Review #1,461: 'So Sweet... So Perverse' (1969)

The giallo may have been pioneered by the great Mario Bava and spectacularly refined by Dario Argento, but Umberto Lenzi was developing the techniques and stylings we now know and love from the mid-1960s. Before he became known for schlocky horror trash like Eaten Alive!, Nightmare City and Cannibal Ferox, Lenzi was toying with rich socialites and exploring pulpy, dime-store stories that often involved ridiculous, labyrinthine plots, psychedelic interiors, and beautiful, untrustworthy women. These are all ingredients of the giallo, and some of these early Lenzi efforts hint at a director with an eye for kitschy visuals, something that certainly doesn't come to mind when you watch a native tribesman scalp a poor traveller in the despicable Cannibal Ferox. These eye-catching visuals are certainly present in his 1969 film So Sweet... So Perverse, but there isn't much else to hold the attention in this plodding soap opera.

Handsome, jet-setting socialite Jean Reynaud (Jean-Louis Trintignant) enjoys a lavish lifestyle of cocktail parties and shooting ranges, but he has grown bored and frustrated with the lack of passion in his marriage to the beautiful Danielle (Erika Blanc). To counter this, Jean sleeps with anybody who happens to catch his eye, including his friend Helene (Helga Line), and his head is turned by the woman who has just moved upstairs, Nicole (Carroll Baker). When he hears screams coming from above, he rushes to Nicole's aid, learning that she is stuck in an abusive sexual relationship with her husband Klaus (Horst Frank). As they spend more time together, the couple inevitably fall in love, yet whenever they escape for a weekend, Klaus always manages to track them down. After a night of passion, Nicole reveals that she and Klaus have actually been paid a hefty sum to lure in and eventually kill Jean, but that the one doing the hiring has not yet revealed themselves.

With such a cool-sounding title (yet another famous trait of the gialli), there is nothing sweet and little perverse about the film itself. Argento eventually set a high standard for story-telling and the slow-building of tension within a vital set-piece, and the likes of Lucio Fulci and Sergio Martino added gory violence and a graceful style into the mix, but So Sweet... So Perverse is frustratingly tame, failing to ignite much interest in the plot or generate any excitement when events take a more sinister tone. Where Lenzi ultimately excels is in the glossy cinematography and dazzling interiors, which are garish enough to amusingly satirise the world of these detached characters and their materialistic lifestyles. Images of sun-drenched locations, expensive suits and beautiful, provocative women add a sleazy glamour and seductive glaze to the film, a hedonistic way-of-life Lenzi is happy to indulge as he shrewdly condemns it. It isn't quite enough to prevent So Sweet... So Perverse from becoming little more than a curious cinematic artefact, that ultimately paved the way for better directors to come along and take this new genre by the scruff.


Directed by: Umberto Lenzi
Starring: Carroll Baker, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Erika Blanc, Horst Frank, Helga Liné
Country: Italy/France/West Germany

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,413: 'The Passion of Anna' (1969)

By the mid-1960's, Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman had already established himself as one of the true masters of cinema. He had unleashed the likes of Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal, Through a Glass Darkly and - one of my personal favourites - the criminally underrated Sawdust and Tinsel, all sombre black-and-white masterpieces the director would be remembered for. 1966 saw Bergman kick off a series of films where he would experiment with cinematic form, while still exploring his favourite themes of memory, love and madness. This resulted in arguably his finest achievement, Persona, and he would go on to make the likes of Hour of the Wolf, Shame and The Passion of Anna. Bergman frequently commented on his own pictures, citing The Passion of Anna as one of his greatest failures. While it may not be on the same level as his best work, the raw emotion of Anna cannot be ignored or indeed forgotten, so I'll have to wholeheartedly disagree with the great man on this one.

The story concerns ex-convict and estranged husband Andreas Winkleman (Max von Sydow), who has isolated himself on a Swedish island (actually Bergman's own) and only occasionally socialising with the handful of locals spread across the land. One day he is approached by the beautiful but unhinged Anna (Liv Ullmann), a widow who now walks on a crutch following the car crash that took the lives of her husband and son. She wants to use Andreas' phone, and the hermit is happy to oblige. Only he can't resist eavesdropping on the conversation, which results in Anna hanging up the phone in anger and accidentally (or purposefully?) leaving her bag behind. This leads to a dinner involving married couple Eva (Bibi Andersson) and Elis Vergerus (Erland Josephson), who are both going through their own mental anguish. Eva is an insomniac who has been unfaithful in the past, and Elis is a pompous misanthrope who hoards photographs he takes of everyone he meets. Andreas and Anna start a passionless affair, but their shady pasts are destined to resurface. The island is also struck by a serial animal killer, who attempts to hang a dog before butchering cattle and setting a barn on fire. 

