Here's
three-minute oddity by the Brazilian production company Animatorio. A mixture of stop motion with a dash of CGI, this nightmarish little short is a
visual if twisted treat. We were too taken in by the sights to look for a
theme, but a visit to the film's homepage
reveals a theme indeed: "Transformation trough mutations stages. Evolution
as a function gain is called neo-morphic. Imaginary creatures adapt into an
Ecosystem and the transformation of these habitats for these creatures
generates a fantastic cycle. The mutation symbolism is part of our experiences
in that trajectory, changing places, finding a new spectrum, a new phase,
evolving."
Last
week Boot Hill
announced the death of cult actress Janine Reynaud, a surprise to us here
at A Wasted Life because we had assumed that she went to make bad films in the
sky decades ago. But no, instead she passed away at the age of 87 on 30 January 2018
without notice or fanfare. How, we wonder, could that be? (Probably because
when she went into retirement in 1978, she really retired.)
True, she was no great actress, and in
appearance was somewhat reminiscent of Amanda Lear
but with worse skin, but especially as of 1968 she did make a variety of films
worth watching, even if they haven't all aged that well. And that's why, though
she is long gone, we here at A Wasted Life have decided on this belated career
review.
Let's take a look at the movies of this
former high fashion model who decided to become an actor…
Six Days a Week
(1965, writ. & dir. Luigi Comencini [8 June
1916 – 6 April 2007])
Original title: La Bugiarda. Possibly her
debut film, Janine Reynaud plays the "real" Silvana — a fact that
only makes sense if you know the movie's plot.
And what is the plot? Well: "Maria (Catherine Spaak of Cat
o' Nine Tails [1971 / Italo trailer])
is a young beauty who is busy juggling three boyfriends (a count, a dentist and
a student) at the same time. She manages this elaborate deception by
impersonating her roommate Silvana (Reynaud), who is a real-life airline
hostess. She lies to the count (Enrico Maria Salerno [18 Sept 1926 – 28 Feb
1994]) and the dentist (Marc Michel [10 Feb 1929 – 3 Nov 2016]) about her
flight schedules and her whereabouts so she can spend three days a week with
each of them. She spends the remaining day of the week with a student (Manuel
Miranda), who thinks she is a fellow student named Maria. One day the news of the
real Silvana's flight disappearance breaks out and she is presumed dead. Comedy
and confusion ensure when Maria is forced to come up with a more elaborate
scheme to cover her tracks and keep her boyfriends happy. [imdb]" For more about the movie, go to La Calda Vita.
Great soundtrack to
La Bugiarda:
Mission to Caracas
(1965, dir. Raoul André [24 May 1916 – 4
Nov 1992])
Original title: Mission spéciale à Caracas.
Janine Reynaud plays Véronique — she doesn't make it to the end of the movie.
According to Cinemorgue,
she is "shot to death by an enemy agent, using a gun hidden in a camera,
on board an ocean liner".
Plot: "Parody spy thriller of attempts
by French agents to discover plans for a nerve poison bomb which is about to
cause war between France and Russia. [BFI]"
Eurotrash Cinema
offers more details: "Roland Carey is special agent Becker, who's after a
briefcase that rather cleverly disguises some secret documents. The documents
are being smuggled aboard a cruise ship, as luck would have it. Based on Claude
Rank's spy novel […]." We were unable to discern which novel.
At her official blog,
Hammer actress Yvonne Monlaur (15 Dec 1939 – 18 April 2017, see Brides of Dracula
[1960]), who plays Muriel in the movie, gives a full and extremely detailed
plot summary and also mentions that "Mission to Caracas is probably not a
great film. The plot summary […], with its awkwardness and naive narration,
sometimes unintentionally funny, reflects the numerous problems which marked
its shooting, one of the longest and most chaotic I've ever lived. We went on a
cruise to Venezuela during the months of April, May and June. It was such a
holiday for most of the team that we sometimes forgot we had a movie to shoot!"
