August 15 - 21, 2025

 

To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.

Brain Teasers:

By what name is Luciano Stella better known?

Bertrand van Wonterghem and Angel Rivera knew that it is Tony Kendall.

Which Italian actor died from cancer on November 28, 2009?

Angel Rivera knew that it was Tony Kendall.

Which actress, mostly known for work in Italy, died of breast cancer on December 26, 1994?

Angel Rivera knew that it was Sylva Koscina.

And now for some new brain teasers:

Can you name two actors who made Italian Westerns who had daughters who made movies accused of being child pornography?

On what movie did Robert Woods and George Hamilton work together?

Which American actor who appeared in Italian costume action films became a producer for Walt Disney Productions?

Name the movies from which these images came.

Bertrand van Wonterghem identified last week's frame grab of Marilu Tolo in ROY COLT & WINCHESTER JACK.

Above is a new photo.

Can you name from what movie it came?

Bertrand van Wonterghem and Charles Gilbert identified last week's photo of Aldo dell'Acqua, Alan Steel and Vincenzo Maggio in GLI INVINCIBILI TRE, aka THE INVINCIBLE THREE, aka THE THREE AVENGERS.

Above is a new photo.

Can you name from what movie it came?

Steve Mason identified last week's frame grab of Brigitte Skay in ECOLOGIA DEL DELITTO, aka BAY OF BLOOD, aka TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE, aka CARNAGE.

Above is a new photo.

Can you name from what movie it came?

No one has identified the above photo.

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:

WER KENNT JONNY R.?, aka LA BALADA DE JOHNNY RINGO, aka WHO KILLED JOHNNY RINGO?, aka THE BALLAD OF JOHNNY RINGO, aka 5000 DOLLAR FUR DEN KOPF VON JONNY R, (1966) - Produced by Arthur Brauner and Gotz Dieter Wulf, this is obviously a German Western shot in Spain, but only a Spanish director, Jose Luis Madrid, gets the screen credit. As with DIE HOLLE VON MANIITOBA, aka A PLACE CALLED GLORY, German filmmakers do a better job of making Westerns in the Hollywood style. Sheriff Isidro Novellas is convinced that he and his deputies have the infamous, and unseen, Johnny Ringo cornered in an upstairs hotel room, so they let his girlfriend ride out of town. Marianne Koch is the girlfriend and she quickly rides off to get help from Ringo's gang, who have taken over the Conroy ranch, and have tied up Conroy's wife and two children. The gang succeeds in helping Ringo to escape, but the lawmen quickly follow the outlaws and a gunfight breaks out at the Conroy ranch. In the melee, a lamp is knocked over and the ranch house burns. When Sieghardt Rupp as Captain Conroy returns from fighting Indians, he finds that his family died in the fire. So too it is suspected that Ringo also perished, as the charred body was found with the ring Koch had given him as well as his notable pistol. As the charred body can not be properly identified, Rupp is not convinced that Ringo is dead, so he hires Lex Barker to try and confirm his suspicion that Ringo is still alive. Barker takes a job as a traveling pistol salesman as his only clue to Ringo's identity is how the outlaw uses a gun. In his travels, Barker finds Joachim Fuchsberger, who uses a pistol in the manner that Ringo did. Is Fuchsberger Ringo hiding behind the name Clyde Smith? Many who see him shoot think he is, so traveling musician Ralf Wolter telegraphs Rupp to come see. As there is no visual evidence as to what Ringo looked like, the mystery continues as to whether Fuchsberger is the outlaw or not. When Koch shows up, Rupp expects her to confirm Ringo's identity. Blacklisted Hollywood writer Paul Jarrico assisted in writing this script under the name Peter Achilles. From a story by Carson Wiley, the screenplay is credited to Peter A. Chilles, Ladislas Fodor and Achilles builds a very nice sense of suspense on its way to the fiery climax.

Mildly enjoyed:

