Over at Ferdy on Film the Invitation to the Dance Movie Blogathon is in full swing and lots of people are sharing their thoughts about their favorite dance moments captured on film and debating the merits of individual dancers. I’m currently writing a longer piece about one of my favorite dance movies that I hope to finish up soon. But in the meantime I thought I’d share one of my favorite dance scenes.
The following clip is from the 1980 Umberto Lenzi film Nightmare City, which was originally shot in 1979 and it features some of the worst dancing I’ve ever seen in any film. Thankfully I’m not alone in my dislike for the dancing showcased in Nightmare City. As the following clip will clearly demonstrate, zombies don’t care for bad dancing either and they proceed to dismember the female offenders and eat them alive. This clip is gory and not for the faint of heart. But if you can withstand the cheap special effects and Stelvio Cipriani’s electronic euro-disco score, you might enjoy it as much as I do!
At this time of the year it seems like every film critic suddenly becomes an expert on horror films and starts publishing their quickly put together “Top 10 Scary Movie Moments” or “Best Films to Watch on Halloween.” These lists are often compiled by people who’ve seen a limited amount of films and their horror selections are often tired and stale. Does anyone really still need to be told that a Criterion DVD release like Carnival of Souls is worth watching? Or horror classics like Hitchcock’s Psycho and Romero’s Night of the Living Dead are “must see” movies? With that complaint out of the way, I’d like to bring your attention to the name of one director who really deserves a lot more attention, and that is Pupi Avati.
Unfortunately the name Pupi Avati tends to elicit chuckles instead of respect, which is a shame. Avati created some of the most fascinating and chilling horror films to ever come out of Italy during the seventies and eighties, and he’s worked with many well-known Italian filmmakers such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Lucio Fulci and Lamberto Bava.
As a director Avati has never stuck to one film genre. Besides horror films he’s made musicals, comedies and romances. I’m sure that’s one reason why his films are often overlooked by horror fans, who tend to favor directors that work almost exclusively in the horror genre. Another reason Avati is probably not as well-known or respected as other Italian genre directors is due to the fact that so many of his films are impossible to find and most of them have never been released in America until recently.
The director has made at least 3 or 4 horror or fantasy films that I’m aware of, and I’ve only been able to see two of them myself (The House with Laughing Windows and Zeder) since they were released as part of the Image Euroshock DVD collection in the U.S. Even though I’ve only seen a few of his films, I find Avati to be one of the most fascinating filmmakers I’ve ever come across. His horror films are deliberately paced and extremely thoughtful. They explore esoteric themes and interesting concepts about life and death, but unlike many of his contemporaries, his films lack gore and effects. They also tend to lack nudity and sex which some critics find bothersome, since his perceived prudishness could be seen as conflicting with the sexual themes in his films.
The absence of excessive gore and nudity in Avati’s films is probably the final and most obvious reason why his movies have so often been overlooked by horror fans who tend to be male and often prefer their horror films with plenty of violence and bare breasts. That’s not to say that The House with Laughing Windows (1976) and Zeder (1983) don’t contain any violence or nudity, but compared to most Italian directors from the same period such as Lamberto Bava, Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, Avati’s films could be seen as much less visceral. They tend to generate their scares and evocative mood more from what the audience doesn’t see, instead of what’s put before them on screen. I personally find Avati’s style of filmmaking extremely smart and sophisticated. He seems to mix the best aspects of classic gothic Italian horror films with the most interesting aspects of modern Italian horror films, and this gives his work a very personal look and feel that is all his own.
The House with Laughing Windows is the earliest Avati film that I’ve seen and it’s easily one of the best Italian thrillers made in the ’70s. According to the video interview with the director and his crew that accompanies the DVD, the script was written five or six years before the film was made, but it was re-written right before filming began. I suspect that the changes might have been somewhat inspired by Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, which was made in 1973 since both films share a few similarities, but that’s impossible to confirm since The House with Laughing Windows was supposedly written years earlier. Fans of the 1973 horror film The Wicker Man might also see some similarities between Avati’s movie and that British thriller. One thing seems certain; the script clearly has some references to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo (1975) in it. Avati contributed to Pier Pasolini’s original script for Salo right before making The House with Laughing Windows and it’s easy to make a connection between the two movies since they both explore ideas about torture and sadism.
The House with Laughing Windows opens with a brutal scene involving a mysterious man being tortured and stabbed. It’s creatively shot with muted tones and quick cuts that take away a bit of the shock it elicits, but some viewers will immediately be reminded of Pasolini’s Salo. Avati has said that his Catholic upbringing deeply effects his filmmaking and that becames apparent while watching the opening minutes of The House with Laughing Windows. Throughout the course of the film, Avati will evoke Catholic imagery and iconography over and over again in some subtle and very unsubtle ways.
After the film’s somewhat graphic opening minutes, we’re introduced to the movie’s main protagonist, a man named Stephano (Lino Capolicchio) who has come to a small and beautiful Italian village to restore a decaying fresco painting on the wall of an old church that vividly depicts the slaughter of St. Sebastian. We’re immediately made aware that this small town is a bit odd simply due to its unusual inhabitants which include dwarves, ghost-like women, depraved altar boys and raving drunks, among others.
