ZEN on PBS

by Kimberly Lindbergs | July 18, 2011

Categories | Giallo, Italian Cinema, Actresses, Television

Actress Catherine Spaak in 1966

I rarely write about modern films or new television shows but if you happen to follow me on Twitter or Facebook you’ve probably noticed that I occasionally mention movies and TV shows that don’t warrant a full post on Cinebeats. My latest obsession is the BBC import currently playing on PBS titled, ZEN (2011).

ZEN is a modern day cop show starring the handsome & talented Rufus Sewell, who should be a household name by now. Sewell’s character is a Venetian detective named Aurelio Zen and he gets to wear expensive Italian suits while solving crimes in Italy. ZEN takes full advantage of the beautiful setting and there’s lots of show stopping shots of the Italian countryside. In ZEN Sewell’s character lives alone with his mother who happens to be played by the beautiful 66-year-old actress, Catherine Spaak and Spaak’s name should be familiar to fans of Italian films like Pasquale Festa Campanile’s The Libertine (1968), Dario Argento’s The Cat O’ Nine Tails (1971) and Antonio Margheriti’s Take a Hard Ride (1975). The show is based on a series of books by British author, Michael Dibdin and if I had to guess I’d say that the directors, writers & casting agents are fans of Italian Poliziotteschi films and possibly Italian horror/giallo films. From the groovy soundtrack to the Gothic settings, ZEN is a show that should appeal to some fans of Italian exploitation films, but be forewarned! It’s slow-moving and takes awhile to get going. And the proceedings have naturally been “softened up” for the BBC television audience. And although it’s set in Italy, ZEN is a BBC production so almost all the actors involved are British performers pretending to be Italian and they don’t bother with fake accents. But if you’re looking for something new to watch on TV, you could do a lot worse than ZEN. The first episode is currently available to watch on the PBS website in case you missed it. Just follow the link posted below to find more information about the show:

- ZEN : Masterpiece Mystery : PBS

As I’ve mentioned before in various places, PBS is currently running some of the best shows on television including SHERLOCK and DOWNTON ABBEY. You can add ZEN to the list of great shows on Public Television right now.

Comments Off

An Evening with Terence Stamp

by Kimberly Lindbergs | May 5, 2011

Categories | Actors, Italian Cinema, Terence Stamp, Movie Morlocks, TCM, Film Festivals

Last Friday I had the pleasure of attending an event titled “An Evening with Terence Stamp” that took place during the 2011 San Francisco International Film Festival at the Castro Theatre. Regular Cinebeats’ readers are probably well aware that Stamp is one of my favorite actors so I was overjoyed to get the opportunity to see him discuss his career in person. The evening was topped of with a showing of one of my favorite Terence Stamp films, Fellini’s Toby Dammit (1968). You can read a brief account of my amazing evening at the Movie Morlocks this week.
- An Evening with Terence Stamp @ TCM’s Classic Movie Blog

Comments Off

Fulci & Jodorowsky at Severin

by Kimberly Lindbergs | February 10, 2011

Categories | Movie Reviews, Giallo, Italian Cinema, Lucio Fulci, Thrillers, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Marisa Mell

Marisa Mell in Perversion Story (1969)

The kind folks at Severin recently invited me to participate in a series of month-long guest blog posts at the Severin Blog where we’re asked to share clips from one of our favorite Severin DVD releases. I decided to write a little bit about Luci Fulci’s excellent Italian thriller Perversion Story (1969), which I originally wrote about in 2007. I love the film and Fulci did an amazing job of capturing the “City by the Bay” in the late ’60s. I spent a lot of time in San Francisco during the ’80s and North Beach was one of my regular haunts so I highlighted a scene Fulci shot on Broadway for my “Clip of the Day.” Please visit the Severin Blog to see the clip and read some of my brief thoughts about the movie.

