L'ossessa (1974)

L'ossessa (1974), or its bizarre English-language title, The Eerie Midnight Horror Show, is part of a genre of Italian cult cinema of which I am very fond:  post-Exorcist possession flicks.  Some of these films are reverent towards the source material, like L'anticristo (1974), while some are more sensational and sleazy, like Malabimba (1979).  L'ossessa definitely falls in the middle of this spectrum.  It’s totally uneven in entertainment value, suffering from primarily poor characterization despite its casting of actors of note, but it does have some marvelous set pieces and sequences.

Stella Carnacina plays Dani, a talented art student with an eye for uncovering forgotten works of art.  At an old church, she convinces her professor to purchase a life-size crucifix as a restoration project.  The crucifix is notable, for the body appears to be carved out of a single piece of wood; and the artist was successfully able to render the agony and emotion of its model.  Once the restoration project is begun, Dani returns home to attend a party hosted by her parents, portrayed by Chris Avram and Lucretia Love.  Avram’s character is staid and conservative, but Ms. Love is quite the swinging chick:  she takes to handsome paramour, played by Gabriele Tinti.  The two skip out of the party to fuck in the back bedroom where Ms. Love reveals that her kink is to be whipped with a handful of thorny roses.  Dani witnesses her mother and lover through a window and either despondent, disappointed, or shocked, she returns to the school to work on her painting.  While sitting at her easel, the crucifix resting behind Dani begins to animate.  The model comes to life revealing himself as Ivan Rassimov who, without hesitation, rips off Dani’s clothes and takes her upon the floor of the studio.  Enter the Devil.

Following Dani’s connubial scene with the Devil, and seemingly against the wishes of the director, Mario Gariazzo, L'ossessa quickly moves into the “possessed girl” sequence: Avram and Love witness spastic behavior from their daughter; Dani makes an inappropriate sexual gesture towards Avram; Love and Avram call the family doctor; Dani’s condition worsens to prompt the family doctor to consult specialists; and the specialists, in their infinite wisdom and knowledge, suggest an exorcism.  Gariazzo delivers this sequence almost as mechanically as my prose.  Gariazzo doesn’t want to keep his Dani character boringly bound to a bed (a la Linda Blair) to await the arrival of the exorcist in the final act.  In a ridiculous, yet almost sublime, dream sequence, Dani sees herself in a underground cavern (a fine cinematic substitute for Hell) where Rassimov’s Devil is accompanied by three witches.  The plan, here, is for Dani to be the puppet of the Devil to commit blasphemous and nefarious acts in his name.  Rock on, then.

Dani commits some minor Satanic acts before the local priest arrives to examine her.  (Indeed, as I write this review, pop-up advertisements play in the background of my PC that are far more Satanic than Dani’s acts.)  It is not long, then, in L'ossessa that Dani is whirled away by her parents to a mountain-top convent where in a remote section lives a reclusive yet famous exorcist, played by genre stalwart Luigi Pistilli.  The exorcist knows why he has been summoned and is sort-of ready to do battle with evil.

L'ossessa cannot be taken seriously as a drama, as the little details reveal.  For example, when the family doctor comes to examine Dani, he never once questions or speaks to her.  I cannot fathom why an experienced doctor would not talk to his adult patient about her symptoms.  In fact, when the specialists convene at Dani’s bedside to finally to decide upon her exorcism, none of the four specialists even notice that Dani is completely at rest behind them.  To top it off, Pistilli’s exorcist is quite capable of waving a cross in front of Dani when she is writhing in the violent throes of the Devil, but when Dani switches to a seductive pose to entice the priest, Pistilli’s character runs from her bedside, like a frightened adolescent.  Why does a cinematic exorcist have to be trained for solely overt, theatrical spiritual matters and not spiritual matters common to all?  The answer, perhaps, is that Gariazzo didn’t want to make a straight, Exorcist rip-off, but his hand was forced into completing one.  The best sequences are when Gariazzo and company completely divert from the source material.  For example, in one of L'ossessa’s best scenes, possessed Dani lays in a convent bed and the church bells begin to ring in a deafening manner.  The sounds are too much for her, and Dani bolts from her bed while her agonizing screams emit, competing with the sounds of the bells.  She runs through the convent and through the mountain-side village, whereupon Avram and some kind souls give chase to her.  Carnacina gives an emotional performance during this sequence, conveying true agony through her flight.  This one sequence is more frightening than any of the previous ones combined.

Despite its adept casting, L'ossessa fails to draw memorable performances from its actors.  For example, the extremely-talented and handsome Tinti is sorely underused as Love’s lover.  He performs the one fuck scene with her and appears later in one scene where Love rebuffs him (as she apparently feels guilty for her behavior after Dani becomes ill).   Rassimov is quite good and he has the fun role as the Devil:  he’s given the opportunity to let go and be indulgent and grasps the opportunity mightily.  Carnacina and Love appear to be cast for their seductive charm (and it works, as both are incredibly sexy).  However, Carnacina really transcends her cosmetic casting and devotes real emotion to her character, despite the weak screenplay.  Pistilli would have been a perfect cinematic exorcist in another movie.  He’s a wonderful actor with an emotive face, like Tinti, and with richer characterization, his performance would have been better.