Bergman isn't known to be a 'fun' director, and The Passion of Anna is no different. There are sweeping monologues to camera and existential conversations over dinner. Much of this will be lost on most viewers, including myself, but there is something undeniably hypnotic watching Bergman's favourite actors spewing psychological observations or recollecting strange, nonsensical dreams. Bergman also opts to intercut the film with interviews of the actors talking about their characters, in what appears to be spontaneous behind-the-scenes footage. These sections were in fact scripted, and although the actors do well masking this fact, this experimental approach only interrupts the story. The director himself has also voiced his regret for leaving something in he knew wouldn't work. Still, merely solid Bergman would be the highlight of most director's back catalogues. Bergman explores people's tendency to fall back into previous cycles of behaviour, and how memory can be corrupted by both time and wishful-thinking. Anna frequently recalls her perfectly balanced marriage with a man she shared an unbreakable bond with, but we know from Elis that her husband embarked on an affair with Eva. The final shot leaves many questions unanswered, and we are left to ponder them for ourselves. Despite the confusing manner with which the story is told, we are left with a kind of unspoken understanding.


Directed by: Ingmar Bergman
Starring: Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, Erland Josephson, Erik Hell
Country: Sweden

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,313: 'Goto, Isle of Love' (1969)

Polish-born, French-based filmmaker, animator and artist Walerian Borowczyk is mainly remembered for his erotic works such as The Beast and The Margin, and has been described as "a genius who also happened to be a pornographer." Before he dabbled in eroticism, he produced many animated shorts before his first feature-length piece, the wonderfully weird Mr. and Mrs. Kabal's Theatre. His first live-action film, Goto, Isle of Love, employed similar tactics to his hand-drawn experiments: a desolate island setting, limited camera movements, and frustratingly (yet fascinatingly) odd and unrelatable characters. The result is somewhat isolating, but often reminiscent of the surreal genius of Georges Franju, Luis Bunuel and Borowczyk's friend and sometime collaborator Chris Marker.

Tidal inundation has seen the island of Goto cut off from the rest of Europe for three generations. It has seen three leaders since - Goto I, Goto II, and the current ruler Goto III (Pierre Brasseur) - and the monarchy rules as a dictatorship, 'protecting' the island from outside dangers and influences. There seems to be little to do on the island, so Goto keeps himself and his wife Glossia (Ligia Branice) entertained by staging fights between prisoners. Petty thief Grozo (Guy Saint-Jean) manages to survive his battle with a towering lug-head and wins the sympathy of Goto. Grozo's reward is a job building fly-catchers and showing off his work to a classroom of under-educated children. He also uncovers an affair between Glossia and handsome captain-of-the-guard Gono (Jean-Pierre Andreani), and grows bolder and more ambitious in his scheming as he seeks to claw himself up the social ladder.

On an island populated by criminals, no-hopers and aristocrats, Glossia emerges as the only sympathetic character. Played by La Jetee's Ligia Branice, she longs to escape this grey, mundane world, her eyes shining with tears as she watches the boat she hoped to sail away on sank before her. With little to hold on to on an emotional level, Goto becomes an observational piece, a commentary on an isolated society with an obvious anti-dictatorship stance. This is a world so lacking in stimulation that the object which draws the most fascination is a cutting-edge fly-catcher stolen by Gozo and flogged as his own design. It's deliberately farcical but lacking in humour, with the world made even more soul-crushing by the stark black-and-white photography and Borowczyk's preference for limited camera movements. It's an interesting piece but one that will likely leave you feeling cold, but certainly a work of art deserving of rigorous study.


Directed by: Walerian Borowczyk
Starring: Guy Saint-Jean, Ligia Branice, Pierre Brasseur, Jean-Pierre Andréani
Country: France

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #913: 'Cemetery Without Crosses' (1969)

Ever since I saw Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) as a child after burrowing into my brother's VHS collection, I've loved spaghetti westerns. It was only in my teenage years that I realised just how many of these films were made - some excellent, some terrible, and some just outright bizarre - and it's been fun tracking down some of the more obscure titles. While not strictly a 'spaghetti' western due to being French (a 'baguette' western as Alex Cox puts it), Cemetery Without Crosses is a stoic curiosity. Clearly influenced by the work of Leone, the film is an existential, near-silent work that is in equal parts hypnotic and plodding.

