Onibaba (1964)

Dir: KANETO SHINDO
Country: JAPAN

AKA:
Devil Woman
The Hole
The Ogress
The Witch
The Demon

Legendary Japanese filmmaker Kaneto Shindô directed his 45th feature film Ichimai no Hagaki in 2010 at the tender age of 98. Born in Hiroshima in 1912 Shindô has also written some 158 screenplays, making him easily one of the most prolific filmmakers in world cinema. Shindô’s failure to secure the type of distribution enjoyed by Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, and Ozu remains a mystery. His early films are slightly more visible in the West. In recent times we have enjoyed pristine DVD presentations of The Naked Island (1960), Onibaba (1964) and Kuroneko (1968) and they have afforded us a glimpse into a highly stylised and expressive formal style that is both challenging and invigorating. The latter two titles have also illustrated Shindô’s ability to meld this formal eloquence with popular genres and past theatrical traditions. However the unavailability of Children of Hiroshima (1952) still remains a mystifying aberration. It is certainly the case that as the 1960’s wore on Shindô’s work became less distinctive and his interest in social purpose took a back seat to explorations of sexuality. But as we saw in Nagisa Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses (1976), sex in its purest form can be a potent political and social weapon. The success of his quasi historical horror film Onibaba isn’t particularly surprising as it retains just enough generic signifiers to satisfy western audiences, and possessed the added draw of an unusually frank exploration of frustrated sexuality.

Hammer Historical Adventures Poster Gallery

MEN OF SHERWOOD FOREST (Val Guest, 1954) - UK poster

MEN OF SHERWOOD FOREST #2 US poster

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THE STRANGLERS OF BOMBAY (Terence Fisher, 1959) UK poster

THE STRANGLERS OF BOMBAY #2 French poster

Day of Anger (1967)

Dir: TONINO VALERII
Country: ITALY/WEST GERMANY

AKA:
I giorni dell'ira
Gunlaw

With his cold steely eyes, predatory angular features, and icy determinism Lee Van Cleef cuts an apocalyptic swathe through the dust and disharmony of the Euro-Western. Van Cleef possesses an aura and a smile that would have coffin makers rubbing their hands in glee. More than any other actor Van Cleef embodied the feral cynicism of this distinctly European vision of the American west. It is only appropriate that the breakdown in distinctions of good and evil should coalesce around an actor that was adept at playing both roles and everything in between. In the remarkable and quite brilliant Day of Anger Van Cleef is given the opportunity to explore the full range of this territory. His expert gunslinger Frank Talby is slick and ruthless and possessed of a burning intelligence and ambition. Talby represents a kind of justice, but the justice he metes out to the corrupt leaders of Clifton, Arizona is poetic, and not at all motivated by an innate sense of moral justice. In reality Talby is entirely interested in feathering his own nest, making plenty of money, and eventually taking control of Clifton. He does this through a combination of guile, gunfire and blackmail. When Talby takes Scott Mary (Giuliano Gemma) under his wing early in the film we are deceived into believing Talby is a good man outraged by the disrespect and injustice Scott endures, but this is a spaghetti western and Talby’s motives turn out to be selfish and self serving.

Warlords of Atlantis (1978)

Dir: KEVIN CONNORS
Country: UK

AKA:
Warlords of the Deep

The inconsistent and uneven Warlords of Atlantis was the fourth and final collaboration between producer John Dark, director Kevin Connor, and square jawed actor Doug McClure. The first three period set fantasy adventures The Land that Time Forgot (1975), At the Earth’s Core (1976) and The People that Time Forgot (1977) were all produced under the auspices of Amicus Productions and were based on works by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Warlords of Atlantis broke with this tradition in both its means of production and its writing. The screenplay was concocted by Brian Hayles who spent most of his career writing for British television. He contributed six serials to Doctor Who (The Celestial Toymaker, The Smugglers, The Ice Warriors, The Seeds of Death, The Curse of Peladon and The Monster of Peladon) and many of these adventures had strong socio-political allegorical undertones, this narrative dimension bleeds into the screenplay for this film. Hayles’ screenplay emphasises action over plotting and character development, and the result is energy and excitement at the cost of effective storytelling. The film also differs in its stress on science-fictional elements and in its interest in the future of mankind. However Warlords of Atlantis still celebrates unlikely feats of engineering and places its trust and support in the unshakeable symbol of the eccentric Victorian scientist. The result is a film that maintains the iconography of the Amicus pictures, but develops a series of themes that offer an altogether darker vision than that presented in the earlier films.

Vampire Circus (1972)

Dir: ROBERT YOUNG
Country: UK

Thanks to the efforts of the DVD distributor Synapse Films Vampire Circus (1972) became the second Hammer film to be released in the High Definition Blu Ray format. It joins Paranoiac (1963) which was released on Blu Ray last year by Eureka Entertainment. These are unlikely titles perhaps, but Vampire Circus has over the years built itself a steady cult following, largely based on its unusual and offbeat approach to the clichés of gothic horror. By 1972 Hammer were willing to take greater risks in order to reverse their fading fortunes, and although Vampire Circus has plenty of conventional and predictable moments, it also possesses a sensibility, structure, and tone that makes it a unique entry in Hammer’s vampire lore. It is not an experimental film as such - but perhaps the relative inexperience of key personnel such as the director Robert Young (this was his second film) and the screenwriter Judson Kinberg (this was his first screenplay) and the producer Wilbur Stark (who had never produced a horror film before) led to a freshness of approach that accidentally created moments of peculiarity that at times border the modes of art cinema narration. However this isn’t entirely a fresh slate - the name of George Baxt as an uncredited contributor to the story is an important one. Baxt had a long history in the genre - providing uncredited additional dialogue for The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), and screenplays for City of the Dead (1960), and Circus of Horrors (1960). In front of the camera we do at least have Thorley Walters and Dave Prowse to offer a link to past Hammer's.

Masters of Horror: Dance of the Dead (2005)

Dir: TOBE HOOPER
Country: USA

First Transmitted - 11/11/2005

One has to admire the bravery (or possibly outright gall) of series creator Mick Garris in inviting several washed up has-beens to contribute direction to the first season of Masters of Horror. There is a certain amount of back slapping and arse kissing endemic in a project like this, because if one were to be entirely objective it about there is no way that in 2005 Tobe Hooper would qualify as a ‘Master of Horror’. Hooper has made lots of horror films yes, but he hasn’t made a single good one in my lifetime. In fact I would argue that Hooper has only made one creatively successful horror film and that was his astonishing debut picture The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Unlike his contemporaries in the 1970’s Hooper peaked instantly. His career since has been a pallid and depressingly dreary attempt to recapture the ferocity and creativity of his first film. In this respect Hooper’s later career must surely rank as the most disappointing in horror history. The promise of his first film was destroyed almost immediately with his lacklustre thematic follow up Eaten Alive (1977). Somewhat surprisingly though he did manage to direct an excellent television mini-series adaptation of Salem’s Lot (1979), proving that he could adapt to the strictures of television with aplomb. Unfortunately Salem’s Lot has proven an exception in Hooper’s career, and though some horror fanatics might cite The Funhouse (1981) (I’d prefer to watch the grass grow) and Poltergeist (1982) (Hooper pimping himself out to Spielberg whose themes dominate the film) the reality is that these films are largely inconsequential and bereft of ideas and intelligence. But based on thirty years of shocking mediocrity Mick Garris invited Hooper to take part in Masters of Horror. So we have thirty years of cinematic garbage from Hooper, what would his episode Dance of the Dead be like?…believe it or not its utter garbage!

Trailer Tuesday: Dirty Harry Special

Dirty Harry Poster Gallery

"Well, when an adult male is chasing a female with intent to commit rape, I shoot the bastard. That's my policy." (Harry Callaghan, Dirty Harry, 1971)

DIRTY HARRY (Don Siegel, 1971) #1 US poster

DIRTY HARRY #2 US poster

DIRTY HARRY #3 - US poster

Permissive (1970)

Dir: LINDSEY SHONTEFF
Country: UK

The British Film Institute’s ‘BFI Flipside’ DVD imprint continues to dig out some fascinating and neglected films from the history of British cinema. Each title is presented in both standard and high definition, and offers an absorbing journey into avenues of British cinema that have remained overgrown and mistreated for decades. These titles (most of which I’ve never heard of) now have the opportunity to spring from the soil and enjoy a moment or two in the sunlight. A good number of these releases so far encompass the lusty traditions of British sexploitation, and while Permissive would nominally be categorised as such, it is a far trickier proposition when viewed. The director was Lindsey Shonteff, a Canadian who began making films in Britain in the early 1960’s. For genre fans his most famous film is probably Devil Doll (1964), a lacklustre and dull retread of ’The Ventriloquist’s Dummy’ story from Ealing’s chilling portmanteau film Dead of Night (1945). Although Shonteff’s twenty three directorial efforts were plagued by low budgets and received patchy to non-existent distribution, his films (even the James Bond spoofs) possess an energy and a strange magnetism which make them eminently watchable. Shonteff is a director of some generic savvy and utility, and in many ways Permissive is atypical in his filmography.

Devil (2010)

Dir: JOHN ERICK DOWDLE
Country: USA

The stock of writer/producer/director M. Night Shyamalan couldn’t be much lower after a series of feeble and derisory films that have contrived to make his first two (The Sixth Sense [1999) and Unbreakable [2000]) seem half decent. The reality is that Shyamalan has yet to direct a good film, and a film that has his name attached to it is only fit for the trash collector. That is until the release of Devil, which was based upon a story by Shyamalan, and is refreshingly bereft of his normal posturing and pretence, and has a narrative which isn’t totally reliant on tricks. It is still recognisable as its authors work because of a central gimmick which entraps five total strangers in a malfunctioning elevator. If the claustrophobia, proximity, and fear of this situation isn’t enough, one of the occupants also happens to be the devil. This central proposition is intriguing enough to carry the whole film, and the film is blessed with a director who approaches the material with economy and a briskness of pace. I’m not sure how John Erick Dowdle got this assignment, because his previous film Quarantine (2008) was so appalling that new adjectives had to be invented to describe just how bad it was. But Dowdle emerges as the unlikely hero of Devil because of an efficient and smooth filmmaking approach that mirrors the simplicity of the story. The screenplay by Brian Nelson - the ‘brain’ behind moronic flotsam such as Hard Candy (2005) and 30 Days of Night (2007) offers levity to the restricted confinement of the elevator with two other narrative strands offering a police investigation, and the efforts of various professionals to free the unfortunates who are trapped. But Nelson does make one decision which almost destroys Devil before it has an opportunity to get going.

The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963)

Dir: MARIO BAVA
Country: ITALY

AKA:
La ragazza che sapeva troppo
The Evil Eye

Although certain plot elements of imported murder mysteries had been absorbed into Italian cinema (see Visconti’s Ossessione [1943]) Mario Bava’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) was the first to foreground them in a self-conscious manner. The protagonist Nora Davis (Letícia Román) is a voracious reader of murder mysteries, she clearly enjoys losing herself in the fantasy world, and craves a mystery in the real world that mirrors the exciting events on the written page. The instant she arrives in Rome from America to visit a bedridden aunt events are in motion over which she has no control. An early encounter in the airport with a drug smuggler is quickly followed by the death of her aunt, and this is soon followed by a mugging, and most importantly of all a murder to which she is a witness. These plot events and contrivances would be laughable were it not for the darkly humorous streak that runs through the film, and the filmmakers less than serious approach to the subject matter. In addition Bava and his collaborators choose too include a third person narrator who comments on Nora’s predicament and gives expression to her thoughts. Rather than weaken the narrative, this serves to tie the film very strongly to the literary source, and it becomes another self referential device along with on screen references to Mickey Spillane and Agatha Christie.

Giallo Poster Gallery

For your viewing pleasure The Celluloid Highway is proud to present a selection of poster images for some of the more distinctive productions in the giallo cycle. There are 30 in all, which is only the merest fraction of the films classified as gialli. The criteria for inclusion was entirely subjective, so if any of your favourites have been omitted I apologise beforehand. The only thing left to do is pour yourself another triple measure of J&B, make sure your windows and doors are securely locked, and enjoy this fine selection of images.

The Girl Who Knew Too Much aka The Evil Eye (Mario Bava, 1963) - US poster

Blood and Black Lace (Mario Bava, 1964) - US poster

Naked You Die aka The Young, The Evil and the Savage (Antonio Margheriti, 1968) - US poster

Trailer Tuesday: Giallo Special

Here is a selection of trailers for some of the Gialli reviewed this month. I suggest you open that bottle of J&B Whiskey, pour yourself a triple measure,  sit back, and enjoy!

Sleepless (2001)

Dir: DARIO ARGENTO
Country: ITALY

AKA:
Non ho sonno
I Can't Sleep

It’s no surprise at all that Dario Argento’s return to the giallo form in 2001 with Sleepless divided critics and fans. Within the context of Argento’s output at the time (don’t forget that the despised Phantom of the Opera [1998] directly preceded it) Sleepless has to be considered a semi return to form. But within the context of Argento’s career as a whole Sleepless is an unexceptional thriller. It was the first film since 1993’s Trauma that didn’t feature the minimal talents of his daughter Asia, and this is of immediate benefit to the film. Furthermore Argento was able to cast Max von Sydow as the retired detective Moretti. The screen presence of von Sydow adds immeasurable quality to the proceedings and is a vital aspect of the film, because the other performances (with the notable exception of Gabriele Lavia, who isn’t in the film anywhere near enough) are utterly abysmal. The screenplay was written by Argento in collaboration with Franco Ferrini and in many places shows plot ingenuity the likes of which had become rare in Argento’s cinema. But at the same time Sleepless abounds with the distant echoes of more creatively successful Argento films. Fortunately this self-referential quality never destabilises the film, as it might in lesser hands. But the realisation that this has all been seen and done before damages the films ability to stand on its own.

What Have They Done To Your Daughters? (1974)

Dir: MASSIMO DALLAMANO
Country: ITALY

AKA:
La polizia chiede aiuto
Coed Murders

The title might be a mouthful but Massimo Dallamano’s What Have They Done To Your Daughters? is an extremely efficient and energetic mixture of giallo and poliziottescho. By 1974 the giallo had seen its share of the domestic marketplace eroded and the poliziotteschi cycle, with its elements of conspiracy and vigilantism was finding favour with audiences. Dallamano was one of the first filmmakers to see the potential in combining elements of the two and had achieved a notable creative success with his earlier effort What Have You Done To Solange? (1972). Although Daughters recycles the thematic substance of the earlier film, this second attempt ups the quotient of action considerably and focuses its attentions on the police investigation. The films attitude to its law enforcers and detectives marks the first notable shift from the territory of the giallo. This is very much a celebration of dogged detective work, and the principal investigators are imbued with charm, charisma and intelligence. There are no ineffectual bunglers here. Instead the cops emerge as powerless as the public in the face of the mysterious authoritarians that prowl the corridors of power. Our sympathies lie with the police because they are an unusually frustrated bunch - good men and women trying to do the right thing for the public, but unable to mete out justice because the reins of power are held firm by those who abuse power and privilege.

The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971)

Dir: EMILIO MIRAGLIA
Country: ITALY

AKA:
La notte che Evelyn uscì dalla tomba
The Night She Arose from the Tomb
The Night That Evelyn Left the Tomb

The beautifully titled The Night Evelyn Came out of the Grave is an unusual and distinctive giallo from Emilio Miraglia. Miraglia only directed six films, but his two contributions to the giallo cycle (the other being The Red Queen Kills 7 Times [1972]) are unusual for their foregrounding of the supernatural. But the supernatural never becomes more than a storytelling device, a sophisticated red herring which acts as a suitable peg upon which to hang the principle themes of obsession, mental illness, and sexual perversion. The supernatural elements work extremely well with a visual style that bathes the film in gothic atmospherics. The sumptuous production design and art direction of Lorenzo Baraldi is a key element of this strategy, and his efforts to extend the decadent perversions of the central character to the principal locations of the film adds immeasurable depth to the proceedings. The Cunningham estate is an excellent space with which to play out this tale of death, decay, sexual depravity, blackmail and moral emptiness. The castle is a schizophrenic space which dramatises a clash between chic interior design and kitsch modernity and the cold stone walls and corridors of a gothic past. It also offers a metaphor for the mental fragmentation and fluctuating psychology of the central character Sir Alan Cunningham (Anthony Steffen).

The Designated Victim (1971)

Dir: MAURIZIO LUCIDI
Country: ITALY

AKA:
La Vittima Designata
Slam Out
Murder by Design

The Designated Victim is an intriguing Italian curiosity from 1971. Its position within popular Italian cinematic cycles of the 1970’s is highly contestable. A lazy scholar would simply just classify it as a giallo and move on, but its resemblance to that cycle is somewhat superficial. It lacks plot convolution and multiple red herrings, it does not have a narrative driven by deduction and detection, and does not have set piece moments of exaggerated stylisation. However what it does have is the look of a giallo. The film is largely set in the more salubrious reaches of Milan and Venice, and its characters hail from the arts and the aristocracy. This is an expertly realised world of bored and wealthy noblemen, and the machinations and artifice of the world of advertising and photography. We are without a doubt in the culture of the giallo, but structurally The Designated Victim plays out more as a straight thriller, and at times actually looks forward to the Poliziotteschi films that would become increasingly popular. In this case the hybridity of the film and its successful plundering of Patricia Highsmith and Alfred Hitchcock works in its favour. However what really makes the film a standout is the sparks that fly between Tomas Milian and Pierre Clémenti.

Autopsy (1975)

Dir: ARMANDO CRISPINO
Country: ITALY

AKA:
Macchie solari
The Magician
Sun Spots
The Victim
Tension

Released under the more appropriate original title of Macchi solari which translates as Sun Spots writer/director Armando Crispino’s gialli is a very peculiar little film. Although Crispino only directed nine films he had previous knowledge of the form with the dour and dreary The Etruscan Kills Again (1972). In light of the other pictures that make up Crispino’s filmography Autopsy has to be considered his best film. But unfortunately that isn’t really saying much. This film is elevated slightly by a competent cast that includes Mimsy Farmer (a gialli semi-regular by this point), television actor Barry Primus, and the ever watchable Ray Lovelock sporting his trademark beard. Behind the camera the contribution of composer Ennio Morricone is vital. Morricone’s weird and eerie music that makes use of whispered voices and a repeated theme that is subtle and plaintiff does much to instil a sense of the unnatural. It is by no means the maestro’s best work, but it gives Autopsy a touch of class it badly needs. Crispino is further aided by the beautiful lighting and cinematography of Carlo Carlini who captures the stark and stifling heat of Milan and juxtaposes it with some wonderfully lit night time sequences. Crispino himself is a somewhat pedestrian director, but even he is unable to undermine what is an astonishing opening ten minutes.