L'ossessa is truly an average movie in the sub-genre of post-Exorcist films which places it fairly high on the obscurity scale.  However, I know that there are fans like me who will be attracted to it.  If one can appreciate its imaginative and sensational moments, then it’s worth seeing.  Otherwise, give this one a miss.

10.000 dollari per un massacro (10,000 Dollars for a Massacre) (1967)

One can tell within the first few minutes of 10.000 dollari per un massacro (10,000 Dollars for a Massacre) (1967) that it has the potential to be a doozy of a Western.  Django (Gianni Garko, billed here as "Gary Hudson") lays on the beach at sunset, laughing and celebrating with a corpse.  The corpse is a lucrative bounty, and Django is tickled pink to cash it in.  Crossing the valley, Django spies Manuel Vásquez (Claudio Camaso) on horseback, and the two pass each other by quietly and without incident.  It's a fateful meeting, and the two meet several times during the duration of the film.  However, only one of the two gunslingers is going to survive this picture.

In an introduction to Westerns All'Italiana:  The Wild the Sadist and the Outsiders, Gianni Garko writes:

"In 10.000 Dollari per un massacro and Per 100.000 Dollari T'Ammazzo, I used the assumed name of Gary Hudson,.  I impersonated two romantic revenge-driven bounty killers with all the frailties of the common man.  In both movies Claudio Camaso, the younger brother of Gian Maria Volonté, portrayed my opponent.  I still remember him fondly." (1)

I love Garko's description of his character.  The title of the film is ironic.  It is clear from the outset of 10.000 dollari per un massacro that above all Django loves money.  When Django goes to the sheriff to cash in his latest bounty, the sheriff remarks that Manuel Vásquez's bounty is currently at three thousand.  Django scoffs, because he knows that the bounty will get higher.  Later that evening at a saloon, Django enters and finds Manuel at a card table.  They play an uneasy hand, and Django remarks that the fellow who beat the two at poker cheated.  Manuel knifes him in the back and gets his earnings from the corpse's pocket.  He splits the take with Django.  Pretty saloon owner, Myanou (Loredana Nusciak), chides Django for his violent actions and notes that Django and Manuel are just alike:  there is little evidence that she is wrong.

Manuel kidnaps a wealthy landowner's daughter, and the father later goes to see Django who offers him five thousand to retrieve his daughter and kill Manuel.  Django scoffs at the offer, again.  Django gets critically injured by two of Manuel's gang, and it is pretty Myanou who nurses him back to health.  Django has a change of heart and professes his love to the woman.  She returns his love and asks him to accompany her to San Francisco, away from the violent life on the frontier.  He agrees.  The father of the kidnapped daughter appears again and this time offers Django ten-thousand to find his daughter and kill Manuel.  Django accepts.

Much of the script of 10.000 dollari per un massacro, penned by Franco Fogagnolo, Ernesto Gastaldi, and Luciano Martino, focuses on the theme that Django, killing criminals for the law for money, and Manuel, a criminal killing anyone for anything, are the same.  Wisely, director Romolo Guerrieri focuses his drama on this theme.  Guerrieri, incidentally, also helmed two excellent films scripted by Fernando di Leo, the Western, Johnny Yuma (1966), starring Mark Damon and Rosalba Neri, and the crime drama,

Liberi armati pericolosi (1976), starring Eleonora Giorgi and Tomas Milian.  At a pivotal point in the film, Django and Manuel agree to commit a stagecoach robbery.  Django stipulates that no one is to be harmed.  Manuel agrees but reneges on the deal by killing everyone.  Why should Django care, if the score from the robbery is the same?  The romanticism of Django, which Garko adeptly observes, dies at that moment.  It is time for revenge.

There are quite a few attempts at humor in 10.000 dollari per un massacro but most of them fail to inspire laughs and inadvertently, perhaps, make the film a lot more disturbing.  I’ve never quite admired Gianni Garko’s acting range, but here, he is quite good.  There is a boyish charm to his character which creates a sense of innocence about him, despite the fact that he is a confident gunfighter.  When his reality comes crashing down upon him, Garko follows suit and becomes the cold, stoic fighter to whom I am most accustomed.  Good-looking Claudio Camaso looks quite a bit like his brother and plays his character of Manuel much as his brother does in the Leone Westerns:  very much charismatic yet wholly impulsive and cruel.  The action sequences are excellent, and save some plodding scenes, the pacing and tone is well-done.

While 10.000 dollari per un massacro is very much traditional and not quite innovative, it is traditional cinema done exceptionally.  I also believe, but am uncertain, that this film is one of the first films to capitalize on the Django character from Sergio Corbucci’s landmark film.  Gianni Garko would later cement his own legacy in the Euro-Western as Sartana in multiple films.  10.000 dollari per un massacro is well-worth seeing for fans of the genre.

1.  Garko, Gianni,  “Introduction.“  Authors, Bruschini, Antonio and Federico de Zigno.  Western All’Italiana: The Wild the Sadist and the Outsiders.  Glittering Images.  Firenze, Italy.  2001:  p.  15.