Humble farmer Ben Caine (Guido Lollobrigida) is chased and gunned down by members of the Rogers family, who are scooping up all the livestock business from the surrounding areas through fear and violence. Ben is gunned down and hanged in front of his wife Maria (Michele Mercier). With her livelihood destroyed and Ben's brothers Thomas (Guido Lollobrigida) and Eli (Michel Lemoine) opting to flee across the border, Maria turns to old friend Manuel (Robert Hossein), a brooding gunslinger residing in a nearby ghost town, for help. Manuel soon infiltrates the Rogers family and joins them on their ranch, where he sets Maria's revenge in motion.

Though more of a homage to spaghetti westerns, Cemetery Without Crosses certainly looks and feels like it was born and reared in Italy. There are a couple of glimpses of brilliance - a familiar scene of intense stare-downs at the dinner table quickly flips into a moment of outright comedy, and the scene in which a character lights a candle to reveal that they are not alone is truly nerve-shredding. But the plot is wafer-thin, so the camera is often left lingering while the characters do little or nothing at all, and the dialogue is especially sparse, even for a spaghetti western. Hossein, who also directed and co-wrote the film with the credited Dario Argento and Claude Desailly (though in reality Argento had no involvement), simply doesn't possess the magnetic presence of Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson. Exhilarating in bursts but meandering in places, Cemetery Without Crosses is still worth checking out.


Directed by: Robert Hossein
Starring: Michèle Mercier, Robert Hossein, Guido Lollobrigida, Daniele Vargas
Country: France/Italy/Spain

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #866: 'Pit Stop' (1969)

Following work on a couple of Francis Ford Coppola films, directing a couple of cheapie's for Roger Corman, and the delayed but supremely stylish Spider Baby (made in 1964 but unreleased until 1968), man-of-many-talents Jack Hill turned his attention to figure eight racing for Pit Stop, aka The Winner. The subject repulsed the director, but Corman insisted and, during his research, Hill became fascinated by the attitudes of the death-wish men behind the wheels. So, although the topic is pure exploitation, Pit Stop is character-driven, following the exploits of the stoic Rick Bowman (a brooding Richard Davalos) and his increasing obsession with the thrill of the win and the dance with death in every race. As racing promoter Grant Willard (Brian Donlevy) says, a suicide is born every minute.

Shot in grainy black-and-white, Hill employs European, guerilla-esque tactics to film the movie as effectively as possible, squeezing as much out of its obvious budget limitations as possible. It helps achieve a neo-noir atmosphere, heightening the gloom yet amping up the style. Modern racing films tend to be sleek and shiny, but Pit Stop is pure grit. The racing scenes, which consist mostly of footage of real figure eight racing, are insanely entertaining, with every crash, flip and slide unhindered by editing, special effects or stunt work. It puts movies like The Fast and The Furious (2001) to shame, as although said franchise is entertaining in its own right, as a movie depicting the sheer thrill of the race, Pit Stop puts it to shame.

The performances are effective too. Davalos proves to be a charismatic "I play by my own rules"-type, hesitant at first, but eventually unable to resist the lure of the competition. Donlevy, Hammer's Quatermass, delivers reliable support, but the screen is inevitably chewed up and spat out by Hill regular Sid Haig as outlandish racing champion Hawk, putting his usual obnoxious redneck shtick to effective use. This being a Corman production, it often resigns itself to underdog genre tropes, but Hill's direction and screenplay means that there is always something more existential and cynical lurking beneath the surface. It may be one of Hill's lesser known works when compared to his exploitation classics Coffy (1973), Foxy Brown (1974) and Switchblade Sisters (1975), but it is certainly one of his best.


Directed by: Jack Hill
Starring: Richard Davalos, Brian Donlevy, Sid Haig, Ellen Burstyn
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #794: 'The Honeymoon Killers' (1969)

Released in 1969 under the guise of a low-budget exploitation film, The Honeymoon Killers is in fact one of the best American real-life crime movies ever made. It tells the story of Martha (Shirley Stoler), a lonely, overweight nurse who is entered into a 'lonely hearts' club by her friend Bunny (Everybody Loves Raymond's Doris Roberts). She receives a response from Latin lothario Ray Fernandez (Tony Lo Bianco), who is a con-man who preys on lonely women, shaking them down for their money. When he reveals this to Martha, she is undeterred, and insists on joining him on his quests by posing as his sister. Ray promises that he won't sleep with any of them, but Martha's overbearing jealousy soon leads to murder.

