R.I.P. Maria Rohm, Part III: 1970-75

13 August 1945 – 18 June 2018

Vienna-born Maria Rohm (nee Helga Grohmann), talented cult actress and wife of British independent film producer and screenwriter Harry Alan Towers (19 Oct 1920 – 31 July 2009), went the way of the wind in June at the age of 72 in Toronto, Canada, the home of Bruce McArthur. Rohm, who began her acting career as a child stage actress, seems to have begun her film career at the age of twenty playing a prostitute in a 1964 film. Soon after she married producer Towers, also in 1964, he began putting her in many of his projects, including nine different movies directed by Jess Franco (12 May 1930 – 2 April 2013). She retired from acting in 1976, at the young milfy age of 31, but like her 25-year-older husband remained active as a producer. 

Go here for Part I: 1964–67 

Go here for Part II: 1968–69

Count Dracula

(1970, dir. Jess Franco)

"The children of the night... what music they make."
Count Dracula (Christopher Lee)

 

We took a quick look at Count Dracula way back in 2012, in They Died in September 2012, Part VII: Herbert Lom, where we more or less wrote: "Aka Nachts, wenn Dracula erwacht. Hebert Lom as Prof. Helsing in his second (and last) Jess Franco film — alongside no lesser names than Christopher Lee, Klaus Kinski (who never actually speaks throughout the whole film), and Soledad Miranda — not to mention Fred Williams and Jack Taylor. This is perhaps the only movie version of Dracula that maintains the premise of the book that Dracula is an old man who gets younger each time he feeds.

"Digitally Obsessed tells a plot we all already know: 'Young solicitor Jonathan Harker (Fred Williams) journeys to Transylvania to deliver a deed to an English abbey to Count Dracula (Christopher Lee). But before long he begins to suspect that the count may be something more than human, and he works with Professor Abraham Van Helsing (Herbert Lom), Dr. John Seward (Paul Muller) and Quincy Morris (Jack Taylor) to rescue his fiancée Mina Murray (Maria Rohm) after her friend Lucy Westenra (Soledad Miranda [9 July 1943 – 18 Aug 1970]) falls victim to the vampire's bite.'

"The general consensus with this film is that it is both one of Franco's more subdued and successful films, despite the ragged edges of the low budget."

"For those who think Jess Franco's movies contain too much nudity and gore — this one has no nudity at all, and virtually no gore. [Cult Movie Reviews]"

Yep, neither Soledad nor Maria Rohm show nary a nipple in the movie. As that fat idiot in the White House is apt to say: "Sad. Another liberal plot to undermine the American democracy."

 

German trailer to

Count Dracula:

Ignoring Soledad Miranda's supposed un-credited appearance somewhere in the early Jess Franco movie La reina del Tabarín aka Queen of the Tabarin Club (1960), Count Dracula is probably the first of her feature-film Franco projects to get a general release. Unknown to many non-Spanish fans of her films, Soledad Miranda already had a successful career in Spain as a pop singer prior to becoming Franco's most famous "discovery". 

Not from the film —

Soledad Miranda sings:

Trivia: Though they share scenes, supposedly Christopher Lee and Herbert Lom never shot a scene together. And although Christopher Lee famously hated his iconic role of Dracula, and was won over for the movie with great difficulty, he appeared as Count Dracula in three other movies in that same year, 1970: a cameo in Jerry Lewis' unfunny One More Time (trailer), and in the two Hammer productions, Peter Sasdy's Taste the Blood of Dracula (trailer) and Roy Ward Baker's Scars of Dracula (trailer). Lastly, Franco's version of Dracula is the first screen version of the novel to include the character of Quincey Morris (Jack Taylor).

Finally, it should perhaps be said that while "the general consensus with this film is that it is both one of Franco's more subdued and successful films", the emphasis should be on "one of Franco's more subdued and successful films" — particularly if you are not a fan of his "outsider-art" directorial eye. As a mainstream film, the general attitude is that "though certainly literate, the film nevertheless fails as both horror and drama". But then, should you ever read the plodding and disorganized "epistolary-style" original novel by Abraham "Bram" Stoker (8 Nov 1847 – 20 April 1912), you'll find that by modern standards, the book likewise fails as both horror and drama.

Dorian Gray

(1970, dir. Massimo Dallamano)

We took a quick look at Dorian Gray way back in 2012, in They Died in September 2012, Part VII: Herbert Lom, where we more or less wrote: "Director Dallamano, who died of a car accident in Rome on 14 November 1976, was a cinematographer (for A Fistful of Dollars [1964], among others) who moved into the director's chair; among his more enjoyable Eurotrash projects are Devil in the Flesh (1969 / trailer), What Have You Done to Solange? (1972 / trailer*), The Night Child (1975 / trailer) and, of course, this flick here. Herbert Lom plays Wotton, a gallerist who has the hots for Dorian (played by Helmut Berger, seen here below with his big hands).

* We looked at this movie in 2014 in R.I.P.: Joachim Fuchsberger.

"As Rock! Shock! Pop! says, 'Set to a great fuzz guitar score buried under some heavy effects pedal work and well paced and beautifully shot, The Secret Of Dorian Gray might not appeal to those looking for a straight (pun intended) adaptation of Wilde's original story as it periodically descends head first into camp, but it's well shot and well acted and never short on weird.'

"The plot? Really — don't you ever read books? Handsome young narcissist gives himself over to a lascivious lifestyle and his portrait ages instead of himself. Tragedy for everyone involved."