A Desire to Die
(1965, dir. Duccio Tessari [11 Oct 1926 – 6
Sept 1994])
Original title: Una voglia da morire. Who
knows what Raynard's part was in this obscure movie, as while one finds her
across the web listed on the cast her character is never named. Director
Tessari was a versatile and fun if now underappreciated and forgotten director
and scriptwriter whose oeuvre includes working on the scripts of Mario Bava's Hercules
in the Lost World (1961 / trailer),
Sergio Corbucci's Goliath and the Vampires (1961 / trailer),
and Leone's A Fistful of Dollars
(1964).
Also directed by Duccio Tessari –
the Euro-blaxploitation flick
Three Tough Guys
(1974):
The blog One Man & His Droid
is the lone voice that knows this movie, writing: "In search of forgotten
films. […] Una Voglia da Morire (1965) by the Genoese Duccio Tessari, a film
shot for the most part in Arenzano,
is a sarcastic attack on the cynicism and hypocrisy of middle-class Italians
during the boom years which was banned on the grounds of obscenity, and when it
was finally released didn't have a real distribution. Since then it has become
an invisible film, forgotten by everyone. […] It starts off in Arenzano with
the death of a prostitute (Regine Ohann) killed in the street, and then moves
setting to the wealthy Milanese middle-classes. The murdered woman was the
wearing shoes and underwear of a wealthy lady, a businessman (Raf Vallone [17
Feb 1916 – 31 Oct 2002]) from the Po Valley
discovers in the newspaper that the license plate of the car involved belongs
to his wife (Annie Giardot [25 Oct 1931 – 28 Feb 2011], of Mario Bava's Shock!
[1973 / trailer]),
[…] and the truth slowly starts to come out: the wives of these two gentlemen
had gone on holiday to Arenzano for a few days, started seducing men to relieve
their boredom…"
La spia che viene dal mare
(1966, writ & dir Lamberto
Benvenuti)
Supposedly aka The Spy Who Came from the
Sea. Though the unknown Benvenuti directed — the first of his only three known
movies — credit is given to "John O'Burges". Janine Reynaud plays bad
gal Madame Lina, and even made it onto some of the posters to this obscure
movie. Over at Cinemorgue,
which is not sure if the death they speak of is in this movie or in Operation
White Shark (1966, see directly below), they claim her character is "shot
to death in a shoot-out as she gets out of her car on the beach".
According to the imdb, the lead of this spy
movie, John Elliot, is the same John Elliot that played Det. Harlan in HGLewis's The Wizard of Gore (1970 / trailer).
The mind boggles.
From the movie:
Possible plot of the movie: American
intelligence agencies believe that that top US scientist Dr. Lindstrom will be
assassinated during an upcoming scientific conference to be held in Geneva.
After some investigation, the secret service discovers that the criminals may
be based in the Republic of San Marino
and so they send in an agent there. Agent 027 (Elliot), with the help of a
colleague, finds out that the criminal's den is led by some guy and Madame Lina,
the head of a fashion house. The story soon moves to Venice and then Geneva. Of
course, in the end, the wicked die.
Operation White Shark
(1966, dir. Filippo Walter Ratti as
"Stanley Lewis")
"Welcome to the low rent district.
While Operation White Shark is colorful in places, it is clear that the
filmmakers were working with a budget embarrassingly low even for Eurospy
knockoffs. We're in for some third-rate spy action! […] This is one of those
movies that has much unintentional humor in the dialog and situations. It will
keep you rolling. Also, Robbie Poitevin provides an entertaining score that far
outshines anything on the screen. [imdb]"
Original title: A.D.3 operazione squalo
bianco. Reynaud has a meaty role as the Frida Braun of the Tattoo Club; her
singing, obviously enough, was dubbed. Over at Cinemorgue,
which is not sure if the death they speak of is in this movie or in The Spy Who
Came from the Sea (1966, see directly above), they claim her character is
"shot to death in a shoot-out as she gets out of her car on the
beach".
