Movies

Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972) Directed by Sergio Martino, music by Bruno Nicolai. I established an eight-word rule years ago - if a movie has eight words in the title, watch out. This has twelve and thus transcends the rule. In this one the black-clad slasher with the big hooked knife is pushed off into a subplot and the story focuses on the ugly relationship between a dissolute unsuccessful writer sucking down J&B Scotch and his abused wife (Anita Strindberg of the wonderfully sculpted countenance) in a decaying villa. A gang of Party Hippies, a motocross race, and a visiting niece (Edwige Fenech takes on the nudity duties) who sleeps with everyone - EVERYONE, add more detail. Once you get hipped to how the scheme is set up and who is really behind everything, and figure out that a major subplot is lifted from a famous literary source, there are few surprises left in the last few minutes, but the sheer lurid excess keeps it rolling along. They really don't make them like this any more. 6/10

Anita Strindberg and the BLOODY SCISSORS

J&B Scotch - Buy it by the case!

Death Walks on High Heels (1971) Directed by Luciano Ercoli, music by Stelvio Cipriani. A fortune in diamonds is the object of the black-clad slasher and it is extremely helpful that one of the possible possessors of it is a Parisian strip-tease artist. Set in Paris and England, but everybody still speaks Italian. The settings are interesting and colorful, the story convoluted and puzzling, with everyone a suspect and participant, and a big flip-around at the end. It doesn't get real stabby, but one of the main characters is an eye surgeon for some gross-out effect. Gets an extra point for the plot structure, which really goes beyond what you might expect. 7/10

Movies

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972) Directed by Emilio Miraglia, also responsible for The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave. Of the two I think the latter is the superior film. This is the story of a centuries-old family curse in which every hundred years the evil sister kills seven people, the good sister being the seventh. Guess what year it is. It must all be a scheme of some sort, because the evil sister in this century is dead. Maybe. It's different from the run of the genre in that the mad stabber is a woman in a red cape who doesn't reserve her stabbing to women who have just taken their shirts off without locking all the doors and windows, and its tone is a bit more gothic than usual. What I found most enjoyable was the fact that the good sister, the Woman in Peril, is a fashion photographer so there were lots of fabulous clothes in picturesque settings. Also the most appalling and claustrophobic wallpaper I have ever seen. 6/10

The whole room is like this.

Death Laid an Egg (1968) Directed by Giulio Questi who, unlike these other directors, was not a studio hack - his list of works is quite brief. This is clearly influenced by the experimental approaches of the day and comes just short of being a satire of genre film. It is stylish and stylized and its ideas are unconventional. Set in an ultramodern automatic poultry farm, it's not a repetitive mad slasher film as it first makes you believe. The scenes and settings are striking, the dialog is slightly eccentric, and the addition of the poultry motif, with bizarre ad campaigns and the development of limbless spherical mutant chickens take it into the social-commentary realm of Godard and William Klein. This is quite an odd film for Gina Lollobrigida to be in, and in the dubbed print I saw, she is voiced by someone else. Not always what I would call a good movie, but overall quite a memorable experience. 8/10

The Case of the Scorpion's Tail (1972) Directed by Sergio Martino, one of the studio hacks referred to above, who has made some memorable and atrocious entries into western, giallo, cannnibal, post-apocalypse, and animal attack genres. A million dollar life insurance payout is the motivation for the leatherclad throat-slasher. The story proceeds rather mechanically - every attack is followed by a meeting in which theories are exchanged, then people are sent out to look for clues until the next attack. It's all explained in the end. The most notable thing about this for me was how frequently bottles of J&B Scotch intruded into the side of the scene. Kept my interest, but much of that had to do with the sculpted face and hemispherical bosoms of Anita Strindberg.

Three minutes into the movie - what are they drinking? J&B

What's that on the coffee table? J&B

Great by the TV - J&B!

Note the clamshell flip phone next to the TV. That's another thing I love about these, the endless variety of telephones.