Stephano finds the fresco in the church extremely lifelike and as the film progresses we follow him on a quest to learn more about the mysterious artist who created it known as “The Painter of Agonies.” Along the way Stephano is plagued by threatening phone calls and he receives unusual clues from the town’s odd inhabitants, which often lead to murder. As the bodies start to pile up, questions surrounding the fresco’s artist become more and more complex, and Stephano realizes he’s uncovering clues to a disturbing mystery that no one in the town wants solved. The House with Laughing Windows isn’t a typical giallo film and I hesitate to use the term here, but it does have plenty of giallo-style flourishes that should appeal to fans of the genre.
Avati manages to create an unsettling mood and sustain it throughout the entire duration of the film until it’s unforgettable climax. The director makes full use of shadows and the lovely local scenery. Avati also takes every opportunity available to him to shoot his characters out of windows and doors, or looking through and at windows and doorways. Windows and doors are impressively used as a visual motif over and over again throughout the film, which helps to beautifully highlight the movie’s primary themes.
Avati made The House with Laughing Windows with a crew of 12 and a budget that wouldn’t pay for the catering bill of most Hollywood productions. The movie is an excellent example of the creativity and ingenuity of European directors making genre films during the seventies, and I really can’t recommend it enough. Once you see The House with Laughing Windows it’s impossible to forget it.
Avati’s 1983 thriller Zeder is just as good, if not better than The House with the Laughing Windows, and it’s also well worth seeking out if you’re interested in seeing more of the directors work, or just want to watch a incredibly effective horror film.
As I mentioned above, The House with Laughing Windows is available on DVD from Image as part of their terrific Euroshock Collection and it was originally released in 2002. The film is presented in widescreen with English subtitles and the print is excellent. The DVD also comes with a really nice documentary about the making of the film, which features Pupi Avati, as well as many cast and crew members. Other extras include a Lobby Card Gallery and a Theatrical Trailer.
Avati is currently 69 years old and working on a new thriller called The Hideout, which should be completed this year. His latest film was shot in America and it features an international cast that includes Burt Young, Treat Williams, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Yvonne Sciò, Laura Morante and Michael Cornelison. I have no idea of Avati’s latest film will be released in the America, but since it’s an international production I hope it gets a wide release.
Over at Cinedelica we’re starting a new feature today called “10 Questions” and my first interviewee is film critic and author Tim Lucas.
I’ve been reading Tim’s film criticism since first coming across it in magazines like Fangoria and Gorezone in the ’80s when I was a teenager. There are few critics that have inspired and influenced my own writing more then Tim, so I was really happy to get the opportunity to ask him a few questions about his new book Mario Bava - All the Colors of the Dark. Tim’s enthusiastic support of Bava’s films over the years has definitely colored my own view of them, as well as my love for Italian genre films in general.
Some of the information in our brief exchange might be familiar to regular readers of his Bava Book Blog and anyone who owns the book, but if you’re curious about Mario Bava - All the Colors of the Dark and the films of Mario Bava in general, you might find my brief Q & A with Tim Lucas an interesting read.
You ask what you should watch. I ask how I should live. It’s the same thing.
- Corrado Zeller (Richard Harris) in Antonioni’s The Red Desert (1964)
Cinephiles have suffered some great losses in recent days with the death of Ingmar Bergman, actor Michel Serrault and now Michelangelo Antonioni. I was really touched by all the great tributes I read to Bergman yesterday but I never became too personally involved with Bergman’s work myself. I admired the man greatly and seriously respected his influence which was obviously enormous, but Bergman and I often seemed to see the world through different eyes. I definitely need to see more of Bergman’s work, but in all honesty my personal relationship with Bergman could never come close to the long lasting and personal one I share with Michelangelo Antonioni.
My first introduction to Antonioni was on a rainy Sunday afternoon when I was only about 12 years old back in the early 1980s. I was at home watching television when suddenly good old channel 2 in the Bay Area started to run Blow-up. At first I kept watching because I thought actor David Hemmings was incredibly cute, but as the film went on I became more and more drawn into the film’s mysteries and silences. While I enjoyed the swinging London setting and the sudden excitement of hearing the Yardbirds perform “Train Kept A-Rollin”, as well as the colorful and frenetic moments of Hemmings’ character shooting beautiful British models with his camera, it was really the silence and the isolation infusing Antonioni’s Blow-up that truly touched me and fascinated me in ways that few other films previously had. Once the movie had ended I knew I had seen something very special. I can remember trying to explain the film to friends and having trouble finding the words. At the time I was alone in my appreciation for the film but that was okay with me.
As the years passed I would see more of Michelangelo Antonioni’s films and I would also continue to feel more alone and isolated from a world which contained astonishing landscapes and breathtaking beauty while often remaining extremely cold and incomprehensible to me. Antonioni captured the world I saw and experienced with his camera. His films have made me appreciate and understand human loneliness and isolation in ways that few artists have. I’ve been moved and deeply touched by his work, which seemed to grasp at beauty in the most unexpected places and embrace the mystery of life that so many other artists, directors and human beings run away from or try to avoid and fill up with noise.
Appreciating the silence in life is essential to appreciating the work of Antonioni.
I’m often astonished by the amount of talking that characters do in film after film. When I was younger I would watch movies directed by the brilliant Woody Allen, or countless wonderful Howard Hawks’ comedies and be surprised and utterly entranced by the amazing communication and humor shared between characters and the deep feelings openly expressed in countless monologues. And while I appreciate well-written dialogue, the real world around me has always been rather silent. In my experience people rarely communicate. We might chat about life, work and family but it is often just surface nonsense with very little substance to it. Real relationships are hard to foster. True friendships are rare and should be treasured. We seem to be naturally guarded creatures who roam the world alone and finally die alone, no matter how deep our relationships are with friends and family. Michelangelo Antonioni understood this like no other director I’ve ever encountered.