ADVANCE TO THE REAR (1964) - I saw this film multiple times when I was about 7 years old and didn't have strong feelings about it. A number of people have the opinion that it is awful, so I figured I would take the opportunity to re-watch it. I did not realize when I was a kid that it is a sex comedy disguised as a Western comedy. I also did not realize that the film looks like the makers tried to save the movie in the editing room. In 1956, William Chamberlain wrote an article in the Saturday Evening Post which Jack Schaefer turned into a novel in 1957 called COMPANY OF COWARDS. Evidence suggests that the filmmakers were originally going to call this movie COMPANY OF COWARDS because that is the title of the opening song performed by The New Christy Minstrels. Randy Sparks of The New Christy Minstrels wrote the music for this movie, as well as the opening theme song and the song "Today" which became a big hit record. During the U.S. Civil War, Captain Glenn Ford and Colonel Melvyn Douglas are mistakenly accused of cowardice in the face of the enemy. In order to keep the incident from becoming known, General Jim Backus decides to bust Ford and Douglas in rank and then send them to a remote fort out West with every misfit in the Union Army. What Backus forgot, is that a gold shipment is scheduled to arrive at the Fort. The Confederates know about the gold shipment and send their most competent spy, Stella Stevens, to follow the new Yankee outfit. She also must contact a rogue group of Rebels, led by James Griffith, to intercept the gold. To travel with the new outfit, Stevens joins a group of saloon girls, led by Joan Blondell, who are being kicked out of town on the same riverboat on which the soldiers are traveling. Not surprising, Ford quickly has an eye on Stevens, and soon figures out that she must be a Confederate Spy. However, he decides that they will eventually marry, so he doesn't have her arrested. Griffith enlists the aid of the local Indian Chief Michael Pate in his plot to steal the gold. Will the company of misfits finally start acting like real soldiers and save the gold? Will Blondell and her girls join in the fray? Will Sgt. Alan Hale Jr. succeed in Douglas' order to build a catapult? Samuel A. Peeples and William Bowers are credited with writing the screenplay with direction by George Marshall. One wonders what the original ending to the story was, because the film ends with many unresolved issues and resorts to reusing the opening scene to suggest that things went back to the way they were, which makes no sense. In addition to Stevens and Blondell, Yvonne Craig has a memorable moment as one of the saloon girls. Wikipedia reports that Britt Ekland also appears, but I didn't spot her. The IMDb reports that it wasn't Britt Ekland but Britta Ekman who had an uncredited role.

Astrid et Raphaelle, aka Astrid season five episode 6 "Wolf, Are You There?" (2022)

AN EYE FOR AN EYE (1966) - I remember when this movie came out there was talk about how it was about a cripple and a blind man teaming up against the bad guys. That doesn't happen until about half way through the 106 minute running time. What no one mentioned was that this was the movie in which Slim Pickens would play the meanest and most dangerous outlaw in the West. The film starts with Pickens murdering Robert Lansing's wife and son before burning their house to the ground. Having just watched WHO KILLED JOHNNY RINGO?, this seemed vaguely familiar, but in the German film the family murder was not deliberate. The outlaws didn't set fire to the house on purpose, and they only left the family to die because they failed to set them free from their bonds. Pickens shoots the woman and child dead before he burns the house. There is also a suggestion that he had sexually assaulted the woman, though we never see her. It turns out that Lansing had been a famous bounty hunter, who had hung up his guns. What he had been doing so that he was away from his home is never explained, but the atrocity to which he returns puts the gun back in his hand. Strother Martin is a conniving opportunist, who turns up to tell Lansing that it was Pickens and two buddies who killed our hero's family, expecting to get paid for the information. Lansing treats Martin with disgust and sets off to find the bad guys. On the way, Lansing find a campfire and confronts the man there. The man there turns out to be bounty hunter Patrick Wayne, who knows who Lansing was and plans on besting his reputation. He, too, is out to get Pickens. At first Wayne is against Lansing's idea of their teaming up, but Lansing explains that they can argue about how to split the reward after they get the bad guys. Along the way, Lansing and Wayne stop at a trading post run by the Quince family - Paul Fix, Gloria Talbott and little Clint Howard. Martin shows up again with information about where to find Pickens and his friends. It is when the two bounty hunters attempt to ambush the outlaws, that Lansing's gun hand is crippled by a bullet from Pickens. Pickens also grazes Wayne in the head, which leads to Wayne going blind. But, at least, the bounty hunters kill Pickens' associates, Henry Wills and Jerry Gatling. Figuring that Pickens will come looking for them, Lansing and Wayne work on how Wayne can use his gun hand while Lansing can be his eyes. Even though the film spends a good amount of time building up a romance between Talbott and Lansing, it comes to nothing because Lansing fears that her being near him will lead to her suffering the same fate as his wife. It turns out that Wayne, who goes by the name Benny Wallace is actually Pat Garrett Jr., who hates being associated with his father because the father looks down on bounty hunters, while Wayne is proud that he makes more money than dad. Also in the film is Clint Howard's father Rance, but I don't know his face so I'm uncertain about which part he plays. Best known as an Assistant or 2nd Unit director, Michael Moore got the main chair on PARADISE, HAWAIIAN STYLE before making AN EYE FOR AN EYE. After that, he mostly worked in television except for THE FASTEST GUITAR ALIVE. Actors Bing Russell and Sumner Williams are credited with the screenplay for this, which may account for the rather talky nature of the material. Celebrated director of photography Lucien Ballard shot this film before beginning his long time collaboration with director Sam Peckinpah on THE WILD BUNCH.

