To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.
Brain Teasers:
In which Italian Western does one of our anti-heroes attempt to rape the leading lady until he is stopped by the other anti-hero?
Kevin Ross knew that it was 15 FORCHE PER UN ASSASSINO,aka 15 SCAFFOLDS FOR A MURDERER, aka THE DIRTY FIFTEEN.
In what movie starring Robert Downey Jr. can some of Ennio Morricone's music for TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA be heard?
Kevin Ross and Bertrand van Wonterghem knew that it was SHERLOCK HOLMES A GAME OF SHADOWS.
Which actor, born in Switzerland, made Westerns for directors Sergio Corbucci, Giulio Petroni, Sam Peckinpah, Paul Martin, Rolf Olsen and Harald Reinl?
Bertrand van Wonterghem knew that it was Mario Adorf.
Which American actor made Westerns with directors Sergio Sollima, Claude Lelouch, Clint Eastwood, Giuliano Carnimeo, Gian Rocco and Maurizio Lucidi?
Bertrand van Wonterghem knew that it was Walter Barnes.
Which Danish actress appeared in movies with Maurice Ronet, Lee Van Cleef, Bent Mejding, John Agar, Lex Barker, Stephen Forsyth, Brad Harris and Dan Vadis?
Bertrand van Wonterghem knew that it was Ann Smyrner.
And now for some new brain teasers:
Which director, born in Moravia, made four features for Italian producers?
What is Italian Western actor Jeff Cameron's real name?
What is Dean Stratford's real name?
Name the movies from which these images came.
Bertrand van Wonterghem identified last week's frame grab of Lee Van Cleef and Graziella Granata in AL DI LA DELLA LEGGE, aka BEYOND THE LAW.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
Angel Rivera identified last week's frame grab of the Trojan horse from L'AMANTE DI PARIDE, aka LOVES OF THREE QUEENS.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
No one identified the above photo yet.
Can you name from what movie it came?
No one identified the above photo yet.
Can you name from what movie it came?
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I am interested in knowing what movies you have watched and what you enjoyed or not. So please send me an email at scinema@earthlink.net if you'd like to share. Here's what I watched last week:
Enjoyed:
JEFF (1969) - Having become a fan of Alain Delon after seeing MELODIE EN SOUS-SOL, I went to every one of his films which showed up, even though most were in French with Japanese subtitles. I fell in love with this film under those viewing circumstances, partly, I think, because I could figure out the plot. And the photography by Jean-Jacques Tarbes with music (again) by Francois de Roubaix enchanted me. It was also the first time I saw Mireille Darc on the screen. This was the first feature film from producer Alain Delon's Adel Productions, made on a low budget and shot mostly in Belgium. Watching it again, now with English subtitles, I can better understand why it does not have a better reputation in France, as the plot is pretty basic. Georges Rouquier plays Jeff, the mastermind and leader of a gang that pulls off a diamond heist, involving the kidnapping of the store owner's wife. Alain Delon plays Jeff's "right hand" man, who quickly senses a challenge from the "fast on the trigger" Frederic de Pasquale. Delon, de Pasquale, Jean Saudray, Albert Medina, and Gabriel Jabbour wait for Jeff at a boxing gym to show up with the money paid for the jewels. After Jeff is hours late to arrive, everybody but Delon is convinced that they've been cheated. Leaving Saudray to guard Delon in the gym, the gang sets off to torture Jeff's wife, Darc, for information by burning her on her back with bare hot light bulbs. Eventually, Delon escapes, gathers Darc, and sets off to Belgium following some clues to find Jeff. As in LE SAMOURAI, JEFF has modern day French gangsters relying on Old West style fast draws which I find a bit jarring, but I've accepted it over the past fifty years. De Roubaix romantic guitar theme music remains a big favorite of mine which I used on my first Super 8mm feature.