It should be mentioned that this version of the tale moves the action from Victorian England to the Swinging London of, dunno, Blow Up (1966 / trailer) and/or the opening scenes of Austin Powers (1997 / trailer). It is "a film that stands head and shoulders above the rest for its appealingly tawdry Eurotrash aesthetics, its flawless evocation of Swinging '60s mod, and its flagrant, unabashed sleaze factor. […] Director Dallamano hits pay dirt with the casting of Helmut Berger. A man so staggeringly beautiful that he makes personal fave Joe Dallesandro (certainly one of the most gorgeous men to have ever walked the planet) look like Ernest Borgnine. [Dreams Are What Le Cinema Is For...]"

Trailer to

Dorian Gray:

The movie was a Towers and Samuel Z. Arkoff   (12 June 1918 – 16 Sept 2001) coproduction. Maria Rohm has a minor role as Alice Campbell, a character not found in the book; Marie Liljedahl, however, plays the tragic Sibyl Vane, who is in the book and is the first true victim of Dorian moral decay. Unlike in the novel, Dorian does not inadvertently kill himself, but makes a conscious decision to do so — a narrative decision that rather undermines the entire tale. Anyone who knows what the bisexual actor Helmut Berger, the man playing Dorian Gray, looks like today might be tempted to say he is a living picture of Dorian Gray… but then, he is over 70 years old.

The painting of Dorian Gray below, by the way, was painted by the American painter Ivan Le Lorraine Albright (20 Feb 1897 – 18 Nov 1983) for the 1945 film version of the tale (trailer). The painting now hangs in the Whitney.

Cuadecuc, vampir

(1971, dir. Pere Portabella)

The documentary as experimental film. In this case, a documentary on the making of Jess Franco's Count Dracula (1970). All the stars, Maria Rohm inclusive, are found in this project.

Over at Letterboxd, some dude calling himself Disgustipated says, "It is almost as though a movie director has taken one of his kids on set and given him a camera to go play with while the grown-ups go about making a real movie. Except in this case the kid is an exceptionally talented experimental film-maker with a nose for creepy atmospherics, experimental filmic flourishes and meta-cinematic inserts, all used to great effect to create an indelible experience that will imprint itself on your amygdala in an inexplicable way that a more conventional film cannot. Imagine if 'the making of' documentary for a horror movie was a darkly foreboding silent horror movie, which has taken on a remarkable life of its own. Probably one of the more interesting credits for Christopher Lee and his final scene in the film is a fitting send off. I dare you to check this one out." 

Trailer to 

Cuadecuc, vampire:

On his own website, Pere Portabella explains his film as follows: "Vampir-Cuadecuc is possibly a key film in understanding the transition in the Spanish filmworld from the period of the 'new cinema' (permitted by the Franco government) towards the illegal, clandestine or openly antagonistic practices against the Franco regime. It consists of shooting the filming of a commercial film El conde Drácula by Jesús Franco. Portabella practices two types of violence on the standard narrative: he totally eliminates color and substitutes the soundtrack with a landscape of image-sound collisions by Carles Santos (1 July 1940 – 4 Dec 2017). Filmed provocatively in 16mm and with sound negative, the tensions between black and white favor the strange 'fantasmatic materialism' of this revealing analysis of the construction mechanism for the magic in dominant narrative cinema, which at the same time constitutes a radical intervention in the Spanish cinematographic institution."

Jonathan Rosenbaum, who saw an original screening of the film, has some interesting info about the event: "It was showing […] at a now-defunct cinema called Le Français. It's worth adding that the name of the filmmaker and the title of his film were both slightly different from the way we know them today, for reasons that are historically significant. The name of this Barcelona-based filmmaker was listed as Pedro Portabella and his film was called simply Vampir. Why?  Because he was Catalan, a language forbidden in Franco's Spain, making both the name 'Pere' and the word 'Cuadacuc' (which I'm told is an obscure Catalan term meaning both a worm's tail and the end of a reel of unexposed film stock) equally impermissible. Furthermore, Portabella wasn't present at the screening because, as I later discovered, he was one of the two Spanish producers of Luis Buñuel's Viridiana (trailer) one decade earlier, and the Franco government was punishing him for having helped to engineer this subterfuge by confiscating his passport, making it impossible for him to travel outside of Spain. And for those like myself who wondered how a film as unorthodox as this could play in Franco Spain at all, it eventually became clear that it survived, like the Catalan language itself (not to mention Dracula), clandestinely, via secret nourishment."

Rosenbaum, like so many who have seen this mesmerizing exercise in avant-garde filmmaking, makes positive reference to both Murnau's Nosferatu (1922 / full film) and Dreyer's Vampyr (1932 / a trailer), two early classics of art house horror. 

Black Beauty

(1971, dir. James Hill)

Possibly the first G-rated movie Maria Rohm ever appeared in — thus signaling the end of her cult career. This family friendly movie is not found on our list of films to see. It is based, of course, on the novel by Anna Sewell (20 March 1820 – 25 April 1878), with a screenplay by Wolf Mankowitz (7 Nov 1924 – 20 May 1998), a man who had written screenplays for more entertaining films, including The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961 / trailer) and The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960 / trailer). Director James Hill (1 Aug 1919 – 7 Oct 1994) is perhaps best known as the director of Born Free (1966 / trailer), but we personally prefer some of his other movies, namely: A Study in Terror (1965 / trailer) and The Man from O.R.G.Y. (1970), the last of which is the only screen adaptation (that we know of) of any of the paperback pulp novels by that great, productive, mostly forgotten, and highly dated sleaze satirist "Ted Mark", aka Theodore Gottfried (19 Oct 1928 – 7 March 2004).

The tale, of course, is told from the viewpoint of the horse prior to being sent to the glue factory (just kidding about the last bit), so it is perhaps not surprising that the Movie Scene says that the movie "is beautiful and director James Hill […] has created a nice-looking movie but the actual story ends up bland and uninteresting, coming across as little more than a collection of stories with different characters and just Black Beauty tenuously linking them." (Sounds like the book, actually.)