Una pistola per cento bare (A Pistol for a Hundred Coffins) (1968)

Jim Slade (Peter Lee Lawrence) is imprisoned by the Army for his refusal to kill anyone during wartime, citing religious reasons for his refusal.  The Civil War ends, and he is pardoned.  Jim returns home to his parents' ranch in Tucson, Arizona and comes home to find his parents murdered.  Jim abandons his religious pacificism to exact revenge upon his parents’ murderers.  He buys a pistol and quickly learns to use it.  Four bandits were witnessed at his parents’ ranch, and Slade sets out to find them.

Umberto Lenzi only directed two Westerns, and Una pistola per cento bare (A Pistol for a Hundred Coffins) (1968) is his most notable.  Una pistola begins promising.  Slade finds the first bandit in a town’s square with a noose firmly around his neck, seconds before he is to be hanged for murder.  Slade rescues the bandit and escapes the town.  In a remote section of the desert, Slade forces the bandit to dig his own grave and reveal the identities and locations of his accomplices.  Once the bandit supplies the information, Slade guns him down in cold blood.  Slade’s bloodlust continues.  In the next village, he finds the home of a bandit where his wife and two children prepare for a meal.  Slade kills the bandit whose corpse falls upon the kitchen floor.  His wife and children are forced to witness his death.  Wasting no time, Slade tracks the third bandit to a crowded saloon.  Slade announces his presence to the crowd and demands the bandit present himself.  The bandit, well-dressed and at a card table, identifies himself.  Seemingly oblivious to the onlookers around him, Slade guns him down.  This mean-spirited killing spree by Slade occupies only the first fifteen minutes of Una pistola.  Amazing.

Unfortunately, the energy created during the first act cannot be sustained.  Jim has little information on the fourth bandit, as he only knows his last name, “Corbett,” and the state where he last seen, “Texas.”  He moves through the counties and checks the local bounty boards.  During one afternoon, he rides into a sleepy town and stops in the saloon.  He meets a traveling preacher, like Slade also fast with his gun, named Douglass (John Ireland).  Soon after introductions, the town is under siege by a group of bandits who attempt to rob the local bank.  The bandits are positive that two-hundred thousand dollars are located on the premises.  No money is found and the bandits retreat, not before killing the local sheriff.  The mayor of the town offers Slade and Douglass five thousand dollars each to stay and protect the town.  Slade refuses but accepts the deal when he learns that the bandit leader is none other than Corbett (Piero Lulli), the final man upon whom Slade wants to exact revenge.

During the second act of Una pistola per cento bare, the pacing slows and the plot becomes slightly too convoluted.  Slade’s plan to catch and then kill Corbett involves learning the location of the two-hundred thousand dollars, manipulating the location of the cache to lure Corbett back into town, and finally, enacting a plan to subdue Corbett once he arrives.  This latter aspect of Slade’s scheme involves myriad phases and Lenzi and his scriptwriters employ several plot and character twists.  The exposition of this scheme takes too long, so most of the ninety-minute runtime becomes bogged down.

Despite the meandering second act of Una pistola per cento bare, it does contain the most notable sequence of the entire film.  The local asylum has burned down, and the asylum’s patients have been relocated to a single cell in the town’s jail.  Within the cell are a pyromaniac, a rapist, and a murderer to name a few and there is nowhere to safely put them besides the jail.  Both Douglass and Slade, presumably because of their religious backgrounds, see the group as unfortunates and take pity upon them.  In the most well-known sequence of the film, the group escapes the cell and lays siege upon the town:  burning buildings, murdering townsfolk, and two attempt to rape the lovely beauty who sings at the local saloon, before being thwarted by Douglass who appears at the last second.  This sequence is not nearly as menacing as some of the early sequences in, say,  Condenados a vivir (Cut-Throats Nine) (1972) but it is unsurprisingly sickening and unnerving.  The inclusion of the group of psychotics in Una pistola appears, at first blush, solely to create an overtly exploitative sequence.  (However, one of the group involves himself in the plot in a pivotal scene.)  Certainly this sequence in Una pistola has created a lasting legacy and notoriety for cult and Western film fans.

When Una pistola per cento bare ended, I had this overwhelming feeling that I’ve just watched an average western, despite several strong sequences.  In the first instance, the film feels transitory, as if its meandering and convoluted plot was warming up for the giallo. (Lenzi would release his sinful Orgasmo subsequent to Una pistola.)  Also the mean-spirited and tension-filled opening act would foreshadow Lenzi’s later work with his masterful crime flicks, such as Milano odia: la polizia non può sparare (1974).  Ultimately, I believe the absence of a central and focal villain is the biggest flaw of Una pistola.  The opening sequence of the film establishes that Slade is willing to abandon his religious beliefs of pacificism (and face hard labor for this belief) for the sake of revenge.  Having Slade relentlessly and coldly follow this path of revenge only to stall the path to become a scheming, substitute lawman feels artificial.  Perhaps a simpler plotline would have made Una pistola a strong, exploitative, mean-spirited Euro-Western.  As it stands, Una pistola per cento bare is more of a cult oddity for Euro-Western and Lenzi completists.