- Clip Of The Day: Perversions In San Francisco, Fulci’s PERVERSION STORY @ Severin Blog
- Perversion Story - From the Cinebeats’ Archives

I also wanted to mention that Severin has recently released my favorite Alejandro Jodorowsky film on DVD, the magnificent Santa Sangre (1989). Santa Sangre has been one of my favorite films since I originally saw it on video back in 1990. It had an extremely limited theatrical run and hasn’t been available on DVD in the US until now. Severin did an amazing job on their release and the DVD looks terrific. It’s also loaded with extras including:

• Forget Everything You Have Ever Seen: The World Of Santa Sangre. Exclusive Feature Length Making-Of Documentary Featuring All-New Interviews with the Cast And Crew
• Audio Commentary with Jodorowsky and Journalist Alan Jones
• Deleted Scenes with Director Commentary
• For One Week Only: Alejandro Jodorowsky: 1990 UK Documentary
• Goyo Cárdenas Spree Killer: Documentary on the Real Life Inspiration For Santa Sangre
• On Stage Q&A With Jodorowsky
• Jodorowsky 2003 Interview
. . . and more!

Coincidently I also wrote about my deep appreciation for Jodorowsky’s movie back in 2007 when I was asked to select some of my favorite foreign language films for an online poll. At the time I said:

“Santa Sangre is probably Jodorwsky’s darkest effort and it’s also his most fully realized film in my opinion. It’s brimming with unforgettable imagery and startling storytelling techniques that recall an earlier time in European horror cinema. Like many of the films on my list, Santa Sangre is not easy viewing. It demands a lot from potential viewers, but it’s a film that constantly comes to mind when I think about foreign language films that have deeply affected me. It changed the way that I view cinema and shaped my appreciation of the art form.”

I still feel that way today and the Severin’s DVD release has only added to my enjoyment of Jadorowsky’s masterpiece. You can find my full (but brief) comments about Santa Sangre in the Cinebeats Archives.
- 12 Favorite Foreign Language Films (including Santa Sangre) - From the Cinebeats’ Archives

Comments Off

Seduced by Pierre Clémenti

by Kimberly Lindbergs | January 27, 2011

Categories | Movie Reviews, Actors, Italian Cinema, Romance, Ennio Morricone, Pierre Clementi, Gay Interest, Movie Morlocks, TCM

Pierre Clémenti in Listen, Let’s Make Love (1967)

Regular Cinebeats’ readers are undoubtedly familiar with my fascination with the French actor and filmmaker Pierre Clémenti. I’ve written about him enough that he’s earned his own blog category so you can imagine my surprise when I came across one of the little seen films that he appeared in playing on Netflix Instant Watch recently. The erotic European drama Listen, Let’s Make Love (1967) is the last thing I’d expect to come across on Netflix but I’m really glad that I stumbled on it. It’s a gorgeous film with some amazing set designs and eye-popping art direction as well as a fantastic score by Ennio Morricone. Fans of Euro cult films like Radley Mizger’s incredible Camille 2000 (1969) should give it a look but be forewarned, I suspect that the version of Listen, Let’s Make Love that’s currently available at Netflix might be edited. The film is dubbed and contains no nudity except for a few derrieres and breasts displayed at an erotic art exhibit. But don’t let that stop you from watching it. Listen, Let’s Make Love is an interesting film and if you’re a Pierre Clémenti fan like myself it’s a must see!

You can find my full review and lots of images from the movie posted at the Movie Morlocks.
- Seduced by Pierre Clémenti @ TCM’s Classic Movie Blog

I’ve also created a Flickr Gallery for the film if you want to see more images from Listen, Let’s Make Love (1967)
- Listen, Let’s Make Love (1967) Flickr Gallery

Comments Off

Yeti Holiday Fun

by Kimberly Lindbergs | December 10, 2010

Categories | Horror, Japanese Cinema, Italian Cinema, Hammer Horror, Movie Morlocks, TCM, SHAG