Ratti's later films include (as "Peter
Rush") Mondo Erotico (1973 / talk, talk, talk)
and the two horror flicks, Night of the Damned (1971 / credits)
and Crazy Desires of a Murderer (1977 / trailer).
Scriptwriter Luigi Angelo went on to help write The Slasher aka The Prowler aka
Bad Girls (1972 / trailer),
starring Farley Granger
and, in a re-edited X-rated version entitled Penetration, the mighty member of
Harry Reems.
Trailer to
Operation White Shark:
As revealed by the trailer above, Something Weird
had this one for a while. They offered the following plot description: "When
'The Third Eye' — a criminal organization made up of the world's most vicious
killers — kidnaps nuclear scientist Professor Von Kraft, his secret formula for
a new atomic weapon that can destroy all human life falls into their evil
hands. Making things a tad difficult, however, is that the weapon is located
deep beneath the ocean. Nevertheless, the Third Eye plans on experimenting with
the device in little more than a week. However, the Secret Service has other
ideas and asks 'Jerry', their super computer, to locate the best man to stop
them: Mark Andrews (Rodd Dana), a special forces secret agent who infiltrates
the criminal gang under the cover of a robber who just happens to be an expert
underwater diver! He also wastes no time romancing all manner of shapely women
in the tightest clothes imaginable (when they're wearing more than a modestly
placed bed sheet) especially Janine Reynaud, the bisexual leader of The Third
Eye, who sports a wild wardrobe of very revealing outfits."
Rodd Dana,
by the way, began his limited career in small parts in two faves of ours, Bert
I. Gordon's War of the Colossal Beast (1958 / trailer)
and Herbert L. Strock's How to Make a Monster (1958 / trailer).
For more about Operation White Shark than
you would ever want to know, go to Teleport City.
Special Code: Assignment Lost
Formula
(1966, dir. Pino Mercanti [16 feb 1911 – 2
Sept 1986])
Original title: Cifrato speciale.
"Herbert J. Sherman" is credited as the director. Reynaud plays Sheena
in a movie also featuring the great Helga "Yummy" Line (of the great Horror
Express [1972 / trailer],
José Ramón Larraz's
Estigma (1980) & Sex Rites of the Devil [1982], Umberto Lenzi's
Kriminal [1966] & So Sweet... So Perverse [1969], and so much more).
Credit sequence and theme:
"Standard Italian Bond imitation
follows the exploits of sort-of agent Johnny Curd (Lang Jeffries
[7 June 1930 – 12 Feb 1987]), who knows the whereabouts of a secret code or
formula used by the Nazis. Many different organizations try to buy him, which
leads to some action and an underwater showdown. Trivial, disjointed fare tries
hard to be dramatic, comes off as pretentious. Good Riz Ortolani score. [Cult Movies]"
Lang Jeffries lackluster career includes
such highlights as Al Adamson's "Blaxploitation" flick, Mean Mother
(1974), which he only appears in because it is actually a re-edit of León
Klimovsky's Run for Your Life (1971).
Trailer to
Mean Mother:
Ypotron - Final Countdown
(1966, dir. Giorgio Stegani as "George
Finley")
Original title: Agente Logan - missione
Ypotron. Director Giorgio Stegani, who had previously directed Mill of the
Stone Women (1960 / trailer),
went on to do "additional dialogue" for Ruggero Deodato's classic, Cannibal Holocaust
(1980). Janine Reynaud plays Carol. Over at Cinemorgue,
they claim that Carol is "poisoned when she scratches her finger on a
hidden needle on a briefcase handle".
Credit sequence:
"Ypotron boasts […] a terrific score
by Nico Fidenco
throughout the film and the swinging theme song is performed by The Sorrows.