Monica Vitti and Alain Delon in L’ Eclisse (1962)
Antonioni often tossed out convention when he made his films and embraced ambiguity. He knew that real life was full of questions that rarely had answers and he knew human behavior was often unpredictable and motivated by the incomprehensible interior life of every individual. He brought all of this truth to his films and I love him for it. I’m grateful that the world I know was so beautifully captured and shown to me through his camera. Antonioni was able to communicate with me in ways that few other artists and human beings have been able to and I’ll be forever grateful to him for that. Within Antonioni’s silences I heard symphonies.
Unfortunately it hasn’t always been very easy to see Antonioni’s films. In recent years that has changed due to companies like Criterion which have been making Antonioni’s films more accessible to American audiences, but I’ve still only seen L’Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), L’Eclisse (1962), Red Desert (1964), Blow Up (1966) and The Passenger (1975) myself. Each of his films has resonated deep within me and I’d have a hard time leaving any of them off a list of “Favorite Films” that I might put together.
With Bergman’s death and now Antonioni’s passing, critics are bemoaning the lack of respect these directors seem to have with modern audiences but I think it’s ridiculous to weigh their incredible achievements against popular opinion. Antonioni’s work is so incredibly modern that it still confounds critics and divides audiences. If that isn’t the mark of an important filmmaker who’s work is still worth exploring and has much to offer current audiences, I don’t know what is. I have no doubt that Antonioni’s films will be appreciated for years to come and new generations of film lovers will find themselves discovering his work and being as deeply moved by it as I have been.
When Stacie first announced her Friday the 13th blog-a-thon I didn’t sign-up right away since here at Cinebeats I try and keep the focus on sixties and seventies era films, and the first Friday the 13th movie was released in 1980. Then I remembered something…
Long before Jason put on a hockey mask and started terrorizing camp counselors at Crystal Lake, Mario Bava took audiences on a trip to the Bay Of Blood (a.k.a. Twitch of the Death Nerve, Reazione a catena, 1971) and I decided to revisit the Bay of Blood and examine just how much influence it had on the Friday the 13th films following its 1971 release.
Mario Bava’s Bay of Blood takes place in a quiet bayside Italian resort area where lots of holiday homes seem to lay dormant and empty waiting for their owners to return. Some of the homes are more luxurious than others, but they’re all rather close together and in some ways resemble a sort of “summer camp.” For good or bad, the neighbors all seem to know one another and the bay itself actually looks more like a lake. Naturally the homes all have their own weather beaten boat docks and the area seems heavily forested, which comes in handy since a lot of the action takes place in the local woods.
A killer stalks these halls
The film opens with the crude murder of a poor wheelchair bound woman who’s killed inside her luxurious villa. Her smug murderer is shockingly disposed of as well by another unseen killer lurking in the shadows. This stunning double murder sets the stage for the rest of Bava’s bloody film.
Soon after a group of four sex starved young people arrive at the bay looking for some summer fun. They break into empty homes, drink lots of booze and dance like crazy until the mysterious killer decides to murder them all in quick order. Much like Jason in Friday the 13th, the killer uses a machete on his victims and brutally hacks them up in what are easily some of the goriest scenes put on screen in the early seventies. One girl has her throat cut while her boyfriend gets a machete in his head. The other couple dies when the killer decides to use a spear on them while they’re busy having sex. These now classic murders were copied to the letter for the Friday the 13th films.
The killers in Bay of Blood don’t wear hockey masks, but at some point one of the murder victims puts on a tribal mask and tries to scare his friends before they’re all killed. Surely the makers of Friday the 13th must have jumped a little when they watched that scene.
Forget everything you’ve read about Halloween, Black Christmas and so on. It’s impossible to watch the four young people get murdered in Bay of Blood without realizing that you’re watching the birth of the slasher film. Bava had conjured up plenty of murder and mayhem in his previous films such as Blood and Black Lace and 5 Dolls For an August Moon which were both groundbreaking gialli, but those films were a bit more restrained and the victims were rarely as innocent or as young. Bava goes for broke in Bay of Blood and seems unwilling to hold anything back. His camera lingers longer on each gruesome murder and the award winning special effects and makeup he used was incredibly realistic for 1971.
Victims R Us
Other murders follow and the corpses continue to pile up in the Bay of Blood until it’s dark comedic end arrives with a bang. The moments that have always remained with me the most in the film are the pointless and brutal deaths suffered by the four innocent young people who were just out for a good time.
The young people in Bay of Blood have become the prototype victims for countless slasher films that have followed. They were all complete innocents who just found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Their only crimes were being party crazy and sex starved which made them easy targets. For the past 35 years similar victims have been getting hacked, slashed, strangled and mangled in movie after movie after movie.
As in other slasher films like Friday the 13th, a lot of the action in Bay of Blood is shot from the killer’s perspective and Bava even uses a shaky camera effect to make us feel like we’re the killer at times. What separates Bava’s film from every other slasher film that followed is his amazing photography and great editing. Bay of Blood makes other similar efforts look somewhat childish in comparison. Almost no one shoots interiors as masterfully as Bava, and he brings lots of his signature gothic styling to this bayside thriller.