Xmas card illustrated by SHAG that I sent to friends & family in 2002

One of my favorite monsters is the elusive and mysterious Yeti or Abominable Snowman and during the winter months I always start thinking about my favorite Yeti movies. I decided to compile a brief list of viewing suggestions for Movie Morlock readers this week in case anyone else is interested in exploring the fascinating and bizarre cannon of Yeti films that are currently available on DVD and video. Christmas movies often bore me to tears unless they’re made by Rankin/Bass or directed by Bob Clark so I tend to gravitate towards other entertainment in December. Do you really want to sit through White Christmas or Miracle on 34th Street again? Adding a few Yeti movies to your winter viewing calendar is a great way to mix things up a bit and postpone the winter doldrums. Invite a Yeti to your Christmas party and he’s sure to liven things up a bit!
- ‘Tis the Season… of the Yeti! @ TCM’s Classic Movie Blog

Comments (1)

The Enchantress and The Hag

by Kimberly Lindbergs | October 23, 2010

Categories | Movie Reviews, Horror, Italian Cinema, Bewitching Movies, Damiano Damiani, Richard Johnson

Rosanna Schiaffino and Sarah Ferrati in The Witch (1966)

There are few witches as beautiful and beguiling as Rosanna Schiaffino or as sinister and threatening as Sarah Ferrati in Damiano Damiani’s The Witch (or more correctly, The Witch in Love) aka La strega in amore (1966). In this leisurely paced Italian horror film based on a novel by Carlos Fuentes, Rosanna Schiaffino plays Aura, the daughter of an aging widower (Sarah Ferrati). The two women live alone together in a crumbling old house in the heart of Rome and lure unsuspecting men to their doom with the promise of passion and unimaginable pleasures. After a curious historian named Sergio (Richard Johnson) answers an ad in a newspaper requesting someone to “catalogue manuscripts in a private library” he finds himself face to face with these two mysterious women. Their library is in disarray and they need someone to transcribe the private erotic journals of the long dead master of the house. But their dusty, rat infested, library has been neglected for a very long time and Sergio isn’t the only historian who has tried to put it in order. Before he arrived another man (Gian Maria Volonté) was hired to do the job but it’s not easy to work when the lovely Aura and her domineering mother keep distracting you. Poor Sergio soon finds himself forgetting his duties as well and becoming entangled in the deadly web of secrets and lies weaved by the two women who have entrapped him.

The film is submerged in shadows and light. Surrounded by hazy cityscapes and trapped in a maze of long hallways and twisting corridors. The characters of the film are separated by carefully placed props and bound together by long lingering close-ups. Damiani frames most of the action in windows and doorways so the audience becomes voyeurs as well as observers and the entire production is held together by Luis Bacalov’s brilliant score. Bacalov is one of my favorite composers and I think his soundtrack for The Witch is truly one of his greatest achievements.

The entire cast is terrific and also includes Italian horror film favorite Ivan Rassminov in a brief cameo, but the movie is dominated by the alluring Rosanna Schiaffino as the lovely Aura and her oppressive mother Consuelo (Sarah Ferrati). The enchantress and the hag have populated folk tales for centuries and in The Witch this age old fascination with feminine duality takes center stage. I also appreciate how the film explores the human desire to obtain esoteric knowledge by setting the story in an old Italian villa with an ancient library at its worn down center. The library seems to contain the erotic fantasies of the two witches and Aura and Consuelo use what Aleister Crowley called “sex magick” to control anyone who dares to enter it. Besides a few brief flashes of bare skin no one gets naked in The Witch but it still manages to be a very sensual film mainly due to Rosanna Schiaffino’s seductive performance.