Yankee (1966)

My expectations when sitting down to watch Yankee (1966) were of seeing an arty western with some kinky shit included in regular intervals.  This may sound glib, but make no mistake, these were welcome expectations; for the director of Yankee was none other than Tinto Brass in his sole contribution to the genre.  As for my expectations, they were mostly fulfilled:  Yankee is beautifully shot (photography by Alfio Contini) with an interesting design; the music by Nini Rosso is memorable; and finally, the dialogue of the script is clever and often playful.  The kinky shit is also there, but its quantity is much less than I anticipated.  Perhaps, there is a reason behind this restraint, as we will see.

The Yankee is Philippe Leroy, an arrogant and confident bounty killer who loves money.  During the opening sequence in a darkly-lit saloon, a bandit enters on horseback (!) and robs the till.  The Yankee, in attendance, shoots the bandit, as does another bounty-killer rival in the bar.  With two bullets firmly placed in the heart of the bandit, neither bounty killer wants to share the bounty.  The buxom barmaid proposes a game of chance:  with a deck of cards, the one who draws the high card may bed the barmaid; while the loser may claim the corpse for the bounty.  The Yankee's rival draws first and selects a two from the deck.  With a win inevitable, the Yankee forfeits the game and claims the bounty.  This is excellent character exposition.

The Yankee crosses the Rio Grande into New Mexico and stumbles upon a frontier town that is suspiciously devoid of inhabitants, save the gravedigger.  The Yankee learns that the town is controlled by egomaniacal and ruthless bandit, the Grand Concho (Adolfo Celi).  The Yankee makes a brief stop at the sheriff's office and learns that the majority of the Grand Concho's gang hold bounties.  Most of the bounties are low, but in the aggregate, the bounty for the entire gang is quite lucrative.  The Yankee hatches a scheme to bring down the Grand Concho and his gang.  His intellect and fast gun will be essential, but his arrogance may prove fatal...

If the story of Yankee sounds familiar, then perhaps this is intentional.  Kevin Grant, author of the interesting Any Gun Can Play: The Essential Guide to Euro-Westerns, sees Yankee as a polarization of the cat-and-mouse motif that the anti-hero engages with his opponent during the film.  Grant in his introduction emphasizes Brass's film and  writes that, "...Yankee [1966], whose dialogue resonates with references to risk and the deadly pleasure of playing--its director, Tinto Brass, envisioned its villain and anti-hero as bull and bullfighter, respectively."  (1)  Yankee's chief commercial inspiration may have been Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964), and Brass was attracted to this motif, now becoming commonplace in westerns.

"Brass had initially conceived a totally original visual experience," writes authors Antonio Bruschini and Federico de Zigno, "where the various main characters' entry was supposed to be introduced through the emphasis on a symbolic detail (the gunfighter's spur, the woman's naked ankle and so on...), closely in tune with the pop-style of that era, adopting a visual conception similar to that of the comics of Guido Crepax." (2)  Unfortunately, Brass's vision was stifled, as Bruschini and de Zigno continue, "The end results were considered 'too odd,' by the producer who 'manipulated' the film in the cutting room, to make it more 'normal.'  'The main obsession I had, was that of the ''language,"' says Brass, 'I wanted to apply the language of the comics to the most disparate genres.  That western, as I had conceived it [...] was supposed to be a movie told with ideograms, much like Chinese writing, a sign indicating a concept.  But after the argument I had with the producer there remained only a few microscopic details, the colt, the spur, the trigger and so on, which left the audience baffled.'" (3)

Perhaps if Brass had been able to fulfill his vision with Yankee, then it may have been appropriate to discuss the film alongside his own Col cuore in gola (1967), Jean-Luc Godard's Week End (1967), Giulio Questi's La morte ha fatto l'uovo (1968), and Alain Robbe-Grillet’s L'éden et après (1970) and Glissements progressifs du plaisir (1974), for example.  As Yankee stands today, however, much of Brass’s original vision remains.  For example, the Grand Concho occupies seemingly a castle which casts a shadow over the entire town below.  The castle is fitted with a throne upon which Celi’s character sits.  On the walls are various portraits of the Grand Concho with many of the styles influenced by the art of the time.  In a hilarious and provocative sequence, Yankee enters the castle while the Grand Concho and his gang are away.  He steals many of the portraits and posts them around the quiet town.  When the Grand Concho sees his portraits, now littering the town like bounty notices, he becomes enraged and demands all houses burned where a portrait is placed.  This is just another part of the game--while the portraits sit in the castle they commemorate a grand leader, and as they are posted in the street, each becomes a symbol for ignominy and contempt--a nice juxtaposition and a fantastic sequence.

The editing of the film is contemporary (Brass was one of the editors).  Yankee has many single-shot cutaways, and each could stand on its own as a single composition.  Indeed, they are disorienting but they never distract--often each piece emphasizes the preceding or subsequent sequence.  In as much many of the close-ups are a joke.  Think of how many times one sees a close-up of a gunslinger's eyes during a fateful confrontation.

Adolfo Celi is a brilliant actor and he really steals Yankee away from the others.  He’s not quite a Manson-like guru but more traditional.  At one moment he can be jovial and then at the drop of the hat, Celi’s character is frighteningly cruel.  Leroy is fine in his role.  He lacks the boyish charm of Giuliano Gemma, the melancholy of Anthony Steffen, or the total badass-ness of Lee Van Cleef, for example.  Much of his face is hidden by his hat, and Yankee is so full of playful dialogue, little attention is paid to his aesthetics.  Yankee follows a traditional Western tale, yet there is enough to make the film spontaneous.  When the gunfighter’s game escalates to its conclusion--two guesses as to whom is participating--it is remarkably tension-filled.  The ending is very satisfying, and I would be remiss to note how very good Celi is in this sequence and on a whole.

