Top: House with Laughing Windows (1976), Deep Red (1975)
Middle: The Seventh Victim (1942)
Bottom: Black Sabbath (1963), Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

I wasn’t going to participate in Ed Hardy’s 31 Flicks That Give You the Willies List due to suffering massive list-making burnout following the recent Favorite Foreign Language Film poll (which I still want to write about in more detail), but at the last minute I decided to send him a list of nominees. As I’ve mentioned before, horror is far and away my favorite film genre so I had an incredibly hard time narrowing down my list of favorite films to a mere 31.

I will confess that I cheated a bit since I deliberately left off any film that I knew had already gotten 3 votes and wouldn’t need mine to make the final list of nominees. Some of those films included Suspiria (1977), Martin (1977), The Wicker Man (1973), Dellamorte Dellamore (1994), The Shining (1980), The Exorcist (1973), Psycho (1960) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). With that confession out of the way, here is my own list of…

31 FILMS THAT GIVE ME THE WILLIES (Listed by release date)

1. Frankenstein (1931; James Whale)
2. The Seventh Victim (1942; Mark Robson)
3. The Uninvited (1944; Lewis Allen)
4. Night of the Demon (1957; Jacques Tourner)
5. Blood and Roses (1960; Roger Vadim)
6. The Brides of Dracula (1960; Terence Fisher)
7. The Innocents (1961; Jack Clayton)
8. Night Tide (1961; Curtis Harrington)
9. Carnival of Souls (1962; Herk Harvey)
10. The Haunted Palace (1963; Roger Corman)
11. Black Sabbath (1963; Mario Bava)
12. The Haunting (1963; Robert Wise)
13. Castle of Blood (1964; Antonio Margheriti)
14. Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971; Piers Haggard)
15. Daughters of Darkness (1971; Harry Kumel)
16. Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971; Lucio Fulci)
17. Short Night of the Glass Dolls (1971; Aldo Lado)
18. Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971; Armando de Ossorio)
19. All the Colors of the Dark (1972; Sergio Martino)
20. Don’t Look Now (1973; Nicolas Roeg)
21. Deep Red (1975; Dario Argento)
22. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975; Peter Weir)
23. The Tenant (1976; Roman Polanski)
24. House with Laughing Windows (1976; Pupi Avati)
25. Full Circle (akak The Haunting of Julia, 1977; Richard Loncraine)
26. The Brood (1979; David Cronenberg)
27. Possession (1981; Andrzej Zulawski)
28. Zeder (1983; Pupi Avati)
29. The Reflecting Skin (1990; Philip Ridley)
30. Cure (1997; Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
31. Audition (1999; Takashi Miike)

After sending Ed my list I was surprised and annoyed with myself since I managed to forget to include Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960) and lots of early Japanese and Spanish horror films that I love. I also neglected to include any films with Peter Lorre, Christopher Lee and Klaus Kinski, who have all appeared in some of my favorite thrillers. Where did my head go?

Some conclusions I came to after making my list:

1. Sexually repressed women, ghosts, the supernatural, vampires and devil worshipers/cults give me the willies. Since I’m not a religious person, I find it extremely amusing that so many satanic horror films made my list, but I think it’s more about the esoteric elements of these films and the constant mystery of the unknown then the actual “devil” that give these types of movies their edge.

2. Only four American born directors made my list. British and Italian directors dominate it. This isn’t a surprise since I really don’t care for American horror films all that much.

3. 1960 and 1971 were truly the most amazing years for horror cinema in my humble opinion. At some point during the list making process I had six or eight films from each of those years on my list.

4. The only director that has more than one film on my list is the greatly under-appreciated Italian director Pupi Avati who I think makes some of the most fascinating and chilling films I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately I’m clearly in the minority since none of his movies made it on the final list of 180 Nominees and as far as I know, I’m the only person who nominated any of his films for inclusion.

Last but not least…

I plan to write about some of the lessor seen films mentioned above that didn’t make the Official Nominee List in the coming days.

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.

- 10 Questions with Tim Lucas

I didn’t want to just list the 12 films I sent in for inclusion that didn’t make the final list of nominees for the Foreign Language Films List without writing a bit about them and why I love them so much. My entire list is filled to the brim with Japanese, Italian and French films and that’s not just because they’re easily available. It means that I really love Japanese, Italian and French cinema. In all honesty, I didn’t expect a lot of the following films to make the final list because they’re personal favorites and some are not easily available on DVD, but that wasn’t one of the requirements. We were asked to list favorites and that’s what I did. If someone wanted me to teach a class on world cinema using my list I would have probably selected some different films.