Roger Ebert, on the other hand, once gave the movie three stars and explained the whole plot: "All things considered, Black Beauty leads quite a life, for a horse. She grows up as the best pal of a boy named Joe (Mark Lester of What the Peeper Saw [1972 / trailer]) and Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? [1971 / trailer]). She's taken away by a drunken young squire (Patrick Mower of The Devil Rides Out [1968], Cry of the Banshee [1970 / trailer] and Incense for the Damned aka The Bloodsuckers [1971 / trailer]), but he is killed one night and she escapes into the hands of gypsies. Then a horse trader sells her to a circus in Spain, and after learning lots of tricks she is given by the circus owner (Walter Slezak [3 May 1902 – 21 April 1983]) to kindly Sir William (John Nettleton of And Soon the Darkness [1971 / trailer]), who gives the horse to his daughter (Maria Rohm), who gives Black Beauty to her fiancé (Peter Lee Lawrence [21 Feb 1944 – 20 April 1974] of Love and Death in the Garden of the Gods / Liebe und Tod im Garten der Götter [1972 / trailer]), which is how Black Beauty winds up fighting for the British in India. The fiancé is killed in India, but his lifeless hands cling gallantly to his spear and Black Beauty charges anyway. This makes her a war hero and earns her passage back to England, where fame is brief and she is sold by a drunken lieutenant (Daniel Martín [12 May 1935 – 28 Sept 2009] of A Fistful of Dollars [1964], Crypt of the Living Dead [1973 / trailer], Devil's Kiss [1976 / fashion show] and Especto [1978 / Spanish trailer]) for five pounds. Then she gets pneumonia, and is put to work hauling a coal wagon. When things look their bleakest, Black Beauty is rescued by a kindly old lady and her young footman (who, wouldn't you know, is Beauty's old pal Joe)."

Trailer to

Black Beauty:

The young lady seen most in the trailer above is the young Uschi Glas, also of Umberto Lenzi's Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972), The Sinister Monk (1965 / trailer), The College Girl Murders (1967) and Gorilla Gang (1968 / trailer) and Die Tote aus der Themse (1971 / German trailer) — Edgar Wallace films, one and all — and the unjustly unknown Eurotrash disasterpiece Die Weibchen aka Feminine Carnivores (1970). 

Trailer to

Feminine Carnivores (1970):

Mark Lester, in case you've forgotten, was last in the headlines when he claimed that he thinks that Paris Jackson might actually be his daughter. (Sorry, Mark, but like you totally have the wrong skin color.) 

Call of the Wild

(1972, dir. Kenneth Cooper "Ken" Annakin)

Among the movies Charlton "I'm dead, so take my gun" Heston (4 Oct 1923 – 5 April 2008) made around the time of his classics Omega Man (1971 / trailer) and Soylent Green (1973) is this movie based on one of Jack London's most famous works, the novella The Call of the Wild. Considering the commercial viability of Heston's name at the time, one could well say that his casting was the closest a Towers film ever came to having a current Hollywood A-list actor in its cast.

The director, Kenneth Cooper "Ken" Annakin (10 Aug 1914 – 22 April 2009), though hardly known for originality or breaking ground, and possibly already forgotten in general, was likewise a reliable feature-film director known at the time (1972) for "all-star, splashy, big-budget European/American co-productions".

Call of the Wild was shot on location in Spain, Norway and possibly Finland, the last of which is a country in northern Europe now famous as the location where, in July 2018, Donald Trump, after labeling Europe a foe of the US, satisfied his penchant for golden showers with Putin in a toilet stall. And it was good.

DVD Talk points out that "[…] The Call of the Wild (1972) is a real anomaly, downright bizarre even. It improbably brought together A-list Hollywood star Charlton Heston, still near the peak of his fame, with shady Harry Alan Towers, a one-time procurer, bail-jumper, and possible Soviet spy-turned-movie producer, best known for his cheapo Fu Manchu movies and long association with schlockmeisters like director Jesus Franco. Typical of Towers's productions, The Call of the Wild is a multinational patchwork filmed in Norway and Spain, with American, French, German, Austrian, and Spanish actors, whose salaries were shakily financed with money coming from all over Europe. Though the direction is credited to Ken Annakin, a veteran British filmmaker who knew his way around big league pictures, The Call of the Wild is itself only marginally professional, looking not at all like Heston's other movies but typical of Towers's oeuvre."

 

Depending on which plot description one reads, Heston's character, John Thornton, is either a government mail carrier or a prospector. Regardless of which, the basic plot remains the same: a domestic dog named Buck is sold off to the Klondike where, after initial difficulties, it becomes the alpha leader of the dogsled team. The reoccurring character with whom Buck bonds most is Thornton, but Buck also falls into the hands of other characters at various points throughout the film, including the wealthy trio of Charles (Friedhelm Lehmann), Mercedes (Maria Rohm), and Charles's brother Hal (Horst Heuck). They die…. In fact, all humans die in the tale, which is why Buck can finally answer "the call of the wild" at the end.

As The Movie Scene points out, when  "watching [The Call of the Wild] now, the acts of violence towards dogs, the dubious dubbing thanks to it being a European movie and the almost obvious storyline of a dog having an adventure is seriously off putting. It makes me glad that movies like this are no longer made and the acts of animal cruelty would most definitely not be allowed let alone in one called a family adventure. But behind these dubious scenes and a middle section which seems to drift along there is also a remarkably charming storyline which wins you over." (Charming? Aside from the violence and animal cruelty, again: everyone dies.)

Distributed by some minor firm called Intercontinental Releasing Corp. (IRC), they screwed up on the copyright so at least one version of The Call of the Wild has entered the public domain.

