northwest, but since he didn't introduce a franchisable character that's his failing.)
Neil Connery can't act, but so what?
What matters is that his presence - or rather his associations - keep things moving and the results are a lot of fun...
OK Connery = OK bullshit in French, after all...
Without Bond, Connery would likely be little more than a footnote: Hell Drivers is a great film in its own way, but it's also more a Cy Endfield and Stanley Baker film, while the less said of Darby O'Gill and the Little People the better...
Bond made Connery an international star: Marnie, The Hill, The Molly Maguires, The Offence, The Man Who Would Be King, and other great films ensued.
Plus Outland (High Noon in space, how original), The Rock and just as many, if not more, not so great ones...
All this is a long preamble to wondering what Sir S. thinks about OK Connery AKA Operation Kid Brother, starring his younger brother Neil alongside Adolfo Celi, Lois Maxwell and Bernard Lee from the Bond films. (Moral of the story here: Sign all your cast to contracts which prohibit them from appearing in pastiches, parodies and passing-offs; put them into bondage...)
Superior to Casino Royale - and I say this as a Val Guest fan - it's the XXX of its time, with tongue firmly in cheek.
Dr Neil Connery, a plastic surgeon, is recruited by the British secret service after his more famous brother, 00X, proves unavailable, the final digit presumably being unmentionable for legal reasons.
All sorts of weird stuff happens thereafter, which I won't pretend to understand or to have fully taken in.
This doesn't matter, however, as it's all a Mcguffin. (Hitchcock was annoyed at the way Dr No / Bond drew upon North by Northwest, but since he didn't introduce a franchisable character that's his failing.)
Neil Connery can't act, but so what?
What matters is that his presence - or rather his associations - keep things moving and the results are a lot of fun...
OK Connery = OK bullshit in French, after all...
Sette volte sette / Seven Times Seven
Every so often you encounter a film that reaffirms your faith in the European popular cinema.
Seven Times Seven is such a film.
It is just such a joy from beginning to end, with everyone involved getting in on the spirit of things and communicating their enthusiasm.
Effectively it's like an Italian version of The Italian Job - a crime caper. Indeed, perhaps it should be promoted as The English Job...
It is emphatically not a rip-off, however, being released a good year before Peter Collinson's film. (Someday Hollywood will discover this film.)
We begin in a high tech if not quite futuristic prison, governed by none other than Adolfo Celi in delightfully sadistic / Bond villain mode.
It is the weekend of the FA Cup final and his refusal to let the inmates watch the match precipitates a mass protest.
Meanwhile seemingly aristocratic conman Benjamin Burton makes the mistake of posing as a Health Inspector in the club that happens to be frequented by the minister for health, resulting in his arrest and imprisonment for 90 days.
These and other apparently disparate plot threads then weave together as it becomes apparent that Burton is one of the masterminds behind an especially audacious plan: He and six other prisoners, each of whom has been sent to the prison infirmary, are going to break out during the Cup Final, print a few million pounds worth of bank notes at the Royal Mint, and return to the prison before their absence has been recognised to provide them with the perfect alibi.
An immediate complication is the presence of a seventh inmate in the ward, Sam. Though the others decide to take him with them, he then proceeds to die on them, such that they now have to smuggle back his body into the prison.
This is, however, only the first of many events to intervene in their best laid, perfect crime plans...
Michele Lupo's direction is deliberately exaggerated, even grotesque, with a profusion of comic-book style set-ups and angles: Shoot from above or below, or at an angle, but certainly not just straight on, is the order of the day. So too are bright coloured visuals and exaggerated production design.
The cast is, for the Euro-trash fan, simply to die for. Besides the aforementioned Celi we have ... deep breath ... Gaston Moschin (Burton), Lionel Stander (Sam), Gordon Mitchell, Teodora Corra, Terry-Thomas, Erica Blanc, Ray Lovelock, John Bartha and Fulvio Mingozzi, among others.
Name the actors
The point is that even if these names mean nothing to you (in which case, why are you reading this?!) the film nevertheless will. So too will the delightful soundtrack, with vocals courtesy of Alessandro Alessandroni's I cantori moderni (read: another name drop/check for the cognoscenti).
The closing credits promised another film/story. If only there had been...