At the Bay of Blood sex can be deadly
The Bay of Blood features a terrific international cast including many genre favorites such as Claudine Auger, Luigi Pistilli, Claudio Camaso, Anna Maria Rosati, Laura Betti, Isa Miranda, Claudio Camaso, Brigitte Skay and Nicoletta Elmi. The movie also contains one of composer Stelvio Cipriani’s best film scores.
I enjoyed the first two Friday the 13th films. I could have lived without the third one, but the fourth one wasn’t half bad. With that being said, all the Friday the 13th films combined can’t hold a candle to Bay of Blood in my opinion. If you watch one slasher film this summer, make it Bava’s blood-soaked visit to an Italian bay. You’ll have fun spotting all the film’s influential scenes.
You can find more screen shots at my Bay of Blood Flickr Gallery which I put together just for the blog-a-thon.
More info about Bay of Blood (a.k.a. Twitch of the Death Nerve) and it’s influence on the Friday the 13th films can be found at the films’ page on Wikipedia.
Also take a moment to check out this week’s Horror Roundtable where we all discuss our favorite murders from the Friday the 13th films!
The local octopi seem to be enjoying all the carnage
David Hemmings and Dario Argento on the set of Profondo Rosso (1974)
One of my favorite Italian directors has been making lots of news lately. On July 7th Dario Argento launched his first official website which is shaping up to be a really magnificent site jam packed with lots of info and eye-candy spanning Argento’s 40 year career. Unfortunately it’s only an Italian language site at the moment, but there are rumors that an English language mirror site will appear sooner or later.
On July 8th Argento was awarded the prestigious lifetime achievement award in Italy called The Golden Pegasus Award (The Pegaso d’Oro). Argento is mentioned at the very end of the following news article.
Last but not least, his newest film La Terza Madre (a.k.a. Mother of Tears) is set to be released on October 17th in Italy. La Terza Madre is the final chapter in Argento’s infamous “Three Mothers” trilogy, which started in 1977 with Suspiria and was followed by Inferno (1980). It’s hard not get excited about the film if you enjoyed the previous films in Argento’s trilogy. The cast, which includes genre favorites such as Udo Kier, Daria Nicolodi and Philippe Leroy, is very impressive. Lots of hype has surrounded the film, but only time will tell if it will be as good as the previous two movies. A bad quality video featuring the La Terza Madre trailer has been floating around YouTube which appears to be pirated, but it’s the only trailer online at the moment. *
*Edited! A link to the new trailer for La Terza Madre has been added below! (7.21)
I love Spaghetti Westerns. The best ones are what I would call “gothic westerns” since they combine some of the best aspects of Italian gothic horror films and literature with classic American westerns and western novels. They are filled with high drama but laced with subtlety. They offer romantic views of the west but they’re often very dark and at times even frightening. Suspense, death, blood, dirt, graveyards, coffins and religious iconography are reoccurring aspects of Italian westerns. Silence and sound were equally valued by directors and atmosphere was as important as story. Good and evil are often irrelevant and humanism - with a misanthropic streak - is king.
Of course, it’s impossible to ignore the politics at play in many Italian westerns. Many of the directors, composers and actors who made these films were card carrying Communists. Capitalism and Imperialism were often the real bad guys and many of the best Italian westerns managed to present their Marxist ideals in an incredibly entertaining way.
Recently Keith Brown over at Giallo Fever asked his blog readers what their “Top 10 Spaghetti Westerns” were. I had a hard time putting my list together because I like a lot of Spaghetti Westerns, but I thought I’d share my current Top 10 List here.
1. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (a.k.a. Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, 1966, Sergio Leone)
This is my favorite Leone film for many reasons. It’s a thoughtful, funny and entertaining movie with an amazing Morricone score. I really love the writing and I think the script is just brilliant, plus Leone films it all beautifully. Eli Wallach gives one of the greatest performances of his career as Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and in my opinion he steals the show from Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef. The scene between Wallach and his brother (the priest - Luigi Pistilli) is one of my favorite scenes from any film ever made. Wallach is not just reviving his character Calvera from The Magnificent Seven here, he’s giving him depth and making him one of the most enduring characters in the history of cinema. It’s a movie I’ve watched countless times and I never get tired of it.
2. The Great Silence (a.k.a. Il Grande silenzio, 1968, Sergio Corbucci)
I’ve already written a bit about why I love The Great Silence but the movie deserves a few more words. I think it’s Corbucci’s best film and definitely one of the most violent westerns ever put on film. There is deep humanity and brutal realism at play in The Great Silence and I think the movie has a kind of surreal quality that’s hard to put into words. Klaus Kinski gets to play one of the most ruthless characters ever created and that’s reason enough why this movie is one of my personal favorites but I also love Jean-Louis Trintignant’s performance as the tragic and doomed Silence.
3. A Bullet for the General (1966, Damiano Damiani)
I wrote about this terrific film last month and explained why it’s one of my favorite westerns so I won’t bother with the details again. Please check out my previous review.
4. Once Upon a Time in the West (a.k.a. C’era una volta il West, 1968, Sergio Leone)
This is another great Leone film with a terrific Morricone score that I love. I think Henry Fonda is wonderful as the cruel killer Frank and the infamous scene where he murders the boy and his family is one of the most brutal scenes ever captured on film but the rest of the cast (Bronson, Cardinale and Robards) also offer worthwhile performances here. In the end though Once Upon a Time in the West is really an epic about the birth of the civilized west and the landscape that gives it life. The story and the directing are the real stars. It’s a beautiful love letter from Leone to all Spaghetti Western fans.