The full film —

The Call of the Wild:

The movie was not well received when it was originally released. Indeed, at one point in his life Charlton Heston supposedly called it "the worst movie I ever made". In his autobiography The Actor's Life — Journals 1956-1976, Heston also wrote: "We're faced with the endless problems of organization, personnel, dogs, publicity . . . I fear I've fallen in with amateurs and con men. This had not been a picture really but a production deal, patched together with incredible adroitness and negotiating skill — and no filmmaking talent whatsoever."

Somewhere along the way in the movie, as DVD Talk puts it, "Thornton searches for his missing team while resolving his sort-of love triangle between an ambitious saloon owner (Michèle Mercier) and his beloved Buck." We mention this primarily because of DVD Talk's picturesque wording — visions of bestial three-ways cross our minds — and because it gives us reason to include the photograph below, not from the movie, of Michèle Mercier (of Women of Devil's Island [1962 / trailer], Black Sabbath [1963 / trailer], Cemetery Without Crosses [1969 / trailer], and Web of the Spider [1971 / German trailer]) in her prime.

Treasure Island

(1972, dir. John Hough & others)

Maria Rohm appears as the extremely MILFy Mrs. Hawkins, the owner of Hawkins' Tavern, the pub where the tale begins. (She's in the clip directly below.)

Scene from

Treasure Island:

This time around, Harry Alan Towers snared no one less than Orson Welles (6 May 1915 – 10 Oct 1985) to play Long John Silver. Welles himself, however, was less than thrilled to participate as his commitment was due to an almost ten-year-old contractual commitment: "Welles only offered to direct and star as Long John Silver in 1964 in order to secure funding for his cherished Falstaff project Falstaff – Chimes at Midnight (1965 / trailer), but he made only a cursory effort to make that version, dispatching Jess Franco to film some second-unit material, before abandoning the pretence entirely. However, he was still legally obliged to make the movie if new funding was ever obtained, which it duly was in 1972. The only problem with that was that it was prolific British schlockmeister Harry Alan Towers into whose hands the resurrected project fell. Towers was a poor moviemaker but a shrewd businessman, and he had three versions of the movie made — English, Italian and Spanish — by three different directors. He also had the screenplay Welles had prepared for the 1964 version re-written — a fact that prompted the actor to request that his name be removed from the credits (he's credited under the pseudonym O. W. Jeeves). [2020 Movie Reviews]" 

To what extent the two other directors — Andrea Bianchi (31March 1925 – 4 Nov 2013) and Antonio Margheriti (19 Sept 1930 – 4 Nov 1972) — actually directed complete, different versions is up to question. In an interview, John Hough claimed to have directed the whole movie, with Andrea Bianchi (credited, as often, as "Andrew White"), the second-unit director, listed on the European release for tax reasons.

John Hough, by the way, in his day directed many a much more entertaining and trashy film for mature audiences than this: Hammer's Twins of Evil (1971 / trailer), The Legend of Hell House (1973 / trailer), Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974 / trailer), The Watcher of the Woods (1980 / trailer), The Incubus (1982 / trailer), and the trash classic American Gothic (1987 / trailer below). Oh, and he also directed the turd that is the D-2-V Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (1988 / trailer). In all truth, however, alone or combined, Andrea Bianchi and Antonio Margheriti directed more entertaining movies than Hough.

Trailer to

American Gothic (1987):

Treasure Island, of course, is based on Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel of the same name; Harry Alan Towers was to return to the tale again 17 years later in 1999 when he coproduced a version of the tale starring Jack Palance (trailer).

But when in comes to this version here, The Movie Scene has the plot: "One day Billy Bones (Lionel Stander [11 Jan 1908 – 30 Nov 1994]) comes to stay at a pub run by Mrs. Hawkins (Maria Rohm) and where her young son Jim (Kim Burfield) works. But Billy has a love of the sauce and when he dies it is Jim who ends up in possession of a map showing the location of Captain Flint's treasure. Jim along with Squire Trelawney (Walter Slezak [in his final film appearance]) and Dr. Livesey (Angel DelPozo) decide to follow the map which leads them on a sea journey with Captain Smollett (Rik Battaglia [18 Feb 1927 – 27 March 2015]) who agrees to take them to the island. But everyone aboard including former pirate turned ship's cook, Long John Silver (Orson Welles) learns of the treasure map and that makes it a dangerous place to be especially with Silver willing to do anything to get his hands on the treasure."

Derek Winnert says that "This rumbustious, undervalued 1972 Spanish-shot version of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 classic young adults' novel about a boy's life with pirates on the high seas proves a pleasant, enjoyable surprise. It's good that, this time, much of the plot and the linking narrative, spoken by the actor playing Jim Hawkins, is faithful to the original book. […] Walter Slezak, Lionel Stander, Rik Battaglia and Ángel del Pozo are also flamboyant assets to liven up the movie as Squire Trelawney, Billy Bones, Captain Smollett and Doctor Livesey. And young Kim Burfield is more than adequate as cabin lad Jim Hawkins."

 

An opinion countered by the writer at Mystery File, who says: "I had somewhat high hopes for Treasure Island, but I probably should have known better. It's probably one of Orson Welles' least-known films and it's most certainty [sic] that way for a reason. Produced by Harry Alan Towers, this somewhat genial, but ultimately unsatisfying adventure yarn …."

 

More-interesting films by the various names involved: Rik Battaglia is found in the minor classic Nightmare Castle (1965 / trailer) and non-classic White Slave (1985 / trailer); Ángel del Pozo is in the classic Horror Express (1972 / trailer), the forgotten — for a Bunel film — Leonor (1975 / music) and the trashy Assignment Terror (1970 / German trailer)*; and character actor Lionel Stander is found in any of the following: Cul-De-Sac (1966 / trailer), Pulp (1972 / trailer), Wicked Stepmother (1989 / trailer), The Loved One (1965 / trailer), Blast of Silence (1961 / trailer), and so much more.