The adult themes and cerebral scares found The Witch will only appeal to a select group of horror fans but I happen to be one of them. I think the film is a wonderful example of Euro-horror and a truly bewitching movie but it will probably disappoint anyone looking for solid shocks and lots of gore. The film seems more concerned with nurturing an atmosphere of dread than anything else and it succeeds beautifully. The horrific moments that take place in the film are subtle but disquieting and occasionally bring to mind the work of other Italian filmmakers as diverse as Mario Bava, Fellini and even Vittorio De Sica. Damiano Damiani was working with an impressive crew on The Witch that included cinematographer Leonida Barboni (The White Sheik; 1952, Divorce Italian Style; 1961, etc.), art director Luigi Scaccianoce (Oedipus Rex; 1967, Fellini – Satyricon; 1969, etc.) and editor Nino Baragli (Mamma Roma; 1962, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; 1966, Django; 1966, Once Upon a Time in the West; 1968, Teorema; 1968, Salo; 1975, etc.) but it’s Damiani’s creative direction that really brings this thoughtful horror film to life. I’ve long thought that Damiano Damiani (A Bullet for the General; 1966, How To Kill A Judge; 1974, The Devil Is A Woman; 1974, etc.) was an underrated talent and if you’d like to see the director at his creative best The Witch is a wonderful place to start.

The Witch is available on DVD in the US but the print is very poor as you can probably tell from my screen shots. I’ve seen other screen shots of the film from an Italian DVD that appears to be in widescreen but I haven’t been able to find any information about it. Hopefully a better quality widescreen print of The Witch will find its way onto DVD in the states soon. In the meantime I think it’s easy to see from these few shots that The Witch is a beautiful looking film and if you’d like to see more images from the movie they’re available in my Flickr Gallery for The Witch.

Comments (5)

Celebrating Woody Strode

by Kimberly Lindbergs | August 5, 2010

Categories | Movie Reviews, Actors, Italian Cinema, Crime, Movie Morlocks, TCM

Woody Strode in The Italian Connection (1972)

Apologies for the lack of direct updates lately but I’m still getting moved into my new home and my free time is limited at the moment. In the meantime you can still find me posting at the Movie Morlocks every week and you can also occasionally find me posting film related images and other fun stuff over at If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There’d Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats and at my personal home blog Mid-Century Living.

This week the Morlocks are celebrating the life and career of actor Woody Strode. Strode’s acting accomplishments are unfamiliar to many movie fans so I’m really excited about this week long tribute to the man and his work. I decided to write about Woody Strode’s powerful performance in the Italian poliziottesco (crime) film The Italian Connection aka La Mala Ordina (Fernando Di Leo; 1972). I haven’t had the opportunity to write about any of my favorite poliziotteschi movies so I wanted to rectify that and TCM’s decision to celebrate Woody Strode’s career gave me the opportunity to finally focus my attention on a great Italian crime movie. You can find my piece on The Italian Connection as well as many other terrific blog posts about Woody Strode and the film’s he appeared in at TCM’s Movie Morlocks Blog.

Comments (0)

Clint Eastwood in Swinging London

by Kimberly Lindbergs | July 22, 2009

Categories | Actors, Italian Cinema, Westerns, Clint Eastwood, Sergio Leone

Clint Eastwood during the ‘67 promotional tour in London for A Fistful of Dollars

Over the last few years I’ve come across various photos taken during the promotional tour that Clint Eastwood did in London for the release of A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone; 1967) and recently Cinema Retro uncovered an interview that Eastwood did with a British reporter during that same promo tour. It’s a great interview and I highly recommend giving it a look if you happen to like Clint Eastwood and the westerns he made in the ’60s as much as I do. Eastwood looks incredible in the clip, but he also has a lot of smart and insightful things to say about Italian westerns. I only wish the clip was a little longer.

Comments (6)

March Madness

by Kimberly Lindbergs | March 7, 2009

Categories | Horror, Giallo, Italian Cinema, Blogathons, Lucio Fulci, Florinda Bolkan

Over at The Destructible Man blog an impromptu blogathon has started simply called Destructible Blog-a-thon.1.

The gory details:
We want everybody to bundle up, dig deep into the recesses of their consciousness, fiddle about a bit and then go over to your laptops by the fireplace and post about the cinematic ANIMAL dummy death that you covet the most!