5. For a Few Dollars More (a.k.a. Per qualche dollaro in più, 1965, Sergio Leone)
This is my second favorite Leone/Eastwood film. The story is wonderfully told and the film’s really entertaining but I especially love the interplay between Klaus Kinski’s hunchback character Wild and Lee Van Cleef’s Col. Mortimer. Both actors are my favorite western bad boys and their scenes together in For a Few Dollars More are truly priceless. Kinski’s performance is full of his typical twitches and outbursts, and Lee Van Cleef gets in his usual cold hearted stares. Eastwood is really good here and he looks truly fantastic in his poncho and hat but in the end this is really Lee van Cleef and Gian Maria Volontè’s movie. Both actors are terrific in their starring roles alongside Eastwood and once again Morricone delivers a fantastic score that really compliments the action and drama.
6. Django (1966, Sergio Corbucci)
I love the Django series and I had a hard time choosing between three Django films to list here. Django Kill - If You Live, Shoot! (1967) and Strangers Gundown (1969) are also worthy of being added to my Top 10 list, even if they’re inclusion in the Django cannon is debatable. In the first film the handsome actor Franco Nero stars as the enigmatic Django and his performance as the coffin carrying gunslinger is equal to Clint Eastwood’s best performances as “the man with no name.” The story of Django is well told and beautifully directed by Corbucci. The film also boasts a great score by composer Luis Enríquez Bacalov which is comparable to some of Morricone’s best work. All three of the Django films I mentioned are well worth a look if you like your spaghetti westerns dished up bloody and a bit surreal.
7. Death Rides A Horse (a.k.a. Da uomo a uomo, 1967, Giulio Petroni)
The story treads familiar ground but it’s still one of the most entertaining revenge westerns ever shot. Lee Van Cleef and the very cute John Phillip Law give two of their best performances here as Ryan and Bill, and I think they have a surprisingly good chemistry together. The movie boasts some creative camera-work and it features one of Morricone’s most unnerving scores. One of my favorite scenes involves a poker game between Bill (John Phillip Law) and bad guy Burt Cavanaugh (Anthony Dawson), but Lee van Cleef gets a lot of great scenes in Death Rides A Horse as well.
8. Massacre Time (a.k.a. The Brute and the Beast/Tempo di massacro, 1966, Lucio Fulci)
I wrote about Fulci’s Massacre Time back in March so I won’t bother going over it again but I will add that besides Fulci’s stylish directing, Massacre Time includes one of George Hilton’s best performances and it has a great score by composer Coriolano Gori (a.k.a. Lallo Gori).
9. My Name Is Nobody (a.k.a. Il Mio nome è Nessuno, 1973, Tonino Valerii & Sergio Leone)
I really enjoy the humorous westerns that feature Terence Hill and this one is my favorite of the bunch. It’s probably Sergio Leone’s most lighthearted effort but he works well here with Tonino Valerii who directed some great Italian thrillers. Henry Fonda delivers a terrrific performance as an old gunslinger and he has some wonderful scenes with Terrence Hill. Morricone’s score is really playful at times which works well with the movie’s comedy. My Name Is Nobody is a fun film but it’s also a touching farewell to the old west and it confirms that Leone offered Fonda some of his best and most interesting roles late in his career.
10. Dragon Strikes Back (a.k.a. Shanghai Joe/Il Mio nome è Shangai Joe, 1972, Mario Caiano)
When I was a kid Kung Fu was one of my favorite TV shows. The impact that the show had on me is hard to explain but the philosophy it championed definitely made an impression on me. Dragon Strikes Back is basically a drawn out movie version of Kung Fu with Chen Lee (a poor man’s Bruce Lee) playing David Carradine’s role. It’s plain silly at times and the story is thin but it also has some great moments such as the fantastic bullfight and the duel between Chen Lee and Klaus Kinski (once again playing a nasty bad guy here). The combination of Spaghetti Western and Kung Fu action flick is a strange mix that really works. The movie also has a great Bruno Nicoli score (with borrowed bits from Have a Good Funeral, My Friend) and overall the movie is just a really entertaining treat.
I recently watched Massimo Dallamano’s Dorian Gray for the third or forth time and I was inspired to write about the movie. When the opportunity to contribute to Neil’s Trashy Movie Celebration Blog-a-thon arrived I figured a review of the film would be the ideal contribution since it definitely qualifies as a trashy movie - eurotrash to be exact - and it’s also a personal favorite.
Oscar Wilde’s classic tale of a vain, wealthy and beautiful youth who’s sins are preserved in a portrait that ages horribly, while he remains young has been adapted for the screen many times, but I don’t think any movie except Massimo Dallamano’s 1970 film really captured the decadence of Wilde’s original story.
Dallamano set his film version of Dorian Gray in the present, which at that time was the height of the sexual revolution in the late sixties. This gave the director ample opportunity to explore the world of swingers, uninhibited sex and gender bending through the eyes of the curious Dorian Gray.
The movie stars the attractive German actor Helmut Berger, who made a name for himself in some of Luchino Visconti’s best films including The Damned, Ludwig and Conversation Piece, but he also appeared in many european thrillers and various other trashy movies such as the notorious Salon Kitty. The critics have never been too kind to Berger, which is a shame because when he’s good, he’s very good and when he’s bad, he’s still a lot of fun to watch. Berger has what so many actors today lack, charisma and screen presence.