* A film high on our "to see" list.

Not to be mistaken for Towers's film —

Scott King's Treasure Island (1999):

Sex Charade

(1972, writ. & dir. Jess Franco)

The last film that Maria Rohm made with Franco was this movie, Sex Charade, which is considered by most a lost film — which would mean that the poster below is "fake". Anyone know?

In any event, Rohm is not the star: instead, the babe of focus is Franco's muse of the time, the beautiful Soledad Miranda (9 July 1943 – 18 August 1970).

The plot can be found at the imdb, where "Anonymous" says, "The story revolves around Anne (Miranda) who is held hostage by an escaped maniac from an insane asylum. The fugitive forces her to tell stories to prevent her from getting help. Anne then spins a fanciful tale about a girl's escape from her imprisonment by savages and her longing to return to captivity."

Fan-made music video to

a song of Soledad's:

The imdb and other sites list the film as from 1972, but most sites claim the movie was released in 1970 — as does Lost Media Archive, whence most of the photos here come. The LMA further claim, "Sex Charade […] was one of three films Franco shot in Liechtenstein (the other two being Nightmares Come at Night [1970 / scene] and Eugenie de Sade [1973]). […] The film apparently had a short theatrical run in France and was partially released in Belgium as a bizarre collage featuring footage from other films."

 

The starring cast consisted of Soledad Miranda, Jack Taylor, Howard Vernon, Maria Rohm, Diana Lorys and Paul Muller — Franco regulars, one all. The underappreciated Diana Lorys also starred in one of our favorite movies, Armando de Ossorio's oft-maligned gothic, vampire comedy flick Malenka aka Fangs of the Living Dead (1969).

Trailer to

Fangs of the Living Dead:

And Then There Were None

(1974, dir. Peter Collinson [1 April 1936 – 16 Dec 1980])

"Same script, different locations. You always kill off the most expensive stars first!" 

– Harry Alan Towers on his three versions of Ten Little Indians

The first to go, Charles Aznavour, performs

The Old Fashioned Way (Les Plaisirs Démodés)

in And Then There Were None:

We took a quick look at And Then There Were None aka Ten Little Indians way back in 2012, in They Died in September 2012, Part VII: Herbert Lom, where we more or less wrote:

 

"Peter Collinson's career was already on the slide when he made this, the umpteenth film version of the famous Agatha Christie novel And Then There Were None (originally entitled Ten Little Niggers), the best-selling book of all books she ever wrote (in fact, it is the 7th best-selling book of all time). This version here, the first one to made in color, is also the second of three versions that producer Harry Alan Towers brought to the screen (the first being from 1965 [trailer]; the third, 1989 [trailer]).

"This version has a highly enjoyable international cast, to say the least, and unlike the original story, which is set on an island, the events here take place in a hotel deep in the Iranian desert. Herbert Rom appears here as Dr Edward Armstrong, who had been accused of causing a woman's death by operating on her while drunk. (Lom is also present in Towers' 1989 production, directed by Alan Birkinshaw, but as the General, who had caused the death of his wife's lover by sending the soldier on a suicide mission.)

"The plot, according to Wikipedia: 'A group of 10 people, strangers to one another, have all travelled to a hotel located deep in the deserts of Iran. Upon arrival they discover that their host is mysteriously absent. They are accused by a tape recording of having committed various crimes in the past which went unpunished by the law. As guests start to die, the remainder deduce that their unseen host is determined to murder them. Since a search of the hotel proves that there is no one hiding among them, they realize that the murderer is one of them'."

Trailer to

And Then There Were None:

"Peter Welbeck" (aka Harry Alan Towers) is the credited screenwriter, but then the script is almost the same as the 1965 version of And Then There Were None, for which he received co-writing credit. Maria Lohm has a relatively unglamorous part in this version of the tale, that of Elsa Martino, the housekeeper and cook. She, along with her husband Otto (Alberto de Mendoza [21 Jan 23 – 12 Dec 11] of Horror Express [1972 / trailer]), "maliciously and brutally caused the death of [their] invalid employer for [their] own financial gain". The film's final girl heroine, now named Vera Clyde, is played by a young Elke Sommer, of Flashback — Morderische Ferien (2000) and Hotel der toten Gäste (1965).

Ninja Dixon says, "To be honest, if you want to see a brilliant version of Ten Little Indians watch the Soviet version from 1987, Desyat Negrityat (Ninja's review / full film in Russian). That's a very faithful adaptation, maybe the only version 100% true to Christie's original vision. But until then, this one delivers cozy entertainment for Saturday mornings and that day you need to stay home because of a nasty cold."

We here at a wasted life, on the other hand, would recommend the less-than-faithful Bollywood version from 1965, Gumnaam. 

Dance scene in Gumnaam (1965),

the Bollywood version of Ten Little Indians:

As of recent, it has come to light that Christie may have purloined her basic plot from another book turned into a play turned into a film in which eight guests are brought together to a dinner party and killed one by one. The book, The Invisible Host, by Bruce Manning (15 July 1902 – 3 Aug 1965) and Gwen Bristow (16 Sept 1903 – 17 Aug 1980) was published in 1930, nine years before Christie's racistly titled novel. The play, The Ninth Guest by Owen Davis (29 Jan 1874 – 14 Oct 1956), was first performed in 1934, 13 years before Christie's play. The movie version of The Ninth Guest, directed by Roy William Neill (4 Sept 1887 – 14 Dec 1946), came out in 1934, 11 years before And Then There Were None (1945 / film). Roy William Neill's The Ninth Guest is now in public domain. 