ROMA CONTRO ROMA, aka ROME AGAINST ROME, aka WAR OF THE ZOMBIES (1964) - "A council of Rome is forbidden to believe in magic. A council of Rome can not believe in fantasy. He must only believe in what he can feel, see and touch." So complains Ettore Manni in the English version of ROMA CONTRO ROMA. The fact that Manni must battle the evil magic of John Drew Barrymore is what causes such a line. This movie seems to have come about when writers/producers Ferruccio De Martino and Massimo De Rita sat down to try and figure out another way to reuse the impressive battle footage from COSTANTINO IL GRANDE, aka CONSTANTINE AND THE CROSS. Possibly it was the success of a number of Italian Horror films in the U.S. that inspired them to marry that footage to an Horror film premise. In the Orient, Barrymore opposes Roman conquest and prays to the Goddess for the power to resurrect dead Roman soldiers to make an undead Army. (Where the gang of sub-human "monsters" came from is not explained.) It is kind of refreshing that a film uses the Haitian concept of zombies as mindless men animated by the will of a sorcerer. Barrymore even gives the evil Susy Andersen a doll with which she can kill our hero, Ettore Manni, by plunging a needle into it. Why this doesn't work isn't explained, unless we are to suppose this is another by-product of what Ida Galli put on his arm after she regretted attacking him with a sword. As usual the screenplay by Piero Pierotti and Marcello Sartarelli is a confusing mess, but how much of that has to do with the shortening of the movie, and how much because of an obvious low-budget? In any case, director Giuseppe Vari and cinematographer Gabor Pogany deliver an atmospheric thriller featuring one marvelous set, with art direction by Giorgio Giovannini, and a strong performance by John Drew Barrymore, whose marvelous voice graces the English language version. Tossing in some footage from ANNIBALE, aka HANNIBAL, the filmmakers try their best to give the film some sense of scope, but superimposing colored cloud-like effects to suggest the supernatural during the battle scenes is only mildly effective. With a low hanging "fog" obscuring much of the ground in the film, ROMA CONTRO ROMA is a fun watch. Curiously, while this film hit U.S. theaters as WAR OF THE ZOMBIES, and U.S. television as NIGHT STAR: GODDESS OF ELECTRA, the only copies of this film to turn up have the ROME AGAINST ROME title on them. The English versions all seem to be come from an U.K. home video release. The version on YouTube is much better and seems to have come from a French source.
GLI INVINCIBILI SETTE, aka THE SECRET SEVEN (1963) - Director Alberto De Martino began his feature film career with three "sword & sandal" films starring Richard Harrison. In one of those films, the Nazi-like tyrant was played by Gerard Tichy, who had been a Nazi during World War 2. Tichy is back being evil in this film, in which Tony Russel takes over as the hero from Harrison. Rebel leader Massimo Serato - back to playing a good guy after years of being a villain - is captured by Tichy's mercenaries and condemned to death. Luckily, the mysterious Russel shows up to buy five prisoners from the local labor camp. Russel promises freedom, and some money, to Renato Baldini, Livio Lorenzon, Barta Barri, Jose Marco and Cris Huerta, if they do a little job. The job is to free Serato from the public cage in which he has been condemned to starve to death. Russel turns out to be Serato's long lost brother, but after they find that Tichy's mercenaries have killed most everyone in Serato's village - including their mother Emma Baron, the two become seven as the other criminals decide to become freedom fighters - especially if it means disrupting Tichy's supply of taxes to pay for the mercenaries. Our heroes capture the well-dressed Tomas Blanco on his way to see Tichy, and soon discover that he is an architect from Athens commissioned to build a villa for Tichy's financee. Assuming the disguise of the architect, Russel enters the villain's palace, only to find that Tichy's fiancee is his own long lost love Helga Line. She's not evil, she just wants financial security. With Barri playing his servant, Russel goes through a number of Zorro-like escapades, raiding the bad guys wearing a helmet to cover his identity, and then sneaking back to the palace to be the mild-manner architect. After Barri discovers the location of Tichy's treasury, the film becomes a heist movie as the seven plan a way to prevent the villain from being able to pay his mercenaries. Unfortunately, Tichy's spies discover the seven's hideout, and threaten to burn at the stake Line, Blanco and Serato's son Pedro Mari Sanchez. Of course the good guys triumph in the end, and breaking the tradition of SEVEN SAMURAI and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, none of them die on the way. Some of Carlo Franci's music cues sound very much like what he would use again for MACISTE E LA REGINA DI SAMAR, aka HERCULES AGAINST THE MOON MEN, but it works. Director of photography Eloy Mella, who previous shot three of De Martino's films, delivers some fine widescreen work here. Russel brings a light-hearted energy to the film, which helps to make it a very enjoyable romp, though it is odd to see Cris Huerta in the role of the mute strong man.
Mildly enjoyed:
ALTISSIMA PRESSIONE, aka HIGHEST PRESSURE (1965) - The novelty of watching an Italian Pop Musical from the mid-1960s is fun, though you have to wait about 40 minutes before Rosemary Dexter finally shows up. Dino plays a wannabe songwriter who can't get anyone to listen to his song. While taking it around, he sees many Italian pop acts including Ricky Shayne, The Rokes, Fabrizio Capucci, Gianni Morandi, Michele, Edoardo Vianello, Anna Maria Izzo, Francoise Hardy (She's French and she doesn't show up until about an hour into the film), Peppino Gagliardi, Nicola Di Bari, Lucio Dalla and Lando Fiorini. The only song given a credit is "Tutti noi Giovani" sung by Stelvia Ciani. Someone does an Italian version of "Where Did Our Love Go", while someone else (Was it Lucio Dalla?) does an Italian version of "(Remember) Walking In the Sand". There is no effort made to have the singers look like they are performing live, and they ignore microphones when some are around. Audience responses are completely out-of-sync with the performers. I've been a fan of Peppino Gagliardi singing the theme song to BALLATA PER UN PISTOLERO for 40 years, so it is nice to put a face to the voice - though the song he does here isn't an instant favorite. Fresh-face Michaela Esdra is Dino's long suffering girlfriend, so when they are at a party playing "spin the bottle" and every girl there wants to kiss Dino, she walks out. Especially after he starts chatting up Dexter - with a leg in a plaster cast, who seems to have the money and connections to get Dino's song recorded. Later, when Esdra can't find Dino anywhere, she leaves a note saying that she's going to kill herself. Dino comes back, reads the note, and gets every radio station to play his song with the message to find Esdra. All of Rome participates in the search, but Esdra isn't found until the morning by a railway worker, who takes her to a cafe where she is showered with sandwiches and attention. When Dino and all of the gang arrive, the couple run to each other. She slaps him. He slaps her back. They then hug and are carried off by the gang "la-la-laing" "Here Comes the Bride". The film ends, as it began, with all of the young people energetically twisting, swimming and frugging. At one point, the gang convinces Mimmo Poli to turn his salami store into the "Catacomba Club", which he agrees to mostly because he likes staring at the women's bottoms as they gyrate maniacally. Born in 1922, director Enzo Trapani never made a movie of which I've heard, but he worked steady on TV until his death in 1989. The most interesting element of this movie is that the incidental music is by Ennio Morricone and Luis Enriquez - who will add Bacalov to his name when he and Morricone collaborated on the music for QUIEN SABE?, aka A BULLET FOR THE GENERAL.
THE LOST CITY OF Z (2016) - It is a sorry commentary on the state of the movie industry that a film of epic scope is released by "Amazon Studios" when it should be seen on the biggest theater screens. David Grann wrote the novel inspired by the history of explorer Percy Fawcett, which was adapted for the screen by James Gray, who was obviously inspired by director David Lean's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. While Lean dealt with the Arabian desert on an huge budget, Gray shows the Amazonian jungle on a minor budget - shooting mostly in Colombia. Both fictionalize the life of a real person, and both end with an unsolved mystery, Another obvious inspiration is director Francis Ford Coppola's APOCALYPSE NOW, to which the journey up the river bares resemblance. THE LOST CITY OF Z proves to be quite moving as it also deals with the hardships and sacrifice endured by Fawcett's wife and children who were left behind while he disappeared on his explorations. That he would return from Amazonia only to be sent off to fight in World War I also adds to the pathos of the tale. I knew nothing of Fawcett before watching this movie, so I fully expected that this movie would have a triumphant "Hollywood" ending - which it doesn't. That is just one of the surprises I had. I am also surprised at how convincing actors Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson and Sienna Miller are in the lead roles. In the last half, Tom Holland as Jack Fawcett is astounding. Franco Nero even puts in a memorable cameo as the owner of a rubber plantation. Orignally, this project was intended to star Brad Pitt, who decided to make WORLD WAR Z instead. However, his company, Plan B., carried on as one of the producers. Iranian Director of Photography Darius Khondji provides some astonishing images.
Did not enjoy:
TWENTIETH CENTURY (1936) - Charles Bruce Millholland wrote NAPOLEON OF BROADWAY, with uncredited contributions from Gene Fowler and Preston Sturges, based on his experience working for Broadway producer David Belasco. The play was never produced, but the writers of the hit play THE FRONT PAGE, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, took the material and fashioned it into the hit play TWENTIETH CENTURY in 1932. Two years later, Hollywood producer/director Howard Hawks brought the show to the silver screen for what many consider to be the first "screwball comedy". Hawks has made a number of films I love, and a number of films I loath. Everything I've read about the stage production of TWENTIETH CENTURY convinces me that it was a marvelous show. In "opening up" the play for the movies, I think the filmmakers fumbled the material, though stars John Barrymore and Carole Lombard shine in the lead roles.
THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (1971) - The only Amicus Horror anthology film that works for me is TORTURE GARDEN, but that maybe only nostalgia for I saw it at a particular time in my youth. I had seen DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS before that, but that didn't grip me. Many feel that THE HOUSE THE DRIPPED BLOOD is saved by the final story, just as TORTURE GARDEN is saved by "The Man Who Collected Poe". But "The Cloak" only succeeded in tainting my appreciation of SCARS OF DRACULA, because Jon Pertwee's complaints about the set of the vampire movie upon which he is working seemed precisely how I imagined Christopher Lee felt on the set of that Hammer film. Considering that Lee also appeared in HOUSE, with "Sweets To the Sweet", it seems odd that an actor who played Doctor Who was given the role of the actor who played in vampire movies. It also seems odd that Pertwee comments about how he prefers "Bela Lugosi" over that "new fellow". "The Cloak" does feature a marvelous turn by Geoffrey Bayldon as the man giddy to finally be rid of the cloak. Fans of the 1967 version of The Forsyte Saga will enjoy the opportunity to see Nyree Dawn Porter in color, but Nicola Pagett fans may wonder why she got no credit though her photograph featured so promenently in "Waxworks". Based on old previously published short stories by Robert Bloch, THE HOUSE THE DRIPPED BLOOD seemed old fashioned when it came out in theaters, and features not a drip of blood.
JERICHO (2000) - This Western starts off with a mystery. Late one night, a sheriff signs for a shipment of money at the train station. Suddenly, Mark Valley, in his underwear, races onto the scene and blows the sheriff's head off with a shotgun. A saloon girl suddenly appears, and clobbers Valley over the head with a piece of wood. Two other men show up, take hold of the money bag, and drag Valley off to an empty railroad car after scaring off a trio of horses. When Marshal R. Lee Ermey shows up, he declares that he wants whomever killed his friend the sheriff, sees the horse tracks leading out of town, and heads a posse after the horses. Down the track, the two men with the money bag, dump Valley's body off the train as a "Christmas dinner for the buzzards". Moseying along, Black preacher Leon Coffee comes across Valley's body, finds that he is still alive, and nurses him back to health. Naturally, Valley has no memory, but he tags alone with Coffee. While getting a drink in a saloon, Valley comes to the defense of his friend who is threatened by some White guys who don't want a Black man in their saloon. When Coffee explains that he doesn't carry a gun, the White guys offer him one with holster. But it is Valley who takes it, and while he can't remember his own identity, he proves to be quite adept with shooting. Racing out of town to avoid more trouble, Valley and Coffee soon take on a number of jobs - including working a cattle drive and panning for gold, on their way to Coffee's homestead. Coffee insists that Valley put away his gun. Finally, they reach Coffee's home, which borders Indian land as Coffee's wife is Native American Kateri Walker. Valley decides that he wants to spend the night in a nearby town, which gives an opportunity for a group of White guys to show up to rape Walker. Coffee tries to stop them, and even takes away one of their guns and kills one, before being clobbered on the back of the head. When Valley returns, he finds Coffee dead, hanging by a rope. The three remaining rapists explain that they killed him for killing a White man. Valley retrieves his retired gun and kills them. Valley and Walker part ways, and eventually Valley wanders into a town which holds the answers to the mysteries set up at the beginning of the film. After being thought dead for seven years, will Valley be able to return to his real identity and family in the end? Obviously, writers Frank Dana Frankolino, George Leonard Briggs and Robert Avard Miller intended to create an Epic Western, but co-producer and director Merlin Miller was only able to pull together low-budget money TV star Mark Valley would go on to star in the cult TV series Keen Eddie and Human Target before joining the cast of Boston Legal. Here he's one of those old fashioned Westerners who mostly looks clean shaven even though we never see him shave. When he starts to recover his memory, that's when the stubble comes out.
Mr. Murder (1998) - A two part, four hour TV mini-series for ABC, based on a novel by Dean Koontz, Mr. Murder is an overlong and irritating Doppleganger story. The synopsis of the novel in Wikipedia sounds like it was better, starting out when the character played by Stephen Baldwin discovers The Other, played by Stephen Baldwin, trying to take over his life. The TV version starts off with Thomas Haden Church okaying the murder of a gifted athlete, who is also a 4.0 student, so that his group can steal the young man's blood sample to use in their experiment to create the perfect assassin. It seems to me that it shouldn't be necessary to murder someone in order to get a sample of their blood, but that kind of logic doesn't seem to bother telewriter Stephen Tolkin. Church is hoping to impress his father, James Coburn, with the success of his project - which is to create a genetically modified enhanced Super Assassin. Unfortunately, some nurses horse around with the blood samples, and Church ends up with acclaimed mystery writer Stephen Baldwin's blood, because he happened to be in the same hospital as the dead guy. This is an example of why test tubes should be clearly labeled at the time the blood was taken. Tolkin tosses in some mumbo jumbo about how this Other, called "Alfie", is designed to mature quickly, heal quickly from wounds and develop telepathic abilities. That results in Baldwin suddenly having visions of what "Alfie" is doing, and of "Alfie" suddenly imagining that he has a wife and children. In a quest to steal Baldwin's life, "Alfie" leaves a trail of dead bodies, which, naturally, get blamed on Baldwin. Luckily, at one point, Church thinks that he's retrieved "Alfie" and proceeds to inform Baldwin that his computer tablet holds all of the information about the conspiracy within the U.S. government to make a better world by assassinating everyone they think is a potential problem. After a series of annoying scenes of identity confusion on behalf of his wife, Julie Warner, and his children - Britney Lee Harvey and a 12 year old Kaley Cuoco, Baldwin triumphs and then takes his family into hiding. 18 months later, the information he released to the press results in an investigation that ends the conspiracy. In the novel, one of the killers sent to eliminate Baldwin's family decides to inform the authorities and helps to take down the bad guys. The TV movie ends with Baldwin and his family continuing to be on the run, setting sail for Bora-Bora, but still making money as a writer using a pseudonym. Dick Lowry took a break from making Kenny Rogers' The Gambler TV movies to make this, before he went on to do Atomic Train.
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Charles Gilbert Watched:
FIRE (1977) Appears to be a made-for-tv movie from "cheap master" Irwin Allen; set in the north west lumbering town of Silverton, and starring Ernest Borgnine. He tries his luck at romancing widow Vera Miles, but is more than preoccupied fighting forest fires. Aspiring doctors Alex Cord and Patty Duke are considering divorce, but out-of-control forest blazes put that in abeyance when her father Lloyd Nolan turns his car on it's top in the inferno. Donna Mills chaperones a school bus full of kids out in the woods, and loses one in the chaos.
THE LAST CHASE (1981) Inane scifi with Lee Majors living in 2001 where vehicles have been banned. He's an ex racecar driver, and now spokesman for the mass transit bureau, but without natural conviction. After he revives his formula Porcshe and heads cross country, the tyrants of the Society of Tranquilty send aging retired jet fighter Burgess Meredith after him in his F-89 Sabre.
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Angel Rivera Enjoyed:
"OPPENHEIMER" (2023)
Very interesting. I don't know how historically accurate it is, but it is well presented. Thought provoking and holds up even at 3 hours.
"STAR PILOT/2 + 5: MISSIONE HYDRA" (1966/1977)
Bought the new Blu-Ray and found that the "alternate English" dub was just the "STAR PILOT" dub without the added footage from other movies as it was originally released . Fascinating Italian sci-fi.
"SUPERMAN and the MOLE MEN" (1951)
Read an article calling this film the "best Superman movie ever". As a message against bigotry and xenophobia, it still holds up well. Even with the low budget special effects. Great performances by the leads and done well for its kind.
"TOMBSTONE" (1993)
Every time I watch this movie, its like an old friend. Great and memorable performances by all. Worth each repeat
viewing.
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Bertrand van Wonterghem Enjoyed:
Miracle workers – season 1 – episodes 3 to 7
Miracle workers: dark ages – 10 episodes
The outcasts – episode “Act of faith” (1968, Marc Daniels)
Puss in boots (cartoon) (1934, Ub Iwerks)
Mildly enjoyed:
Le diable par la queue (1968, Philippe de Broca)
Alphonse président – season 1 – episodes 9 & 10
Did not enjoy:
Apaches (2022, Romain Quirot)
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David Deal enjoyed:
BLACK MOON (34)
THE PROFESSIONAL (81)
THE 3RD VOICE (60) - Edmond O'Brien is a dead ringer for a big shot executive who just spurned his secretary/lover Loraine Day, so Day hires O'Brien to kill the cad and impersonate him to steal a fortune. Things seem to go well, for a while. Low budget Hitchcockian suspenser that entertains despite some irritating elements. The resolution comes out of left field, but I liked it. Day is as beautiful, smart, and tough as nails as one could hope.
DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS (64)
ATTACK OF THE MOORS (59) - In the 15th century, the heathen hordes of the Middle East are pressing along the border between France and Spain. The Count of Besancon (Rik Bataglia) and Lancelot (Andrea Scotti) are assigned the task of providing safe passage for the children of royalty away from a castle in the region about to be under siege. Along the way, they pick up a couple of gypsies (including Franco Fantasia) who come in handy during the various scrapes are heroes find themselves. Rousing adventure from Mario Costa that features Liana Orfei, Livio Lorenzon, and the top billed Chelo Alonso, who's barely in the first hour.
ASTEROID CITY (23)
CARPET OF HORROR (62)
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