This film has enough bad guys for three movies and the confusing plot doesn't
help any. Things to look forward to are scenes with wind tunnel peril (it had
to happen), a strange stripper act, and dialog that loses something in the
translation. Note: the bloodthirsty of you will enjoy the bullfight scenes
where you witness the actual killing of a bull. Our heroes get to use all
manner of fancy gadgets in their pursuit of evil. Lighter communicators get a
workout and there's an instant oil slick capsule to derail those bad guys
chasing you. They use a briefcase movie camera which not only develops the film
automatically but will also project it onto a tiny screen, a receiver in a
Norelco shaver, a nifty gadget that makes phones ring, and a radar tracking
device in a Bible! [B-Movie Nation]"
The plot: "Doctor Morrow (Alfredo Mayo
[17 May 1911 – 19 May 1985], of In the Folds of the Flesh [1970 / trailer]),
a scientist who works for NASA, has mysteriously disappeared. The Secret
Service investigates. Agent Lemmy Logan (Luis Dávila [15 July 1927 – 21 Aug
1998]) is in charge of the case. He discovers that that Leikman (Alfredo Mayo) — a former Nazi scientist — is developing Ypotron, a weapon that could destroy
a large part of the world. Leikman wants to use the Dr. Morrow's scientific
knowledge. This is an Europsy movie from the sixties with some nice locations
en beautiful women. […] The acting is good, especially from Luis Dávila as
Lemmy Logan. However, there are 3 positive things about it that bear special
mentioning: 1) Janine Reynaud in a bikini. Compared to the cute but overly
mousy Gaia Germani [as Jeanne Morrow], she plays the better female character
here. 2) The striptease sequence combined with the heroine's smart trick of
escaping from the hero's close supervision. 3) The interesting final twist. [European Trash Cinema]"
Killers Are Challenged
(1966, dir. Antonio Margheriti [19 Sept
1930 – 4 Nov 2002])
Original title: A 077, sfida ai killers. Janine
Reynaud plays Halima — you already see her during the credit sequence. Over at Cinemorgue,
they claim her character is "shot in the chest by Wandisa Guida
[character: 'Terry Coleman']".
Of course, as so often in Margheriti's
case, the movie was credited to his favorite pseudonym, "Anthony Dawson",
the man behind many a good movie and more than one bad movie — like Alien from the Deep
(1989), starring Charles Napier.
Musclebound actor Richard "Hung" Harrison is also found in Orgasmo
negro (1980 / opening scene),
among many fun films. A 077, sfida ai killers was preceded by Luciano Martino's
Secret Agent Fireball / Le spie uccidono a Beirut (1965 / trailer)
and followed by Mino Loy & Luciano Martino's Fury in Marrakech / Furia a
Marrakech (1966 / credits),
the latter without Richard "Hung" Harrison (photo below not from the movie).
"In what has to go down as one of the
great disappointments in the history of cinema, at no time during director
Antonio Margheriti's Killers Are Challenged does star Richard Harrison ever
utter the phrase, 'The name is Fleming. Bob Fleming.' [Monsterhunter]"
Credits and theme song:
"Like always, the story is weak. This
time a crime organization wants to take control over a formula that would make
every kind of poisonous energy unnecessary (gasoline for example) and their
last person to kidnap and kill is Dr Coleman (Marcel Charvey [22 Feb 1916 – 21
Aug 1995]). But of course, the US government doesn't want this to happen (which
is kinda ironic, because nowadays they do everything to get their hands on the
oil!) and sends Bob Fleming (Harrison), their top spy, to take over Coleman's
identity and stop the sinister plan! He travels to Casablanca and meets up with
Coleman's wife (Wandisa Guida of I vampiri [1957 / trailer]),
and the rest of the movie is more or less one long excuse to show him avoid
getting killed by different henchmen! Gotta love the Italians! [Ninja Dixon]"
The bar brawl:
The Seventh Floor
(1967, dir. Ugo Tognazzi [23 March 1922 –
27 Oct 1990])
A comedy starring Ugo Tognazzi. Original
title: Il fischio al naso. Janine Reynaud appears briefly as "the English
Ambassador's Daughter" — but for that, Tina Louise (photo below from some
old issue of Playboy) has a meatier role as Dr. Immer Mehr. (A Bondian joke
name in German, "Immer Mehr" translates into "Always
More".)