Based on the notorious case of the 'lonely hearts killers', first (and only) time director Leonard Kastle adopts a documentary-style approach, opting to use mostly hand-held photography, naturalistic lighting, and minimalistic editing. If sometimes the small budget becomes obvious, this only heightens the sense of realism running throughout the film, assisted by two astonishing performances from it's leads. Stoler is immense, evoking sympathy at first but then revealing her true motives are rooted in jealousy and bitterness as she becomes unpredictable and frightening. Bianco, who is still enjoying a prolific career, performs with a flawless Latino accent, demonstrating the charm and seduction that helped Fernandez dupe so many of his unfortunate victims in real-life

But the film is not without artistic merits as well. Lacking blood and devoid of any kind of shock tactics, the murders are cold and brutal. A hammer blow to the head has as much impact as Leatherface's notorious entrance in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), as the victim struggles and twitches while the killers struggle for finish her off. Another has the camera focus just on the panicking eyes of a sedated victim, as Martha and Ray argue off-camera about to do with her. A gun then appears at the corner of the screen and it's all over. It's shockingly blunt for it's era, but only serves to make The Honeymoon Killers one of the most invigorating and uncomfortable experiences I've had in recent memory.


Directed by: Leonard Kastle
Starring: Shirley Stoler, Tony Lo Bianco, Mary Jane Higby, Doris Roberts
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #680: 'Funeral Parade of Roses' (1969)

In a key moment around the half-way mark in Toshio Matsumoto's Funeral Parade of Roses, the young protagonist Eddie, a transsexual working in Tokyo, stabs his mother's lover and then his mother himself. Matsumoto's film is full of Oedipal subtexts, but here Eddie kills his mother to (perhaps) get to his father, so it is the reverse of the Oedipus story. In fact, most of the film is 'backwards' in the traditional sense, full of narrative tricks, contrasting styles and shifts in tone, moving from melodrama to documentary to horror with each scene.

Eddie (played by real-life queen Pita) is a drag-queen working at a top Tokyo underground club ran by Gonda (Yoshio Tsuchiya). Eddie is the top attraction at the club, much to the envy of ageing madam Leda (Osamu Ogasawara). When Gonda starts a secret affair with Eddie, Leda finds out and plans to hurt and disfigure Eddie in her jealousy. Running alongside this fictional storyline are various interviews with the real-life queens who act in the film, who offer insights about life in Tokyo for queens and how the film will represent them.

There was a huge boom in Japan in the 1960's of films now known as Japanese New Wave. Funeral Parade of Roses is certainly one of the most daring and technically innovative, stripping back genre (and even cinematic) conventions to create one of the most important films in the history of Gay Cinema. This leads to an occasionally confusing and head-spinning film, that can switch quickly from a generic love scene to a moment of avant-garde (an argument between two queens have them shouting at each other with speech bubbles) to a bloody set-piece. One of the most inspirational films to come out of Japan, this was a favourite of Stanley Kubrick's, and no doubt the scenes that are played out in fast-forward were an influence on A Clockwork Orange (1971). Uncompromising, unapologetic cinema.


Directed by: Toshio Matsumoto
Starring: Pîtâ, Osamu Ogasawara, Toyosaburo Uchiyama, Yoshio Tsuchiya
Country: Japan

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #601: 'The Bed Sitting Room' (1969)

The years haven't been entirely fair to Richard Lester. His Beatles' films A Hard Day's Night (1964) and Help! (1965) used fast editing and loose camerawork to catch the sheer insanity of the Beatles' existence. These innovative techniques were brushed aside as being 'hip' and 'mod' back in the 1960's and Lester's work went misunderstood until it became clear that he had single-handedly invented the music video. Yet while other British auteurs of similar scope and individual vision, such as Ken Russell and Lindsay Anderson, garner a cult following and have some of their films considered masterpieces, Lester's work, apart from his Beatles films and his Superman efforts, have remained disappointingly obscure. But the great people behind the 'Flipside' series from the BFI have managed to unearth this minor treasure from Lester's 'swinging 60's' days, and The Bed Sitting Room is a great little vision, full of off-the-wall humour, depressing/uplifting satire, and one of the finest collections of British comedians ever seen on screen.

After the shortest war in history (lasting just 2 hours and 28 seconds) has left the Earth a desolate wasteland, a small group of eccentrics from various social status's wander the country, terrified about their pending mutation. Lord Fortnum (Ralph Richardson) is concerned the nuclear radiation will cause him to mutate into the bed sitting room of the title (which he later does). Father (Arthur Lowe) tries to maintain his traditional family life while living on the tube along with his wife Mother (Mona Washbourne) and his 17-month pregnant daughter Penelope (Rita Tushingham). Two policeman, Inspector (Peter Cook) and Sergeant (Dudley Moore) urge people to "move on!" from a chassis suspended on a hot air balloon. Mother is handed her own death certificate, and after she mutates into a wardrobe, Father forces Penelope into marrying Bules Martin (Michael Hordern), a man Father believes to have a 'brighter future', despite Penelope's love for Allan (Richard Warwick), the father of her child.