Massimo Dallamano couldn’t have picked a better actor to play the vain and self absorbed Dorian Gray. Helmut Berger is clearly enjoying himself in the role and it’s easy to believe that women and men of all ages and sexual persuasions are attracted to him. Berger’s erotic persona and fluid sexuality are used to their fullest extent in Dorian Gray and the audience is easily able to project their own fantasies into the movie if they’re willing.
The film opens with a shot of Dorian’s blood stained hands signaling what’s to come and then we’re immediately taken to a cabaret where a drag queen is performing as Dorian and his companions watch. When the drag queen strips down to reveal sexy black lingerie, you know you’re in for a wild ride.
It’s impossible to watch the opening moments of Dorian Gray and not be reminded of Helmut Berger’s own drag performance in Visconti’s The Damned where he impersonated Marlene Dietrich. The Damned was released a year earlier and Dallamano’s sly tribute to Helmut Berger’s earlier performance in Visconti’s film acts as a wonderful introduction to Dorian Gray.
Dorian’s friend Basil Hallward is played by the veteran British actor Richard Todd. Basil is the artist who paints Dorian’s doomed portrait and Richard Todd is convincing as Dorian’s concerned and more mature friend. Thanks to Basil, Dorian is introduced to the much more conniving and depraved Henry Wotton who’s brilliantly brought to life by another veteran British actor, the great Herbert Lom. Henry and the beautiful Alice (Maria Rohm) introduce Dorian to the underside of high-society and encourage Dorian’s hedonistic lifestyle.
As the film progresses Dorian meets his first love interest in the tragic figure of an aspiring Shakespearean actress named Sybil Vane. Sybil is played by the pretty Swedish actress Marie Liljedahl who’s mostly remembered for the erotic films she made including Jess Franco’s Eugenie. In Dorian Gray we’re asked to believe that Marie Liljedahl is an innocent virgin seduced by the devilish Dorian and it actually works.
Thankfully Dallamono doesn’t bore us with their courtship. Dorian and Sybil seem to fall in love at first sight and their relationship quickly turns sexual. The audience knows they’re in love because key lines from Shakespeare’s play Romeo & Juliet are played over and over again in the background as the two lovers gaze into each other’s eyes and roll around in bed. Sybil devotes herself to Dorian, but after he falls in love with his own portrait, Dorian can really only be faithful to himself. Under Henry’s unfluence, Dorian seems to forget his feelings for the naive Sybil and begins to dabble in the decadent lifetsyle that will soon consume him.
At first Dorian’s passions are rather mild, and include occasional make-out sessions with wealthy socialites, as well as fancy parties with expensive foods and lots of booze. Sybil dosen’t appreciate Dorian’s upper-class friends or approve of their lifestyle, and her jealousy turns to delirium when she notices other women flirting with Dorian.
After Sybil suddenly kills herself in an act of passion, Dorian finally succumbs to his most depraved desires. He claims that he feels nothing after Sybil’s death, but Dorian seems to want to bury his grief in random sexual encounters, yacht parties and go-go clubs. He visits bath houses with Herbert Lom, cruises the docks for sailors and seduces a wealthy elderly lady in a horse barn. The Dorian in Massimo Dallamano’s movie has no inhibitions and we get to enjoy his decadent adventures as they’re exposed.
There’s an unusual voyeuristic element added to the film after Dallamano introduces a pretty female photographer into the story. The photographer starts following Dorian around and snapping photographs of him whenever she can. She seems to become Dorian’s constant companion and helps him blackmail his friend Alan (Renato Romano) by snapping photos of Alan’s lovely wife (Margaret Lee) and Dorian together in bed.
As you may have noticed by now, many of the actors in Dallamano’s film are regulars in Jess Franco’s movies. I’ve read that Franco was originally supposed to direct Dorian Gray before Massimo Dallamano took over so it’s not surprising that the movie’s cast resembles the cast of a Franco film. It would have been interesting to see what Franco could have done with the story and the cast, but Dallamano’s a skilled director, writer and cinematographer and his talents are on full display in Dorian Gray
Dallamano’s film is fairly faithful to Wilde’s original story and where previous film adaptations rarely suggested any of the sexual decadence that Wilde could only hint at in his book, Dallamano’s movie revels in it. Critics have called the film trashy and lifeless. The movie is undoubtedly trashy, but it’s anything but lifeless, especially when it’s compared to other film versions of Oscar Wilde’s book.
Oscar Wilde was part of the Aesthetic Movement in British literature, which developed the “cult of beauty” and believed that the arts should offer cultivated sensuous pleasures instead of morality and sentimentality. The British Aesthetic movement stressed the importance of symbolism and suggestion rather than statement. Intentional or not, Dallamano’s film follows an aesthetic that would have made Wilde proud.
The movie celebrates the fashions, decadent lifestyles and sexual freedoms of the times that it was made in with lots of style and very little sentimentality. The beautiful Dorian and the sensual pleasures he indulges in are captured with an unflinching eye and no concern for morality.
Of course in some ways Wilde’s Dorian Gray was a statement against everything the Aesthetic Movement stood for. The story of Dorian Gray celebrates decadence just as it criticizes its indulgences. As Dorian’s eventual end approaches, he is forced to pay for his sins, but the joy of traveling with Dorian on his hedonistic journey is not lost in Massimo Dallamano’s film as it is in so many other movie adaptations of Wilde’s story.