Seven Times Seven is such a film.
It is just such a joy from beginning to end, with everyone involved getting in on the spirit of things and communicating their enthusiasm.
Effectively it's like an Italian version of The Italian Job - a crime caper. Indeed, perhaps it should be promoted as The English Job...
It is emphatically not a rip-off, however, being released a good year before Peter Collinson's film. (Someday Hollywood will discover this film.)
We begin in a high tech if not quite futuristic prison, governed by none other than Adolfo Celi in delightfully sadistic / Bond villain mode.
It is the weekend of the FA Cup final and his refusal to let the inmates watch the match precipitates a mass protest.
Meanwhile seemingly aristocratic conman Benjamin Burton makes the mistake of posing as a Health Inspector in the club that happens to be frequented by the minister for health, resulting in his arrest and imprisonment for 90 days.
These and other apparently disparate plot threads then weave together as it becomes apparent that Burton is one of the masterminds behind an especially audacious plan: He and six other prisoners, each of whom has been sent to the prison infirmary, are going to break out during the Cup Final, print a few million pounds worth of bank notes at the Royal Mint, and return to the prison before their absence has been recognised to provide them with the perfect alibi.
An immediate complication is the presence of a seventh inmate in the ward, Sam. Though the others decide to take him with them, he then proceeds to die on them, such that they now have to smuggle back his body into the prison.
This is, however, only the first of many events to intervene in their best laid, perfect crime plans...
Michele Lupo's direction is deliberately exaggerated, even grotesque, with a profusion of comic-book style set-ups and angles: Shoot from above or below, or at an angle, but certainly not just straight on, is the order of the day. So too are bright coloured visuals and exaggerated production design.
The cast is, for the Euro-trash fan, simply to die for. Besides the aforementioned Celi we have ... deep breath ... Gaston Moschin (Burton), Lionel Stander (Sam), Gordon Mitchell, Teodora Corra, Terry-Thomas, Erica Blanc, Ray Lovelock, John Bartha and Fulvio Mingozzi, among others.
Name the actors
The point is that even if these names mean nothing to you (in which case, why are you reading this?!) the film nevertheless will. So too will the delightful soundtrack, with vocals courtesy of Alessandro Alessandroni's I cantori moderni (read: another name drop/check for the cognoscenti).
The closing credits promised another film/story. If only there had been...
Thursday, 15 July 2010
Emanuelle – Perché violenza alle donne? / Emanuelle Around the World / Confessions of Emanuelle / The Degradation of Emanuelle
Like a number of the unofficial Emanuelle series, distinguished from the originals by the one M spelling of the character's name, this is known by a confusing plethora of titles, not all of which directly relate to translations of the original Italian, in this case Emanuelle – Perché violenza alle donne? or Emanuelle – why is there violence against women?
Admittedly it’s not the most alluring of titles, especially given the target audience demographic: Emanuelle Around the World, Confessions of Emanuelle and The Degradation of Emanuelle – as were used in various territories – were probably more appealing than something that sounded perilously close to being a feminist tract rather than an exploitation movie.
Then again one of the constants of the Black Emanuelle series is their particular exploitative take on feminism: What sort of red-blooded (i.e. heterosexual) male couldn’t love the character’s liberated ideology of guilt and consequence free casual sex any time, any place, any where with pretty much anyone who asks, male or female? Isn’t it post-feminism avant la lettre?
Story wise the film is, as one perceptive IMDB reviewer remarks, basically Emanuelle in America lite.
That is, it’s again an episodic narrative travelogue that gradually focuses in on one particular topic, a “white slavery”, rather than a snuff movie, ring.
This paradigmatic shift has an odd effect: On the one hand white slavery sounds distinctly passé for a 1970s film compared to the decidedly contemporairy phenomenon of snuff movies, with this quaintness further foregrounded by the fact that our protagonist isn’t even identified as white. On the other hand a simple change of terminology to “people trafficking” would give it a relevance to today’s tabloids.
Though there are again hardcore inserts, at least in the version under review (DVD distributor Severin has released both R and XXX type versions), there is nothing to compare to the fake but uncomfortably convincing snuff footage of Emanuelle in America.