I didn’t have to dig too deep to remember the dummy animal deaths featured in Lucio Fulci’s A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (aka Una Lucertola con la pelle di donna, 1971). As I’ve mentioned previously, A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin is one of my favorite horror films (as well as on of my favorite giallo films) and it also happens to be my favorite Lucio Fulci movie. It’s easy to find copies of the film on DVD now, but for years it was nearly impossible to see an uncut version of A Lizard in a Women’s Skin due to the movie’s erotic content and one of the most brutally imagined vivisection scenes ever captured on film. The scene was so graphic and believable that it reportedly landed Fulci in hot water with Italian authorities. Special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi was even forced to present the fake dog props used in the film in court to save the director from a possible two-year prison term.

tube down the neck
flesh pulled back
to crawl underneath the skin
the corporate death no sentiment
the pain sustained at will
they preach on high morals lie
in this farce called vivisection
- song lyrics from “Ode to Groovy” by Skinny Puppy

Before making horror films, Lucio Fulci studied medicine and this experience colored his work and lent it an edgy realism that many viewers find incredibly disturbing. As a young medical student Fulci was undoubtedly familiar with vivisection practices and his choice to introduce them into his horror film as an element of terror is both surprising and enlightening. This personal aspect of Fulci’s work is often overlooked by critics who have trouble sifting through the unexpected emotional depths found in many of the director’s best films.

The graphic nature of the faux animal vivisection in A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin is shocking, but I think it’s made more unsettling by the way the director places it into his film. The particular scene in question begins when Carol (played brilliantly by the gorgeous and talented Florinda Bolkan) awakens from a nap she’s just had on the lawn of a psychiatric hospital. Carol’s a murder suspect and a sexually frustrated wife who’s been sent to the hospital to get some rest, but her troubled imagination is working overtime. Lucio Fulci used many creative camera techniques and directing tricks to give his film a haunting dreamlike atmosphere. The director clearly enjoys playing with Freudian dream imagery so the audience is never quite sure what’s real and unreal throughout the course of A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin.

Waking from her nap, Carol has no idea how much time has passed. She looks around the hospital grounds which are strangely silent and empty. A feeling of dread seems to come over her and she’s suddenly startled when she spots a gentleman watching her from the nearby bushes.

She begins to run towards the hospital, but many of the entry ways are blocked.
Carol is running from her past as well as her fears.

When Carol gets inside the hospital she’s greeted by twisting spiral staircases and stark white hallways that seem to go on forever. This Escher-like landscape is a reflection of Carol’s inner turmoil.

She finally finds an open door and steps inside, but the room engulfs her in darkness. This is not the escape Carol or the audience was expecting. As she makes her way through the gloom a light suddenly illuminates the shadow of a human hand behind a curtain. It appears to be holding a pair of sharp scissors. In this brief ode to Hitchcock, Fulci playfully hints at many of his film’s own themes.

Carol experiences a new level of horror after seeing the menacing shadow, but Fulci’s camera suddenly cuts to a doctor’s table carrying various medical instruments. There is no mad killer behind the curtain. Instead we find only a doctor and his tools. What is the threat now? Where is the terror coming from? Why should we fear the doctors?

She continues to run through the hospital before finally reaching another unlocked door and opening it. This time the light within the room illuminates Carol instead of hiding her in shadows. As Fulci zooms in on Carol, her face becomes a mask of terror.

The audience is suddenly shocked by the same revolting images of vivisection that terrified Carol. The dogs are not dead, but they are slowly dying and Carol’s face registers exactly what the audience is expected to be feeling at that moment. As the dogs whimper and twist in agony from the torture they’re suffering at the hands of medical men, Carol’s face becomes a reflection of our own horror and our own fears.

Suddenly Carol is overcome by the terrible site before her and she collapses. Beneath her crumpled body the ground is colored a deep shade of red that resembles spilled blood. The scene ends where it began, in dreams. Dark and troubling dreams.

Comments (8)