It seems that The Bed Sitting Room is more about Britain than anything resembling an anti-war message. It both mocks and admires British society, in the way that we so desperately cling onto tradition. As well as Father holding together the family unit aboard a tube train, the countries inhabitants still worship the next in line to the throne. The fact is, the Royal Family are all dead, and the next in line is Mrs. Ethel Shroake of 393A High Street, Leytonstone. Therefore, the national anthem now goes "God save Mrs. Ethel Shroake of 393A High Street, Leytonstone!". It's this kind of absurdist humour that makes The Bed Sitting Room so rich in comedy, both laugh-out-loud and outright bizarre, very similar to the work of Monty Python that came the same year. This is mainly thanks to the performances of the stellar line-up that includes - as well as the aforementioned actors - Spike Milligan, Roy Kinnear, Harry Secombe, and the great Marty Feldman. It's a downright strange experience, but one I found hilarious, baffling and often actually quite sad, created by a cast and crew of artists at the top of their game.


Directed by: Richard Lester
Starring: Rita Tushingham, Ralph Richardson, Michael Hordern, Arthur Lowe, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Spike Milligan, Roy Kinnear
Country: UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #566: 'Stereo' (1969)

Although he is better known for his 'body horror' work and scenes of squirm-inducing gore, the most prominent theme that runs throughout the career of David Cronenberg is the idea of finding an extra stream of consciousness through sexual release. From his serial-raping zombies in Shivers (1975), to his portrayal of Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud and Sabrina Spielrein in A Dangerous Method (2011), he has adopted a psychoanalytical aesthetic between scenes of exploding heads and killer tots. His début, Stereo, is his student film that is an early reflection of his fascination with psychology, made on an obviously shoe-stringed budget, shot in one location.

The film begins with the arrival at what looks like a research facility of a man wearing a black coat. As the narration begins to explain, the man is a telepath, a product of a social experiment to observe behavioural patterns between three telepaths in a closed environment. Having had their ability to speak removed, they must communicate only via telepathy, and through this telepathic bonding, begin sexual experimentation. The experiment is being carried out by the unseen Dr. Luther Stringfellow, who hopes that the powerful relationships which are forged through the telepaths - that evolve to deem such things as sex or physical attraction irrelevant - will come to replace and stabilise the traditional family unit.

If you could label Stereo as anything, it would have to be ambitious. Although the subject is purely psychoanalytical, the approach is very sci-fi. The film is black-and-white, featuring no sound at all apart from the near-constant narration, which is spoken in the same dreary tone as you would expect from a student vocalising an essay. It's quite clear than Cronenberg was held back by budget constraints and equipment, and although you could forgive the film's narrative flaws, the lack of visual appeal combined with the monotonous, jargon-heavy, quasi-intellectual narration, make the film a struggle to get through, even at only 62 minutes. It would be harsh to say Stereo is for Cronenberg die-hard's only as it is often intriguing, but the film ultimately feels like struggling to stay awake during a University lecture.


Directed by: David Cronenberg
Starring: Ronald Mlodzik, Jack Messenger, Iain Ewing
Country: Canada

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #481: 'The Valley of Gwangi' (1969)

Like the Hollywood western in the 1960's, the "wild west" depicted in The Valley of Gwangi - set at the turn of the century - was the post-cowboy sideshow, as displayed in reality by its most famous component, Buffalo Bill. It was this type of circus show that actually inspired much of the iconography of the filmic western. In this 1969 film (a time when westerns were more popular in television, and Hollywood was dissipating), we are introduced to a Mexican rodeo owner, the "cowgirl" T. J. (Gila Golan), and her once fiancee, Tuck (James Franciscus), T. J. being the owner of a struggling rodeo. After Carlos (Gustavo Rojo) returns from the "forbidden valley" he has in a burlap bag, a tiny, pre-historic ancestor of the modern day horse. After its escape, a team are set up to recapture the profitable little tyke, and return it for display. On entering the forbidden zone, they discover a wealth of creatures directly out of the past, extinct only to the outer area of the zone.