"In this unusual offbeat black comedy
directed by Ugo Tognazzi, Giuseppe (Tognazzi) is a middle-aged industrialist
obsessed with gadgets. When his nose starts to whistle uncontrollably, he checks
into a clinic to resolve the problem. What begins as a minor affliction
worsens, and Giuseppe is placed on a different floor as his ailments multiply.
The sicker he gets, the higher he goes up in the floors of the clinic, until he
is near death's door. [All Movie]"
Italian trailer:
Run, Psycho, Run
(1968, dir. Brunello Rondi [26 Nov 1924 – 7
Nov 1989])
Original title: Più tardi Claire, più tardi...
Rondi also directed the early Italo psycho-horror movie El demonio (1963), the
Italo women-in-prison flick Cárcel de mujeres / Riot in a Women's Prison (1974
/ trailer),
and Emanuelle viciosa (1976 / full movie);
he also co-wrote a number of Fellini films. Janine Reynaud part in this movie
is minimal, it would seem, as no online source ever list the name of her
character.
Theme to
Più tardi Claire, più tardi...
"The film is set in Tuscany in 1912
where the retired Judge George Dennison (Gary Merrill [2 Aug 1915 – 5 March
1990], of The Savage Eye
[1960]), his wife Claire (Elga Andersen [2 Feb 1935 – 7 Dec 1994], of Coast of Skeletons
[1965]), and their son Robert arrive at a Villa in Mount Argentario for the
summer. Shortly after a party, both Claire and Robert are murdered. A year
later, Dennison once again returns to the villa with his new fiancée, Ann (Elga
Andersen) and her son. Ann resembles Claire which he believe will assist him in
unmasking the murderer. Although filmed in the mid 1960s, Run, Psycho, Run was
not released until 1968 in Italy. It subsequently was released to television in
the United States. [Wikipedia]"
At the Classic Horror Film Board,
David Sinclair said: "The John Stanley guide
[…] dismissed the movie is a non-scary, boring talkfest. The Stanley guide
was right on that one point; this is one of the talkiest movies I've encountered,
and were it not for the plot descriptions, I wouldn't have a clue to what is
going on here. Heck, even with the plot descriptions, I'm still not
sure. Only three visual moments stand out; the first is the murder scene
itself (and that's a little ambiguous), the second is a scene where a peasant
girl plays with a young child while wielding a big butcher knife (which was
rather suspenseful even if I didn't know the context for the scene), and a
scene near the end where a woman explores a hidden room, and it's here I see
the lone reference to Psycho (and which provides the clearest horror content I
could find in the movie). Other than that, the English title should have been Talk,
Psycho, Talk!"