Likewise while there is one scene which implies bestiality, as a snake is encouraged to explore one would-be prostitute’s vagina and a dog to mount another (shades of the contemporaneous US and French hardcore productions The Devil in Miss Jones and Exhibition perhaps) there is nothing to quite compare to the previous film’s more explicit horse masturbation scene.
Equally, however, the presence of this material also indicates that this is hardly the ideal Emanuelle film with which to introduce a Eurosleaze novice to the filone’s often dubious delights.
This is an impression enhanced by some of the curious intertextualities of the casting: Don Powell, who played Black Emanuelle’s father in the non-Gemser, non-D’Amato entry Black Emanuelle 2 here appears as chauffer and assistant to Ivan Rassimov, a UN official who basically plays what would otherwise be the Gabrielle Tinti role. Brigitte Petronio, who appears as a missionary girl in Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals here plays a dissatisfied Roman member of an Indian guru’s cult. The guru himself is played by none other than George Eastman, who had earlier played the main villain in the D’Amato directed but non-Gemser entry Emanuelle's Revenge. Got all that?!
Put another way it’s the kind of film where you need the familiar strains of Nico Fidenco to sort of tie it all together.
Returning to the porn theme, one thing I hadn’t noticed on previous viewing was that the truck driver in the opening sequence is played by US hardcore performer turned director Paul Thomas.
Admittedly it’s not the most alluring of titles, especially given the target audience demographic: Emanuelle Around the World, Confessions of Emanuelle and The Degradation of Emanuelle – as were used in various territories – were probably more appealing than something that sounded perilously close to being a feminist tract rather than an exploitation movie.
Then again one of the constants of the Black Emanuelle series is their particular exploitative take on feminism: What sort of red-blooded (i.e. heterosexual) male couldn’t love the character’s liberated ideology of guilt and consequence free casual sex any time, any place, any where with pretty much anyone who asks, male or female? Isn’t it post-feminism avant la lettre?
Story wise the film is, as one perceptive IMDB reviewer remarks, basically Emanuelle in America lite.
That is, it’s again an episodic narrative travelogue that gradually focuses in on one particular topic, a “white slavery”, rather than a snuff movie, ring.
This paradigmatic shift has an odd effect: On the one hand white slavery sounds distinctly passé for a 1970s film compared to the decidedly contemporairy phenomenon of snuff movies, with this quaintness further foregrounded by the fact that our protagonist isn’t even identified as white. On the other hand a simple change of terminology to “people trafficking” would give it a relevance to today’s tabloids.
Though there are again hardcore inserts, at least in the version under review (DVD distributor Severin has released both R and XXX type versions), there is nothing to compare to the fake but uncomfortably convincing snuff footage of Emanuelle in America.
Likewise while there is one scene which implies bestiality, as a snake is encouraged to explore one would-be prostitute’s vagina and a dog to mount another (shades of the contemporaneous US and French hardcore productions The Devil in Miss Jones and Exhibition perhaps) there is nothing to quite compare to the previous film’s more explicit horse masturbation scene.
Equally, however, the presence of this material also indicates that this is hardly the ideal Emanuelle film with which to introduce a Eurosleaze novice to the filone’s often dubious delights.
This is an impression enhanced by some of the curious intertextualities of the casting: Don Powell, who played Black Emanuelle’s father in the non-Gemser, non-D’Amato entry Black Emanuelle 2 here appears as chauffer and assistant to Ivan Rassimov, a UN official who basically plays what would otherwise be the Gabrielle Tinti role. Brigitte Petronio, who appears as a missionary girl in Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals here plays a dissatisfied Roman member of an Indian guru’s cult. The guru himself is played by none other than George Eastman, who had earlier played the main villain in the D’Amato directed but non-Gemser entry Emanuelle's Revenge. Got all that?!
Put another way it’s the kind of film where you need the familiar strains of Nico Fidenco to sort of tie it all together.
Returning to the porn theme, one thing I hadn’t noticed on previous viewing was that the truck driver in the opening sequence is played by US hardcore performer turned director Paul Thomas.
Sunday, 11 July 2010
Inferno - Eliot
Inferno has a female American poet Rose Elliot. Is it possible to have this character without thinking about her namesake T S Eliot? Particularly when the film is so poetic, as in a fusion of form and content, in the Pasolinian sense...
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