Movies

Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971) Directed by Paolo Cavara, who got his start in film as a shockumentarian with Mondo Cane. The gimmick this time is that the black-clad gloved fiend murders naked women by paralyzing them with a needle in the back of the brain and cuts their bellies open while they are paralyzed and fully conscious, as explained by a scientist in a white lab coat and stock footage of a fight between a spider and a Tarantula Hawk Wasp. This seems more a transitional phase between the Giallo and Eurocrime forms since the protagonist is not the woman in peril but the disillusioned police detective, played by Giancarlo Giannini. This is not a very strong story, rather baroque - lots of little offshoots spiraling into dead ends which were never made to seem important in the first place. There were some interesting scenes and settings, such as a room full of mannequins in the back of a furrier's shop, but nothing super-great.In fact the most interesting part of it for me was seeing mod decorative props re-used from Seven Bloodstained Orchids. Kept my interest but wasn't really enthralling. 5/10

Rectilinear b/w stereophonograph and abstract paintings in

Black Belly of the Tarantula

... and in Seven Bloodstained Orchids

Movies

I have decided to enjoy some Italian thrillers for the next week or so.

Seven Bloodstained Orchids (1972) Directed by Umberto Lenzi who would later gain notice for the grisliest zombie and cannibal movies, this is an exemplary entry into the giallo genre. Which is to say it is an example of it. A black-gloved killer is murdering women and leaving behind an enigmatic talisman. The protagonists must discover how the women are connected to prevent more murders. The story is excessively contrived with multiple layers of misdirection and concealment so that when discoveries are made they provide little emotional relief. It is made as lurid as possible with gratuitous female nudity and gay junkie drug parties, and the psychological implications of the violent attacks on vulnerable women at that sociohistorical period are obvious and have probably been investigated deeply and repeatedly. The two really good things about this are the settings and soundtrack. Each interior location has a completely different style of art on the walls, and one fabulous country hideaway is laden with as much freakish Italo-mod design as it can hold. Riz Ortolani's harpsichord-based themes are the perfect accompaniment to the numerous scenes of a convertible sports car tearing down country highways. 5/10

Seven Notes in Black (a.k.a. The Psychic) 1977, directed by Lucio Fulci (who also would go on to the most gruesome of zombie movies), is much more sophisticated in every way. Its basic conceit is perfect for a mystery thriller - a woman's clairvoyant visions of murder are a set of disconnected snapshots, puzzle pieces that can be put together in any pattern. This concept of providing the primary clues without a context works extremely well in setting up the maze of discoveries which must follow. Jennifer O'Neil must first convince a world of scoffing men that her visions are valid, then work with them to discover where and when and who. This seems to have passed beyond the crude emotional reactionism to societal change evident in Seven Bloodstained Orchids and most other films in the genre, but relies still on a woman in peril who must enlist the aid and strength of men. I think it is these social settings that interest me as much as the simple enjoyment of making it through a contorted plot. 7/10

Movies

Black Moon (1934) Voodoo thriller - a woman is mystically drawn back to her island birthplace to take her place as white voodoo queen. Interesting to me was the fact that the leaders of the creole-speaking natives are depicted with a certain threatening dignity, while the Georgia-born "good darkie" (Clarence Muse, who rarely had an opportunity to show his real talents) is an unfortunate stereotype. As these things often do, the story is turned into a symbolic victory of christianity over paganism. The mass voodoo ritual scenes suffer greatly from not having been shot at night. Cast includes Fay Wray in her dark haired mode, cute but not a great actress. A good try but not a real success. 4/10

Kentucky Kernels (1934) Comedy duo Wheeler and Woolsey are guardians to orphaned Spanky McFarland, who falls heir to a Kentucky feud. Sometimes it is funny, and there is a song. 5/10

I Thank You (1941) British comedy duo Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch, trying to get financing for a show, must take a job as a husband and wife footman and cook. Wartime references include sleeping on subway platforms, unavailability of foodstuffs, and firespotting from rooftops, and many of the supporting players are probably recognizable to those with a greater knowledge of the British music hall. Sometimes it is funny and there are songs. 5/10