"The Black Hand"
(1968, dir. Max Pécas [25 April 1925 – 10
Feb 2003])
Original title: La Main Noire. The English
title above is a direct translation of the original French title; the film
doesn't seem to have been given an English release. Max Pécas is a sorely
underappreciated sex- and B-movie filmmaker from France who, though hardly a
stylistic master or influence, made trashy movies that are nevertheless
entertaining time-passers. This one here has a noteworthy German title: Die
Sexsklavinnen von Schloss Porno — or: The Sex Slaves of Porno Castle. He and Reynaud
were to work together again in the future…
Opening scene:
The plot, we think: Secret agent Thomas
Usher (James Harris of Nuda per Satana [1974/ trailer]
and Jesús Franco's Hot Nights of Linda [1975 / trailer])
is on the trail of the "Black Hand", a terrorist organization seeking
world domination. After he is attacked by an enemy agent, he reaches a castle,
which is home to a Research Institute for Testing New Forms of Society. There
is Zhan Raur (Jean Topart [13 April 1922 – 29 Dec 2012]), a man who works
himself into a tizzy every time he talks about power. Zhan Raur proves to be as
a leader of the Black Hand, and he's waiting for the arrival of some secret documents
revealing the positions of merchant ships he intends to destroy. Usher is also
fascinated by the three women of Raur's immediate circle: the dominant Mafalda
(Janine Reynaud), his partner, their submissive servant Eleanor (Chantal Nobel),
and Eleonore's apparently mentally deficient cousin (Anny Nelsen). Trouble
arises when Usher gets unmasked by Zhan Raur, who wants to test his methods for
finding the truth and brainwashing him…
At the imdb,
that famous fan of sex films lor
raves: "Max Pecas is my favorite French porn director […]. An obscure
title, 'The Black Hand', from his oeuvre is quite enlightening as to the
age-old issue of how would a ghettoized porn director handle directing a
mainstream film. […] Here Pecas is making an action film in which he shows
skill at eliciting consistently effective acting performances in both lead and
supporting roles, clean/evocative action outbursts in the Jean-Pierre Melville
(20 Oct 1917 – 2 Aug 1973) mode, and idiosyncratic style points all the way. The
inclusion of partial nudity and sex is no more jarring than in any 21st Century
major movie, and not the crutch one would expect. Stolid hero played by 'James
Harris' […] is weakest element, especially as casting has him matching physically
his opposite-number nemesis. Otherwise we have a very colorful cast: a sexy
white-haired evil genius Jean Topart, who is wont to pontificate on East/West
relations when he is not humping some young babe; three beautiful babes led by
genre favorite Janine Raynaud […]; and even a mysterious dwarf who tortures a
beautiful blonde in the film's second scene. Opening is stark action-man
cinema, very well directed and emblematic of the fact that Pecas is directing a
real movie, all the way. After that, the dwarf sets off a series of strong BDSM
and fetish-content scenes that are up to the domestic '60s level, popularized
by Bob Cresse in films like Hot Spur (1968 / trailer)
and Love Camp 7 (1968 / trailer).
Name your kink and it is effectively (soft-core only of course) interjected at
the proper moment here. The spy/intrigue content is verbally played up but has
little impact here. Style is everything with a baby-doll impersonation by the
blonde member Anny Nelsen of Topart's troupe loaded with interesting shtick,
and the nihilistic finale very skillfully blocked and staged with enough final
reel twists to fill a boatload of movies. A 21st Century emphasis on gore has
made Pecas's action and death scenes seem very tame, but I enjoyed them for
that very reason of lacking the explicitness cop-out."
Castle of the Creeping Flesh
(1968, dir. Adrian Hoven [18 May 1922–8
April 1981])
Original title: Im Schloß der blutigen
Begierde — which translates not into its common English title above, but into In
the Castle of Bloody Lust. (Indeed, another aka title of the move is Castle Of Bloody Lust.)
The English cut is shorter than the original cut. "This is definitely not
for the squeamish as there is beaucoup amounts of nudity, violence, and actual
footage of open-heart surgery."
Director Hoven is credited as "Percy
G. Parker". We here at A Wasted Life first got to know of Adrian Hoven as
an actor in the lesser Edgar Wallace movie The Secret of the Red Orchid (1962 /
German trailer), but Hoven, an active actor/director/producer while alive, was an exploitation
force in his day and has a career full of notable, noticed and unnoticed A to Z
films to his name. If people recognize his name, it's probably for writing and
producing Michael Armstrong's Mark of the Devil (1970 / trailer), starring Herbert Lom, and directing
its inferior sequel, Mark of the Devil Part II (1973 / trailer). His work
is worth checking out if you're a fan of Eurotrash or simple bad movies. Aside
from directing Janine Reynaud in this movie, in 1968 & 1969 he acted
alongside her in three Jess Franco movies. (If you get down to it, this movie
plays out like a Franco movie, too. There are voices out there that claim he is
the true scriptwriter of the movie.)