One of the most interesting things Dallamano does with Dorian is to wrap him in Zebra fur. Dorian has zebra drapes on his windows and zebra fur rugs on his floors. By the end of the film Dorian is dressed in a floor length zebra fur coat that would make many pimps in 1970 envious.
Zebras each have a unique stripe pattern that is similar to a persons fingerprint and the zebra has often represented individuality. In occult symbolism a zebra can suggest knowledge both seen and unseen, and their stripped patterns of black on white or white on black can suggest that what you see is not always what you get. When the zebra appears in your dreams it can indicate a time of change or represent hidden knowledge that is about to be revealed. I have no idea if the director had anything in mind when he draped Dorian’s body and decorated his home in zebra fur, but I think it’s fascinating to explore what this possible symbolic gesture might suggest.
Finally, I can’t talk about Dallamano’s movie without mentioning the exceptionally groovy score by composer Giuseppe De Luca (A.K.A. Peppino De Luca). It adds many layers to the film and it also celebrates the movies most decadent moments with lots of rhythmic flair.
Unfortunately the film is only available on VHS at the moment and the quality of the prints that are available are rather awful. Hopefully a DVD company like Blue Underground or Mondo Macabro will rescue Massimo Dallamano’s Dorian Gray and restore it to it’s original splendor. The movie really deserves another look and I think critics will be able to appreciate it’s eurotrash charm now that over 35 years have passed since it’s original release.
Like the Bandit… Like the Gringo… A bullet doesn’t care who it kills!
Blue Underground recently re-released the excellent spaghetti western A Bullet for the General (El Chuncho, quien sabe?, 1966) on DVD and I thought I’d take some time to write about the film since it’s one of my favorite westerns.
The movie begins as a young American “gringo” named Bill (Lou Castel) is arriving in war torn Mexico at the height of the Mexican Revolution. He watches indifferently as a group of young rebels are brutally executed in front of him. He then heads towards the railway station where he jumps the queue and pushes ahead of a long line of people to buy himself a train ticket to Durango. While he stands in line a young Mexican boy (Antonio Ruiz) asks him what he thinks of Mexico and he coldly responds, “Not very much.”
These opening minutes offer an unapologetic look at an “ugly American”, whose innocent appearance and expensive suit can not mask his arrogance and lack of empathy towards the poor Mexican peons (unskilled labors) that surround him. But underlying Bill’s behavior are much darker motivations that become clearer as the film unfolds.
As Bill rides the train towards Durango his journey is suddenly interrupted by a gang of Mexican bandidos led by El Chuncho (Gian Maria Volonté) banging a drum in time with composer Luis Bacalov’s excellent film score (supervised by Ennio Morricone). The bandits want the train’s cargo of guns so they can sell them to the revolutionary army led by the respected General Elías (Jaime Fernández).
Instead of joining the fight against the bandidos, Bill helps in the raid and tricks Chuncho into believing that he’s a wanted man so he can join his gang of bandits. This sets the stage for the rest of the film as we’re introduced to the bandits and discover that they’re not typical thieves. Chuncho and his gang have political as well as financial motivations, and much like Robin Hood and his Merry Men, they try to help the poor while stealing from the corrupt Mexican government. Of course the cold-blooded American has plans of his own and things get complicated when his personal motivations conflict with the idealistic bandidos.
This terrific spaghetti western has lots of spectacular gun battles and makes great use of the beautiful desert scenery but the radical political ideas that were taking shape in the war torn sixties are the real focus of director Damiano Damiani’s impressive western. Damiani makes an admirable case against American capitalism and imperialism in A Bullet For the General, which he obscures within a very entertaining movie.
The script is based on a story by Salvatore Laurani that was adapted for the screen by Franco Solinas. Solinas is well-known for his leftist political leanings and he was a member of the Italian Communist Party. His scripts written during the sixties and seventies for films such as The Battle of Algiers (1966), Tepepa (1968), Burn! (1969), The Assassination of Trotsky (1972) and Mr. Klein (1976) brazenly expressed his political views in thoughtful but often controversial films.
At first glance it’s easy to assume that A Bullet For the General is full of typical characters found in many westerns but the characters that populate the film are complex and have a lot of hidden depth if you’re willing to go digging for it.
The revolutionary bandits are the movie’s real heroes but they are often portrayed as drunken simpletons unaware of what they’re fighting against and the bourgeoisie land owners are often portrayed as rational and somewhat sympathetic characters. Italian westerns are notorious for the way they refuse to offer typical examples of good guys and bad guys that are so often found in American westerns. A Bullet For the General is a great example of a movie that refuses to easily define any of the characters that populate it.
Gian Maria Volonté is truly magnificent as the bandidos’ leader El Chuncho. Volonté was a respected Italian actor and he had previously acted in two of Sergio Leone’s westerns, A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965), but he passed up the chance to play Tuco (a role later given to Eli Wallach) in Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) in order to play Chuncho. Volonté preferred the more blatant political leanings found in the script for A Bullet For the General to the subtle politics at play in The Good the Bad and the Ugly. Some thought it was a bad decision on his part since Leone’s popular film could have catapulted his career but his role in A Bullet For the General is much more complex and in the films final frames the actor is transformed into one of Italian cinema’s most enduring heroes.
A Bullet For the General chronicles the birthing pains of a new nation. And the personal trials that Volonté’s character Chuncho must endure on his troubled journey to self-discovery brilliantly mirror what’s historically happening all around him. Mexico’s revolution is Chuncho’s revolution and we celebrate the country’s victories as we celebrate Chuncho’s final choices.
