A Night in the Infernal Spotlight

Your faithful blogger poses outside the New Beverly Cinema with Irene Miracle and Keith Emerson, the respective star and composer of Dario Argento's INFERNO.

Photo (c) by Lee Christian. All other photos (c) by Tim Lucas.

Before the screening, a group of 22 attended a private dinner at India's Oven, a restaurant just a few doors down from the theater. Excellent food! Here Irene poses at table with her good friend of 30 years, VARIETY reporter and screenwriter F.X. Feeney.

DVD producer Perry Martin (who supervised my audio commentaries for Anchor Bay's MARIO BAVA COLLECTION sets) joined us for dinner with his charming wife Kelly Ann.

THE BOOK OF LISTS: HORROR author Scott Bradley generously hosted the dinner, much appreciated by all!

Irene poses with both sides of a special souvenir postcard that she produced as a giveaway item to all INFERNO attendees. Each card was personally autographed and promoted her recent directorial debut, DAWNLAND.

Author John Skipp (center) listens in as documentarian Howard S. Berger (right) invited Keith Emerson (left) to participate in his in-progress film about legendary music producer Joe Meek. In the background, Peter Avellino.

Your faithful blogger with his favorite Argento heroine.

The New Beverly marquee.

Irene basks in the opening night glory she missed in 1980, when INFERNO bypassed US theatrical release altogether.

Tim, Irene and Keith pose for more than a half-dozen photographers outside the theater following the screening.

And who should I discover standing outside in the fog but two of the event's front row attendees: FEAST director John Gulager and his legendary actor dad, Clu Gulager (RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD)!

Allison "Nekromistress" Grace poses in the evening fog with her copy of an original vinyl pressing of Keith Emerson's INFERNO soundtrack, freshly signed by Keith and Irene!

Irene Miracle poses with a special "Three Mothers" bouquet gifted her by three friends Amy Wallace, Scott Bradley and Tim Lucas. The bouquet featured three of each flower.

Coming Into Los Angeles

I'm very happy to announce that I will be making a personal appearance, one week from tonight, on October 17th, at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles.

I will have the privilege of introducing and conducting a Q&A with star Irene Miracle prior to a midnight screening of Dario Argento's INFERNO, the hypnotic second chapter in his "Three Mothers" trilogy. This film was also the last project Mario Bava worked on prior to his death in 1980, and I'll speak a bit about the anonymous special effects contributions that Bava supervised for the picture.

This will be Irene's first US public appearance in many years, and my own first public appearance in Los Angeles since the American Cinematheque's Mario Bava retrospective of 1993, so please come out and join us!

I hear the 35mm print of INFERNO looks spectacular, so it promises to be a fireball of an evening!

A Word To The Wise

October is fast approaching, which means that VIDEO WATCHDOG's "150th Issue Sale" is rapidly winding down. And what that means is that you can still acquire a copy of MARIO BAVA ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK at the low price of only $150 -- $100 off the list price -- through what's left of today and tomorrow. After that, on October 1, the price reverts back to $250. And I will sign your Bava book on request. To check out the details of this and many other sale items, click here.

Are You a Good Witch or a Bad Witch?

This surprisingly stately clip from Jess Franco's 1972 monster rally DRACULA CONTRA FRANKENSTEIN features Alberto Dalbes as Dr. Seward and Geneviève Robert as Almira, the gypsy woman who comes to his rescue. This scene brings to mind something I've always admired about Franco's, and also Mario Bava's, horror films: unlike American movies, where ugly vestiges of our country's puritan foundation lingers, their films never demonize witches, instead presenting them as serious women of intuition and arcane knowledge, who are often called upon to explain to characters who have chosen a more narrow way of living what is out of balance in their half-understood world, and just as often pointing their way to survival. Geneviève Robert is wonderful in this scene, and one regrets that she didn't make more films. Today, Robert is married to producer-director Ivan Reitman and a Reuters photo of the couple attending the Toronto Film Festival earlier this month can be found here.

Incidentally, Jess Franco and Lina Romay are currently in Austin, Texas, where they are being fêted at FantasticFest with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Here is a schedule of related events and I congratulate Jess and Lina on yet another long overdue recognition of their vast contribution to fantastic cinema.

THE HOWL reviewed

Tina Aumont in THE HOWL (L'URLO), directed by Tinto Brass.

My review of Tinto Brass's THE HOWL (Cult Epics) appears in the new issue of SIGHT & SOUND, but now you can also read it for free on their website here.

I've also just screened Cult Epics' forthcoming disc of the third film in Brass's "Swinging London" trilogy, ATTRACTION (aka NEROSUBIANCO), and am happy to report that it's the Radley Metzger English dub, bearing the silly screen title THE ARTFUL PENETRATION OF BARBARA. Taken from a 16mm print, it's somewhat tightly framed but the most complete version of the film I've ever seen, including a health spa sequence I'd never seen before, and without any of the obscuring animated spirographic overlays that appear in the shorter Italian version to obscure nudity. Joyously free-form, pop- and op-artish, and pushed along by a Greek chorus of baroque rock performances by Freedom (a Procol Harum splinter group), it's my favorite of Brass's films and I feel as though I've now seen it for the first time.

Miracle Girl

I encourage all Video Watchblog readers to visit the new website of actress/filmmaker Irene Miracle -- best remembered as the female lead in Alan Parker/Oliver Stone's MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, the young heroine of Aldo Lado's THE NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS and certainly as the initial protagonist of Dario Argento's INFERNO.

Irene has recently directed her first short film, DAWNLAND, the poetic 18th century story of a young white girl's adoption by and assimilation into the Native American Abenaki tribe of Vermont, which was chosen to be featured at the recent Selento International Film Festival in Selento, Italy. It's a lovely film with obviously personal associations for its maker, who dedicated the film to her mother and grandmother. She intends DAWNLAND to be the first film in a trilogy of related shorts to be collected under the umbrella title "Champlain Suite," referring to the Lake Champlain setting which all three projected stories share in common.