Johnny Cool (1963) Henry Silva stars as a Sicilian bandit recruited by a deported Italo-american gangster to enact his vengeance. Wide-eyed and beautiful Elizabeth Montgomery is an aimless socialite awakened to the realities of life by her brief encounter with this dispassionately violent man. At times startling and fierce in its action and imagery, it seems to have been a break from drivel and trivia by producer/director William Asher, and it shows where his real strengths were - not here. A sophisticated, not always believable story with numerous flashy cameos including an uncharacteristically threatening appearance by affable John McGiver. Many of the cameos, like Mort Sahl's, have a "Look who's here!" feel, and it is easy to see who is a real actor and who isn't. Kind of great in certain ways, and overall an interesting and unusual experience. 7/10

Movies

The Phantom Thief (1946) Chester Morris is Boston Blackie in this flat backlot timefiller. This is what they had before they had television. 3/10

The Tourist (2010) The critics were so harsh with this I felt I ought to see it. Uniformly good acting and high quality presentation, beautifully filmed, yet it attains a level of absurdity and ridiculousness in the story that had me chortling repeatedly. It got so stupid that I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Good stupid. Fun because it is so dumb. Johnny Depp is always appealing but Angelina Jolie is one weird looking chick. 7/10

Movies

Shutter Island (2010) Scorsese's psychological mystery thriller set in an island hospital for the criminally insane shows that Leonardo De Caprio is one of the best actors of our day, and Scorsese one of the most highly skilled of directors. One problem I had with Inception was that, though it ostensibly took place in dreams, it was not really dreamlike. This is far more effective at creating a disorienting dreamlike world with subtle, wily trickery and discontinuities. Captivating, disturbing and beautiful from the first moment. 10/10

Movies

For the Love of Mary (1948) Deanna Durbin is a switchboard operator at the White House who is so incredibly appealing that Supreme Court justices and the President himself intervene in her love life. It's amazing what a complicated comedy of errors it becomes. She sings a bit too. Nothing explodes, nobody shoots at anyone or crashes through a window, no huge things come rushing at you. It's just funny and nice. Edmond O'Brien is one of the handsome young suitors. 7/10

Supernatural (1933) Phony psychic tries to scam heiress Carole Lombard, but she becomes possessed by the vengeful spirit of his ex-girlfriend, a recently executed Mad Strangler. Really skewed concept, well presented. I like Lombard in the '30s and this is a uniquely weird film. 8/10

Movies

Mantrap (1953) Also known as Man in Hiding, this is an interesting little contemporary thriller from Hammer studios. Paul Henreid becomes involved with an escaped convict in search of the real killer. Nice to look at, keeps you guessing. 6/10

Here Is My Heart (1934) Bing Crosby is a millionaire radio crooner who must masquerade as a waiter to woo a Russian princess, played by Kitty Carlisle. Supporting actors include William Frawley and Akim Tamiroff. Light and harmless, with their duets better than I expected. 5/10

Movies

Mad Love (1935) This was my choice for family movie night. Another classic I have read about all my life but never seen until now. We were astonished at how much was packed into this short film, a masterpiece of expressionist qrotesquerie. It just snaps right along with one thing after another. Lorre as the deranged hand-transplanting surgeon is amazing, and I especially enjoyed the visual contrast between the Caligariesque setting of his private clinic and the gleaming and elaborate modern medical devices. A superior effort in every way 10/10

Then back to work:

The Satan Bug (1965) Expensive biological warfare thriller, with the deadliest virus ever created stolen from a secret desert lab. Nicely filmed in Panavision, which made good use of the horizontal desert setting. Proceeds at an orderly pace without getting too exciting. 5/10

Maidens of Fetish Street (1966) Dreadful exploitation flick that I sat through to see the kind of crap a guy had to endure just to see some footage of gals with no shirts on. These crappy nudies seem to fall back on having a narrator of some sort, faking up a near-plot to provide the "redeeming social value" required to keep it from being classified as obscene. One really long hour. 1/10