Finally, as for the kinky shit and provocative bits that are characteristic of Tinto Brass cinema, author Christopher Frayling adds this interesting observation:  “By 1967, when Questi made the film (Django, Kill), things were getting a little out of hand:  an Italian magistrate seized all the copies of Django, Kill he could find, and a Cinecittà producer dragged Tinto Brass out of the cutting room of another Spaghetti Western, Yankee.  It was ironic, wrote [critic] Fornari, that of all films these two should receive ‘the stigma of artistic martyrdom.”  (4)  This is an interesting quote from Frayling, as it seems to insinuate that 1) perhaps the producer of Yankee feared criminal liability and forced the cutting of Yankee to distinguish it from Questi’s film and 2) perhaps Brass’s original film was as provocative as Questi’s landmark western.  I don’t know.  Yankee is tame compared to Brass’s other work.  As it stands today, Yankee is ripe for a visit from the seeker of curious cinema and a fantastic Euro-Western for those uninitiated to the genre’s uniqueness and offbeat charm.

1.  Grant, Kevin.  Any Gun Can Play:  The Essential Guide to Euro-Westerns.  FAB Press.  Surrey, England, U.K.  2011: p. 22.
2.  Bruschini, Antonio and Federico de Zigno.  Western All’Italiana: The Wild the Sadist and the Outsiders.  Glittering Images.  Firenze, Italy.  2001:  p.  39.
3.  Ibid.
4.  Fraying, Christopher.  Spaghetti Westerns Cowboys and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio Leone.  St. Martin’s Press.  New York.  1981, 1998:  p. 82.

Dove si spara di più (Fury of Johnny Kid) (1967)

Dove si spara di più (Fury of Johnny Kid) (1967) is a minor Euro-Western which features major actors of European cult cinema.  Its lasting impression upon European cult cinema is its historical value.  Dove si spara di più boasts one of the first appearances of iconic Spanish actor Paul Naschy and is also one of his earliest forays into the technical side of filmmaking.

Through his father, he writes, Paul Naschy became friends with a number of film directors, one of whom was Gianni Puccini.  During the filming of Dove si spara di più, Naschy "became a consultant to the art director, to the head of wardrobe and to the armorer, much to the chagrin of executive producer Enrique Cabezas who had helped [him] get involved in the movie in the first place.  Gianni had a blind faith in [his] judgment, even going so far as to ask for [his] advice about the script and certain scenes."  (1)

Naschy's appearance in Dove si spara di più is in a bizarre scene.  Enter bustling saloon leading man Peter Lee Lawrence as Johnny and his Falstaff-ian accomplice, Lefty (Andrés Mejuto).  With biceps and forearms bulging, Naschy plays a bandit engaged in an arm-wrestling contest.  The contest is a fierce one, and the participants go back and forth, moving almost to the rhythm of the song being sung by lovely María Cuadra (portraying a wistful and tragic prostitute).  As Johnny and Lefty make their way to the bar, a winner emerges in the arm-wrestling contest.  The loser of the match gets his hand impaled upon a bed of a nails.  Naschy writes:  "The props department came up with the idea of placing wooden planks with real, sharp-pointed nails under the forearms of each actor.  So when I forced down the arm of the Italian actor the nails went into his flesh, sinking into several veins and splattering blood over the continuity girl, who almost fainted.  As a result we had to wait three or four days to carry on shooting, this time, obviously. using fake nails." (2)

Peter Lee Lawrence (né Karl Hirenbach, billed here as Arthur Grant) portrays Johnny Mounters in Dove si spara di più, as the youngest son of the Mounters family who own a large ranch at the end of the valley.  Across the way is competing family, the Campos clan, most represented by villainous son, Rodrigo, portrayed by Pietro Martellanza (billed as Peter Martell).  The youngest Campos is sweet and passionate Giulietta (Cristina Galbó).  The two families are engaged in a bloody rivalry.  Johnny and Giulietta fall in love.  Is everyone picking up on from where the source material originates?

Westerns, in general, are full of archetypes and a blending of Shakespeare and Western mythology would seem an ideal pairing.  Not quite.  Dove si spara di più is never truly compelling and the familiar story is not rendered memorably.  It is a chatty film, full of speeches, which may seem appropriate given the source material, but the Western landscape should have an equal amount of talking down iron sights.  The gun fights and action sequences pale to the cinema of Corbucci and Castellari and at times appear ridiculous.  In one sequence, the Campos and Mounters families engage in a gun battle with each family behind cover across a courtyard.  During the shootout, one can actually witness fools break cover and head out into the courtyard.  Of course, they are gunned down within seconds.  I don't understand this battle strategy--ever.