The website is offering copies of DAWNLAND for sale; there's also a clip there for viewing, as well as a "director's statement" about the project. Irene's fans will also be excited to learn that her website is also making available, for the first time, autographed photos -- including choice shots from INFERNO, some of them in color. (She confessed to me that she had a hard time coming to grips with celebrity, and for many years refused autograph requests because she couldn't understand why her signature should be considered more desirable than anyone else's -- so there aren't many signed pictures of her in circulation... yet.) There's also a fully annotated photo gallery to make a visit well worth your clicks, a stunning assortment of film, stage and rare modelling shots.

LES CLASSIQUES DU CINÉMA BIS reviewed

The cover art alone sells it, but LES CLASSIQUES DU CINÉMA BIS (Nouveau Monde Éditions, 27 Euros) -- a new reference guide (in French, of course) to outstanding cult movies released between 1955 and 2007 -- keeps the promise of its outward design for 552 interior pages as well. It's a pleasure to page through, and there are important lessons to be gleaned simply by doing that.

What is "Cinéma Bis"? It is generally accepted to mean "low-budget genre cinema," but it seems to be quite an ornate French pun, at once referring to B-movies (Cinema B's) and the serial nature of much genre cinema (the French word "bis" means "encore"); it may be a lucky accident or inspired design, but there is also something punny going on there with the incorporation of the English word "abyss," evoking the very bottom of the barrel. This book scrutinizes no less than 500 gems of this genus, commencing with Edward D. Wood Jr.'s BRIDE OF THE MONSTER and concluding, appropriately, with Quentin Tarantino & Robert Rodriguez' GRINDHOUSE.

In between, authors Laurent Aknin and Lucas Balbo cover horror, pepla (sword-and-sandal), science fiction, pulp, superhero fantasies, spy thrillers, westerns, krimis, gialli, erotica (including the odd porn title like DEEP THROAT), Bollywood curios and HK actioners. Also included in the generous overview are films by those artists whose names evoke genres unto themselves: Steve Reeves, Jess Franco, Franco & Ciccio, Bruce Lee, John Waters, Laura Gemser, Tinto Brass, Jackie Chan, Weng Weng. Even with 500 titles, the book cannot be all-encompassing, but it does take care to include a fair number of British and American titles from all periods, inviting such diverse names as Bob Clark, Oliver Stone, Andy Milligan, Donald Farmer and Eli Roth to the table.

The text is not superficial; it looks under the skin of the movies under discussion -- describing the scenes and moments which make these selections particularly worth seeing. French release is an impotant consideration in what is covered, but readers will undoubtedly have quibbles about missing titles -- one of mine is Jess Franco's FACELESS, which I consider a bizarre, high gloss culmination of his work, but I cannot say that Franco is under-represented here. I've not read every word, of course, but after numerous perusals, I've noticed only one textual error: a still of Irene Miracle escaping from the rail car in Aldo Lado's THE NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS finds the actress misidentified as her co-star Laura D'Angelo.

At the close of their Introduction, the authors declare their book as (I translate) "a modest tribute to a fundamental work, LES CLASSIQUES DU CINÉMA FANTASTIQUE by Jean-Marie Sabatier (1973)." I own a copy of M. Sabatier's book, an encylopedia of essays devoted to the most important actors and directors of horror and fantasy cinema, and though I can't read much of it, it is one of the books on genre cinema I would never part with; I can only say that Aknin and Balbo have aimed high with their intentions but have struck their target nevertheless. Their book awakens the itch to watch movies almost indiscriminately, for the sheer crazy love of movies, and it closes on a commendably sentimental note with various French ad mattes and a photo of the façade of the legendary Midi-Minuit cinema -- the Ground Zero of French genre film reportage.

The cover art, incidentally, comes from the Italian poster for the British horror film JACK THE RIPPER, painted by the marvelous Sandro Symeoni.

First Look: VIDEO WATCHDOG #151

Visit the "Coming Soon" department at the VIDEO WATCHDOG website for full details and a free, four-page preview selection!

Françoise's Knee

Jean Louis Trintignant discovers that the ghost of Françoise Hardy is tangible in Roger Vadim's hard-to-see CHATEAU EN SUEDE.

In the time I've been playing hooky from this blog, I have, among other things, been delving deeply into an obsession with the music of Françoise Hardy. Ours has been a lengthy courtship; I've been marginally aware of her and her work for many years, principally with her early, so-called "Yé Yé" period and the many striking modelling photos dating from that early Sixties period, some of which were snapped by the unerring eye of William Klein. The first female pop singer-songwriter to emerge in the 1960s, Mlle. Hardy was -- and remains, at age 65 -- such a strikingly beautiful woman that her image is difficult to regard separately from her music, but her music is just as durable and classical as she, rewarding close listening in all of its eras. One might imagine that a voice so plaintive, soothing, vulnerable and articulate could only be crushed if saddled with more instrumentation than a similarly direct acoustic guitar or piano, but over the decades, she has proved herself a remarkably flexible artist with a voice capable of keeping abreast of musical trends and standing up to volume. As for her image, you can visit its many phases in different videos available on YouTube, all of which make it seem incredible that no one has yet assembled a DVD of her archival performances for French television -- there's a wealth of material there that's as compulsively watchable as it is listenable.

Naturally, as soon as Françoise Hardy became a nationally known artist in 1962, she began receiving offers to appear onscreen. The IMDb credits her with a total of 10 acting roles in film and television, most notably including a short uncredited role as the mayor's secretary in WHAT'S NEW, PUSSYCAT? (1964), an elegant supporting role in John Frankenheimer's GRAND PRIX (1966), and a brief cameo as an American officer's attaché in Jean-Luc Godard's Masculin-Feminin (1966) -- a movie I principally remember for how she seemed to stop time by stepping out of a limousine and walking briskly across the screen in a white pants suit. Rarely has a director so eloquently admitted the futility of art's aspiration to equal natural beauty. But the first filmmaker to cast Mlle. Hardy in a feature film was that renowned connoisseur of French beauty, Roger Vadim, who featured the fledgling 19 year-old artiste in his 1963 feature Château en Suède ("Castle in Sweden", 1963), based on a play by Françoise Sagan.

