The Whip and the Body

I jumped into vintage horror and watched:

The Whip and the Body (1963)

Directed by Mario Bava and starring Christopher Lee, Daliah Lavi, Tony Kendall, Evelyn Stewart and a couple of others. I do mean only a few others as the cast is very small, not that it is in any way a complaint.

Before watching this movie I was given a warning and I'm paying it forward; Christopher Lee is dubbed. Let me explain. Back in the day, all Italian movies were recorded without dialogue, as they were all dubbed later on in a sound studio. Lee may have been unaware of this, as he had returned home to Switzerland by the time the movie wrapped. He regretted that he couldn't do his own voice as he considered The Whip and the Body to be one of his better movies of that period. Since I was prepared, I could enjoy the movie, so be warned. The voice they used, that of Dan Sturkie, is good, but Lee had a great voice and it is a shame that you can't enjoy it here.

On to the plot. IMDB tells us this:

The ghost of a sadistic nobleman attempts to rekindle his romance with his terrorized, masochistic former lover, who is unwillingly engaged to his brother.

Now this is a minor spoiler and somewhat erroneous as the former lover is in fact married to the brother, and there is some rough rekindling before anyone even becomes a ghost. In essence The Whip and the Body and is a mix of a whodunit and a ghost story. Lee plays Kurt Menliff the oldest son of Count Menliff. One evening he returns to his ancestral home and receives a cold welcome. He wastes no time showing everyone why he had to leave home to begin with, and in the process, people are murdered, ghosts roam the night with muddy boots and unhappy hearts vie with dark lusts. That is all I can tell without going into deep spoiler territory.

Seeing as this is a Mario Bava film, I wasn't surprised that is wonderfully well shot. From beginning to end it is a Gothic love letter. The locations, the clothes, the sounds... everything is on point for a 60's horror movie. If I hadn't known it was directed by Bava, I would have sworn it was made by Roger Corman. He made most of his movies in the same color palette as The Whip and the Body, and he knew his Gothic horror extremely well.

The actors are good, particularly Christopher Lee (of course), and I have no technical complaints. The story is a slight cut above the usual fare, and even though I guessed the ending, it was a good ride from the beginning to the end. The Whip and the Body is tricky to talk about since I don't want to spoil anything, but the name is a clue and anyone with a sensitivity to people being whipped, should probably be careful

So, do I recommend this? Yes, without a doubt. If you hate old movies, sure go ahead and skip it, but any fan of old cinema and Gothic horror in particular, will likely love it. I did.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great and safe week!

 

Climbing the Greasy Pole

This weeks movie is an Italian crime drama called:

The Climber (1975).

Originally titled L'ambizioso and directed by Pasquale Squitieri, who also co-wrote it with Carlo Rivolta. It stars Joe Dallesandro as Aldo, the climber and Stefania Casini who also starred in The Bloodstained Shadow and Suspiria.

Minor Spoilers ahead.

The movie opens with Aldo, a low level American thug, living in Naples selling smuggled cigarettes on behalf of a gangster crew. They are however tired of Aldo's loud and reckless ways and so they beat him and throw him out of town. Brusied and broke, he begs a ride from Luciana (Casini) who drives him to Rome and lets him stay with her. They start a relationship as Aldo starts to climb the ranks. He forms a crew, moves back to Naples and gets down to business.

The Climber is a bit of a mixed bag for me. The cinematography is fine, the actors are better than usual for a movie like this, and the music is mostly off-brand 70's rock and thus fairly good. So far so good, but it is the story and how it is told that leaves me scratching my head.

The story of a young ambitious criminal rising through the underworld only to discover that the top isn't what he thought it would be, is not new. There are in fact many who claim that The Climber was an inspiration for De Palma's Scarface (1983) but I can't find any official sources for that. I did come to the same conclusion myself though, as the two movies have a lot in common. But where Scarface is over the top, The Climber is much more muted, probably due to budget differences. I don't know how big The Climber's budget was, but it wasn't $25 million, I can tell you that.