I think the best part about creating these lists is discovering stuff out about yourself. While creating my list it I learned the following:

-The sixties is far and away my favorite film decade.
- I love Japanese crime films and the more surreal the better. At least five films in a similar vein made my list.
- I love horror/science fiction films with a Frankenstein theme. At least three films with variations of this theme made my list.
- I love films with great opening sequences. If a movie can make my jaw hit the floor within the first 10-15 minutes, it gains my instant affection. Many of the films on my list contain amazing opening sequences that grab you by the throat and never let go.
- Alain Delon is still my favorite actor. I could watch him stare out a window for 4 hours and never get bored.

So without further delay - Here is a list of 12 of my Favorite Foreign Language Films that didn’t make the final list of nominees. They’re listed in alphabetical order:

The 10th Victim a.k.a. La Decima Vittima (1965, Elio Petri)
Italian director Elio Petri won the Golden Palm at Cannes in 1971 for his film The Working Class Goes to Heaven and a Jury Prize in 1970 for his film Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, which was also nominated for an Oscar. Sadly, none of Petri’s films made the nominee list but I hoped that his stylish sixties science fiction film the The 10th Victim would. Part social satire, part dark sex comedy and all style, The 10th Victim is truly one of the sixties greatest looking films. It stars the lovely Ursula Andress and handsome Marcello Mastroianni in two of their most unforgettable roles as hunter and victim playing a televised survival game. It undoubtedly inspired many other lesser films such as The Running Man (1987) and Fukasaku’s Battle Royal (2000), but The 10th Victim is far and away one of the smartest and most adult science fiction films ever made. The fantastic cinematography by Gianni Di Venanzo and fabulous score by Piero Piccioni are tops.

- Clip from The 10th Victim

Black Lizard a.k.a. Kurotokage (1968, Kinji Fukasaku)
Kinji Fukasaku made a lot of great movies in Japan before his untimely death in 2003, but this truly surreal 1968 crime thriller is a personal favorite. It combines the best elements found in sixties era James Bond films and Film Noir with an erotic mystery that is guaranteed to leave first time viewers stunned. It’s also got a wicked streak of dark humor running through it and an avant-garde “pop art” sensibility that really appeals to me. The lovely female lead is played by the reigning queen of Japanese drag performers, Akihiro Miwa, and his real-life lover (famed Japanese author Yukio Mishima who helped write the screenplay) even makes an appearance in the film. I plan on writing a more in-depth review of Black Lizard very soon, but I will add that I’ve rarely had a better time at the movies than when I first saw this film back in the early 1990s.

Blood & Black Lace a.k.a. Sei Donne per l’assassino (1964, Mario Bava)
Selecting one Mario Bava film for my list was nearly impossible since he’s one of my favorite filmmakers, but I finally decided to include his original giallo film that managed to forge an entire genre, Blood and Black Lace. This amazing looking film really showcases everything that I love about Bava’s filmmaking and giallo films in general. It features some of Bava’s best and most brilliant color photography and impressive special effects that still make my eyes pop. Blood and Black Lace has inspired countless imitators, but this truly original piece of work remains bold and exciting some 40 years after it was first made.

- German language trailer for Blood and Black Lace

The Diabolical Doctor Z a.k.a. Miss Muerte (1966, Jess Franco)
I love a lot of Jess Franco films, but I also have my favorites and The Diabolical Doctor Z was the first film that made me a Franco fan for life. This incredible looking Spanish/French production features a terrific international cast and boasts some of Franco’s most impressive directing. It was the film that really cemented Franco’s name in the world of international cinema and it contains many of the director’s favorite themes that are perfectly executed here (it’s also co-written by Bunuel collaborator Jean-Claude Carriere). The film finds inspiration in Georges Franju’s classic Eyes Without a Face as well as old Universal monster films, but somehow Franco still manages to give the film a very original and modern feel that is all his own.

- Bad American trailer for The Diabolical Doctor Z

The Face of Another a.k.a. Tanin no Kao (1966, Hiroshi Teshigahara)
I’ve already written about Teshigahara’s film in great detail so I won’t bother saying much more, but you can find my previous thoughts about this amazing film here.