A farcical thriller, Château en Suède had the misfortune of being released in France a couple of days before the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, which led to dire boxoffice returns. The film was subsequently not widely distributed outside France, though it starred Monica Vitti and Jean Louis Trintignant -- two of the hottest names in international cinema, both captured in the full bloom of their youth and beauty in Technicolor and Franscope. Lopert Pictures Corporation issued the film in the USA under the ignoble title NUTTY, NAUGHTY CHATEAU, but hardly anyone saw it and no copies of this version have resurfaced. My web searches turned up this useful if dismissive TIME Magazine review of the English-dubbed import, dated October 1964.

Thanks to a charming -- but alas, mislabelled -- YouTube video of Hardy performing "Je Suis d'Accord" (a Scopitone misidentified by the poster as a clip from Vadim's film), it became one of the chief priorities of my Hardy obsession to locate a copy of this now-difficult-to-see movie, which was apparently released on VHS in France back in the 1980s. Fortunately, I was able to locate a DVD-R copy from a seller on the P2P (person to person) website iOffer. The frame grabs I've provided here attest to its acceptable quality. I don't speak French, so I couldn't appreciate the fine points of its dialogue, but the film is easy enough to follow on a visual level, and probably best appreciated from a purely visual standpoint.

One of the most intriguing facets of the film is that, like Vadim's earlier production BLOOD AND ROSES (Et mourir et plaisir, 1960), it takes place in modern day but, once we enter the chateau, everyone dresses in 18th century garb. When Trintignant first enters this principal setting, after main titles drive-throughs of various contemporary Paris locations, the film's look takes a sudden turn into something that looks remarkably like Mario Bava's THE WHIP AND THE BODY (La frusta e il corpo), first released shortly ahead of Vadim's film in August 1963.


Director of photography Armand Thirard (a silent film veteran who had previously shot Vadim's ...AND GOD CREATED WOMAN) presents us with a conspicuously more warm-blooded Monica Vitti than Michelangelo Antonioni gave us in his black-and-white widescreen masterpieces. She proves herself an adept comedienne, and the film would count as pleasurable if only for Thirard's occasional closeups of her.

As family cousin Eric, Trintignant arrives at the chateau under the impression that his uncle Hugo's (Curd Jurgens) first and much younger wife Ophelia has died, an impression we initially share. Hugo has remarried another youngster, Eleanore (Vitti), who is only in it for the money to judge by the "incestuous" affair she is conducting with available "son" Sébastien (Jean-Claude Brialy). Left alone at a dinner table where much wine has flowed, Eric sees a feminine hand creep around the frame of a hung painting, and later has a spectral encounter with Ophelia (Hardy), who is in fact still alive, if something of a nutcase, and lives in hiding with a menagerie of animals while sleeping with Sébastien. Once Eric is enticed into Eleanore's bed, the backstory becomes more pronounced and he soon knows too much about the family's private business to live...



The film has a number of impressive visual moments, including a split-diopter shot that posits Vitti in the foreground and Brialy in the distant background, both in equal focus, and a Bava-like bedroom shot that finds Vitti's and Trintignant's nude bodies obscured by a foregrounded lantern. Unfortunately, its comic content is not as lovely or refined as the rest of it, and we're left with an obvious misfire: worth seeing, but far less than the sum of its nice parts. In one of those parts, Eric confirms Ophelia's physical tangibility by touching her bare knee, a moment that Trintignant and Hardy's co-star Jean-Claude Brialy would later famously reprise with pretty Laurence de Monaghan in Eric Rohmer's classic CLAIRE'S KNEE (Le genou de Claire, 1970).

In Françoise Hardy's recent autobiography LE DÉSESPOIR DES SINGES... ET AUTRES BAGATELLES, she devotes only a single paragraph to her Château en Suède experience, noting that she disliked the early-morning, getting-made-up-and-costumed, and waiting-around aspects of filmmaking, and that she was uncomfortable with scenes that required her to kiss and frolic in bed with Brialy, a fact that is sadly apparent onscreen.

Hardy's first screen appearance is not without its charms, of course, but it is undone in the larger sense by her unfamiliarity with camera acting, her noticeable, nervous inability to retain eye contact with her co-stars, and the unavoidable fact that Ophelia is so much less interesting, so much less appealing, so much less than the sublime original that is Françoise Hardy. And herein lies the ultimate reason why Hardy's screen career didn't work out as well as that of her husband Jacques Dutronc (also a singer, who found his ultimate expression as a delightfully edgy actor in films like Andrzej Zulawski's THE IMPORTANT THING IS TO LOVE and MY NIGHTS ARE MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN YOUR DAYS): her filmography serves to preserve her youthful beauty, rather than to extend our definition of her, or her own definition of herself. Her music, and the great dignity with which she has always made and presented it, remains her great gift to us.

Charming as she sometimes is as the daffy Ophelia, compared to the Hardy we discover through her songs and musical performances, Château en Suède is a comparatively undignified showcase. In any one of her music videos, you will see a better performance than you will see her giving as someone else, someone less talented. Seeing this film, Hardy must have realized that the discomforts of screen acting were not worth the bother, if they meant working toward an end result that was substantially less than what she was capable of producing spontaneously and without artifice. It's not that Hardy is one of those female performers who need a mask of character or a cloak of enigma to make themselves more interesting; if anything, the essence of her art is its emotional candor, directness and daring, as exemplified by songs like "La Question" and "Le Danger." She had the intelligence to grasp that giving that much more of herself could only have resulted in a lesser legacy, and so -- with a few curious, precious, quirky exceptions to the rule -- Françoise Hardy the Movie Star was not in the cards.

Don't Miss It!

Whatever you do, DON'T MISS the next two days of "Dog Days" sales on the Video Watchdog website homepage! Tomorrow's sale -- which goes up promptly at midnight, wherever you are on the globe -- offers a significant collectible never before offered, and we're augmenting this special sale with never-before-seen archival photos and actual excerpts from Donna's personal diary! And coming Monday is (what else?) the biggest sale of the month!