Movies

Il gatto a nove code (1971) Also known as The Cat O' Nine Tails, this is Dario Argento's second film, and the first I have gotten Donna to watch. Strangely, it is also the first of his films I ever saw, unknowingly viewing it in Buena Vista Colorado while on vacation with my mother. I don't recall what we thought of it at the time, but half a dozen scenes have stuck with me ever since, when many other movies have passed from my memory. Rather an over-elaborate muddle but filled with promise. Though his films came to indulge in far too much blatant stabbing and raping than I care for, one feature common to them all is that you can never, ever guess what will happen next. This one featured a baffling burglary at a genetics lab (and a completely off-the-wall "explanation" of the XYY chromosome idea) which leads to one murder after another, to be solved by blind puzzle-enthusiast Karl Malden and reporter James Franciscus. Argento movies often seem to be drawn out way too long, leaving one quite weary at the end, especially with the soundtrack (Morricone in this case) devolving into grating shrieks at tense moments, and there are plenty of tense moments. None of his movies are truly great, but all have a touch of greatness to them, being genuinely imaginative and innovative in both story and film technique. 7/10

Addendum: It should be noted that there is one scene shot in the composing room of a large newspaper, featuring dozens and dozens of linotypes. I always like to see linotypes in a movie.

Movies

Sei Donne Per L'assassino (1964) Directed by Mario Bava, also known as Blood and Black Lace. Masked leather-clad fiend murders beautiful women. A Bava movie is never truly great, but this is as good as they come - hallucinogenically colorful, with densely layered scenes and a forced shocker ending. If you need to see one, you might as well see this one. 6/10

Movies

Cargo (2009) Grimy Swiss space thriller - protagonist signs on as doctor on a cargo ship carrying construction materials to Station 42 in order to make money to join her sister on the colony world Rhea. Of course nothing is what it seems; not cargo, crew or destination. The first two thirds plays like a German-language rehash of Alien, with lots of creeping with flashlights slowly down oddly-shaped hallways of a dirty dripping half-broken spaceship, and everything is made insanely ominous by continuous booming, clanging and hissing noises. However, it won me over at last by the sophistication of its conception and execution in the last third. Not a great SF film, but it eventually becomes a pretty good one. 7/10

Movies

Naked You Die (1968) Directed by Antonio Margheriti, a lite thriller pioneering many of the cliches of the giallo genre. Black-gloved strangler on the loose in exclusive girls' school in an odd Anglo-Italian world. Lime pit on premises. Michael Rennie makes a distinguished but undemanding appearance as the police inspector. Donna joined me for this one, and fell asleep during the extremely slow first quarter, but we had fun playing whodunnit with the blatantly obvious clues and seeing how it all came together in the end. It seemed like it was meant to be a teenage date movie, with little gruesomeness, few real thrills and no naughty bits. Kind of fun in a silly, stupid way, with lots of bright colors and moving shapes. 6/10

Movies

Bluebeard's Ten Honeymoons (1960) George Sanders gives a decidedly un-gallic twist to this sensationalized version of the story of misogynist serial-killer Henri Landru. Takes place in that half-french world where a few main characters, and all police officers, clerks and taxi drivers speak with French accents. Sanders is always immaculate and impeccable, and this is a good showcase for his appealing villainy. Moderately entertaining. 6/10

George Sanders: "I'll be with you in a moment, my dear."

Spare a Copper (1940) George Formby is a police reservist who becomes entangled with a gang of saboteurs trying to blow up a new battleship. Directed by John Paddy Carstairs, who also directed some Norman Wisdom films, it's nonsensical throughout, but quite amusing. The songs are good and sufficiently frequent, the humor is less crude slapstick and repetitive chasing around than some of the other Formby films I have seen recently, and he comes across as a charming character at times rather than an irritating idiot. There is a climactic chase sequence that becomes bizarre and dreamlike as George drives a miniature car around a carnival's Wall of Death and launches it out the top to drive across the rooftops. For this sort of all-purpose comedy it is really rather good. 8/10

Movies

The Fifth Cord (1971) Directed by Luigi Bazzoni, an excessively complicated murder thriller. Contains many of the classic motifs of the "giallo" (literally "yellow" - meaning lurid as in yellow journalism) genre - gloved murderer describing his intentions into a tape recorder, whispered threats by telephone, an excess of clues and suspects, etc. Always-handsome Franco Nero is a gloomy hard-drinking newspaper reporter who is caught up in the complex tale as one of the suspects. The major appeal of this is the settings and photography, which is what I expected. Many repeating motifs such as spiral staircases, stark geometric architecture surrounding bleak plazas, vertical or horizontal bars such as venetian blinds and balcony railings in scene after scene. Interesting to watch for those reasons but an overly elaborate scheme wrapped up with a lot of quick explanation at the end make it less than fully satisfactory - again what I expected. The biggest mystery is what the English title has to do with anything in the movie. 6/10