- Japanese trailer for The Face of Another

Female Prisoner #701 Scorpion: Beast Stable (1973, Shunya Ito)
I’ve loved the Japanese Female Prisoner Scorpion films since I first discovered them being released on DVD in the states in 2002. They’re on unusual blend of two genres (Pinky Violence and Women in Prison films) that somehow manage to take what could be considered very trashy and exploitive themes and turn them into truly great avant-garde filmmaking. Beast Stable is the third and last film in the series directed by Shunya Ito and he brings everything I love about his earlier films into this last movie in the series and turns it up to volume 10. He also manages to define his previous ideas and develop his directing style in ways that really impress me and that’s why this film is my favorite in the series. I wrote another tiny blurb about Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable earlier this year, which you can find here.

- Japanese trailer for Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable

Gonin a.k.a. Five (1995, Takashi Ishi)
The 1990s was an amazing decade for Japanese cinema and I wanted to include films made by many great directors from this period on my list such as Takeshi Kitano, Takeshi Miike, Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Hirokazu Koreeda, but after I started slowly chipping away at my long list of Favorite Foreign Language films to select a mere 25 for inclusion on my list, Gonin was the one film from the decade that remained (I also assumed those other directors would make the list without my vote). Takashi Ishi has only made a few worthwhile films and Gonin is far and away his greatest achievement, but its influence on modern Japanese cinema shouldn’t be underestimated. This incredible crime film involves a gang of misfits who come together and try to rob the local yakuza, but things don’t exactly go as planned and as the film unfolds in a thunderous wave of unparalleled violence and mind-blowing action, it also takes on a dark, surreal and horrific tone that raises it far above most typical Asian crime films. Underneath Gonin’s slick and stylish exterior you’ll find the first film - in my moving going experience - that dared to openly exploit the gay subtext found in thousands of buddy action movies made in previous decades. It also contains some terrific performances by great Japanese actors such as the amazing Takeshi Kitano who is guaranteed to impress and give you nightmares as a bloodthirsty one-eyed hitman. I first saw Gonin when it debuted in the US in San Francisco and half the audience left before the film finished. The rest of us that remained sat in stunned silence until the very end. We all watched the credits roll until the darkened theater turned on the house lights and then we all looked at each other - half of us with tears in our eyes and the other half with our jaws still on the ground - fully aware that we had just experienced a stunning and groundbreaking film. It’s an experience I’ll never forget.

- The original Gonin trailer

Jean De Florette / Manon of the Spring (1986, Claude Berri)
It’s hard to explain why we enjoy some films more than others, but ever since I first sat through the entire 4-hour sweeping epic that is Claude Berri’s Jean De Florette and Manon of the Spring back in the late 1980s when I was in college studying film, I’ve been in love with these two movies. Together they make up a powerful drama of great beauty that manages to invoke the magic of cinema classics while telling a timeless story that can still deeply affect modern audiences. Has the French countryside ever looked so beautiful? These are films that I’ve come back to again and again when the world doesn’t seem right and I need a “pick me up” as well as a confirmation of humanity in all it’s loveliness and ugliness. The great French actor Yves Montand also delivers an incredibly moving performance in these films that always leaves me impressed.

- American trailer for Manon of the Spring

Pale Flower a.k.a. Kawaita Hana (1964, Masahiro Shinoda)
If you haven’t noticed by now, I really love Japanese crime films and many of my favorites ended up making my list because I couldn’t bare to leave them off. Shinoda’s brilliant Pale Flower manages to be both an erotic and highly subversive bit of filmmaking that perfectly represents the Japanese New Wave while keeping one foot firmly planted in the violent underworld of Japanese crime cinema. Shinoda takes what could be a simple yakuza tale and love story, and turns it into cinematic art. This gorgeous film showcases why he’s one of Japan’s greatest modern filmmakers. I naively assumed Shinoda’s amazing film Double Suicide would make the final list of nominees so I voted for this one instead, but I love them both a lot. In the end though, Pale Flower is a film I like to return to again and again and it’s complex themes appeal to me in many ways.

Santa Sangre (1989, Alejandro Jodorowsky)
With the recent release of the Jodorowsky DVD Box set in America this year I assumed that at least one of his films would make it onto the list of nominees. Obviously I assumed wrong. I expect that Jodorowsky’s brand of surrealism is still just a bit too extreme for most film audiences. That’s really a shame, because he’s made some fascinating films and my favorite Jodorowsky film is Santa Sangre. Santa Sangre is Jodorwsky’s darkest effort and his most fully realized film in my opinion. It is brimming with unforgettable imagery and startling storytelling techniques that recall an earlier time in European horror cinema seen through more modern eyes. Like many of the films on my list, Santa Sangre is not easy viewing, but it’s a film that constantly comes to mind when I think about Foreign Language Films that have deeply affected me and changed the way I view cinema as an art form.

- Clip from Santa Sangre

Teorema (1968, Pier Paolo Pasolini)
I’m not really sure that Pasolini’s Teorema counts 100% as a foreign language film, but I included it in my list anyway. Teorema is a film that seems to divide audiences and many critics find it incomprehensible or just plain trashy. I think it’s a bit of both and that’s why I love it so much. It also features some of Pasolini’s most impressive imagery and manages to mix eroticism with political and social issues in an extremely creative way. Terence Stamp is unforgettable here as the mysterious sexy stranger who enters into the life of a bourgeois family and changes their lives forever. It’s the film that introduced to me to Passolini’s work and it remains a favorite since I first saw it some 18 years ago.

- Clip from Teorema

Youth of the Beast - Criterion Collection a.k.a. Yaju no Seishun (1963, Seijun Suzuki)
Sejiun Suzuki’s Youth of the Beast is the final film on my list of favorites and it’s undoubtedly one of the best looking films of the bunch. I was astonished that none of Suzuki’s films made the list of nominees since his work has been available on DVD for many years and is supported by Criterion, but the Criterion crowd often likes to dismiss Suzuki. His films are still widely unseen and under-appreciated which is a shame. He’s one of Japan’s greatest living directors and he makes some of the most entertaining and beautiful looking films that I’ve ever seen. I had an extremely hard time trying to decide which Suzuki film I would select for inclusion on my list. He is the only director that I almost broke my own rule for because I couldn’t pick between the dark WWII drama Gate of Flesh (which I raved about here) and this mind-blowing crime film. Youth of the Beast was the first film that gained Suzuki a reputation in Japan for making unbelievably stylish and over-the-top crime films that left audiences reeling and confused his critics. It was also the first film that brought Suzuki and his longtime star Jo Shishido together, and the two men truly make movie magic on screen that has to be seen to be believed. Youth of the Beast was made only a year after the first James Bond film and yet in many ways it’s light years ahead of any adult action films shot during that decade and made on probably half the budget. Besides mind-blowing action sequences, jaw-dropping photography and an amazingly effective score, the film is also infused with Suzuki’s own brand of eroticism and violence, and it showcases his incredibly modern storytelling abilities that have inspired countless imitators. If you rent Suzuki’s Youth of the Beast you are guaranteed a knockout night at the movies that you’ll never forget so if you’re unfamiliar with the director’s work, do yourself a favor and discover it soon.

- Clips from Youth of the Beast

While I was compiling this list of 25 favorites I came up with over 100 films that I wanted to add to it so I plan on posting my entire list sooner or later since I regret not including many films. Lists are tricky things and limited by what we have seen. I don’t like sharing them since my list of Favorite Foreign Films could change at any given day depending on my mood and whatever new films I’m exposed to, but I can honestly say that all 25 films on this list will always be personal favorites.

Welcome to the Bay of Blood

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

Europe has produced many lovely and talented actresses who have had memorable careers in horror cinema and one of my favorite European “Scream Queens” is the beautiful Edwidge Fenech.

Fenech was born on December 24, 1948 and began her career as a model before getting into acting in the late sixties. She started out making European sex comedies and she would continue to appear in them throughout her career. But I think her most interesting work as an actress can be found in the Italian thrillers and giallo films that she made for great directors such as Mario Bava, Sergio Martino, Giuliano Carnimeo and Andrea Bianchi.

Edwige Fenech’s incredible beauty, sensuality and natural vulnerability made her the perfect protagonist in many wonderful giallo films which rely on aesthetics as well as thrills for great effect. Fenech starred in many of the best gialli made throughout the sixties and seventies, and all the movies she was in definitely benefited from her presence. No matter how fantastical the film plot was, Fenech was able to bring an element of realism to her acting roles that made her characters very sympathetic and believable.

The last horror film Fenech appeared in was Ruggero Deodato’s entertaining Phantom of Death (a.k.a. Un Delitto poco comune, 1988) with Michael York and Donald Pleasence almost 20 years ago. Fenech has continued to act in various Italian television dramas since then and she has also become a film producer and distributor. At age 60 Edwige Fenech is still unbelievably beautiful and I think it’s a shame that she hasn’t continued to act in more European thrillers.

The Case of the Bloody Iris (1972)

Thankfully that will all change this week with the release of Eli Roth’s Hostel 2 (2007). Roth met Fenech in February of 2006 and asked if she would consider returning to the screen for a role in Hostel 2. Fenech agreed and took the part of an Art Class Professor in Roth’s latest film. For many giallo film enthusiasts like myself, it’s wonderful to see Edwige Fenech returning to the big screen again in another thriller. I don’t care for a lot of modern American horror films but I’m really looking forward to Hostel 2.

The original Hostel (2005) film seemed to divide audiences and critics but I personally thought it was one of the more entertaining and original American horror movies made in recent years. I enjoyed the film’s slow buildup which forced audiences to get to know the characters before they started dropping dead and I don’t understand the “torture porn” label that has been slapped on Roth’s movie. “Torture porn” seems to be a catchy term that modern critics have come up with to label particular horror films and divide a genre that they know absolutely nothing about.

Whatever you may think of Eli Roth, I think it’s terrific that he was able to coax Edwige Fenech into appearing in another horror film and I hope it will encourage her to take on more similar roles in the future. Hostel 2 opens in US theaters nationwide on June 8th.

If you want to see more of Edwige Fenech I highly recommend the following films:
- 5 Dolls For an August Moon (5 bambole per la luna d’agosto, 1970)
- The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (Lo Strano vizio della Signora Wardh, 1971)
- All the Colors of the Dark (Tutti i colori del buio, 1972)
- The Case of the Bloody Iris (Perché quelle strane gocce di sangue sul corpo di Jennifer?, 1972)
- Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (Il Tuo vizio è una stanza chiusa e solo io ne ho la chiave, 1972)
- Strip Nude For Your Killer (Nude per l’assassino, 1975)
- Phantom Of Death (Un Delitto poco comune, 1988)

For more information about Edwige Fenech and her films I suggest visiting the great Cult Sirens site and if you’re interested in reading a review for Fenech’s upcoming film Hostel 2 I recommend visiting Michael Guillen’s terrific blog The Evening Class.

The latest issue of Cinema Retro recently arrived in my mailbox and I think it’s one of their best issues yet. It has lots of great articles that will appeal to anyone who enjoys sixties and seventies era films as much as I do. I’ve mentioned before how much I love this magazine, but if I haven’t convinced you to become a subscriber yet, you really should reconsider it. Cinema Retro rightfully calls itself “The essential guide to movies of the ‘60 & ’70s” so if you enjoy the kinds of films I write about here, you’ll definitely enjoy the magazine.

Issue #8 features a cover story about the terrific James Coburn Flint films called ‘Flint Unseen!” which includes lots of rare and never-before-seen photos and production stills from Our Man Flint (1966) and In Like Flint (1967). Other great spy related articles in this issue of Cinema Retro include Part II of an in-depth Interview with my favorite Man From U.N.C.L.E., David McCallum and an interview with the beautiful Bond Girl Luciana Paluzzi from Thunderball (1965). There is even an interesting article from Robert Sellers called “The Bond Film That Never Was” that offers an inside look at how Agent 007 almost came to the screen in a very different way.

You’ll also find terrific pieces about two of my favorite films, Mario Bava’s Danger: Diabolik (1968) and Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960). Dave Brown’s tribute to Danger: Diabolik was fascinating to read and included information about the film that was new to me. I also really enjoyed reading film critic Shirley Sealey’s personal account of seeing La Dolce Vita when it was released in Italy and her brief meeting with Fellini.

The new issue also features a detailed behind-the-scenes look at the making of Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda’s classic motorcycle film Easy Rider (1969), information about the upcoming DVD release of the Steve McQueen film The Sand Pebbles (1966) and Part II of a tribute to Elvis Presley’s female film co-stars such as Nancy Sinatra, plus lots more including reviews of new DVDs, books and CDs that retro cinema enthusiasts like myself should really enjoy.

Cinema Retro has recently updated their website and if you haven’t checked out their current layout you should stop by and give the new site a look. You can also subscribe to the magazine and purchase back issues there.

- Cinema Retro : The essential guide to movies of the ’60s & ’70s