Klaus Kinski also has one of his best minor roles in the film as Chuncho’s half-brother Santo but unfortunately he doesn’t get enough screen time. Kinski’s Santo is a religious zealot who dresses in dirty monks robes and shouts political slogans while brutally killing his enemies. He seems driven a bit mad by the government made horrors he has seen the Mexican people suffer and he uses his rage to help the people fight back against their oppressors.
as part of their terrific Euroshock Collection and it was originally released in 2002. The film is presented in widescreen with English subtitles and the print is excellent. The DVD also comes with a really nice documentary about the making of the film, which features Pupi Avati, as well as many cast and crew members. Other extras include a Lobby Card Gallery and a Theatrical Trailer.
My first introduction to Antonioni was on a rainy Sunday afternoon when I was only about 12 years old back in the early 1980s. I was at home watching television when suddenly good old channel 2 in the Bay Area started to run Blow-up. At first I kept watching because I thought actor David Hemmings was incredibly cute, but as the film went on I became more and more drawn into the film’s mysteries and silences. While I enjoyed the swinging London setting and the sudden excitement of hearing the Yardbirds perform “Train Kept A-Rollin”, as well as the colorful and frenetic moments of Hemmings’ character shooting beautiful British models with his camera, it was really the silence and the isolation infusing Antonioni’s Blow-up that truly touched me and fascinated me in ways that few other films previously had. Once the movie had ended I knew I had seen something very special. I can remember trying to explain the film to friends and having trouble finding the words. At the time I was alone in my appreciation for the film but that was okay with me.
(1960), 
(1961), 
(1962), 
(1964), 
(1966) and 
(1975) myself. Each of his films has resonated deep within me and I’d have a hard time leaving any of them off a list of “Favorite Films” that I might put together.
(a.k.a. Twitch of the Death Nerve, Reazione a catena, 1971) and I decided to revisit the Bay of Blood and examine just how much influence it had on the Friday the 13th films following its 1971 release.
I love Spaghetti Westerns. The best ones are what I would call “gothic westerns” since they combine some of the best aspects of Italian gothic horror films and literature with classic American westerns and western novels. They are filled with high drama but laced with subtlety. They offer romantic views of the west but they’re often very dark and at times even frightening. Suspense, death, blood, dirt, graveyards, coffins and religious iconography are reoccurring aspects of Italian westerns. Silence and sound were equally valued by directors and atmosphere was as important as story. Good and evil are often irrelevant and humanism - with a misanthropic streak - is king.
(a.k.a. Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, 1966, Sergio Leone)
(a.k.a. Il Grande silenzio, 1968, Sergio Corbucci)
(a.k.a. C’era una volta il West, 1968, Sergio Leone)
(a.k.a. Per qualche dollaro in più, 1965, Sergio Leone)
(1966, Sergio Corbucci)
(1967) and 
(1969) are also worthy of being added to my Top 10 list, even if they’re inclusion in the Django cannon is debatable. In the first film the handsome actor Franco Nero stars as the enigmatic Django and his performance as the coffin carrying gunslinger is equal to Clint Eastwood’s best performances as “the man with no name.” The story of Django is well told and beautifully directed by Corbucci. The film also boasts a great score by composer Luis Enríquez Bacalov which is comparable to some of Morricone’s best work. All three of the Django films I mentioned are well worth a look if you like your spaghetti westerns dished up bloody and a bit surreal.
7. 
(a.k.a. Da uomo a uomo, 1967, Giulio Petroni)
(a.k.a. The Brute and the Beast/Tempo di massacro, 1966, Lucio Fulci)
(a.k.a. Il Mio nome è Nessuno, 1973, Tonino Valerii & Sergio Leone)
Watch: 
(a.k.a. Shanghai Joe/Il Mio nome è Shangai Joe, 1972, Mario Caiano)
(1976), 
(1970), 
(1969) and 
(1971) all came close to making my list.
for the third or forth time and I was inspired to write about the movie. When the opportunity to contribute to Neil’s 
The movie stars the attractive German actor Helmut Berger, who made a name for himself in some of Luchino Visconti’s best films including The Damned, Ludwig and Conversation Piece, but he also appeared in many european thrillers and various other trashy movies such as the notorious Salon Kitty. The critics have never been too kind to Berger, which is a shame because when he’s good, he’s very good and when he’s bad, he’s still a lot of fun to watch. Berger has what so many actors today lack, charisma and screen presence.
As the film progresses Dorian meets his first love interest in the tragic figure of an aspiring Shakespearean actress named Sybil Vane. Sybil is played by the pretty Swedish actress Marie Liljedahl who’s mostly remembered for the erotic films she made including Jess Franco’s Eugenie. In Dorian Gray we’re asked to believe that Marie Liljedahl is an innocent virgin seduced by the devilish Dorian and it actually works. 
Zebras each have a unique stripe pattern that is similar to a persons fingerprint and the zebra has often represented individuality. In occult symbolism a zebra can suggest knowledge both seen and unseen, and their stripped patterns of black on white or white on black can suggest that what you see is not always what you get. When the zebra appears in your dreams it can indicate a time of change or represent hidden knowledge that is about to be revealed. I have no idea if the director had anything in mind when he draped Dorian’s body and decorated his home in zebra fur, but I think it’s fascinating to explore what this possible symbolic gesture might suggest.