Full film — Roy William Neill's

The Ninth Guest:

Closed Up-Tight

(1975, dir. Cliff Owen [22 April 1919 – Nov 1993])

OK, since this flick is listed in the imdb and various other online sources, we're including it here. One might assume it to be an obscure and forgotten British comedy, produced by Harry Alan Towers, which could well be a lost film and in someone's attic. But before you start searching, some things need to be considered.
The Internet is strangely uninformative about Closed Up-Tight, for example. No one has written about it, despite its intriguing cast (Maria Rohm, Marty Feldman, Robin Askwith, Terry Thomas, Ron Moody, Mark "I fathered Paris Jackson" Lester, and minor cult babe Annie Belle), and the same "poster" image is seen everywhere. But the "poster" usually found isn't even a poster: it is a page ripped from a magazine on which is written, at the bottom, "Shooting Start: June 1976" — a full year after the release date commonly given for Closed Up-Tight.

Personally, we don't think the movie was ever made (perhaps the shoot never even began).  Closed Up-Tight, odd spelling and all, is not found on most filmographies of any the actors outside of the imdb. And the French blogspot Chez Roubi's (Annie Belle Fan Blog) lends credence to the concept that film was never made by simply claiming that the film was a "Projet abandonné".

Of the names involved in the cast that never was, the most interesting to fans of cult flotsam are (outside of Maria Rohm) without doubt Robin Askwith and Annie Bell/Belle. In theory, Closed Up-Tight would have been the debut film of "Annie Belle". True, she had participated in four previous films, but in all her prior movies — including Jean Rollon's Lips of Blood (1975 / trailer) — she was credited either under her birth name, "Annie Brilland", or as "Annie Briand". 
As Annie Belle, she is the lead in the last film Maria Rohm acted, Annie aka Blue Bell (1976), which we look at in Part IV of this career review. Annie Belle, found in Laura (1976 / trailer), Velluto nero (1976), House on the Edge of the Park (1980 / trailer, with David Hess), and Absurd (1981 / trailer), retired after the decidedly unexciting bad film Escape from Death aka Luna di sangue (1989) to become a social worker. 

Trailer to

Velluto nero (1976):

Robin Askwith might no longer be a household name (and perhaps never was outside of Great Britain), but his recognizable face is found in numerous badly dated sex comedies as well as watchable movies (mostly in the 70s), the latter including Lindsay Anderson's If.... (1968 / trailer) & Britannia Hospital (1982 / trailer), Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Canterbury Tales (1972 / trailer), the non-classic Queen Kong (1976, with Rula "VO5" Lenska [!]), Peter Walker's The Flesh and Blood Show (1972 / trailer), Horror on Snape Island (1972 / trailer, with Jill Haworth) and Horror Hospital (1973 / trailer, with Michael Gough). 

Trailer to

Queen Kong (1976):

El asesino no está solo

(1975, dir. Jesús García de Dueñas)

Aka The Killer Is Not Alone. Contrary to popular opinion, this Spanish thriller is not Maria Rohm's last movie, but it is close. A Spanish production, it doesn't seem to have been released in any other country. One of the producers, Andrés Vicente Gómez, co-produced some earlier Towers productions — for example, both Black Beauty (1971) and Treasure Island (1972) — which might explain how Maria Rohm came to get cast in one of her few non-Towers produced films. Among other later projects, Andrés Vicente Gómez produced such fun stuff like El día de la bestia (1995) and Killer Tongue (1996). 

Trailer to

Killer Tongue (1996):

The plot, more or less as found online: "Julio (David 'Tarzan' Carpenter), an only child of a wealthy family, murders a prostitute who tries to seduce him. He, in childhood, suffered severe trauma and this has caused serious problems with women. Because of this, he runs away and stays at a boarding house in Madrid, where he meets Monica (Teresa Rabal), the daughter of the owner (Lola Flores [21 Jan 1923 – 16 May 1995]). Monica finds him attractive … even as his obsession for killing is increases."

Not many people have written about the movie in English, but The Bloody Pit of Horror did and points out that "All of the actors do a decent job in their respective parts. Co-star Maria Rohm is interestingly cast playing three different characters; the opening murder victim, the prostitute living at the boarding house and Julio's childhood babysitter (and sports a different hair color in each role; red, blonde and mousy brunette, respectively)."

Over at the imdb, Red-Barracuda says that "It's not the most original concept in the world", but also says: "But this Spanish production still registers. It has decent performances and a story that essentially holds up. But more importantly it has a good sense of style. The killer's inner turmoil is shown by flashbacks, close-ups of eyes and eerie music. In the murder scenes, all of these elements kick in together and are well-executed. Generally speaking, it's a well-photographed film, with nice exterior shots of various Spanish locales and great detail of a religious festival incorporated into the story, which adds good additional atmosphere. The killer's obsession with women's shoes also adds a further fetishistic detail; similarly, images and sounds of trains add additional material that recalls his past trauma. The music varies from cheesy Spanish pop to atmospheric glockenspiel and piano driven pieces. […] Definitely a movie that deserves to be more widely seen."

Clip with Maria Rohm from

El asesino no está solo (1975):

Go here for Part IV: 1976 – 2007.

Short Film: Less than Human (Denmark, 2017)

Although a zombie film, this award-winning computer animation short film is anything but a display of gut-munching and blood. No, the best word that might describe Less than Human, which is as much of a tragicomedy as a zombie short, is one not normally associated with the undead: poignant.*

* For zombies, gut-munching and blood, we suggest you see other Short Films of the Month, such as June 2017's Love of the Dead (2011), April 2017's Rotting Hill (2012), May 2016's Meat Me at Plainville (2011), April 2016's great Fist of Jesus (2012), Dec 2013's A Very Zombie Holiday (2010), Aug 2011's Paris by Night of the Living Dead (2009), or May 2010's Zombeer (2008).