Other sequences make no sense and are odd and seem out of place.  Normally, I love characters acting nonsensically in cinema.  There's an energy and spontaneity and freedom in those sequences.  However, there are times when ridiculous sequences seem just nonsensical and plodding.  For example, Lawrence's Johnny is a character who does not drink alcohol.  Fair enough.  So when Johnny gets angry or full of melancholy, he doesn't head to the saloon to knock back glasses of whiskey.  Instead, he has the bartender pour him a glass of whiskey which he slides down the bar and shoots with his pistol before the glass falls off.  Lawrence shoots quite a few glasses.  Perhaps at the conception stage, this scene was either pivotal and/or clever.  During its rendition, it seems grating and annoying.

Not all the nonsensical and weird sequences are uninteresting, however, in Dove si spara di più.  The town's sheriff is a douchebag and has aligned himself with the Campos family.  In exchange for giving a blind eye to the nefarious deeds of the Campos family, the Sheriff is granted the hand of Giulietta in marriage.  His allegiance to the Campos family goes further back:  in an attempt to apprehend one of the Campos' sons, he is forced to pull his pistol.  Both the sheriff and the son fire his weapon simultaneously and the bullets collide.  The sheriff carries to the two bullets, now fused as one, as a symbol of fate.  He believes that his destiny is weaved with the Campos's.  It's an interesting, highly unlikely, and symbolic scene.  It's a clever use by the filmmakers to make often boring expository material weird and unusual.

Peter Lee Lawrence and Cristina Galbó were once married, and as far as my limited research has uncovered, Dove si spara di più is the only film in which the two star together.  The best scene of the film is the meeting of the two.  Johnny with Lefty in tow decide to rob a stagecoach, believed to be carrying a valuable Campos treasure.  As Johnny pulls the riders out of the carriage, Giulietta emerges last.  She pulls a small pistol from her purse and aims it at Johnny.  Johnny is frozen, and adeptly, Giulietta shoots the black mask off of Johnny's face.  The chemistry that the two hold shows instantly that it is love at first sight.  This scene is the heart of Dove si spara di più; and had the love story been developed more, then film could have been something interesting.  Instead, the love story is a vehicle for a familiar revenge tale and stock Western mythology.

Dove si spara di più is definitely a film for the European cult film fan who is looking to branch out in the more obscure titles that the genre has to offer.  I am a huge fan of Peter Lee Lawrence--a cult actor in a genre of cult cinema, to be certain--so I would recommend the film to his fans.  Paul Naschy fans will certainly relish the opportunity to see the icon in one of his earliest endeavors.

1.  Naschy, Paul.  Memoirs of Wolfman.  Midnight Marquee Press.  Baltimore, Maryland.  2000.  Pp.87-88.
2.  Naschy, Paul.  Memoirs of Wolfman.  Midnight Marquee Press.  Baltimore, Maryland.  2000.  Pp.88-89.

Mondo Cannibale (Cannibals) (1980)

Benvenuti nella Giungla

Mondo Cannibale (Cannibals) (1980) is Jess Franco's foray into the then-popular cannibal genre (decidedly marked by Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust (1980)).    This production was "announced as Rio Salvaje to be produced by Magna Films/Madrid;" but, it was French film company, Eurociné, who overtook the production (with Daniel Lasœur serving as production manager). (1)  Italian actors Al Cliver (Pier Luigi Conti) and Sabrina Siani were cast as the leads.  Humorously, Franco admits to seeing Deodato's seminal film and "then one more" before having his fill of the cannibal genre (2), and despite his ambivalence towards the genre, I cannot fathom Franco ever turning down an opportunity to make a film.

Mondo Cannibale lacks the realism and sadism so characteristic of the genre.  Hence, it completely misses the mark with the genre’s fans.  The film was shot in Alicante (3) in a beautiful palm forest, a locale more suitable for young lovers to stroll under the moonlight than for human-flesh feasting.  Turtles, if they frequent the area, were left in peace.  Franco cast the local gypsies as the cannibal tribe, and frequent collaborator Antonio Mayans (aka Robert Foster) was cast as the tribal leader.(5)  Al Cliver plays Jeremy Taylor, and with his wife and young daughter they take a foray into the jungle for an expedition.  Shit goes from bad to worse when the cannibals attack.  Taylor’s wife is killed; Taylor is tortured and maimed; and his young daughter goes missing, presumed dead.  Cliver’s Taylor wakes up in a hospital in New York with amnesia.  Lina Romay appears as a nurse in the asylum (Romay as a non-blonde Candy Coster).  She becomes attached to Taylor and helps him recuperate.  He regains his memory and is determined to return to the jungle to find his daughter...

The only real gore of Mondo Cannibale are primarily close-ups of the requisite cannibal feedings.  Understandably, with Franco’s distaste for the genre, they look like people eating raw steak upon a willing victim’s stomach.  The plot of the film reads like an American pulp novel or serial:  the young daughter of Taylor grows of age and becomes the queen of the tribe and is forced to return to civilization with her family and abandon her adoptive tribal one.  Franco treats the material in a perfunctory manner.  Of highlight, however, is the film’s music.  Despite the credits reading Robert Pregadio as composer, Franco admits the music is the collaboration of him and Daniel White. (4)  The music is evocative of Riz Ortolani’s score from Cannibal Holocaust, yet it is quite beautiful appreciated on its own.  Despite the gore being gratefully little and poorly-rendered, the actors’ make-up is quite striking.  Eschewing any realism, Franco paints his actors’ faces in bright, festival-like colors.  In any state of mind, Mondo Cannibale appears like drunken Mardi Gras revelers making a film in the midst of partying.  The palm-forest setting must be quite striking, as Franco alters many of his compositions to emphasize their beauty.  The frames do not look like postcards but have Franco’s unique, poetic touch.

DVD label, Blue Underground released Mondo Cannibale on DVD a few years ago.  Its attraction is primarily for fans of Jess Franco.  Cannibal fans can get their fill and then some with Deodato’s masterful film.  Despite the fact that she has little dialogue and delivers a sub-par performance, one can see Sabrina Siani’s charisma.  She’s incredibly sexy and scantily-clad throughout the picture.  Antonio Mayans is surprisingly animated in his role, but he is always a compelling actor to watch.  Al Cliver gives a familiar performance:  he never stretches the heights of his acting ability but manages to deliver again, an emotional and thoughtful performance.  Lina Romay’s role is very straightforward and offers little in the way of character.  She should be given more but c’est la vie.  I’ll see anything that Franco makes and have seen well over a hundred of his films.  Mondo Cannibale gets a rare revisit from me.

Finally, to those who frequent these pages, I apologize for the lack of content over the last few months.  I’ve been fine yet haven’t had any inclination to write about anything.  This post ain’t the greatest, and I wrote it mainly to shake off the cobwebs and produce something.  I plan on writing more very soon.  If you enjoy reading these pages, feel free to comment upon any post.  Comments are open to anyone and everyone.

 1. Obsession:  The Films of Jess Franco.  Ed. Lucas Balbo and Peter Blumenstock.  Grauf Haufen and Frank Trebbin.  Germany: 1993.  p. 137.
2. Video interview “Franco Holocaust.”  Cannibals DVD.  Blue Underground.  November 13, 2007.
3.  Ibid.
4.  Ibid.
5.  Ibid.

Prince of Darkness (1987)

One of the fondest memories of my childhood took place when I was eleven years old and in a packed house, Houston movie theatre. There was a matinee showing of Big Trouble in Little China (1986) during its opening weekend, and I was accompanied by my aunt Susan and her son, my cousin Steve who was a year younger than me. Big Trouble was a perfect film to see as a little boy and with a packed theatre of moviegoers: a large spectacle film, full of action and humor and there was plentiful cheering and laughter coming from the audience. The experience was more exhilarating than a roller coaster ride, and I daresay the experience, for me, has ever been duplicated. Unfortunately, cinemas must have been vacant elsewhere in the country. "Nobody got it," says director John Carpenter. "Like I said earlier, timing was never my thing in terms of when my movies come out. This movie was completely and totally misunderstood. The critics and public thought it was just bad, and there is nothing I can do about that." (1)

Well, Carpenter has a true fan with Big Trouble in Little China with me, but the financial failure of the film led him back into low-budget filmmaking. (2) Carpenter entered into a contract with Alive Films, and the contract stipulated a budget of three million dollars per film with Carpenter having complete artistic freedom. (3) The first of the two-picture collaboration was Prince of Darkness (1987). (4) Prince turned out to be a fortuitous production for several reasons: 1) it allowed him to shoot the entire picture in Los Angeles, close to his home, so he could always be near to his young son; 2) it was a film that he always wanted to do; and finally 3) Prince of Darkness gave him a break from the rigmarole of Hollywood games and politics. (5) With a filmography full of underrated gems and hidden treasures, no one Carpenter picture is perhaps as overlooked as Prince of Darkness.

I have always considered John Carpenter a perfect classical filmmaker: wide and medium shots and close-ups are the norm with the occasional smooth and fluid tracking shot (e.g. the opening shot of his masterful Halloween (1978)). The first act sees its exposition delivered and all characters introduced, and do not be surprised to see those same characters in the final act, holed up, with their backs against the wall, making a last stand. John Carpenter is traditional film maker extraordinaire, but Prince of Darkness sees quite a bit of artistic innovation. The opening ten minutes of the film, for example, in a bold move, are the credits of Prince of Darkness which are inter-cut with short sequences. These short sequences serve as the film's exposition but they are more like little short films. These sequences only hint to the substance of the film's plot. They are primarily, simply disorienting. For example, Victor Wong (with whom Carpenter worked previously on Big Trouble) plays Professor Howard Birack who teaches theoretical physics. In his first sequence, Birack walks towards his classroom and pauses in front of the building. He cups his hands over his face and stares at the blinding sun through his fingers. Carpenter's camera racks focus from Birack in the background of the frame into the foreground where a mound of furious ants circle, as engaged in war. The scene represents change and it's delivered in a very subtle and doubly-creepy fashion. (To further add, I love Birack's classroom speeches during this first ten minutes: "Say goodbye to classical reality!") Later in Prince, when all of the characters have gathered in the central setting location of the church, Carpenter introduces a dream sequence, which every character experiences when he or she goes to sleep in the film. The dream sequence is composed of a small, shaky tracking shot in front of the church which stops upon the entrance. At the entrance of the church, a dark figure stands with smoke bellowing from behind. The audio is squeaky hisses and barely decipherable dialogue. To this day, this dream sequence freaks me the eff out. Carpenter says that he "shot these sequences with a video camera and re-photographed it on a TV to give them a video feel. It was effective and I enjoyed shooting them." (6) I would go further to say not only were these sequences effective but quite ingenious.

At its heart, Prince of Darkness is a film about rational and logical people attempting to give meaning to, and to structure, chaos. Its spiritual father is H.P. Lovecraft, and in my opinion, its direct influence is the work of Nigel Kneale. The script is penned by "Martin Quatermass" (Carpenter's pseudonym) (7) as an homage to Kneale's best-known work, the Quatermass series that were filmed as television serials and as feature films many times over the course of Kneale's life. The plot and setting of Prince of Darkness are most evocative of one of Kneale's best works, The Stone Tape (1972). Prince of Darkness is about physicist, Professor Birack, who is contacted by a priest (Donald Pleasence) who has discovered a forgotten religious sect, "The Brotherhood of Sleep." At an abandoned church downtown, a guardian priest watched over an artifact: an ancient canister which houses an unknown substance. The substance appears to have a consciousness and is able to perform actions which defy most scientific laws. The priest senses the canister houses an ancient evil and he needs the help of Birack to figure out what it is. Birack assembles a team of students, including Brian Marsh (Jameson Parker) and Catherine Danforth (Lisa Blount), and other scholars to meet at the church for a research session. Whatever is in the canister will reveal itself to everyone at that time. Damn.

When I first saw Prince of Darkness, I was disappointed. I was an adolescent and saw the film as a "New Release" VHS rental. I felt disappointed, because I wanted to see the Prince of Darkness. (In fairness to adolescent me, the trailer kind of feeds this expectation rather than hindering it.) Preferably, the Prince would stalk the halls of the church, taking its unsuspecting victims one by one. In other words, I wanted a more visceral experience like Carpenter earlier delivered with his masterful The Thing (1982). I wanted to see everything and I had to know everything. This wasn't Carpenter's technique at all. "If I applied anything from him [Lovecraft] for Prince of Darkness," says Carpenter, "it was his style, the way be built up his stories very slowly to reach that gasp. And it was something I hadn't tried before." (8) The "gasp" to which Carpenter refers is his summation of Lovecraft's style: a fictional experience where the reader is led through a series of horrific events to the threshold of the consuming evil, the haunting ghost, or the lurking monster. Lovecraft would end his stories at that threshold and allow his reader's imagination to take over. Make no mistake, however, that Lovecraft fueled that imagination greatly with his prose. Fear is what Lovecraft wanted to generate, and it was also Carpenter's goal with Prince of Darkness.

Carpenter adeptly attempted to generate a lurking fear with his viewer and was mostly successful. If you have never seen Prince of Darkness, then during your first viewing watch closely the character of Kelly, portrayed by Susan Blanchard. In the ensemble cast, she is not a very rich character with a well-drawn background nor does her character initially buttress the plot or drive the narrative. In a very subtle fashion during the second act, Kelly becomes a very important character to the plot, but Carpenter keeps her character in the background. In a very adept turn towards the end of the second act, Carpenter makes a big revelation about Kelly that kicks off the action of the final act. Kelly's character is a perfect example of Lovecraftian fear. The homeless people who populate the area outside of the church serve as guardians for the Prince of Darkness. They serve mostly as a very effective visual motif for Carpenter (rocker Alice Cooper is amongst their number). Carpenter's compositions of the legion of homeless folk are completely creepy. The best murder sequence of the film involves character Wyndham (Robert Grasmere) standing alone under the night sky in a large alley behind the church. Wyndham has been through a bout of sulking and whining and stands defiantly behind the church in protest. A beautiful wide composition emphasizes that Wyndham is all alone. Another wide shot follows to see the legion of homeless people shadowed in the distance. Wyndham turns his head to follow another wide composition to see an ominous character come out of the church. Cut to a quick close-up on a murder weapon then to its charging assailant. It's a brilliant murder sequence: disorienting, haunting, and violent.

The biggest flaw of Prince of Darkness is attempting to integrate a quick romantic subplot between Brian and Catherine to provide an emotional core for the film. Brian shows that he has a crush on Catherine during the first act but is too shy to talk to her. When he does get the courage to speak to her, Carpenter intensifies their relationship quickly. Both characters, however, fade into the ensemble during the second act, so one wonders why Carpenter went through the trouble. The last ten minutes of the film provide a somewhat hollow consummation of their relationship and answer the first-act questions. This relationship feels forced, so perhaps Carpenter should have kept Brian shy and Catherine distant: unrequited love may have been more appropriate or more tragic. C'est la vie.

Today, I watch all of Carpenter's movies over and over with much love. I would rank Prince of Darkness as one of my favorites from him. As I get older, I'm more impressed with the quality of Carpenter's work and the immense talent that he possesses.

1. John Carpenter The Prince of Darkness. Boulenger, Gilles. Silman-James Press. Los Angeles. 2003: p. 198.

2. Ibid. p. 201.

3. Ibid. p. 201.

4. Ibid. p. 201.

5. Ibid. p. 206.

6. Ibid. p. 204.

7. Ibid. p. 280.

8. Ibid. p. 204.