The film is largely a combination of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's story, 'The Lost World' (which was itself filmed in 1925), and the 1933 genre defining King Kong. Gwangi was penned by the special effects wizard of Kong, Willis O'Brien, but was shelved, and not considered as a conceivable project until after his death in 1962. (Incidentally the script inspired a very similar film in 1956's The Beast of Hollow Mountain.) However, by its release, even the monster movie was a dying breed of film, as the New Hollywood began to take over. Of course, as with the film version of The Lost World, and King Kong, the group capture a beast to take back for a unique public show, which inevitably leads to destruction and disaster.

Whilst this genre mash-up was clearly treading ground already exhaustively explored, the film has much period charm. The film is helped a great deal by the genius of Ray Harryhausen (a protege of O'Brien - and instigator for the production of this film). His attention to detail is incredible, and he imbues character into the monsters. There are an incredible amount of his special effects (dynamation as it is known here), and he delivers with aplomb. When the horseback riders capture a dinosaur using ropes, the sequence must have been a logistical nightmare, but the effect is brilliant - this highlights the reason Harryhausen is a legend. Gwangi also marked the last project that he would animate his beloved dinosaurs, and his later projects largely involved the mythical creatures of Sinbad's '70's outings (Golden Voyage (1973) and Eye of the Tiger (1977)) and Clash of the Titans (1981).


Directed by: Jim O'Connolly
Starring: James Franciscus, Gila Golan, Richard Carlson, Laurence Naismith
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Marc Ivamy

Review #467: 'The House That Screamed' (1969)

Spanish director Narciso Ibanez Serrador was never happy with the marketing for the release of his first horror film, particularly in the United States, where it was released by AIP. It is understandable when the trailer is not very representative of the tone of the film. The trailer is more salacious, and hints at more kinetic horror than is actually delivered. However, this does not mean that the film fails. Far from it. In fact, the trailer does a disservice to this rather atmospheric, slow-burning story with horror elements, set in a French boarding school for naughty girls. Teresa (Cristina Galbo) is newly introduced to the school, and the tensions of hierarchy are established immediately, and this brooding sense illustrates itself in moments of sexual frustration, sadism and humiliation.

The school of corrective discipline is overseen by headmistress, Sra. Fourneau (Lili Palmer), whose son, Luis (John Moulder-Brown), lives a floor above the girls, but is known for his voyeurism - he often peeps whilst the girls shower (consequently, the girls shower in bathrobes). Fourneau is over-protective of Luis, and refers to the girls who come through the school as no good for him, too unsettled and dirty. You could indeed call Luis a Bates-in-waiting. As Teresa discovers, through gossip and hearsay, girls have been "escaping" because they need to see boys - their sexual urges too great to ignore. But as a love-struck girl, Isabelle (Maribel Martin), takes the advice of Luis to leave with him, she is murdered on her way to meet him, in a slow-motion, abstracted and balletic scene in the forests.

Whilst the finale's "twist" will be spotted instantly, this does not effect the impact of it, with its macabre, and chillingly sycophantic nature. It certainly plods often, particularly in the first half, but it instills a climbing sense of peculiarity. With the dynamic of the hierarchical systems in the school, suspects are everywhere, and it is the relationships, often signified with repressed sexuality, a deeply sadistic nature, the girls are often humiliated, and Fourneau seems to relish (much like her son) these voyeuristic-sadistic explorations, as non-conformist girls get beaten. The setting of a Gothic period piece lends itself to the ponderous repression, and makes the girls less accessible; the time of full coverage, their frocks thicker than a winter quilt.


Directed by: Narciso Ibáñez Serrador
Starring: Lilli Palmer, Cristina Galbó, John Moulder-Brown, Maribel Martín
Country: Spain

Rating: ***

Marc Ivamy

Review #440: 'Blind Beast' (1969)

Part of the Japanese New Wave of the 1960's and early 1970's, - which, like the French Nouvelle Vague developed a new form of cinema, largely made up of film critics, and deconstructionists -  Yasuzo Masumura's deeply psycho-sexual drama about power and sensuality, explored ideas such as the changing roles in society (particularly of women), surprisingly - unlike the French wave - through the studio system. Based upon Rampo Edogawa's novel, published in 1931, the film has been previously compared to John Fowles's excellent 1963 novel, 'The Collector' - and certainly some of the themes are similar.

Self-proclaimed "disliked model," Aki (Mako Midori), begins the film in a gallery, her modelling career not going to plan within the commercial world, she had taken a job posing for a famous photographer in "erotic" S&M style images. The exhibition is a success, but here, now, it is early, and she views a strange man fondling a sculpture effigy of her, that resides at the centre of the room. Having hired a masseur, the blind, Michio (Eiji Funakoshi), enters her flat and begins lasciviously to touch her body, proclaiming she has the most perfect body. Michio, along with his mother kidnap Aki, and take her to his warehouse studio - there he states his aim to create a new genre of art, made by and for the blind that is based upon the sensation of touch alone.