Poster above taken from the Less than Human tumblr.

The Imdb has a relatively cut-and-dry and not 100%-on-the-mark plot description: "A freelance reporter [voiced by Scott Keck] ventures into a post-zombie resettlement camp and interviews two ex-zombies [Dave Dyson = Andy, and Lawrence Marvit = Don] trying to find out whether ex-zombies are ready for reinsertion into normal society." The two tragic figures of this wryly humorous tale are very much still undead, if each with a consciousness that includes memories from their lives as humans. Within its short running time, Less than Human takes a look at friendship, prejudice and tolerance, and the nature of being human. It also tackles the concept of the failed impartiality of press coverage — as we see it, the reporter must come from FOX News.

Less than Human, like our June 2013 Short Film of the Month Backwater Gospel (2011), is a student bachelor's project at Denmark's The Animation Workshop.

To take the some info (like the photo above) straight from the short's website: Steffen Bang Lindholm (the director) initially pitched the idea in the spring of 2015, bringing together an end team of eight students — four animators and four computer graphic artists — not one of whom was named Hans Christian. (The names, no particular order: Ditte Marie Ludvigsen, Lasse Steinbeck, Matilde Soeltoft, Anna Eckhoff Ohrt Nissen, Julie Rebecca Billeskov Astrup, Morten Vestbjerg Boegelund Lassen and Ida Marie Soendergaard). That's them above in the photo. The film was made over 10 months, from late August 2015 to early June 2016.

The Ghoul (Great Britain, 1933)

First, the history lesson: Hot on the heels of his two horror hits (and eventual classics), James Whale's Frankenstein (1931 / trailer) and Karl Freund's The Mummy (1932 / trailer), Boris Karloff returned to his native England to star in this, The Ghoul, the first British horror film of the sound era and, at least according to one source, Karloff's first role in a British film. And, likewise, the first movie to be given an "H" (for "Horrific") by the British Board of Film Censors.

Trailer to

The Ghoul:

The source material for the movie is/was a play of the same name by Dr. Frank King (1892 – 3 Dec 1958) and Rev. Leonard Hines (18 Aug 1889 – 1975), which in turn is/was based on an early "thrilling mystery" novel also entitled The Ghoul (1928) by the previously mentioned and mostly forgotten but productive crime fiction author Frank King. (His equally mostly forgotten, kill-capable, private detective anti-hero Clive "Dormouse" Conrad, to give you an idea of productive King was, appeared in 21 novels between 1936 and 1958.)

As adapted for the screen by Rupert Downing, John Hastings Turner (16 Dec 1892 – 29 Feb 1956), and Roland Pertwee (17 May 1885 – 26 April 1963), the last of whom later also helped script The Halfway House [1944 / trailer] and Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945 / let's smoke),* The Ghoul jettisons much of the original plot in the book about a master criminal known as "The Ghoul" and, instead, pursues the formula of an "old dark house" movie sprinkled lightly with the Egyptian proclivities of The Mummy and a monstrous countenance (possibly a nod to the disfigured faces sported by Karloff in both Frankenstein and The Mummy). A hit in England, but less successful when imported to the US of A, The Ghoul eventually became a "lost film" that achieved an almost legendary status as a great film due to surviving stills.** All that aside, according to Michael Samerdyke in his book Horror 213, Volume 1, Karloff himself supposedly "expressed the hope that it would stay lost".

* And is, incidentally, grandfather of Sean Pertwee, of Event Horizon (1997), Dog Soldiers (2002), Renaissance (2006 / trailer), Botched (2007), Mutant Chronicles (2008) and much, much more.

** Much like, if you get down to it, London after Midnight (1927). Considering how disappointing its unofficial remake Mark of the Vampire (1935 / trailer) is, London after Midnight would probably never live up to expectations were it ever to be found.

It didn't. First, in 1969, a damaged copy was found in communist Czechoslovakia, and then, in the 1980s, an un-mutilated copy was discovered in a forgotten vault at Shepperton Studios. And what does that un-mutilated copy reveal?

Well, basically, that The Ghoul is hardly worthy of its legendary status as a masterpiece of horror, but quite enjoyable in its dated way and perfect (but, perhaps, for one scene in which Karloff takes a knife to his chest) for a rainy afternoon with the wee kiddies. And for those out there who understand a ghoul as something somewhat along the lines of an early version of the contemporary zombie — i.e., as "a legendary evil being that robs graves and feeds on corpses" [Webster's] — rest assured no corpses are fed upon in The Ghoul. The robbery of a jewel from a dead man, however, does play a major part in the plot.

The titular monster of The Ghoul is the Egyptologist Professor Henry Morlant (Boris Karloff), whose monstrous face looks less like the disfiguring result of years under the burning desert sun than as if a lab experiment blew up in his face. The ugliness of Morlant's visage, however, does well to reflect the ugliness of his soul: a man obsessed with immortality, there is little to like about him. His deathbed instructions are that he be buried with The Eternal Light, a stolen Egyptian jewel of great value, so that he can achieve immortality when he places it in the hand of the statue of the god Anabus — though how he should do that after he is dead is never broached. He dies, the jewel is stolen, heirs and others show up on the scene, and then a murderously angry Morlant awakens and staggers forth from his crypt…

That Karloff was possibly not enamored by The Ghoul is easy to understand: he is not given much to do. His character is a bad man, plain and simple, both on the deathbed and after he rises from the tomb. Still, as little as he has to work with, Karloff is effective; if his voice might be a bit to pleasingly melodious to truly drip the ruthlessness of his character, his expressive face and body language are nevertheless well employed whenever he appears onscreen (basically at the start and end of the movie). But Morlant being the one-dimensional character that he is, it is hardly surprising that Karloff is, on the whole, upstaged by the great and gaunt Ernest Thesiger (15 Jan 1879 – 14 Jan 1961) as the Scottish butler Laing,* who steals the jewel less due to greed than because he thinks it would better serve Morlant's heirs than a dead man. (There are, however, various nefarious gentlemen who would gladly get their mitts on the jewel for their own betterment…)

* Coincidentally enough, the year previously in James Whale's horror comedy The Old Dark House (1932 / trailer), Karloff played the butler to Ernest Thesiger's master of the house. Most people know Thesiger, if at all, from his wonderfully campy turn as Dr. Pretorius in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935 / trailer).

As directed by minor director Thomas Hayes Hunter (1 Dec 1884 – 14 April 1944), The Ghoul is oddly inconsistent visually and, once too often, flat and dull. The opening scene of Aga Ben Dragore (Harold Huth [20 Jan 1892 – 26 Oct 1967]) ascending some stairs, with its excellent Expressionistic use of light and shadow and framing and depth of vision, gives rise to high hopes. But unlike the general excellence of the set design, the Expressionistic artistic flourishes come and go throughout the movie. Indeed, during the torch-lit scene of Prof. Morlant's rise from the tomb, for example, a scene that easily could have been made moody, expressive and full of frightful dread, the lighting is bright and unexpressive and lacking of any emotion.

Ditto with the camerawork and framing. An early scene in the library of Morlant's mansion, shot in a smooth but unobtrusive camera pan and moving camera, offers the promise of visually intriguing and pleasurable camerawork, but soon thereafter The Ghoul is pretty much reduced to an almost Poverty Row-reminiscent static camera focused on blocked scenes. This does little to enliven the events and, instead, emphasizes the stage roots of the entire production. Things do improve a bit again after Morlant rises, now seemingly super-human (as in: look what he's doing to the bars in the picture way at the top of this review), but it is almost a case of too little, too late. Thomas Hayes Hunter, obviously an employed director instead of an engaged director, simply didn't have the committed creative and artistic drive that would have been needed to make the movie a continual visually aesthetic and effective (if not affective) horror movie.*

* Cf.: Paul Leni's Cat and the Canary [1927 / full movie] and Roland West's The Bat Whispers [1930 / full movie], for example, are excellent examples of how a director's committed creative and artistic drive can truly elevate arguably stale material.

But then, The Ghoul is not really a horror movie; it is, as mentioned earlier, more of a horror comedy in the mold of the old dark house films. And in regard to the comedy, which is 98% of the verbal kind (i.e., the dialogue), it is often far more effective than many similar movies of the kind. True, the movie's male hero, Ralph Morlant (Anthony Bushell [19 May 1904 – 2 April 1997]) is an unlikable bore, the type of English chap one would best like to knock over the head or see fall victim to an untimely death, but he does often have some funny putdowns and snide remarks (he's obviously a Times reader) — but then, almost everyone in the movie has some witty if not inspiringly funny dialogue, but for Karloff.

Credit must surely be given, however, to the actress Kathleen Harrison (23 Feb 1892 – 7 Dec 1995, of The Ghost Train [1941 / full movie], Turn the Key Softly [1953 / full movie], Cast a Dark Shadow [1955 / trailer] and more), who plays the movie's 100% true comic relief character, Kaney, for managing to be the comic relief through-and-through without remaining the annoyance that such characters generally are. Her obsession with sheiks and beatings, which would surely never have reached a post-Hayes Code movie, is one of the many highpoints of her comedy. To the movie's advantage, she is also incorporated into the final resolution in a manner that also makes her a bit more than simply an enjoyable third wheel.

The dialogue of The Ghoul, as stagey and stilted as it often is, is without doubt one of the most enjoyable aspects of the movie, especially when delivered as dryly as it is by Harold Huth, as grumpily as by the lawyer Boughten (Cedrick Hardwicke [19 Feb 1893 – 6 Aug 1964, of The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942 / trailer), The Lodger (1944 / full film), The Invisible Man Returns (1940 / trailer), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945 / trailer), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939 / trailer), Lured (1947 / trailer), Baby Face Nelson (1957 / trailer) and so much more), and as archly as by Ernest Thesiger.

It is a bit of a letdown that The Ghoul ends with a cop-out "plausible" non-supernatural explanation for Morlant rising from the dead — an explanation said almost in passing amidst all the crosscutting of scenes during the movie's climax which, in the end, may purposely negate all possibility of the supernatural but nevertheless fails to explain how Morlant gets enough strength to literally bend steel bars. (Also illogically inconsistent: Morlant strangles Mahmoud (D.A. Clarke-Smith [2 Aug 1888 – 12 March 1959]), the most obvious foreigner, to death but kills neither of the females — not even the one he strangles.) Still, at least the final showdown is amidst flame and fire and danger, thus finally adding a sense of imperilment not present for most of the movie.

The Ghoul is, in the end, an enjoyable if minor movie that could easily have been much better than it is and, conversely, could easily have been a lot worse. Good for a laugh (often) and good for shiver (not as often), it starts well and ends well but is a bit dry in the middle — but remains divertingly entertaining in that way only old "horror" movie's can. If you're a fan of old B&W horror films, it is well worth a gander and you will probably enjoy The Ghoul; other people — especially those raised on the Net and today's adrenaline-heavy movies — will probably enjoy it a lot less, if at all.

"I'm sorry there should be this sort of atmosphere. After all, we're only ships that pass in the night." 

Nigel Hartley (Ralph Richardson)

 "Hmmm. Do you want a drink, or will you pass now?"

Broughton (Cedric Hardwicke)

The Ghoul —
The Full Movie: