Dollhouse returns tonight with two episodes back-to-back

Tab Hunter on SHOTGUN

From: TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL

The Making of A Movie Star

by Tab Hunter with Eddie Muller

LA VENDETTA E IL MIO PERDONO (SHOTGUN in North America) was a spaghetti western shot on meat sauce. We worked long, hard hours at a tiny studio in Rome, and Neal even had a small role. whetting his appetite for acting. Fellini was shooting next door, parading carnival freaks and gypsies through the soundstages all day long.

I became friends with Marina Cidogna, whom I'd met years earlier at Visconti's villa. She was a successful film producer now, who'd learned moviemaking in Hollywood as a protege of David O. Selznick. She was in pre-production on I GIOVANI TIGRI starring the handsome Austrian actor Helmut Berger. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Berger was a Continental version of Tab Hunter, a young, unschooled actor exploited for his handsome features, still learning his craft as he was thrust into the limelight.

Marina had a breathtakingly beautiful Brazilian girlfriend by the name of Florinda Bolkin. Over dinner one evening, Marina asked if I'd appear with Florinda in her screen test, to be directed by her good friend...Luchino Visconti. I leaped at the chance.

After spending the day shooting a disjointed western, I'd be picked up by Visconti's chauffer, who'd wisk me to another soundstage across town, where I'd put in a few more hours working with Florinda and the Master. After that, I'd join Florinda, Helmut, and another Brazilian actor, Carlos de Castro, roaring through Rome in a Cadillac convertible that belonged to Carlos's boyfriend, Arndt Krupp, scion of the German industrialist family that supplied the Nazis all their munitions. Even in Rome, a city as wide open and sultry as an elegant whore, this group could stop traffic, anytime, anywhere.

Europe in the sixties was a heady place, sexy and decadent, which is as good a description as any, I guess, of the brief indulgence Helmut and I shared. I rarely resisted such temptations, even though I was with Neal. I'd developed the ability to compartmentalize the sexual aspect of my character, a trait I shared with a lot of Catholics. I may not have denied myself much, but I could always later deny, at least in my own mind, what I'd done.

Sidney finishes five out of six pictures

From: SO YOU WANT TO MAKE MOVIES

My Life As An Independent Film Producer

by Sidney Pink

I finished final editing on THE TALL WOMEN about the same time we finished shooting FICKLE FINGER OF FATE and WITCH WITHOUT A BROOM. Since we had two cutting teams, WITCH was cut daily as it was shot, and our cutters were so good they had been able to keep up with FICKLE FINGER as well. Barnes was able to see a complete final cut of THE TALL WOMEN, and this time he understood it would be entirely in color when we made our answer print. We finished sound effects and were preparing an original music score with the hope of securing an answer print in two weeks.

Barnes was also able to see rough "paste-togethers" of the other two pictures, so I hoped we would be able to live peacefully together, but such was not the case. His report to Pack was that THE TALL WOMEN was not as good as FINGER ON THE TRIGGER (which he had never seen), and he was very disappointed in FICKLE FINGER OF FATE. He had been very high on WITCH WITHOUT A BROOM before and so he could not pan it, but he was totally lukewarm about its ultimate result. I didn't learn this, however, until much later.

I needed additional scripts in order to get more pictures into production, but I had successfully finished shooting five of my first six committed films. I didn't believe it could be done, but I was now ahead of my own shooting schedule.

I was getting disturbed at Jim Henaghan's inability to send any kind of script on THE CHRISTMAS KID. I could forsee real problems with Jeff Hunter if I didn't get a script in time to start within the proscribed limit of his contract. He was getting along extremely well with Elorietta because he brought his girlfriend with him, and she was able to keep him on the wagon. Jeff too was a potential alcholic, and from what I had been told, he was hell on wheels when he was drunk. He could have been one of our most popular leading men if (like so many of the other promising actors) he had been able to control his own excesses. I wish someone will some day find a means of removing drugs and alcohol from our society. They do no one any good and cause too much human suffering.

Elorietta brought a script of a new version of the too-often-told tales of Pancho Villa, but it was a good story and John Melson felt he could rewrite it into a decent commercial vehicle. At the same time, one of Elorietta's writers gave us a story outline of a new version of the Arabian Nights fable, this time with a beautiful woman as the genie (this was long before the TV genie was presented). Also from the Elorietta group came another action-adventure about treasure hunting in the South Sea Islands that looked promising.

Meanwhile, Luis de los Arcos had written a screenplay that dealt with the discovery of an ancient pharaoh's tomb with its attendant search for the giant emerald of the pharaoh's wife. It had two leads I was sure could be filled by Rory Calhoun and Jim Phibrook. I made constant use of Jim and I really wanted to get Rory back to Spain. I loved that rascal and it was always a joy to have him around. Now I had five more scripts and story outlines to send to Pack for preliminary approval before casting.

Tab Hunter on THE FICKLE FINGER OF FATE

From: TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL

The Making of A Movie Star

by Tab Hunter with Eddie Muller

When Neil and I arrived in Rome, my next new agent, Guiseppi Perrone, sent me straight to Spain for a western called THE CHRISTMAS KID. Arriving in Madrid, I ran into my old waterskiing pal from Lake Arrowhead, Jeffrey Hunter. We swapped stories of Watson Webb, with whom we'd both kept in touch. Jeff was there to make a thriller, THE CUP OF ST. SEBASTIAN. Over dinner and drinks that evening, we hatched a plan.

"What the hell?" we agreed. "The producers won't know Jeffrey Hunter from Tab Hunter. Let's switch movies!"

And we did. Jeff did the western, I did the thriller. No one was the wiser. Nobody was really paying much attention anyway during the production of THE CUP OF ST. SEBASTIAN, including the director, a young American named Richard Rush, who seemed to focus less on the film than on getting laid. To "protect" myself, I rewrote a lot of the screenplay, basically turning it from a lackluster thriller into a lackluster comedy, full of slapstick chases and cases of mistaken identity. When it was released in the United States, THE CUP OF ST. SEBASTIAN was retitled THE FICKLE FINGER OF FATE.
[Neal Noorlag was Tab's traveling companion at the time. As THE CHRISTMAS KID was shot after the production of FICKLE FINGER and after the production of WITCH WITHOUT A BROOM, Tab's version of events is more than suspect - as is his assertion that "the producers" wouldn't know Jeffrey from Tab. While trying to portray "the producers" as ignorant, he also diminishes both Jeffrey's and his credibility as "stars".]

Making THE FICKLE FINGER OF FATE

From: SO YOU WANT TO MAKE MOVIES

My Life As An Independent Film Producer

by Sidney Pink

In the other ring we had Tab Hunter and Dick Rush shooting FICKLE FINGER OF FATE. Dick and Tab arrived in Madrid after preliminary conversations in the States and were working before I had time to meet with them. Tab Hunter was one of the gayest of the gays I have ever met. I have worked with homosexuals all of my showbiz life since they are so much a part of that scene. Most of them are hard-working, talented people whose contribution to the arts has been phenomenal. Tab Hunter was different. He was most difficult to work with and threw fits when he did not get his way. He refused to accept Dick as the director and insisted on doing everything as he wanted it done. Things had become almost irreconcilable when I was called in.

The picture was scheduled to start on Monday, and it was the Thursday before when I got the SOS. I called Dick Rush, and he gave me the particulars of his problems with Tab. I immediately called a meeting for the three of us in my office to hear the facts presented from both points of view. Tab Hunter complained about his inability to communicate with his director, and I soon found his idea of communcation was to have everything his way. Dick on the other hand, was not secure enough in his own experience to handle a once well-known star with so many big films behind him.

I listended carefully to both sides before I exploded. I tore into Tab with a vengeance by advising him he was now working on a budget film with no time for temper tantrums. We had shooting schedules to be adhered to and there was no room for foolishness; we hired him as an actor and not as a director, so he would have to take direction as given. Any more recalcitrance on his part would result in my firing him, and he would never work again in Europe or America. The way I spoke brooked no argument and he left with the pouting look of a woman scorned, but we had no more problems with him thereafter. In fact, Tab is a damned good actor with a much better sense of comedy and timing than his namesake Jeff.

My troubles with FICKLE FINGER OF FATE continued, however, and I was called to the set on three different occasions to extricate Dick from problems he was unable to resolve. He is an extremely talented director, and I cannot comprehend why he never fully realized the promise he showed. I know he was highly praised for a picture he made with Peter O'Toole, THE STUNT MAN, but I always felt he would be one of the great directors. In any event, he finished THE FICKLE FINGER OF FATE on schedule and within budget, and we emerged with a very fine program picture that received good reviews and pleased its audiences.

Making WITCH WITHOUT A BROOM

From: SO YOU WANT TO MAKE MOVIES

My Life As An Independent Film Producer

by Sidney Pink

Now I had three production teams, two complete editing teams, and enough time to get FICKLE FINGER OF FATE and WITCH WITHOUT A BROOM underway, and finish the editing of THE TALL WOMEN. I authorized two more scripts from Howard Berk and pleaded with Henaghan to get my CHRISTMAS KID script to me to I could get Jeff Hunter's back-to-back pictures set, plus an additional two scripts from him.

I imparted all of this information legally, through my counsel in New York, and now I intended to dot the i's and cross the t's in every dealing with Westinghouse. I never did figure out why Pack and Barnes, who needed us so badly for their own purposes, were intent on making us look bad and, in the long run, destroy themselves. Dick sent Barnes to England, where he made production deals for two very high-budget pictures, one starring Van Heflin that cost as much as our entire contract, and a second film about Napoleon, called EAGLE IN A CAGE, with an even higher budget. At least it kept them out of our way while we moved into high-gear production.

Elorietta was delighted with WITCH WITHOUT A BROOM, one of the cutest scripts I have ever read. Howard Berk made it into a fast-moving American comedy that could have been a major hit with an actor like Cary Grant in the lead of someone like Thurston Hall as director. Jeff Hunter did a good job, but he was no comedian in the sense of the film timing that mark people like Cary Grant and Melvyn Douglas. If Elorietta had remained sober that last four weeks of the film, it would have emerged as his best, but Barnes returned for the finish of the film and was so intrigued by the script he was on the set constantly with his adoring wife at his side. He kept annoying Elorietta with inane suggestions, so Elorietta began drinking again, and during those final weeks he went back to his pattern of great stuff in the A.M. and confusion in the P.M.

GIARRETTIERA COLT

GIARRETTIERA COLT

GARTER COLT

France: JARRETELLE COLT

Germany: DAS COLT-STRUMFBAND

Director - Gian Rocco 1967

Cast: Nicolette Machiavelli (Lulu), Claudio Camaso (Red), Marisa Solinas (Rosy), Yorgo Voyagis (Carlos), Walter Barnes (the General), James Martin (Sheriff), Gaspare Zola (Jean), Elvira Cortese (Elvira), Franco Bucceri (Doctor), Ivan Scratuglia (Roger), Silvana Bacci, Brunello Maffei, Franco Scala, Alberto Hammermann, Isabella Guidotti.

Screenplay by Giovanni Gigliozzi, Brunello Maffei, Vittorio Pescatori, Gian Rocco

Photography by Gino Santini

Music by Giovanni Fusco, Gianfranco Plenizio

Directed by Gianfranco Plenizio

Editor Mario Salvatore

Set Design Alessandro Manetti

Costumes Piero Gherardi

Assistant Director Guido Leoni

Production Manager Giovanni Vari

Produced by Columbus Cinematografica

Distr. Lady Film

Prod. Reg. 4189

Someone got the bright idea that Sardinia could stand-in for the Texas/Mexico border area just as well as Spain, so that was where this Western was made. Unfortunately, no one had a bright idea for the script, nor was a particularly bright director found to helm the film.

Carlos and Jean were two officers in the army of Austrian Archduke Maximilian, the Emperor of Mexico. It was 1867, and the two were sent undercover to find out about arms smuggling by Mexican revolutionaries along the border with Texas. They flagged down a stagecoach for a ride into town, and soon met a young woman seeming to travel alone. She was Lulu, and when a band led by a Mexican named Red attempted to rob the coach, it became apparent that she packed a .45, which had been holstered in a garter around her thigh.

Okay, the set up wasn't bad. Carlos and Juan left the coach and it continued into town. Now things got odd.

In a scene reminiscent of SE SIE VIVO SPARA, four Americanos jumped a Mexican man, beat him up, and then dragged him down the street to seat him on a horse inorder to hang him from an archway. Lulu stepped off the coach, saw the brutality, and fired one shot, cutting the rope. The Mexican galloped away on the horse.

Now, it would be expected that four men stopped from either fulfilling a justified execution, or four villains stopped from having a little fun, would want to have a discussion with whomever spoiled their plan of action. Not in this movie. The next thing shown was Lulu no longer on the street, and the four Americanos finding a second Mexican to attack. Getting a new rope from a plump woman who happened to have a one under her apron, the four men tossed it over the archway and pulled the second Mexican to his death. Suddenly, a band of Mexican revolutionaries led by the General arrived. Taking an instant dislike to the sight of four Gringos hanging a Mexican, the General saunters over to investigate. When one Americano pulled his gun, the General shot it out of his hand. But, after finding out that the hanged man was Miguel, whom the General thought of as a traitor, the Mexican apologized for his hasty action and walked away.

These were only two of the first scenes to generate an "Huh?" from viewers. Later on, the General was in the saloon having a drink when he heard a woman screaming outside. Rushing to the door, he fired his gun, only to discover and feel badly about having killed a woman.

There was the sequence which kept interrupting Red's assault upon Jean in an effort to rape Rosy, with a scene of Lulu bathing her horse on the beach and being approached by Carlos. The intercutting of these two scenes made no dramatic sense, though perhaps it was an effort to disguise how inane an effort Red was making in his lustful action. It was hard to tell if the filmmakers intended the back and forth change in the music track - from dramatic to romantic and then back to dramatic - to be as silly as the result was.

It would seem that these filmmakers were attempting to make a Sexy Comedy rather than an action-packed Western, which would explain all of the peek-a-boo looks at star Nicoletta Macchiavelli's clevage, the unfulfilled lustfulness of young Marisa Solinas, and those two sexy saloon girls who can't seem to get anyone's attention. That plus the drunken doctor who dropped his gun during the town's battle with Red's gang and the fact that Lulu and Carlos use the battle as a chance to finally go to bed together. It was perhaps the nonsensical nature of this movie which resulted in it having only a limited distribution, and being one of the more obscure Italian Westerns. Spain did not have to worry about Sardinia replacing it as the favored locale for European Westerns.

Casting Walter Barnes as a Mexican revolutionary was an unusual choice, and not a particularly good one. Barnes seemed willing to commit himself to whatever the filmmakers wanted. Unfortunately, what they wanted was probably as confusing to them as it appeared to be to him.

None of the cast came off particularly well. Nicholette Macchiavelli was not able to show any more acting ability than what she had shown in UN FIUME DI DOLLARI (U.S.: THE HILLS RUN RED) or NAVAJO JOE, and those performanaces got her pegged as beautiful but without talent. Claudio Camaso - the brother of Gian Maria Volonte - again portrayed so crazed a villain that, when seen with the knowledge of his subsequent real life murder and suicide, one couldn't help but wonder if any acting was involved.

Easily the highlight of this movie would be for fans of the midget, Arnaldo Fabrizio, who appeared with Mark Forest in MACISTE L'EROE PIU GRANDE DEL MONDO, (U.S.: GOLIATH AND THE SINS OF BABYLON). Here he appeared as what was supposed to be Lulu's baby. Actually, he was a little man who used the closed curtains on his crib to spy on the card hands of men with whom Lulu played poker. Carlos figured out the ruse at about the same time Lulu realised that Carlos' parrot was doing the same thing.