Miss Pinkerton (1932) Excessively complicated murder thriller. Joan Blondell is a hospital nurse fed up with routine - "Why doesn't someone do something to break the monotony?" she exclaims, then yanks her dress off over her head. "Yeah, LIKE THAT!" I responded. She soon gets more than she bargained for when assigned as private nurse in a murder mansion where every person acts extremely suspiciously. George Brent is the young detective who gets everything wrong and almost gets to kiss her when suddenly the phone rings. There was a bit of imaginative staging and camerawork occasionally. Pretty ridiculous overall, but I haven't seen a 1930s movie yet that Blondell can't make watchable for me. (A single test radio episode of Miss Pinkerton Inc. was made, starring Blondell and Dick Powell, but it bears little similarity to this.) 6/10

This pretty much explains the whole movie.

Movies

Children of the Damned (1964) Disconnected sequel to Village of the Damned, a more thoughtful contemporary political allegory. It loses much of the power and clarity of the original by adding moral ambiguity, and sympathy for the powerful mutant children. Strangely, it doesn't try to make any kind of connection with the story of the previous film. Though it suffers by comparison it is still fairly good on its own. 6/10

Recent Viewing

A Matter of Life and Death (1946) David Niven should have died when he jumped out of a burning airplane without a parachute, but he didn't and they have to figure out what to do about it. I love any cinematic depiction of heaven, and this has some of the most wonderful heaven scenes ever filmed. On the other hand I am not too thrilled about trial scenes, which are just people standing around talking, but this trial takes place in heaven and is one of the most spectacular courtrooms ever depicted. I had been wanting to see this for years, after having seen a photo of the gigantic escalator they ride on to and from heaven. They were obviously working out some mixed feelings about Americans with this, after their wartime experiences, and it's always interesting to me to see how they are depicted from another cultural viewpoint. Entertaining overall, few surprises, much satisfaction. 8/10

Village of the Damned (1960) Mysterious force causes village women to become pregnant with strange threatening children. We always enjoy Monster Child movies, and this is one of the best. Demonizes not only children but conformity and mind control and, by allegory, nationalism. George Sanders is always a plus. 8/10

Those two were watched with Donna. Alone I watched:

Supertrain: Express to Terror (1979) Pilot/premiere of the short-lived and disastrous television program about a gigantic atomic-powered luxury train with disco, weight room, swimming pool and sauna. Hugely expensive models and sets filled with third-string actors who were apparently told to overact every single line. I have absolutely no memory of this program's existence. I may not have owned a TV at that time. Crooner Steve Lawrence is the star, and it seems anyone who could be spared from a guest spot on the Carol Burnett show was shoehorned in. A fascinating historical document. 6/10 for schlock value. Anything you ever need to know about Supertrain can be learned from this excellent website:

http://nbc_supertrain.tripod.com/

Movies

Hell Drivers (1957) Excellent British thriller about men who must drive huge trucks full of gravel as rapidly as possible on dangerous winding roads. A lousy enough job to have even if it weren't under demeaning conditions with people messing with you psychologically and physically all the time. Patrick McGoohan as the heavy is amazingly creepy and volatile, David McCallum and Sean Connery in minor roles are as young as I have ever seen them. Turns out quite as satisfactorily and spectacularly as one would wish. 9/10

Movies

Golgo 13: Kowloon Assignment (1977) Japanese/Chinese action film starring Sonny Chiba as Duke Togo, super-assassin. Whereas the manga is pretty cerebral, focusing on the technical details of doing the impossible, this has a lot of chasing and fighting in exotic locales, including a Hong Kong junkyard which you don't get to see too often. Chiba has about fifteen lines as the taciturn Togo, and there is a topless night club scene so it's not a total loss. Otherwise a fairly standard film of its type - absurdly contrived with lots of bright colors and loud gunshots. I like those little '70s Datsun and Toyota sedans, and I think there was even a Hillman Minx in there. 6/10