THE EAGLE SHOOTING HEROES (1993) - Reportedly, director Wong Kai-wai's film version of THE LEGEND OF THE CONDOR HEROES - eventually called ASHES OF TIME - was going seriously over-budget, so he got  his associate, Jeff Lau, to make a low budget parody of the same material and get it into theaters for Lunar New Year to generate some financing. The plan not only worked, but the success of EAGLE SHOOTING created the "mo lei tau" style of comedy films, which Lau continued with star Stephen Chow. This film reaches a level of fast-paced silliness that is too much for me to enjoy - though after countless sped-up fight scenes, to suddenly have the cast pretend to fight in slow motion got a giggle from me. Aside from all of the pretty men who were also appearing in ASHES OF TIME, this film features Brigitte Lin, Joey Wong, Maggie Cheung, Carina Lau and more beauties, who, unfortunately never slow down enough for one to get a good look at them. When it comes to comedy sword fight films, I prefer HOLY FLAME OF THE MARTIAL WORLD from 1983.

Felix the Cat (1919) - If you, like me, know Felix the Cat only from the syndicated animated TV show in the 1950s, this DVD collection from Genius Entertainment may make your head spin around. While some question whether Australian born cartoonist Pat Sullivan or his lead animator Otto Messmer created the first fully realized recurring cartoon character in film history, it came from Sullivan's studio in New York City. The cartoon shorts were so popular, that Felix became a comic strip and a merchandising hit featured on toys and the subject of jazz songs. This DVD collects 8 silent film shorts that are decidedly weird with hot dogs determined to not be eaten and sometimes turned into critters that pull sleds to Alaska. There is no "magic bag of tricks" here. In "Felix In Hollywood", we do get caricatures of some movie types like Ben Turpin and Charlie Chaplin.

Woody Woodpecker and other cartoon treasures - Entitling this DVD collection "Woody Woodpecker" seems a bit lazy. That is the first cartoon on view, but there isn't another in this entire 90 minute program. It is also the only one from Universal Pictures. Most everything else is from Paramount Pictures. The silent film success of Felix the Cat ended after sound came in, In 1932, Pat Sullivan sold Felix to Van Beuren Studios, who tried to revive the character with three shorts in 1936. These cartoons were released by RKO Radio Pictures as part of "Burt Gillett's Rainbow Parade Cartoon in Technicolor". This DVD collection features two of those three shorts - "Bold King Cole" and "The Goose That Laid The Golden Egg", which proved unsuccessful. The character went dormant until 1953 when Joe Oriolo reinvented Felix for television. The best cartoon in this collection is the only Popeye included from Fleischer Studios "Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor". The three others include were made by Famous Studios, which were made after Paramount fired the Fleischers.

George Lopez: America's Mexican (2007) - Taped in front of an audience in Phoenix, Arizona in 2007 for HBO, much of this special sounds pretty current. Swap the then Republican president, George W. Bush, for the current one and the issues are very similar. The Republican president is backing an effort to deport undocumented immigrants and there is a concern about tainted food. Lopez' comment about "everything you touch has been touched by a Latino first" is still true, and his suggestion that Latinos may be screwing with the food as a reaction to being screwed with by the authorities isn't funny. At times, Lopez' comments about the way that Latinos live would seem aimed to get Stephen Miller to laugh.

MAN MADE MONSTER (1941) - Villainous Dr. Lionel Atwill figures that he can use electricity to make a new kind of man that he can control. Unfortunately, Lon Chaney Jr., the only survivor of a bus which hit a power pole killing everyone on board except him, comes under his control. Chaney brings a real sense of tragedy to the portrayal of a nice guy turned into a murdering electrical monster under the direction of George Waggner. Joseph West is credited with the screenplay from a story by H.J. Essex.

POOR THINGS (2023) - Alasdair Gray published POOR THINGS: EPISODES FROM THE EARLY LIFE OF ARCHIBALD MCCANDLESS M.D., SCOTTISH PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICER in 1992. The movie drops the ending of book, in which Bella, now calling herself Victoria McCandless, repudiates the Frankenstein-like story of the novel. Of the various versions of THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN which have come out, my favorite remains the 1985 film of THE BIRDE, directed by France Roddam. I've yet to see the 2026 version directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. Yorgos Lanthimos directed POOR THINGS and he got on my bad side by shooting so much of the film with a fish-eye lens. I am also not fond of a movie which spends so much time slowly zooming in and out for no apparent reason. If you want to see Emma Stone naked and pretending to have sex, this is the movie for you. Lanthimos adopts an highly stylized design for the film, which some called "retrofuturist" and another called "steam-punk wonderland". While it is striking, it also gets labored and the film feels longer than its 142 minute running time.

TROUBLE MAN (2025) - If you, like me, thought that this would be a remake of the 1972 film starring Robert Hooks, then you would be wrong. For one thing, our hero, Jaxen - who I thought was Jackson partly because many people call him "Action Jackson", played by director and co-producer Michael Jai White, don't like people using the "N-word". While evidencing a sense of humor, this film starts off like many other recent Black action films, but it isn't too long before everyone starts referencing the Black action films of the 1970s like SUPERFLY. The screenplay, credited to Michael Stradford, shows real wit not only in mentioning the older films, but also showing a clip from SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG during one scene. There are just about no European Americans in this film, but there are many Asians. At first it seems that Jai White is out to prove that an African American can hold his own in a martial arts battle with Asians, but Jai White's real life background in the martial arts would seem to indicate that he knows what he's showing off. This is the first time I've heard that the "Black Monk", or Bodhidharma, who brought the martial arts to India and China was actually from Africa, so that his ethnicity trumps his Chinese adversaries. While the film is entertaining, the story telling gets a bit ponderous and doesn't build very well towards a satisfactory climax. After the end credits, there is a scene suggesting that Jai Whilte is hoping to make a sequel. Also in the film are Method Man, Mike Epps and Orlando Jones, whom I recently saw in EVOLUTION (2001). Oddly the filmmakers don't mention 1972's MELINDA where Calvin Lockhart only fights the bad guys using martial arts.

Did not enjoy:

INGINOCCHIATI STRANIERO... I CADAVERI NON FANNO OMBRA!, aka STRANGER THAT KNEELS BESIDE THE SHADOW OF A CORPSE, aka DEAD MEN DON'T MAKE SHADOWS (1970) - Gordon Mitchell had only nice things to say about producer/director Demofilo Fidani, aka Miles Deem, when I asked him, but I am uncertain if it was because he admired Fidani's ability to get movies made with little money, or that fact that Fidani kept giving Mitchell parts in his movies. I'm certain it wasn't because he thought Fidani made good movies. Mitchell had built a Western town set in Cave, Italy, which he would allow movie makers to use for free if they gave him a role in the movie. While the end credits for DEAD MEN says that it was filmed at the Elios Studios, parts of the film certainly look like the Cave Studios. In any case, Hunt Powers, aka Jack Betts, is the famous bounty killer Lazar, who usually brings in the wanted men dead with a bullet in their foreheads. Gordon Mitchell plays his second victim in this film. Powers brings in the wanted men, tears down the wanted poster, but never brings back the money that the outlaw stole. It turns out that he is keeping the loot for himself, stashing it with old man Pietro Fumelli, who lives in a shack in the desert next to a small cemetery. Chet Davis, aka Franco Borelli - who does a great job of looking like Terence Hill, is tracking Betts by following the torn up wanted posters from town to town. When he finds a town where the wanted posters are in tact, he gets a job in a store across the street from the sheriff's office so that he can keep an eye on the wanted posters. Eventually, Powers comes to town with a dead man, tears down the wanted poster, and Davis quits his job to follow him when he leaves.Both men end up in a Mexican village which is run by Ettore Manni, the owner of a gold mine. However, there is only a suggestion of a mine shaft as most of the peons are digging in the dirt. The music for this movie is credited to Coriolano Gori, but the theme he uses for the Mexicans on a xylophone seems determined to turn into Perry Como's hit song "Catch A Falling Star", but doesn't. After a number of time filling brawls, it becomes apparent that Powers knows that Manni is a wanted man and wants $50,000 to leave him alone. Meanwhile, Davis spends some time with the local gypsy woman, Simone Blondell, aka Simonette Vitelli, aka director Fidani's daughter. At first it seems that Powers and Davis will work together to foil Manni's plans, but Davis ends up not going along with it. In the end, it turns out that Davis is following Powers in order to find his father, Fumelli. At a time when Westerns heroes seem to always come up with unique weapons, Fidani has Powers screwing a barrel extender onto his pistol - supposedly to make it shoot farther. Like most films directed by Fidani, much of the movie seems to be filler designed to get it to a 90 minute running time. Not surprising, this results in a movie that is dull, and the pointless punch-ups don't help. This is one of a number of Fidani's film on which Aristide Massaccesi was the director of photography.

NOT WITHOUT HOPE (2025) - Does it also seem to you that there are more and more movies being made about how dangerous it is to be at sea? I noticed this after THE PERFECT STORM and OPEN WATER. Like PERFECT STORM, NOT WITHOUT HOPE is based on a real event and the book written about it. In 2009, four friends went to fish in the Gulf of Mexico. Only one survived. The survivor, Nick Schuyler, collaborated with Jere Longman on a book about the experience during which NFL players Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith, as well as their friend Will Bleakley died. Co-writer, producer and director Joe Carnahan took over the project after the original director Rupert Wainwright quit. When star Miles Teller also left, Zachary Levi came aboard and the film went into production in Malta. While much of the film is in the water with the main characters trying to survive, there is also quite a bit of time spent with the worried families and the sea rescue teams searching for the missing.

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Angel Rivera Highly enjoyed:

"THE ROCKETEER" (1991)

Loved the original comic book/graphic novel. Don't know why this didn't better at the box office, but I consider it one of the best graphic novel to screen adaptation that ever was. Bringing back memories of Commando Cody, the movie was sheer delight to me. And Jennifer Connelly was great as the love interest/heroine. Bill Campbell seemed to have been born to play the role of "the Rocketeer" and Alan Arkin, Timothy Dalton, Paul Sorvino and Terry O'Quinn are all great in their respective roles.

 

"THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD" (1961)

After his "Hercules" films, this is my favorite Steve Reeves movie. While obviously not as spectacular as the two previous versions of this tale it still gives Reeves a great opportunity to flex his muscles and play the role of a real action hero other than Hercules. Georgia Moll and Edy Vessel both add welcome pulchritude to the film. Still enjoyable to watch.

Did not enjoy:

"THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2" (2026)

Disappointment was all I could think of  watching this overblown sequel which had none of the charm of the original. While it had almost all of the stars of the original, it just wasted their talents with a horrible script which put the stars through ridiculous antics. Enough said.

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David Deal Enjoyed:

LA LOBA (65) - AKA The She-Wolf. The daughter (Kitty de Hoyos) of a scientist (Jose Elias Moreno) is cursed as a werewolf, we know not why. He father is trying to create a cure for her lycanthropy, so when her suitor (Joaquin Cordero) shows up to request her hand in marriage, Moreno is fretful. That night, Cordero is attacked and bitten by Kitty in her werewolf form. Now we have two werewolves on our hands and no cure in sight. This a fun, atmospheric, and action-packed Mexican horror film with much the same feel as the vampire movies coming out of the country at the time. If you like those, you'll probably like this.

PAYROLL (61) - Michael Craig (Mysterious Island) and his small gang plan an armored car robbery with the help of an insider at the transfer company. The nail-biting job ends with a guard and one of the gang members dead. That's when things really begin to unravel. Solid, gritty British heist-gone-wrong flick that features Francoise Prevost, and Billie Whitelaw is a vengeful widow. Sports a cool jazz soundtrack too.

CRUEL GUN STORY (64)

DAY OF THE COBRA (80)

CABIN IN THE WOODS (11)

OKLAHOMA WOMAN (56) - Spitfire Peggy Castle owns the local saloon and wants to own the town. Richard Denning is her old flame who's back in town after doing time and just wants to settle down. It doesn't work out that way. Features Touch (Mike) Connors as Castle's hit man. Roger Corman's western is old-fashioned in plot but boasts a strong woman in Castle who delivers the goods here.

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (62) - It pays to revisit the classics.

SHERLOCK HOLMES IN WASHINGTON (43)

Mildly enjoyed:

OBSCENE DESIRE (78) - Aristocrat Andrea Orsomandi brings his new wife Marisa Mell back to his familial estate where she is immediately uncomfortable. Orsomandi is under a curse; his ancestors killed a pregnant witch, and she cursed the seventh generation of his family that they would bear her dead child. Marisa is pregnant. There are definitely echoes of Rosemary's Baby here, with a few other ideas as well. It's one of the sexed-up Gothics produced at this time in the cycle; it looks good and has good locations but the direction is poor, and it was disowned by its director Giulio Petroni. It is certainly a showcase for Mell, in more ways than one. A curio.

SATAN'S BLOOD (77)

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Bertrand van Wonterghem Enjoyed:  

Party down (2010, season 2)

Roy Colt & Winchester Jack (1971, Mario Bava)

La rumba (1986, Roger Hanin)

Sigeuneol / Signal (2015, Kim Won-seok) – episode 1

Mildly enjoyed:

Le protecteur (1973, Roger Hanin)

Did not enjoy:

Macabra (1981, Alfredo Zacharias)

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