French trailer:
Janine Reynaud has two roles in two
different time periods in Castle of the Creeping Flesh: she plays Vera Lagrange
in the present as well as the Baron's mistress in the past: According to Cinemorgue,
Vera survives the movie but the "Baron's mistress is stabbed to death by Graf
Saxon (Howard Vernon) in his laboratory."
The plot: "Castle of the Creeping
Flesh begins with a lavish and very noisy party that is about to break into a
wild orgy, but before the fun begins Baron Brack (Michel Lemoine [30 Sept 1922
– 27 July 2013]) convinces the flirty socialite Vera Lagrange (Janine Reynaud)
to accompany him to his country house for a more intimate experience. However,
the plan does not work as intended and Vera leaves with a couple of her friends,
while Baron Brack ends up raping her equally flirty sister Elena (Elvira
Berndorff). After riding aimlessly in the bushes for hours, the partygoers
eventually reach a mysterious Victorian castle and ask a very rough-looking
guard if they can spend the night there because it is already too dark and they
have no clue how to find their way back. Then the owner of the castle, Graf
Saxon (Howard Vernon [15 July 1914 – July 25 1996] of Zombie Lake
[1981] and so much more), welcomes the guests and while showing their bedrooms
entertains them with some fascinating stories about his ancestors. Not too long
after that the guests accidentally discover that there is an underground
chamber where Graf Saxon is secretly trying to rebuild a very special woman who
died a long time ago. [Blu-Ray.com]"
"Never scary but occasionally
atmospheric and always entertaining, Castle Of The Creeping Flesh is hard to
take seriously but it is a fun watch, particularly if you have an affinity for
European trash films. The cast are in decent form here. Lemoine's eyes seem to
go in two different directions at once, making him an odd choice to play the
studly rape-happy male lead, but he's enthusiastic enough in the part to make
it work. Janine Reynaud and Elvira Berndorff both get plenty of screen time and
are frequently running around in the nude, so that's a definite plus that
almost makes up for the fact that the great Howard Vernon is woefully underused
in the film. […] The movie is pretty rape happy and the sex scenes plentiful
and fairly graphic (never getting close to hardcore, mind you, but there is a
LOT of skin on display in this picture). […] People stare at one another with
long, knowing glances every couple of minutes. The scenes that take place in
the basement, where Saxon has a secret laboratory, are fairly gory as the
filmmakers decided to splice in what appears to be footage from actual human
heart surgery into the proceedings. This happens a lot. […] Still, this moves
at an okay pace and features enough strange moments to keep your attention. We
won’t spoil what happens to the bear that Saxon let loose during his moment of
anguish, but it’s pretty great. The dialogue is so overwrought that you can’t
help but get a kick out of it and the eclectic score is kind of fun and the
locations are awesome. [Rock! Pop! Shock!]"
Full movie:
Killer Without a Face
(1968, writ. &dir. Angelo Dorigo [as
Ray Morrison])
Original title: Assassino senza volto. As
far as we know, the last cinema credit of writer/director Dorigo, who moved to
television after this movie. Like so many, this low-brow (and very rare) giallo
features an Euro-slumming American has-been: tough guy Lawrence Tierney (15
March 1919 – 26 Feb 2002) plays "The Mute". An oddity of the genre,
the movie is set in a gothic castle and shot in Expressionistic B&W, so it
feels a bit retro-gothic. Janine Reynaud plays Francis. The best synopsis we
found on line: "Who is shooting people in the castle?"