As Aki begins to bring deception and manipulation into the mother-son relationship, things begin to spiral out of control, their relationship develops into a strangely symbiotic form, that increasingly leads to a masochistic tryst. As their depravity progresses, the masochistic tendencies become more dangerous (which could easily be seen as absolute influence on Jennifer Lynch's famous failure, Boxing Helena (1993) - it would be surprising if she had not seen it).

Most of the film is set within the cavernous, yet claustrophobic warehouse, which lends an air of stage play. However, the production design is absolutely beautiful, with abstractions of lighting, and the walls covered with hundreds of clay body parts - over sized eyes, noses, legs etc, - of all the women he has previously touched. It is a very interesting film, that will endure for it's psychotic and debasing character studies, and the destruction of the traditional family unit.


Directed by: Yasuzô Masumura
Starring: Eiji Funakoshi, Mako Midori, Noriko Sengoku
Country: Japan

Rating: ****

Marc Ivamy

Review #164: 'Que la Bête Meure' (1969)

After a speeding car kills his young son, Charles Thenier (Michel Duchaussoy) vows there and then that he will kill the man responsible. The police begin a frantic hunt for the killer, but Charles has little confidence in them and starts an investigation of his own. In a chance encounter, he discovers that the brother-in-law of actress Helen Lanson (Caroline Cellier) is the man he is looking for, and sets about seducing Helen under a false name. He eventually gets to meet Paul Decourt (Jean Yanne, who also stars in Godard's Weekend (1967) - one of my all-time favourite films), who is such a repulsive human being that even his own son also wants him dead. As Charles' struggles with the idea of killing him, he must deal with the fact that he may be falling in love with Helen.

The revenge film is a sub-genre that has been done to death. Lazy film-makers and the generally uninspired can see it as a relatively simplistic premise that can be tampered with and altered to an endless degree. They range from the genuinely brilliant (Memento (2000), Oldboy (2003), The Virgin Spring (1960)) to the genuinely horrific (Taken (2008), Death Wish (1974)), and the exploitation genre made very grisly use of it (The Last House On The Left (1972), Thriller - A Cruel Picture (1974)). The fact is that it's starting to get a bit boring. Which makes it all the more refreshing when you stumble upon a gem from the past that takes the idea and spins out something fresh. Que La Bete Meure (The Beast Must Die, or This Man Must Die to give it its US title) is one of these.

Claude Chabrol's existential drama plays out like a Greek tragedy. We are with Charles all the time and we are made to suffer like our protagonist, and suffer he does. When he finally meets Paul, he realises that he is the monster he hoped him to be, which fuels his determination. Paul is grotesque - his voice spews out loutish insults before we even see him, and then we join him at dinner where he sadistically humilities his own kin. But does this mean that he truly deserves to die? As Charles sets in motion his plan of murder, he becomes noticeably uncomfortable yet fiercely determined.

Chabrol's film-making style comes across as mixing the tension-building thrills of Alfred Hitchcock, with the philosophical ponderings of Ingmar Bergman, and the result is often astonishing. Charles almost mirrors the doomed film noir detective, with Duchaussoy putting in a fantastic performance. From this to La Femme Infidele (1969), the other Chabrol film I've had the fortune to see, it seems that he is relatively uncelebrated compared to his French associates Godard, Truffaut, Renoir and Cocteau (amongst many others) which, on the basis of this film alone, is wholly unfair.


Directed by: Claude Chabrol
Starring: Michel Duchaussoy, Caroline Cellier, Jean Yanne
Country: France/Italy

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #132: 'Night of the Bloody Apes' (1969)

Part of the short film wave in Mexico that combined extreme gore with wrestling (or 'lucha'), this low-budget horror was part of the 'video nasty' list in the UK. It tells the story of a brilliant surgeon, who when finding out his son will die from leukaemia, has the brilliant idea of giving him the heart of an ape. He thinks that by replacing his heart, his body will be able to sustain the chimp blood being pumped around his body. As a result, his son grows a big hairy face, terrorises the city and murders lots of people in particularly brutal fashion. Hot on the doctor's tale is Lt. Martinez (Armando Silvestre) and his wrestler girlfriend. Will they be able to stop the manic ape-man? Will the doctor be able to save his son from his affliction? Will the Mexican to English language translation ever manage to string an actual sentence together?