The beginning of Aldo's rise is actually pretty damn good. He has nothing but brains and balls, but he makes a go of it with a couple of friends and Luciana at his side. The problem is that Aldo's ultimate takeover is pretty underwhelming. He gathers his crew and just sort of wins. I guess it is either the budget again, or then the director didn't know how to show the takeover, so it kind of just flops over and is there. I wouldn't call it bad, not by a long shot, but with a little extra care and effort, The Climber could have been stellar.

So, do I recommend The Climber? It is a solid middle of the road affair. Too good to be bad, and too weak to be really good. Like so often, I can recommend it to fans but perhaps not to most viewers. I did like it, but if I sat you down and explained it, I doubt most of you would care to look it up.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave

Although my brain is still melting out of through my ears, I wanted to give you people a real post, so I sat down and watched:

The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971).

Directed by Emilio Miraglia and starring Anthony Steffen and Marina Malfati amongst many others, this is the weirdest Giallo I have ever seen. There will be spoilers ahead, but I won't spoil the ending.

The movie starts with a man trying and failing to escape from a psychiatric clinic. Cut to the same man, Lord Alan Cumming sitting in a sports car with a beautiful red haired prostitute. He pretends to stop in order to check the tires, but in reality he removes some false number plates before driving them to his half ruined castle. There he rebuffs her attempts to get it on and leads her to a torture chamber. Before he can brutalize her, he has a mental episode and believes that the prostitute is his dead wife, Evelyn. In a rage he kills her with a knife.

It turns out that he thinks his dead wife betrayed him and had an affair. After her death, his mind unraveled and was committed. Now he seeks (I think) closure by victimizing red haired prostitutes since his wife also had red hair.

We are also introduced to his former brother-in-law, Albert who works as Alan's groundskeeper and blackmails him. We meet Alan's young and sinister Aunt Agatha and his libertine cousin George. Alan's friend and physician Dr. Richard insists that he won't be cured until he remarries and at one of George's decadent parties, Alan meets and falls in love with the beautiful and blonde Gladys. The couple is soon married and they move into Alan's newly renovated castle.

It doesn't take long before Evelyn starts haunting Alan whose mind deteriorates quickly. People get murdered and we finish with a surprisingly good ending.

The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave is really odd in two major ways. First off is the fact the the movie pretends to be in England, and the way that it's shot gives it a late era Hammer Horror vibe, but with Giallo sensibilities. There is a ton of nudity but very little blood. The first murder takes place off camera and the subsequent murders are all pretty bloodless or take place in the dark. Some Hammer films were a lot bloodier although they didn't have all the skin on parade. I don't mind this approach but it almost gives the movie an identity crisis.

The second way this movie is so weird is the fact that Alan is a murderer. The fact that he had the false plates on his car proves that it was premeditated murder and she isn't his only victim either. Yet as the movie goes on, we are asked to sympathize with him. He takes the role of the Victim/Hero and if that wasn't the intent, there is no other character that fits that bill. I could find no reason why they filmmakers thought this would work. If he had hired the prostitute to soothe his grief and then had an episode and killed her in a fit of rage, then maybe, but this is not the case. As I said, weird.

So, do I recommend this movie? No, not really. Completionists and Giallo super fans might enjoy it but it falls short for me. It is competently shot but most of the actors are wooden and the overall quality is sub par. If you want to see a good movie where a man is haunted by his dead wife, watch The Tomb of Ligeia instead, it is superior in every way.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

Intersting Insights

Summer has come with a vengeance and my brain is slowly melting out of my ears. So I haven't had the energy to come up with any kind of analysis or insights of my own. Thus, I have to rely on the insights of others.

In 1972 the Watergate scandal erupted and sent a lot of powerful people to prison and ultimately ended Nixon's presidency. If you aren't aware of what the Watergate scandal was, read up on it here: 

Watergate Scandal

 

I found some cool old 60 Minutes interviews with amongst others, John Ehrlichman, G. Gordon Liddy and others on the official 60 Minutes Youtube Channel and thought I'd share with you good people.

So enjoy and hopefully my brain will be slightly less molten next week! Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

 

 

 Full playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLI1yx5Z0Lrv4B1LrQtjANg_Sv-udZJMkl

Red Sparrow

This week I watched:

Red Sparrow (2018).

Based on the novel of the same name by Jason Matthews who spent thirty-three years at the CIA. It stars Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Ciarán Hinds and Jeremy Irons amongst others. It is directed by Francis Lawrence (no relation to Jennifer) who directed the Hunger Games movies.

The story in a nutshell is this (Mild Spoilers):

Dominika (Lawrence) is a Prima Ballerina until her career is destroyed. Her mother is an invalid and both her doctors and their apartment are payed for by the ballet company, something they will no longer do now that Dominika can no longer dance. Her uncle Vanya, the deputy director of SVR, the Russian foreign intelligence service, wants to help her so he sends Dominika on a “simple mission”. After the mission ends dramatically Vanya talks her into joining a sparrow school in return for the apartment and the doctors being payed for.

The sparrow school is an institute that trains spies in the art of seduction, or rather it trains spies for that role. They learn to shoot, pick locks and other spy stuff as well of course, but the manipulation and sex is the main thing. Failure to graduate means a bullet to the head.

Parallel to this is a CIA agent, Nate Nash who has to flee Russia, but his highly placed mole refuses to deal with anyone else so he has to go to Budapest to introduce a new contact to the mole. Dominika, despite her trainers objections is sent to Budapest as well by uncle Vanya to find out the name of the mole from Nash. What follows is a back and forth as Nash tries to make her defect and we wonder whether she wants to or if she is playing him, everything ultimately culminating in a dramatic ending.

Red Sparrow is like a marble floor, very pretty but cold, hard and uncomfortable. It is beautifully shot and the actors are all great, but the movie lacks passion. Add to this the fact that it is two hours and twenty minutes long and it becomes a slog at times. It's not that the movie wastes time, it's just that there are so many scenes that are boring. I appreciate a slow moving spy drama like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy but Red Sparrow is too dull at times. There is unsurprisingly quite a lot of nudity and sex in the movie but do not expect titillation, it is all rather unfeeling and tawdry. The action that there is is good but pretty unremarkable and if it wasn't for the ending, I would have been disappointed.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, if you really like spy movies but otherwise not really. Perhaps it is me, but everything that was supposed to be shocking and dramatic, I have seen other movies do better so ultimately it left me with very little. There is nothing really wrong with Red Sparrow and it could be you would like it more, but in that case it has to be your decision to watch it rather than my recommendation.

 

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

The Bloodstained Shadow

I was struggling to find a movie I wanted to watch this week. Ultimately just browsing Youtube, I found:

The Bloodstained Shadow (1978).

The Bloodstained Shadow is a late stage Giallo, so yes, I jumped back in to Italian cinema. The story in a nutshell is this, taken from IMDB;

The body of a schoolgirl is found in a meadow. The murderer is never caught, and years later, a young man named Stefano returns to the island and is reunited with his brother, the local priest.

Now that wouldn't be a very interesting film in itself, so naturally there are several new murders and Stefano is determined to understand what is going on, especially since his brother, the priest Don Paolo receives death threats and his new girlfriend Sandra is also affected.

The movie is co-written and directed by Antonio Bido who does an excellent job with the atmosphere. This is helped along by the movie being set in Venice which is always a dramatic place for any film.

Stefano is played by Lino Capolicchio who passed in May this year and was a proper veteran of the industry. He starred in The House with Laughing Windows, which I covered a couple of years ago here. Ironically he played a Stefano there as well.

Sandra is played by Stefania Casini, who is still working but her perhaps most famous role was as Sara in Argento's Suspiria.

Others include Craig Hill as Don Paolo, Juliette Mayniel, Massimo Serato and many more.

The actors know what they are doing and all give good performances. The music and soundscape is a slightly different matter. It's not that it is bad, it's just that it varies from appropriate to goofy at times.

The mystery is the real star however. I managed to figure out one of the core elements of the plot, but I couldn't see the ending coming and I was very pleasantly surprised. I think it is fair to say that The Bloodstained Shadow is a bit of a slow burn but not so slow it becomes boring. There is a real sense of malice hanging in the air and Antonio Bido did an excellent job in showing enough without needing to overdo it. The murders range from slightly off camera to pretty gruesome but it is nowhere near as gory as some of the more famous Giallo out there. I do have to complain about the amount of jump scares though. They aren't that many but they come on hard together with a serious sound sting so be advised if you are sensitive. That is however the only real critique I have.

So do I recommend this movie? Yes. The Bloodstained Shadow is a great mystery, sitting somewhere on the fence between a classic Giallo and a more “normal” thriller. Fans of either genre should enjoy it. Gorehounds may be disappointed though.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

Do They In Fact Own This City?

I was very excited when I heard that George Pelecanos and David Simon were creating a new show set in Baltimore. I'm a huge fan of The Wire and Pelecanos produced that show with Simon who was also one of its principal writers.

We Own This City is six episodes long and actually fairly tame for being an HBO show. Little nudity and the violence that there is, is toned down, so no need to worry if you're sensitive.

So, the show is all about a special task force in the Baltimore Police Department, the Gun Trace Task Force. They work plain clothes and are first and foremost occupied with getting guns off the street. Naturally they also haul in criminals and drugs by the bucket load. Or at least they are supposed to. The GTTF is sadly extremely corrupt. They steal, they falsify records, they arrest people they know are innocent all in order to get richer and boost their popularity with the Brass, and much more.

This is not a spoiler BTW. The show carries this on its sleeve. We Own This City isn't a normal police procedural or a whodunit. The question isn't “Are they guilty?” or “Will they be caught?”. The question is “How the hell did this happen?” and “How deep is the corruption and what can we do about it?”

There are two stories running simultaneously. One is an FBI/Internal Affairs investigation and the other is a Civil Rights investigation by the DOJ. They don't interact with each other, rather they tell different sides of the same story. Example: the FBI investigates a corrupt cop for his crimes while the DOJ investigates how his actions affects his victims and the community he is supposed to police and so on. This way you get a fuller story without confusing the narrative.

It's also worth pointing out that the show is non-linear in its timeline. It jumps back and forth a lot in order to show you the journey these cops took, particularly Wayne Jenkins (Jon Bernthal). He starts as a pretty idealistic young officer and slowly becomes more and more crooked. It is fascinating to see his downward slide, one deed at a time. It serves as a good morality tale how one thing that isn't so bad makes another worse act easier to do, until you are neck deep and can't get out. Another brilliant detail is that Wayne doesn't see himself as villain, only a man doing a hard job no one else can do. Sure he helps himself but in his eyes he has earned it.

If this show wasn't as well written as it is, it would have been an intolerable mess of morality preaching, but it isn't. A big backdrop of the setting is the death at the hands of the police, of one Freddie Grey who is basically a nod to the real life death of George Floyd. This has enormous ramifications from the angry community, to officers who refuse to do their jobs out of fear of being accused and indicted. Baltimore was a powder keg in The Wire and it is worse now.

Speaking of The Wire there are a lot of familiar faces returning to Baltimore but in very different roles. This isn't a sequel to The Wire, spiritually or otherwise, it is a new look at some of the same problems in the same place in a different time.

So do I recommend We Own This City? Absolutely! It is extremely well done, all the actors are great and I don't have a single complaint of the technical side. The story is great and I'm going to give it a re watch soon.

That is that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!