WOODSTOCK reviewed

My review of Warner Home Video's new Blu-ray disc release of Michael Wadleigh's WOODSTOCK is now posted on the SIGHT AND SOUND website, and appears in the current September 2009 issue -- on newsstands now. (Remember newsstands?) This issue also contains capsule assessments of 50 different filmmakers gathered under the rubric "The Mad, the Bad and the Dangerous," to which I contributed critical summaries of Mario Bava, Ken Russell and Andrzej Zulawski... but you won't find those free online. VW's Kim Newman and Brad Stevens also contributed.

Facebooked

In case some of you are wondering why I've done so little with this blog since opening it to readers' comments, it's because I too have been seduced into the madness that is Facebook.

For the few among you who haven't visited Facebook to see what it's about, it's a social networking site that permits friends, friends of friends and (let's admit it) total strangers to communicate with their walls of privacy intact. This important detail makes Facebook attractive to certain celebrities who might enjoy interacting with their public as long as it doesn't mean leaking their personal e-mail details.

One of the thrills of my own involvement on Facebook has been the ability to approach and communicate with certain people I like and admire professionally, with whom I might not have had the opportunity otherwise, certainly not on a daily basis. I'm talking about people like Ann Magnuson, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork, Illeana Douglas, Edwige Fenech and Tura Satana, and Argento heroines Jessica Harper, Irene Miracle and Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, to name a few.

Equally interesting is the degree to which Facebook shrinks the size of the world to something more manageable and within one's ready grasp, which brings to the surface certain coincidences (even psychic connections) that might otherwise escape your notice. Early in my own Facebook experience, I found myself noticing someone's avatar on a lot of "Mutual Friends" lists; there was something about her photo that spoke to me in a way I didn't understand, but it didn't want to be denied. I wrote to this stranger, an Italian novelist and translator named Cristiana Astori, inviting her to become a friend. She wrote back to say that she was astonished to receive my letter because I and my work had been central in her consciousness for months! She was in the process of completing a novel and, owing to its subject matter, she had been immersing herself in various articles and liner notes I had written, one of the few available sources for information pertaining to her chosen subject. Even the title she had chosen for her novel was a nod to my MARIO BAVA ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK! Thanks to Facebook, I was able to discover this creative connection on the other side of the globe that would have remained a secret to me otherwise.

Just as important, in fact the truly addictive element in Facebook, is the banter I can now get into with distant friends, people as far-flung as Chile and Poland, and even business associates with whom I can suddenly communicate on a more personal level. As Richard Harland Smith (another convert) aptly described it, "Facebook isn't a party, it's a party line." In fact, many of VW's contributors (Donna, John Charles, Kim Newman, Shane Dallmann, Sam Umland, Eric Somer and others) are also on Facebook, and if you would be interested in befriending us there, I'm sure most of us would gladly add you to our lists. It won't hurt if you mention you're a subscriber. It also wouldn't hurt if you really are. ; - )

I am having a lot of fun over there, but I'm also aware that I could be having similar fun here, now that the comments feature has been activated, and playing (as it were) to a larger audience. Right now my Facebook shenanigans are within the reach of only 420 Facebook friends, and I'm sure not all of them check on me every day. I do intend to come back here more frequently, but the task immediately in front of me is to create some material for VW #151 -- including its own Video WatchBlog column. Be back soon.

Are You Afraid? Are You Very Afraid?

... of handling your copy of MARIO BAVA - ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, I mean, for fear of damaging its dust jacket? Well, if you are, today's special Dog Days Sale item should interest you. For the first time, we are offering the Bava book's French fold dust jacket on sale separately, for those of you who would like to keep a spare on ice, so to speak, so that when your current dust jacket becomes battered and worn, it can be replaced to look brand new once again! Check the yellow banner on the Video Watchdog website's main page for details!

IN TREATMENT Reviewed

My review of the HBO series IN TREATMENT is in the current August 2009 issue of SIGHT AND SOUND, and now also available on their website here.

Announcing 'Dog Days!

I'd like to draw your attention to something very special that Donna has cooked up for VIDEO WATCHDOG fans during the month of August. Beginning today, you'll find a yellow banner on the main page of the VIDEO WATCHDOG website announcing our "'Dog Days" sale.

Throughout August, Donna is going to post a different sale every day!

Each sale will last only 24 hours, so you know the savings are bound to be considerable -- and with 31 days in the month, who knows what we'll find to sell! Maybe even some goodies from my private collection!

Don't expect any previews here... you'll have to visit and click every day to find out what's being offered. And since supplies may be limited, the earlier you check, the better!

Tim & Donna in the Mystery Box

The latest installment of Robert Jaz's "The Mystery Box" over at the Forces of Geek website interviews Donna and I at length on the occasion of VIDEO WATCHDOG's 20th anniversary and the publication of our 150th issue. There's also an exclusive photo or two, including one of me looking very bummed about the shirt cardboard on which our first issue was printed. We thank Robert for his kind interest and generous attention!

VIDEO WATCHDOG 150 On the Way!

Our landmark 150th issue has been mailed to subscribers, so First Class supporters should be seeing its arrival in their mailboxes early next week. This issue is notable for many reasons, but one not previously mentioned is the presence of three ads tied into our "150th" theme. Donna doesn't want me to broadcast the details of these sales because they are for VW readers only, our way of thanking them for their continued support, so you'll have to pick up the magazine to find out the details that will help bring you considerable savings...

SUSPIRIA in HD

Stefania Casini welcomes you to SUSPIRIA.

I want to caution WatchBlog readers that the version of Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA which is being shown this month on Action Max, the Cinemax subsidiary, is not only the cut US theatrical version (which renders nearly all the violence incoherent) but, for some reason, the stereo surround track is lacking much of its original, room-shaking bottom end. However, on the plus side, it IS being shown in True HD -- as far as I know, the film's high definition debut. For this reason alone, I found it hard to peel myself away... the wallpaper alone (blue velvet, silver foil...) is enough to poke your eyes out. Next showing is at 2:30am eastern, tonight -- and sister station Thriller Max HD is showing MOTHER OF TEARS just before at Midnight.

Notes on SZAMANKA

In preparation for 200 words I needed to write about writer-director Andrzej Zulawski, last night I watched what is presently his penultimate feature, SZAMANKA, a French-Swiss-Polish co-production from 1996. Set in Warsaw, Poland, the film is, like much of Zulawski's work, a human story staged against a shifting political dynamic and it is also, like all of Zulawski's work, a shriek directed at the cosmos in objection to the essential incompleteness of man. His films have a reputation for being erotic, but they seldom are; they are about sex, and they are often graphic without becoming pornographic, but the sex is never satisfying for the characters or the viewers because they are meant to lay bare yearnings that can only be satisfied by our ultimate return to God. The sex in SZAMANKA ultimately takes on a religious connotation, which can be seen here in the face of actor Bogoslaw Linda, who gives a remarkable performance.

Linda plays Michal, a Polish archaeologist who meets a college student known only as "the Italian" (Iwona Petry) when his suicidal priest brother abandons his apartment. When the Italian expresses aggressive interest in taking over the lease, the archaeologist takes sexual advantage. She doesn't object but doesn't seem to like it either, until she turns to him mid-coitus with a "gotcha" smile that makes sense only as the story continues to unfold.

The two characters embark on what seems a mutually addictive, LAST TANGO-like sexual relationship within the claustrophobic apartment. One of their trysts becomes humorous in that, every time we assume it has ended, it begins again, for what seemed to me five times running, at which point the perspiring couple begin laughing themselves.

But, as in all Zulawski relationships, where there is desire, there is pain -- pain tapped by the impossibility of true spiritual connection. The Italian's emotions are played so as to seem rooted in the objectification and sexual imposition that all attractive women suffer, and though the film might sound exploitative, it paints a very bitter portrait of the indignities women endure in an exploitative culture.

But the Italian is more than she appears to be. As the story gains a sometimes baffling philosophic complexity, Michal is changed from sexual predator to the predated. (Often in Zulawski's work, the most initially repugnant characters become surprisingly sympathetic.) Here we see him literally brought to his knees by photos of details of the Italian's nude body, arranged into an icon appropriate to his new religion.

As the dialogue explains, the Italian is actually a szamanka (shaman or succubus) who, while Michal believed he was ejaculating inside of her, was in fact ejaculating "female sperm" inside of him, which has infested and taken possession of him. Consider this information only a semi-spoiler, as where their relationship finally takes them is, I think it is safe to say, astonishing.

While this bizarre love story is proceeding, Michal is having exciting times in his day job, as the ancient mummy of another shaman, male, is unearthed for the examination of his team. The shaman's body (discovered in possession of psylocybin and other antique hallucinogens) is covered in tattoo spirals and other arcane markings, and the back of his head has been shattered, ostensibly to permit the fleeing of his soul.

In a tremendous sequence, the archaeologic team appear to succumb to mass insanity as a result of exposure to the shaman's remains and undertake to revive him while getting high on his stash.

The moment when the mad team of scientists walk like Egyptians across the screen is simply one of the most impressively preposterous in Zulawski's filmography.

But greater still is the moment when -- possibly real, possibly hallucinated -- the shaman does revive and whispers words of wisdom into Michal's ear. Alas, it is too late for wisdom and the story to which the principals are doomed must play itself out, as indeed it did centuries before.

SZAMANKA (in Polish, the feminine form of "shaman") is available only as a Russian import DVD on the Premier Digital label. It is NTSC and all-region with French and Russian audio and English or Russian subtitles. (Alas, no Polish track so all the audio is dubbed -- with the Russian being dubbed over the French track in the manner of verbal subtitling.) Tony Simonelli at Xploited Cinema tells me he has only one copy left in stock, which they will not be renewing, so I would recommend that anyone interested in seeing this fascinating, mad picture should act... like yesterday.

Now Accepting Comments

By popular demand, Video WatchBlog is now accepting comments from its readers! In other words, now you can help me to do the work I so often don't want to do.

All 870 postings (to date) can now be commented on, but anything older than five days requires monitoring by me and will not appear immediately... but it will, once approved.

Mind you, the Comments box is not a letters page; the correct address for that is letterbox@videowatchdog.com. The comments are to be used for responses to what I post here on Video WatchBlog. Within that framework, I welcome and look forward to your participation.

What Gets Your Dark-On?

I recently saw a reference to DARKON (2006), a documentary about the gaming subculture, and thought to myself, "Now there's a word that should be hyphenated." So here's my latest contribution to the lingo of the horror culture: "dark-on." As in, "I've got a real dark-on for Jess Franco movies." Or "I've got a dark-on for H.P. Lovecraft stories."

Okay, people -- go to town with it! And don't forget to send me my cut, should it become profitable for you. ; )

In the meantime, tell me... What gets YOUR dark-on?

Blogging 'Bout the 'Dog

VIDEO WATCHDOG contributors par excellence Stephen R. Bissette and Sam Umland have devoted space in their blogs today to write about the milestone that is VW's forthcoming 150th issue. I was very touched to read these articles and commend them to your attention, and I am grateful to both of these gentlemen for what they expressed and for what they both continue to bring to VIDEO WATCHDOG itself. Click on their names and you will be taken there.

First Look: VIDEO WATCHDOG #150

A little late, but worth the wait!

Full details, free samples and the proverbial much much more now at the VW website's "Coming Soon!" page.

I'm Garrulous About Garrel

Here's my monthly link to my NoZone review in the pages of the current SIGHT AND SOUND, which this month is about two films by Philippe Garrel: I CAN NO LONGER HEAR THE GUITAR and EMERGENCY KISSES. Worth knowing about, especially for fans of Nouvelle Vague cinema and fans of the late Velvet Underground chanteuse Nico.

Waffling About Watchdog, Weight and Woodstock

Sam Umland has written a wonderful response to my previous posting's 20th year announcement at his 60x50 blog. Always thoughtful reading here and I commend it to your attention above and beyond his VW musings, which include an overview of his and wife Becky's long and valued affiliation with the magazine.

We have been receiving numerous calls, even from our printer, inquiring about the status of VW 150. Donna promises to have it to the printer by Monday, so it should be a busy weekend here at Chez Watchdog. Today, with temps pushing to 100° here in Cincinnati, the air conditioner went back into my office window to facilitate speedier and more pleasurable editing of the contents of VW 151.

Also, though I did not mention it on Tuesday (when it would have shared the spotlight with VW's 19th anniversary), Diane Pfister and I finished our screenplay THE WEIGHT OF SALT AND SOUL that same day after four months of steady, intensive and almost exclusive labor. The following day we made some additional changes to the 181-page manuscript and sent it around to our agent and some friendly readers for feedback. Our plan is now to take a week off and decide what we want to do next.

Yesterday I watched four movies in a day (Robbe-Grillet's EDEN AND AFTER, the four-hour director's cut of WOODSTOCK in Blu-ray, JUNO and THE SAILOR FROM GIBRALTAR), which is something I haven't done since... well, since I was who I used to be. I have owned a Grove Press hardcover of Marguerite Duras' novel THE SAILOR FROM GIBRALTAR for close to thirty years and have wanted to see the movie for as long. It was a great disappointment, as I find Tony Richardson's films almost invariably are. I thought the controversial JUNO was refreshing, savvy fun with a commendably subtle edgy subplot (had I been directing, Jason Bateman would have pulled out a copy of THE HEADLESS EYES rather than THE WIZARD OF GORE, though), and EDEN AND AFTER gave such a brilliant slant to the rest of the day that I think watching an art film at 10 or 11 every morning might be just the way to start my day.

WOODSTOCK remains one of my favorite movies, and its non-musical elements are becoming more poignant and fascinating with age. The bottom end of the disc's 5.1 TrueHD mix attests to how dully or just plain badly most of the bassists at Woodstock actually played, but let's hear it for the select few who make the movie's subwoofering bearable and melodic: Bruce Barthol of Country Joe and the Fish, John Entwistle of The Who, Larry Graham of Sly and the Family Stone, and god of all bass gods, Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane. Speaking of the Airplane, the disc's second disc of supplements includes something else I have waited more than thirty years to see: one of the earliest live performances of the then-not-yet-released "Volunteers," which appeared on the original soundtrack album set but has never been included in any cut of the movie. Legend has it that most of the band got dosed from a water jug before taking the stage at dawn, and by this point in the set, Jorma Kaukonen's guitar playing had become pre-grunge sludge and Marty Balin, clearly tripping his balls off, sings the words with a passion he could still summon when the song was fresh.

Now In Our 20th Year

According to Donna, who remembers such things, it was nineteen (19) years ago yesterday -- on June 15, 1990 -- that the first copies of the first issue of VIDEO WATCHDOG were delivered to our home.

We were unhappy with some unfortunate things about VW #1, which was ineptly printed and cut by a Kentucky company evidently unaccustomed to printing anything but business cards. The paper stock was like shirt cardboard and no two copies of the issue were uniform in height; I can remember Donna taking a paper cutter to the tops and bottoms of some copies in a mostly vain attempt to make all the pages in some individual copies the same size. It was a source of personal unhappiness to me that we were so short on photo material that I had to resort to drawings to fill certain gaps. I had won awards for art when I was in school, but it was a muscle I hadn't flexed in awhile and, at least to me, it showed. I do like the drawings I did for Craig Ledbetter's Venezuelan video piece, and The Letterbox (showing the unmistakable hand of Christopher Lee rising from a letter-strewn coffin); in fact, I was so pleased with the Letterbox art that it continued until our 9th issue, at which time I stumbled on our more playful way of introducing each issue's letters department -- which other magazines have sometimes tried to emulate.

But despite its production shortcomings, the issue had an impact (people still talk and write to me about "How To Read a Franco Film") and it launched an award-winning magazine that is now in its twentieth year of business and which, in some ways, has helped to change the face of the industry it writes about.

Better Yet, Read the Book

A couple of nights ago, I watched, for the first time in probably a quarter century, Karel Reisz's 1981 film of THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN -- one of those movies I find watchable though I don't really like it. However, after seeing it again, in HD no less, four things about it stood out for me as immensely likeable.

The first and most obvious thing is the splendid cinematography of Freddie Francis. The man was an auteur; I can recognize his work at a glance.

Secondly, the delightful presence of one Lynsey Baxter as Ernestina, the betrothed of the Meryl Streep-haunted Jeremy Irons. It's a sad comment on the vagaries of love that Irons stumbles about blind to the charms of this foxy Victorian, who is not only a dead ringer for Deborah Kerr in THE INNOCENTS (also photographed by Francis -- coincidence?) but also deft with a bow and arrow.

Thirdly, the great Leo McKern, whose glass eye is for some reason less noticeable or more believable than usual.

And finally, bravo to Irons for executing what is undoubtedly the most perfectly timed drunkard's fall I have ever seen in a film. Thank goodness someone has posted the entire movie in segments on YouTube, so I can direct you to this portion and timecode 1:30. I never tire of watching this.

YES

Sometimes I miss blogging.

When I miss it most is when I need to write something else on deadline, like my column for SIGHT & SOUND, and I realize halfway through the first paragraph (or sentence!) that my journalistic/criticism muscle has gone flabby from underuse. If this blog was ever good for anything other than entertaining you, it was for keeping this muscle in shape, and I'd like to get it back.

In case you're wondering what I've been doing... At the end of January, my path fortuitously recrossed with that of Diane Pfister, an old friend from my high school art class, after a gap of 35 years. Diane is a successful fine artist who lived and taught in London for twenty-five years before relocating with her husband and daughter to Connecticut two years ago. (You can visit her website and see some of her paintings here.) She and I began an enthusiastic correspondence, sharing ideas and comparing notes on life and art. One month into our letter-writing, Diane surprised me by admitting that she'd had experience in London in the late 1980s as an assistant director on various features and television series (including Jim Henson's THE STORYTELLER), during which time she had also written a screenplay. Naturally, I asked to read it. THE WEIGHT OF SALT AND SOUL, as it's called, turned out to be a rough diamond; its presentation was raw and it was actually unfinished, but its rich cast of characters and profound story -- an historical fish-out-of-water saga about a lone Native American and the well-meaning people who come to his aid -- were so impressive that I proposed helping her develop it into something saleable.

It was two days after receiving her script, on February 26, that I wrote the eight-line poem "845" that signalled my adieu to this blog. I knew I was getting involved in a big project, and that it has been.

Since March, Diane and I have developed her original 95-page acorn into a 190+ page oak that has since been pruned down to 175 pages, though it still lingers perhaps 10-15 pages shy of completion. We will be keeping the longest draft on file as insurance in case a cable miniseries should become its ultimate port, but we would prefer it to become a feature, which may mean losing as many as 50 of its pages. I'm not altogether sure it can be done. SALT AND SOUL is full of life and magic and incident and is easily the most commercial project I've ever been part of. While its drama and comic elements have broad mainstream appeal, it also has magic realist aspects and also some macabre touches. So, for most of this year, my mind has been more or less completely absorbed by this story and our process. I expect to finish the first draft within the coming week; then begins the work of getting feedback on what we've done, determining what if anything else remains to be do, and trying to place it.

Work on this project overtook my ongoing work on the ME AND THE ORGONE script, which is halfway finished though a complete treatment exists and won the approval of the book's original author, Orson Bean, and some other readers. Once I finish with SALT AND SOUL, I will most likely go back and try to finish ORGONE quickly. In the meantime, Diane and I also have another project we are discussing, a story that would initially take shape as a book (fiction or non-fiction, we're not sure; perhaps a combination of both) but eventually become another screenplay. We will see.

So my screenwriting muscle is in pretty good shape these days, but other material needs to be written each month if our bills are going to get paid, so I need to focus on getting my other muscle back as best I can. That muscle is in a different area of my head, and there are days when I miss that old plug-me-in-and-let-'er-rip efficiency.

So it's possible you may be seeing more activity here in times ahead. I still don't want to go back to the article-length entries I used to post here, but surely there's another, more reasonable way to go about this.

In case you are wondering, yes, VIDEO WATCHDOG #150 is running late -- more than a month behind schedule, unfortunately. All of the material is finished, in place, and illustrated, but Donna wants this special issue to include some special sale offers and is working on some new ads. It will be our June-August issue, and I will drop a note here when it is finally sent to our printer. Thank you for your patience, and please spread the word.

THE SHE BEAST in S&S

I review Michael Reeves' directorial debut THE SHE BEAST (Dark Sky Films) in the current June 2009 issue of SIGHT & SOUND, also readable at their website here.

Donna Lucas Accepts David J. Schow's "Donndo" Award

At the very end of last Saturday's Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award ceremony at WonderFest, David J. Schow -- the Brown Jenkin of Horror Fandom -- once again disrupted the proceedings to present his own awards. Rondo founder David Colton, who two years ago was recognized with Schow's "Nondo" Award, was this year presented with the "Coltondo" Award, while VIDEO WATCHDOG publisher/art director/shipper/receiver/receptionist/heart and soul Donna Lucas was feted with the "Donndo" Award. Schow explained the award by saying that Donna was required to share all of her Rondo Awards for Best Magazine with me, while I was winning Rondos independently of her.

My camera was running low on battery juice by the time this surprise event came about, so I missed David's introduction, but as Donna took the stage to receive her much-deserved solo recognition, I said "Damn the torpedoes" and recorded her short but ever-so-charming acceptance speech. You can see it on YouTube, here.

My Rondo Acceptance Speeches

Your erratic blogger receives not only the Best Blog Rondo but a red-hot smoocheroonie from Nurse Moan-eek. Photo (c) and courtesy of Eileen Colton, CHFB News.

This year's WonderFest played host to David Colton's presentation of the 2008 Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards, where I was honored to receive the awards for Best Writer and Best Blog (Video WatchBlog, natch). Jennifer Sorrels has kindly posted camcorded footage of much of the ceremony at YouTube, including footage of my two pre-scripted acceptance speeches, which you can see and hear by following these links...

Rondo recipients Cameron McCasland, Gary L. Prange, Linda "Nurse Moan-eek" Wylie, Michael Schlesinger (2007 Monster Kid of the Year), Tim Lucas and 2008 Hall of Famers Jim & Marian Clatterbaugh.

Best Blog
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTB8oclWsA0

Best Writer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sERAjJlu-w

Raymond "Coffin Ray" Castile, Cameron McCasland, Gary L. Prange, Linda Wylie, Michael Schlesinger, Tim Lucas, Jim & Marian Clatterbaugh, Larry Blamire, Donnie Waddell, RUE MORGUE editor Jovanka Vuckovic, and 2008 Monster Kid of the Year Joe Moe. Blocked from view at extreme left are Best Artist Ken Kelly and Coffin Ray's fetching translator, Sara "Saramonster" Lattis.

More camcorded Rondo clips and terrific WonderFest photos by Eileen Colton can be enjoyed at this thread on the Classic Horror Film Boards. I would especially recommend Coffin Ray's "Best Article" speech -- as always, a show stealer, and this year augmented by Sara Lattis' hilarious deadpan translations.

Back To THE LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN

One of the great pleasures of attending this year's WonderFest was getting to know better writer-director-actor-author-cartoonist-aw-c'mon-I'm-tired Larry Blamire and his lovely wife, actress and STICKY MAE GREY author Jennifer "Animala" Blaire, and I should know better. (Sorry, but I am easily infected by Blamirisms. I should be back to Normal sometime later this week... that is, if I go anywhere near Illinois.) This picture shows me with both sides of the equation AND their better halves, under the extraordinarily powerful lighting at Louisville's Crowne Plaza hotel, which was strong enough to make my hair photograph orange and Larry's to actually photograph white!!!!

Another great treat was attending the Kentucky premiere of their latest Bantam Street production THE LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN, which was immediately clutched to the collective bosom of the WonderFest crowd -- a disgusting yet heartwarming sight. When this as-yet-without-distribution meisterwerk comes to your town, do what the WonderFesters did and sing the "Fleming" song over the end credits. This moving ritual deserves to catch on like the toast your grandma and grandpa used to throw at the screenings of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, back before the turn of the century.

I make no bones about it: THE LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN is a prodigal return for Blamire and his gleefully mad repertory company. It manages to improve on the original LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA in every respect while also making the original more wonderful as the modest starting point for all this divine insanity. Anybody who thinks this guy is merely spoofing bad movies is missing the point. Movie clichés have never been sent up so unmercifully yet lovingly. Also, in my opinion, Blamire is the only genuine Surrealist working in the cinema today. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give it a celery.

Monsters Attack WonderFest 2009

As we all know, monsters are generally very benign critters, such as this Saucer-Man who kindly posed with VIDEO WATCHDOG publisher Donna Lucas at WonderFest 2009 in Louisville, Kentucky this past weekend. Saucer-Man pitches in to help at the Ultratumba Productions table on weekends. During the weeks, he works at a nearby restaurant as -- what else? -- a saucier.

Friendliness and good will initially seemed to be the case with this imposing, larger-than-life-sized, 3-D embodiment of Jack Davis' 6 ft. tall Frankenstein Monster, one of the many wondrous trappings of this year's Old Dark Clubhouse constructed by ODCH innkeeper Gary L. Prange. He was perfectly well-mannered during the day, as seen here with THE LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN writer-director-star Larry Blamire... but then, as night fell...

THE MONSTER RAN AMOK! He started by strangling me!

Then he grabbed LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN producer Michael Schlesinger! He attacked so quickly, so lethally, that Schlesinger had literally no time for one last pun! And (imagine this in a Huckleberry Hound voice) that's fast, man!

Then he moved on to MONSTERS FROM THE VAULT publishers Jim & Marian Clatterbaugh! He squeezed them together so tightly, their ampersand was no longer necessary!

And finally he grabbed Rondo Award-winner Linda "Nurse Moan-eek" Wylie, who tried to get away Scot free, but to no avail!

Unfortunately the attacks were not limited to the Frankenstein Monster. Donna later had the misfortune of an encounter with TV horror host Count Gore DeVol, who lured her into a false sense of security with pleasantries and saturdays and sundries until...

... he sank his fangs into her neck!

Fangs for the memories to the Rondo Award-winning WonderFest!

The Long and the Short of I VAMPIRI

Original Italian quattro-foglia (four-sheet), artwork by Arnaldo Putzu.

Pursuant to yesterday's post about the new DER VAMPIR VON NOTRE DAME (I VAMPIRI) release from Anolis Entertainment, the company's publicist Ivo Scheloske has sent me links to a pair of richly illustrated German-language web pages that compare the German and Italian versions of the film, and the Italian and US (THE DEVIL'S COMMANDMENT) versions. Danke to Ivo for the links; well worth checking out. The pages also contain Amazon.de links that will take you to where you can order the disc.

Der Nebula von Notre Dame

VIDEO WATCHDOG contributor Kim Newman and I are both honored to have work included in the newly published NEBULA AWARDS SHOWCASE 2009 (ROC, $16 US/$20 Canada), edited by Ellen Datlow.

Kim's contribution is an appreciation of author Michael Moorcock, the recipient of the 2009 Damon Knight Grand Master Award. (The book also includes Moorcock's story "The Pleasure Garden of Felipe Sagittarius," from his recent collection THE METATEMPORAL DETECTIVE.) My contribution is an essay about Guillermo del Toro's PAN'S LABYRINTH, the screenplay for which won a Nebula Award.

Kim, widely anthologized, must be used to this sort of thing, but it was a great kick for me to see my name highlighted on the back cover among the likes of Moorcock (a longtime hero), Barry N. Malzberg, Joe R. Lansdale, Jane Yolen, Michael Chabon and the illustrious Kim, among others. I thank Ellen Datlow for inviting me to work in such august company.

Go to your favorite bookstore now and buy it.

I also want to take a moment to recommend another new arrival. The German DVD company Anolis has followed their deluxe edition of Mario Bava's BLUTIGE SEIDE (BLOOD AND BLACK LACE) with an even more lavish presentation of DER VAMPIRE VON NOTRE DAME (I VAMPIRI). Unlike the domestic Image Entertainment release, which included the Italian version only, Anolis adds on the German version (which runs 4m longer than the Italian version, which was cut to appease the censor board) and also THE DEVIL'S COMMANDMENT, the US version containing additional exploitation footage.

Further sweetening the deal is a delightful, hour-long documentary, C'EST LA VIE, interviewing the great Swiss character actor Paul Muller, now 85 and living on a healthy pension somewhere near Rome. The program covers Muller's early life, early work in theater, and the films that preceded I VAMPIRI, then actually shows Muller reacting to scenes from the film, and wraps up with some generous comments about working with Jess Franco and Soledad Miranda on EUGENIE DE SADE. I am not sure I've ever seen Muller crack a smile onscreen, at least not a genuinely happy one, so it was a great pleasure to discover him to be such a charming, chuckling pixie offscreen. He's a very sharp 85, too, with valuable and unfaded memories of his long career.

Also included are trailers, still and poster galleries, and an interesting attempt to reconstruct the pre-credits sequence originally envisioned by Riccardo Freda, which was changed when he was replaced by Mario Bava in a rescue effort that required a rewriting of the narrative. English subtitles are provided, even for the Muller documentary, but these do not extend to Christian Kessler's German-language audio commentary. I'll be covering this important release in more detail in a future issue of VIDEO WATCHDOG.