As you would expect, this film is bad. First of all, the title is a lie. There are no apes involved, it involves a beast with a wrestler's body and a big hairy face. And there's only one of it. But I don't think that director Rene Cordona was striving for the next Citizen Kane (1941) (which is clear from the film's wildly imaginative alternative title, Horror And Sex). The film has plenty of enjoyable gore, and I mean plenty. But Tom Savini did not work on this film - instead I think a blind film student did. The bad effects are most evident when the beast is tearing open the throat of an one unfortunate, only for the close-up to reveal that he's clearly peeling of a large plaster, with the gore beneath.

It is all rather enjoyable though, so I must give the film credit for that. The film's slender running time breezes by, and there's plenty of laughs to had in the stodgy dialogue, bullshit scientific discussions, and watching the beast butcher a seemingly endless amount of people. The main reason for the film's UK ban must be for the scenes of real open-heart surgery, which was spliced into the film upon it's US release by director Jerald Intrator (responsible for such classics as Satan In High Heels (1962) and The Curious Case Of Dr. Humpp (1969)). I refuse to believe that it's because of the extremely unrealistic and silly gore scenes. Not really a guilty pleasure, but certainly something to watch while refilling the glass of brandy and thinking of what film to put on next (in my case).


Directed by: René Cordona
Starring: José Elías Moreno, Carlos López Moctezuma, Armando Silvestre
Country: Mexico

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #126: 'The London Nobody Knows' (1969)

In stark contrast to the colourful, "swinging" imagery of 1960's London we are all too familiar with, The London Nobody Knows, displays the dying, decaying underbelly of old Victorian values, practices and architecture. We are shown proto-delboy's hawking goods in now-dead street markets. Bizarre buskers and street performers act out their defunct acts to grey, bewildered onlookers. Old forgotten men pay 6 shillings a week for bed and breakfast in Salvation Army hostels, the memories of the war lingering in their haggard faces.

Written by Bolton-born artist and art critic, Geoffrey Fletcher, based on his own book of the same name, he illustrates a world that is fundamentally changing. A mournful tome to the decrepit, and disappearing 19th century city. James Mason narrates; he informs of historical anecdotes, and guides us through the multitude of eccentrics, losers, and hopeless characters cluttering the streets, and displays their almost archaic interests and habits.

The London Nobody Knows is a perfect artifact of a Britain before the almost complete Americanisation of its streets, industries and culture, that was to come in the late 1980's and throughout the 1990's. Like the Free Cinema movement of the '50's (headed by the likes of Lindsay Anderson), and the British transport film, and GPO documentaries, this represents a view of a very different, almost alien Britain to the one we live in now. Beautiful, horrifying, insightful, strange, and even emotional. A film that should be seen by anyone interested in the Britain of the past.


Directed by: Norman Cohen
Narrator: James Mason
Country: UK

Rating: ***

Marc Ivamy

Review #61: 'My Night with Maud' (1969)

Jean-Louis (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is a recently converted devout Catholic, who at the beginning of the film, falls in love with a beautiful blonde named Francois (Marie-Christine Barrault) in Church. He follows her, but loses her in traffic. He meets old friend Vidal (Antoine Vitez) by chance in a restaurant and the two talk about their views on philosophy, religion and mathematics. They go to the house of Maud (Francois Fabian), a flirtatious, free-spirited woman who takes an interest in Jean-Louis. When the snow falls heavier outside, Jean-Louis is forced to spend the night at Maud's, putting a strain on his new found beliefs on marriage, commitment and fidelity.

Eric Rohmer's film is full of dialogue. The characters talk and talk, often so intellectually that I had trouble keeping up. But the talk is interesting and intriguing. The main theme (it appeared to me, anyway) is the value of faith in a world where the likelihood of heaven is becoming increasingly unlikely. Jean-Louis, a former ladies man, fights his urges when Maud invites him into her bed. He eventually climbs in, feeling the cold, and begins to kiss her. He eventually pulls away, looking almost angry with himself. He obviously feels that an eternity in heaven, however unlikely the idea is, is worth more than a moment of weakness and happiness.

The dialogue-heavy scenes may not appeal to everyone, it can at times be difficult to engage with the film and bourgeois characters. But it is richly rewarding and a highly intelligent character study. The film has an almost love/hate attitude to the idea of Christianity in a similar way to many of Bergman's greatest films. One of the most intellectually stimulating films of the French New Wave movement.


Directed by: Eric Rohmer
Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Françoise Fabian, Marie-Christine Barrault, Antoine Vitez
Country: France

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie