To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.
Brain Teasers:
Which actor, born in Los Angeles in 1932, appeared in 14 "sword and sandal" films before starring in Italian Westerns?
No one has answered this question yet.
Which Italian actress made at least two Italian sword and sandal movies, but her one Western was for an British producer?
No one has answered this question yet.
Which actor, born in Northern Ireland, made five Westerns in Spain, but only one for an Italian director?
No one has answered this question yet.
Which actor, born in Germany, began his film career when he was spotted in Spain on vacation by director Duccio Tessari?
No one has answered this question yet.
And now for some new brain teasers:
Which Italian actress came to the attention of filmmakers by winning a competition for "Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia" in 1957?
Which Italian actress became an UNESCO goodwill ambassador for the Defense of Women's Rights in March, 2000?
Which Italian actress received the first Nastro d'Argento award for Best Actress in 1965?
Name the movies from which these images came.
No one identified the above frame grab.
It shows John Desmont and Jeff Cameron in ANCHE PER DJANGO LE CAROGNE HANNO UN PREZZO, aka EVEN FOR DJANGO, CARRION HAS A PRICE, aka DJANGO'S CUT PRICE CORPSES.
No one has identified the above photo yet.
Can you name from what movie it came?
No one has identified the above photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
No one identified the above photo.
It shows Tomisaburo Wakayama bringing down the sword in LONE WOLF AND CUB: SWORD OF VENGEANCE. This scene was also used in the U.S. version called SHOGUN ASSASSIN.
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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:
Right To Offend: The Black Comedy Revolution part one The Revolutionaries (2022)
Mildly enjoyed:
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season five (2017-18)
ANCHE PER DJANGO LE CAROGNE HANNO UN PREZZO, aka EVEN FOR DJANGO, CARRION HAS A PRICE, aka DJANGO'S CUT PRICE CORPSES (1971) - How this film ended up with the title DJANGO'S CUT PRICE CORPSES is a mystery. A direct translation of the Italian title would make more sense. Wikipedia is correct in that scenes from this movie helped to fill out the running time for LA COLT ERA IL SUO DIO, aka GOD IS MY COLT. The nonsensical opening stagecoach robbery and massacre of the small town in COLT came from this film, though in different parts of the movie. The massacre of the small town opens CAROGNE, and makes as much sense here as it does in COLT, though from the dialogue later it may have been intended to relate to the robbery of the Silver Town Bank - though we never see any effort at robbery. Another scene reused in COLT is the kidnapping of a young woman, though this time the bad guys want the location of a gold mine; not a silver mine. I guess the actress in CAROGNE is Dominique Badou, while the actress in COLT is Krista Nell. Badou doesn't seem to have had much of a career, which is too bad as she seems to be game for this kind of stuff as she goes topless for the attempted rape scene. Behind the name Mark Devis, Gianfranco Clerici has a death scene in CAROGNE which is reused for the climax of COLT, but his role here is much smaller. Anyway, CAROGNE introduces our hero, Jeff Cameron, as he enters a posada while the Bud Spencer-like John Desmont is brawling with a room full of thugs. It turns out that they think he lost his saddle, along with all of his money and his pony, in a poker game, and Desmont won't give up his grandfather's saddle. Cameron announces that he is a bounty killer who is out to get the Cortez brothers, and even orders four coffins for them. Gengher Gatti is dealing cards and informs Cameron that he too wants the Cortez brothers, but in order to get them to reveal where they hid the gold from the Silver Town Bank. In the end, after a lot of punching and shooting, we discover that everyone has a secret. Cameron is actually Django, the finance of Badou. The four Cortez brothers are actually three men and a sister, Esmeralda Barros. Again I was in suspense wondering if the filmmakers were going to have our hero kill a woman, and, as in COLT, they contrive a ridiculous way for someone else to kill her. I am certain that some Italian Western fans will be disappointed that only one Cortez brother falls into his coffin as he dies. Director Luigi Batzella uses his usual pseudonym of Paolo Solvay in these credits, and shares the writing blame with Mario De Rosa and Gaetano Dell'Era. The print that I watched doesn't tell us whom to blame for the English version. I'm not certain that the music by Vassil Kojucharov is different from what I heard in COLT, but it helps the film a bit.
QUELLE SPORCHE ANIME DANNATE, aka THOSE FILTHY DAMNED SOULS, aka PAID IN BLOOD (1971) - This is from where LA COLT ERA IL SUO DIO got the entire land swindle plot, all of Donal O'Brien's stuff, and most of Krista Nell's part. The only shot of Nell in COLT that doesn't come from here is the shot where Jeff Cameron says goodbye to her and crosses the bridge. Gianfranco Clerici is the main bad guy behind the land swindle deal. For COLT, director Luigi Batzella only needed to shoot Clerici untying Esmeralda Barros and then the two of them taking off their city duds and putting on the Mexican duds to have them match their footage from CAROGNE. To a degree, this re-editing of already existing footage into a third movie is clever, if you don't mind that all three movies are rather stupid and unexciting. A man with a spy glass watches Lorenzo Piani leave a bank with an handful of cash. A passing peddler sees the man with the spy glass and says that it looks like "Ringo Brown". Piani is robbed by a river, and shot to death when he doesn't give up his cash. The shooter takes the cash out of Piani's pocket and it has blood all over it. Shortly thereafter, Jeff Cameron meets the peddler and asks him if he's heard any shooting recently. The peddler says that he heard something down by the river, and, by the way, he saw Ringo Brown in the area. Cameron finds Piani, who is his brother, dead by river with a bloody dollar bill nearby. Cameron walks into a cantina just as Alfredo Rizzo brags about how he's found gold and made a map so that he doesn't forget where it is. Three men in the cantina follow Rizzo outside, konk him on the head, and steal the map. Of course, Cameron shows up, asks the three if any of them are Ringo Brown and makes them give back the map. Naturally, the three men try to ambush Cameron and Rizzo on the trail - in footage that also appears in COLT. This is from where Cameron's use of a pistol stock, which also pops up in COLT, comes into play. This also explains why the pistol stock is only used sometimes in COLT, depending on whether the action scenes were from DANNATE (with) or CAROGNE (without). Cameron ends up helping Rizzo stop Clerici's effort to steal his ranch while continuing to ask around for Ringo Brown. Attilio Dottesio is the sheriff in DANNATE, but he isn't nearly as helpful to our hero as he is in COLT. Aldo Barni gets sole writing credit, though Ralph Zucker takes the blame for the English version, with sync assistant Uti Hof, and adaptation by Ian Danby. The music is very different from what you hear in CAROGNE as it is by a different composer - Elsio Mancuso. These Paolo Solvay films were certainly part of the blame for Italian Westerns losing their popularity.
NASSER ASPHALT, aka WET ASPHALT (1958) - Reportedly based on a true events, WET ASPHALT tells the story of a young journalist, played by Horst Buchholz, who was imprisoned for sneaking into Spandau Prison to interview Nazi war criminals. As he leaves prison, he's met by a driver, played by Gert Frobe, who wants to take him to see the famous journalist Martin Held. Held tells Buchholz that he used his influence to get the young man released early in order for him to become Held's assistant. There is a montage during which Buchholz narrates how content he is as Held has taken him around the world and has even edited his copy for publication under Held's byline. A complication arrives in the form of Held's neice, Maria Perschy, who is to stay with Held while going to university in Berlin. Eager to take Perschy to dinner, Held realizes that he doesn't have a story to send to Paris for their weekend editions. In the kitchen, Held overhears Frobe talking to his wife, Inge Meyser, about the time he was trapped in a bunker during the war. Quickly calling Buchholz to take dictation, Held invents a story about a group of German soldiers trapped in a bunker in Poland for six years who were only recently discovered, with only one survivor who is now blind. Buchholz sends out the story, which causes a sensation in the Paris newspapers. There is such a sensation, that a U.S. news service in London orders their correspondent in Poland to check out the story. It is the time of the Iron Curtain, so the newspaperman asks for permission to visit the bunker, but the Communists refuse. They know that the story is a fabrication, and conclude that it must be a C.I.A. plot to visit an area where the Communists are planning military maneuvers. Soon, the German Red Cross is overwhelmed by familes of soldiers missing during the war demanding the names of those trapped in the bunker, and who is the survivor? Held says that he got the story from an informant in Warsaw who telephoned that the Polish government won't reveal the names. Later, Buchholz tries to make a phone call from where Held said he talked to his informant, and finds that the restaurant is still waiting for a phone to be installed. Realizing that he's been a part of a journalistic hoax, Buchholz must decide whether to jeopardize his new life or tell the truth. Helmut Ashley captures this story beautifully on black and white film, while one-time Hollywood director Frank Wisbar tells the tale with clarity. However, the role filled by Maria Perschy seems tacked on to give the film some sex appeal for male viewers, while female viewers get an eyeful of the "German James Dean". I've not been able to find anything on the internet to confirm that this really is based on a true story.
THE MAGICIAN (1926) - Alice Terry is a sculptor in Paris, when an huge piece upon which she is working falls on her, injuring her spine. Luckily, her rich uncle Firmin Gemier knows of visiting American surgeon Ivan Petrovich who seems like a magician when working on spinal injuries. As Petrovich labors over Terry in a surgical theater, Magician Paul Wegenier bristles over an overheard conversation comparing surgery to magic. Saving a life is nothing compared to creating a new one, he muses. Towards that end, Wegenier seeks out an old book on magic in the Library of the Arsenal, and rips out the page containing the formula for creating a new life. Since the "Blood from the Heart of a Maiden" is required, why does Wegenier focus on getting Terry's blood when there are certainly many other maidens about? Lessons to be learned from this movie - don't let your fiancee remain a "maiden" before your wedding. She'd have been safe if she and Petrovich had had premarital sex. Another lesson is don't take the woman you've hypnotized to Monte Carlo to gamble before taking her to your tower for the experiment. If he'd taken her straight there, then he wouldn't have lost her to her uncle and our hero and then have to kidnap her again. Another lesson to be learned, is don't let your hunchback dwarf assistant answer the door while you are conducting your evil experiment. More than likely, he'll let in the guys who are going to stop you from completing your task. And, finally, don't have such a large door to your flaming furnace into which you plan to toss the hero. Well, you can guess what happens. Born in Ireland in 1892, Reginald Ingram Montgomery Hitchcock became Rex Ingram when he began working in the movies in 1913. He would become one of the most respected directors of the silent era, cited as an influence by Michael Powell and David Lean. Shot in France for Hollywood's Metro-Goldwyn, THE MAGICIAN was one of a number of films Ingram made after moving to Europe with his actress/wife Alice Terry. The film is remarkable as a model for future mad scientist movies which continued to use exploding towers on steep mountains as in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN. And for conducting experiments on stormy nights with flashes of lightning. Ingram only made one film after sound came, and then retired from the movies. THE MAGICIAN was based on a 1908 novel by W. Somerset Maugham, which, reportedly, was inspired by the antics of Aleister Crowley. No one makes the joke about creating a new life by using a different part of a maiden than her heart's blood.
Did not enjoy:
LE NOTTI DEL TERRORE, aka THE NIGHTS OF TERROR, aka BURIAL GROUND (1981) - Producer Gabriele Crisanti says that at the time this movie was made sex and horror made for a successful box office. However, they could only go so far with the sex. As far as bloody gore they had free reign. The template for LE NOTTI DEL TERRORE was director Lucio Fulci's ZOMBI 2. Fulci had zombies that dripped maggots, so this movie had zombies that dripped maggots. Fulci had a zombie grab a woman by her hair through a window and impale her on glass through her eye, Here a zombie grabbed a woman through a window and impaled her on glass through her temple. LE NOTTI did not have a zombie versus shark scene, and it had Etruscan zombies rather than Haitian ones. Piero Regnoli got screenplay credit, but this film doesn't really seem to have been thought out beyond a few plot ideas. There was some vague comment about Etruscan magic, but no real explanation for why corpses are walking around eating living people. And these corpses can use tools and even a battering ram. What most people remember about this movie was the little boy (played by a 25 year little person) Peter Bark, aka Pietro Barzocchini, who tried to stick his hand up his mother's dress. Later, as a resurrected dead, Bark was offered by mother Mariangela Giordano her naked breast to suckle, which he proceeded to chew off. Director Andrea Bianchi brought no artistry or logic to the proceedings, but he showcased the gore effects by Gino De Rossi, Mauro Gavazzi and Rosario Prestopino in abundance, which many fans loved. Professor Renato Barbieri was banging around some ancient location when a panel slid open and walking corpses began to eat him. The next day, three couples, one with a child, arrived at the estate where the archaeological site was found. A maid and a butler showed the couples to their rooms, where they all at least attempted to make love. When Gianluigi Chirizzi and Karin Well attempted to make love in the garden, they were attacked by walking corpses. The nine living people then spend the next hour or so running away until every one of them was killed. The film ended with some bullshit quote from the "Profecy of the Black Spider" which echoed DAWN OF THE DEAD's ad line "When there's no more room in Hell the dead will walk the Earth".
TENTACOLI, aka TENTACLES (1976) - Egyptian born Ovidio G. Assonitis began as a film distributor in South East Asia, until 1969 when he began working in the Italian film industry as a producer. In 1974, he decided to become a director using the name Oliver Hellman for CHI SEI?, aka BEYOND THE DOOR. This was such an obvious rip-off of THE EXORCIST that Assonitis ended up paying a penalty to Warner Bros. A few years later, Assonitis decided to rip-off JAWS, but being more careful, he made the sea monster an octopus. To help sell his film to the world as an American production, Assonitis filled his cast with Hollywood names like John Huston, Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins, Henry Fonda and Claude Akins. He even cast Hollywood's favorite Italian Cesare Danova in a minor role. Oddly, Danova is the only Hollywood actor in the English version of this film who doesn't have his own voice on the soundtrack. Various dead bodies pop up around Solana Beach, so reporter John Huston bugs Sheriff Claude Akins for information. Does it have something to do with illegal undersea radio transmissions that Cesare Danova has been giving out as part of a tunnel being dug by Henry Fonda's Trojan Inc.? Oceanographer Bob Hopkins is brought in to investigate, over the objections of his wife Delia Boccardo. Meanwhile, hot-to-trot Shelley Winters is preparing to help her son and his best friend enter the Annual Junior Yacht Race. P.O.V. underwater camera shots, just like in JAWS, menace just about anyone who gets close to the water, but here a fair number of the cast end up dead. As the monster sucks out bone marrow, there's not much gore, but there are a number of splintered boats. For me the suspense was generated over how well the filmmakers would visualize the octopus attack on the yacht race. As it turned out, not very well with a laughable octopus head racing along in the water, being edited into a montage of the parents on land being entertained by a man on stilts dressed as Uncle Sam, and many blonde haired boys screaming into the camera. Why all of the freeze frames? Eventually, after the death of his wife, Hopkins sets out to solve the problem, with the help of two Killer Whales he had been training at a Sea World-like exhibit. The most striking element of this movie is that most everyone in it is blonde haired. Solana Beach is not portrayed as an ethnically diverse community, with only a few brunettes. S.W. Cipriani, aka Stelvio Cipriani, provided the music score who proved to be a rather popular Original Soundtrack Album. Jerome Max, Tito Carpi and Steve Carabatsos take the blame for the screenplay.
WASHINGTON HEIGHTS (2002) - Actor Manny Perez came up with the story for this film, for which he also worked as a producer and star. Born in the Dominican Republic, Perez moved into the New York neighborhood of Washington Heights while majoring in drama at Marymount Manhattan College. In this film, he plays a young man aspiring to become a comic book artist. His girlfriend, Andrea Navedo (who would later be a regular on TV's Jane the Virgin), is a seamstress. His widowed father, Tomas Milian, runs a bodega. His buddy, Danny Hoch, works as an handy man for landlord Jude Ciccolella, and aspires to come up with the $5,000 needed to enter an amateur bowling contest in Las Vegas. Bobby Cannavale (who would do 12 episodes of TV's Boardwalk Empire) is a local hustler who desires to move in with Navedo as Perez becomes more obsessed with achieving his dream. One night, Milian is robbed and shot at his store. He survives, but is paralyzed from the waist down. Perez has to take over running the bodega, at least in order to pay off the $25.000 loan Milian took from Ciccolella. David Zayas (who would later become a regular on TV's Dexter) plays a local illustrator who knows people at the prestigious Gotham Comics. Zayas tells Perez that his work only shows that he likes other people's comic books, and shows nothing new. Of course, after the dramatic events of the movie - especially after running his father's bodega and seeing how important it is for the community, Perez creates a comic book reflective of his own people, and gets a meeting with Callie Thorne (who had earlier been a regular on TV's Homicide: Life on the Street, and would later become a regular on TV's Rescue Me) of Gotham Comics. Everything comes to a climax when Hoch steals $5000 from Cannavale, and Cannavale thinks that Perez took it. Mexican born director Alfredo de Villa handles his cast well, but as well meaning as this project is, it is still too conventional a story to hold interest.
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Angel Rivera Enjoyed:
"JUST IMAGINE" (1930) - It has been awhile since I saw this, so I was inspired to watch it again. Now I know I may have it on VHS, but I didn't have to go looking for it as it was on YouTube. Yes the space ship in this movie that was used to go to Mars, also carried Flash Gordon, Dale Arden and Dr. Zarkov to Mongo in 1936. Maureen O'Sullivan is seen here just before she hooked up with Tarzan in 1932. While the songs were not very memorable, what people thought 1980 would look like is fascinating. An interesting curiosity piece of film.
"The X from Outer Space"(1967) - An interesting giant monster film from Japan by Toho Studios' chief rival. The monster is accidentally brought to Earth from space and reeks havoc on Japan. Almost every cliche from these movies is in this one. Even a true Blonde female scientist who vies for the affections of our Japanese captain hero with a female Japanese scientist. All this while "Guilala" (the name given our giant monster) attacks and destroys energy plants. In the end the monster is defeated and shot back into space where he came from and the blonde losses the hero to the local Japanese girl. (I didn't see the dubbed version. The version I saw was subtitled in English. I did see snippets of the dubbed version on YouTube though.) This one has a cult following and it is easy to see why.
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Charles Gilbert watched:
BOG (1979) Marshall Thompson and Gloria de Haven rekindle an old relationship as they work together in solving slayings by a walking fish monster. They summon icthyologist Leo Gordon for assistance. Aldo Ray plays the local sheriff.
GORILLA AT LARGE (1954) Soap opera antics evolve around the big top that is highlighted by a gorilla act. The beast is managed by Peter Whitney who remains taciturn through most if the film. Raymond Burr controls circus operations with a high wire act featuring wife Ann Bancroft, who was once wife to Whitney . Young Barker Cameron Mitchell is her current target affection. Police chief Lee J. Cobb is brought in when people are murdered. Lee Marvin plays a comical policeman.
BRIDE OF THE GORILLA (1951) B&W. Curt Siodmak wrote and directed this story set in the jungle about a man killing his boss at a rubber plantation. He was in love with the old man's young wife (Barbara Payton), but his blissful marriage summarily ceases to flourish when a witch places a curse on him that turns him into a gorilla. Lon Chaney, Jr. is the requisite policeman.
HANNIE CAULDER (1971) Wife (Raquel Welch) of a rancher seeks vengeance in the old West after she is molested and her husband is murdered by three brothers (Ernest Borgnine, Strother Martin, and Jack Elam). Bounty hunter Robert Culp reluctantly instructs her at gunplay as they visit firearms master Christopher Lee who lives along the beach. Taciturn Stephen Boyd plays another mysterious bounty killer and probably should have gotten Culp"s role. With Aldo Sambrell in a bit part.
TREASURE OF THE AMAZON (1985) A bearded Stuart Whitman leads adventurers through the jungle and river searching for gold; encountering dangerous flora and fauna, and greedy hunters. Local magistrate Pedro Armedariz warns that treasures must be declared and taxed to benefit the state. Former Miss World contestant Ann Sidney costars alongside Bradford Dillman, Donald Pleasance, and John Ireland as a priest.
MONSTROID (1980) Filmed in Colombia with American actors Jim Mitchum and Anthony Eisley investigating the sighting of a monster in a lake. The locals gather around the shore when a plan is hatched to blast it out of the water with dynamite. Catholic priest John Carradine is also there to console. Aldo Sambrell is piloting a motorboat circling the critter while Mitchum swims to set off the explosion.
Mugshots: Mohammed Atta : Soldier of Terror
Documentary on terrorist who led hijackers and piloted AA Flight 11 into WTC North tower.
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