"In this Italian giallo from director
Angelo Dorigo, the owner (Mara Berni as "Barbara MacDonald ") of a
remote castle finds herself embroiled in a situation where a suspicious falling
death occurs that slowly leads to a series of mysterious happenings around that
castle that soon lead to a series of murders. Killer Without a Face's storyline
is pretty much in the slow-burning department as Dorigo establishes plenty of
darkly lit sequences while heavily focusing upon developing the film's
characters and the situation they find themselves in as the killings occur with
the film's final 25 minutes. The most noticeable thing about Killer Without a
Face are the participation of both American noir star Lawrence Tierney (who has
a supporting role [and was starting to become heavy set]) and Jess Franco
starlet Janine Reynaud as they lead their support to the cast and help make Killer
Without a Face a pretty watchable film. [Letterboxd]"
Succubus
(1968, dir. Jess Franco [12 May 1930 – 2
April 2013])
Original title: Necronomicón. Supposedly written by Pier
A. Caminnecci (25 July 1941 – 30 Dec 2013), who seems to have left the film biz
soon after producing his final film, Freddie Francis's The Vampire Happening (1971
/ trailer),
starring Caminnecci's then-wife Pia Degermark.
Janine Reynaud plays the lead role in Succubus, a woman named Lorna Green.
Spanish trailer:
Plot: "This strange, surrealistic
German horror film from cult director Jesus Franco stars Janine Reynaud as
Lorna Green, who performs a pseudo-snuff nightclub act involving erotically
staged S&M murders. Lorna's mind is controlled by a man who might be Satan
(Michel Lemoine), and she slowly loses her tenuous hold on reality, moving
increasingly closer to the night when she begins to really kill. Lorna's
nightclub act and the final scenes — involving a wild orgy where Lorna
viciously murders a man named Bill Mulligan (Jack Taylor) — were cut
drastically in some of the film's several release versions. Prints run 93, 84,
81, and 78 minutes. Acclaimed director Fritz Lang called Necronomicon 'a
beautiful piece of cinema', but its edgy sexuality and hallucinatory tone
struck most viewers as confusing and off-putting. This eerie, haunting film
co-stars Howard Vernon and Nathalie Nord, while producer Pier A. Caminnecci
(who co-scripted) and singer-filmmaker Adrian Hoven also appear. [All Movie]"
According to the current Wikipedia
(Date: 21.05.18): "Succubus was Franco's first film made entirely outside
of Spain. […] While filming was in progress, the German financial backers
pulled out of the film. Producer Adrian Hoven contacted Pier A. Caminnecci who
took an interest in actress Reynaud and agreed to finance the film. An affair
later occurred between the two."
In his book Deadlier Than the Male: Femme
Fatales in 1960s and 1970s Cinema, Douglas Brode writes: "Succubus divided
audiences and critics in 1969, continuing to do so today. The late
Pulitzer-prize winning reviewer Roger Ebert considered this to be one of the
worst films ever made, even speaking unkindly of Reynaud's physical appearance.*
Most others found her, if not the movie, enticing. Quentin Tarantino, who owns
a print, considers this a classic."
*Roger Ebert: "[Succubus is] a
flat-out bomb. It left you stunned and reeling. There was literally nothing of
worth in it. Even the girl was ugly."
Some scene from the movie:
Well, we here at A Wasted Life saw the
movie and were left somewhat indifferent, though like Ebert we did make note of
Reynaud's physical appearance — to be exact, "her surprisingly ravished
face". Our final judgment of the movie itself was that "In regards to
surrealistic sexually transgressional cinema, Succubus might be an early and
thus noteworthy example, but it is also one that has aged badly. Indeed, in
regard to this particular genre of formerly avant-garde cinema, Jess Franco was
far more successful five years later with his more linear but nonetheless
equally oblique Virgin among the Living Dead (1973 / trailer)
which, oddly enough, hasn't aged quite as badly." (Go here for our full review.)
10CC Bullets
is of the opinion that "Succubus was like a new beginning for director
Jess Franco. Who up till that point as director had mostly made horror or spy
films. The films that followed Succubus would become more and more sexual in
their content. The narrative in Succubus like many Franco films has been said
to be disjointed or confusing. Both of which it is not and in many ways it is
one of Franco most developed plots. The films dream like narrative style perfectly
complements Franco's surreal imagery. What is real and what is a dream? Franco
walks this line ever so finely as he never fully eposes either as frauds."
