HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE - review

The early 1970s were banner years for Paul Naschy. In less than half a decade, ever since LA MARCA DEL HOMBRE LOBO (THE MARK OF THE WOLFMAN) introduced Paul Naschy as a horror film star in 1968, Naschy had made a name for himself as the premier exponent of Spanish fantastique. Impressively, not only was he an actor in these films, but their scriptwriter as well. His 1970 LA NOCHE DE WALPURGIS (English title: WEREWOLF SHADOW) became a surprise hit in Spain, inspiring Spanish producers to fund domestic horror films. The Spanish horror boom of the 1970s arose primarily because of one man: Paul Naschy.

By 1972 the thirty-seven year old Naschy had made six Waldemar Daninsky wolfman films and the first Spanish giallo film, JACK EL DESTRIPADOR DE LONDRES (JACK THE RIPPER OF LONDON). 1972 was destined to be Naschy’s most productive and luminescent year. A total of eight movies filled his filmography for that year: DISCO ROJO (RED LIGHT), EL GRAN AMOR DEL CONDE DRACULA (COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE), LOS CRIMENES DE PETIOT (THE CRIMES OF PETIOT), LA REBELION DE LAS MUERTAS (English title: VENGEANCE OF THE ZOMBIES), LA ORGIA DE LOS MUERTOS (English title: THE HANGING WOMAN), EL ESPANTO SURGE DE LA TUMBA (English title: HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB), EL RETORNO DE WALPURGIS (English title: THE CURSE OF THE DEVIL)—and EL JOROBADO DE LA MORGUE (THE HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE). At least four of these films, including the hunchback film, were to become key titles in Naschy’s oeuvre to be spoken about with reverence and enthusiasm among fans of Naschy and Spanish horror.

Sharing a similar mood of decay and a baroque/grotesque sensibility, EL JOROBADO DE LA MORGUE could be considered a follow-up to the earlier EL GRAN AMOR DEL CONDE DRACULA. Both films were produced by writer/journalist Manuel Leguineche and directed by Javier Aguirre, two intellectuals who employed the horror genre for subterfuge against the decades-long fascistic government of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Leguineche, a friend of Naschy’s father, had solicited the actor/scriptwriter for two horror films treatments, and within a month Naschy provided both the Dracula and hunchback stories. Leguineche also brought in experimental filmmaker Aguirre to direct, an inspired choice as these two Aguirre films would become landmarks in Spanish horror cinema. (Naschy would also appear in another Aguirre film a year later, EL ASESINO ESTA ENTRE LOS TRECE [THE KILLER IS ONE OF THE THIRTEEN], but his role was minor and the film not a success.) Joining in as producer on the hunchback film was Francisco Lara Polop, a scriptwriter who would direct his own horror film that year, the luxuriantly atmospheric LA MANSION DE LA NIEBLA (English title: MURDER MANSION).

Critical to the film would be its visual look. Cameraman Raul Perez Cubero, whose future would hold three nominations for Spain’s version of the Oscar, the Goya, and a win for his cinematography on YOU'RE THE ONE (2000), handled the photography, as he had done in EL GRAN AMORE DEL CONDE DRACULA. In both films he evoked a memorable texture of morbidity and the other-worldliness inhabited by the damned and the forgotten.

For Naschy his role would be one more addition to his ever-growing roster of portraying classic monster parts. He had already played a wolfman (numerous times), Mr. Hyde and Count Dracula, so it seemed natural for him to appear as a hunchback, this one named Wolfgang Gotho in tribute to Mozart and the wolf in Naschy.

Most of the cast assembled had been already initiated into fantastique. Maria Elena Arpon, who played Gotho’s primary love interest, is otherwise best remembered by euro-cult film fans as the first cinematic victim of the Blind Dead in Amando de Ossorio’s LA NOCHE DEL TERROR NOCHE (English title: TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD, 1971). The Austrian actress Maria Perschy had a substantial resume by 1972, with credits that included Jess Franco’s THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU (1969) and Gordon Hessler’s MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (1971).

The role of the scientist, Dr. Orla, was handled with flavorful efficiency by the sympathetic-looking Alberto Dalbes, who was on his way to becoming a frequently employed actor in Jess Franco movies. Born in Argentina in 1922, Dalbes studied Philosophy and Literature for a teaching profession, but dropped that ambition to embrace acting. Before moving to Spain in the 1960s, Dalbes had a successful theatrical and film career in his native Argentina during the 1940s and 50s.

Another Argentinean, Rosanna Yanni, essayed the curious role of Elke who, through either perverse inclination or romantic idealism, falls in love with the hunchbacked simpleton. Born Marta Susana Yanni Paxot in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1938, Yanni began her entertainment career at twenty-two as a chorus girl at the Buenos Aires National Theater and later modeled in Italy, to finally settle in Spain in 1963, where she found regular work in comedies, adventure films and horror films. Her first horror film was, in fact, Naschy’s first--LA MARCA DEL HOMBRE LOBO. Her four films with Naschy, two with Jess Franco, and one with Blind Dead creator Amando de Ossorio have yearned her the affection and admiration of euro-cult film fans.

Vic Winner (Victor Alcazar) had already appeared with Naschy in EL GRAN AMOR DEL CONDE DRACULA and now took on his typical middling leading man role. Like Yanni, he would star in four Naschy films and is considered part of a beloved-by-fans Naschy troupe. Despite his calm, even lethargic looks, Winner energized himself in the future with scriptwriting and directing (non-horror) films under his real name and as Victor Barrera.

Antonio Pica’s solid and handsome presence typecast him as a police inspector in four Naschy films, while his crime-investigating partner in the hunchback film, Manuel de Blas, had played the Dracula role in Naschy’s, LOS MONSTRUOS DEL TERROR (English title: ASSIGNMENT TERROR, 1970). At the time Blas was married to Spanish cult-film icon Patty Shepard (another Naschy co-star!). He has remained a busy actor to this day.

Splendid locales were employed. The impressive Bavaria-like town of Viella in the Pyrenees Mountains substituted for Feldkirch, Austria, while the expansive cellars of Spain’s first king, Philip II, became the eerie subterranean hell in which Gotho hides and Dr. Orla sets up his laboratory. Madrid’s Hospital Provincial morgue provided a most suitable location for the shuffling midnight footsteps and barbarity of the hunchback.

The palpable gruesome atmosphere of the morgue scenes was easily inspired by the actual doings of the morgue staff. Naschy details one such moment in his autobiography, MEMOIRS OF A WOLFMAN (Midnight Marquee Press, 2000; translated by Mike Hodges): “On one occasion a dead man’s head was left poking out of the casket, and when one of the attendants pushed down on the rotten corpse, it sprang up and spewed a green vicious liquid over him.”

Permission was given to use a real corpse for a head-severing scene. Naschy took two swigs of whiskey but couldn’t get past the first cut into the throat. A dummy head was used thereafter.

In the film’s most talked about sequence, Naschy was set upon by real rats. Naschy had to be inoculated against possible rabies, and one would have expected Maria Elena Arpon to have been afforded the same precaution, as that was her, not a mannequin, lying on a slab with the rodents nestling and nibbling all over her.

“It was as terrifying as it was real,” Naschy commented about his rat scene in his autobiography. “The Ibys Institute caught a load of rats in the sewers and left them without food for some time. Once loosed on the set the filthy little beasts proved able to leap up to a meter high, sinking their needle sharp teeth into anything at hand. I felt their bites on several parts of my anatomy and wondered what would have happened to me if I hadn’t been wearing protection. It wasn’t a nice scene to shoot.”

As payment for their furious cameo roles, some of the rats were burned alive on camera. It was as terrifying as it was real.

On a deeper level of significance, Dr. Orla symbolized authority, while Gotho represented the subdued working class, striving for a ludicrous goal manufactured by leaders who know that the goal can never be attained but use it anyway to secure cheap labor and subservience. At one point, Dr, Orla makes it clear: “You see, Gotho, how the most insignificant person can be of use to science and to humanity. All you have to do is let yourself be led by a real leader.”

The film’s evolving outrageousness and grotesqueness, issuing from the pit of Spain’s monarchist and inquisitorial past, even from mankind’s primordial past, could not help but subliminally shake the principles of faith and tradition propping Spanish society. What better ruse than to use a horror film, which had been traditionally thought of as trash by many critics, as a release of political and social commentary (and sexual imagery) forbidden by the regime of Generalissimo Franco?

Unlike EL GRAN AMOR DEL CONDE DRACULA, Naschy’s hunchback film lacked the frequent nudity of the other film’s export version, however. A promotional still of a bare-chested Naschy with an equally bare-chested Rosanna Yanni exists, but such a scene never made it to the finished product, though Yanni’s breasts are very briefly on display in the uncensored international cut. Otherwise, in terms of nudity, the film is chaste at this point, probably having been pruned significantly when the script was sent to Spain’s censorship board and then when handed in for review.

And there are several moments that would have easily lent themselves to generous displays of female flesh: a whipping scene at a reformatory and Gotho’s kidnappings of women, one taking place while a woman is showering. There may have been good reason not to shoot, or promote, a “double version” for these scenes. With the censorship that EL GRAN AMOR DEL CONDE DRACULA suffered (in one interview Naschy mentioned 36 cuts!), the producers would have been justified in not having this new film go through excisions that could have hollowed out portions of their film around the world.

For his performance as Wolfgang Gotho, Naschy won the Georges Melies Award for best actor at the Second International Festival of Fantastic Cinema in Paris in 1973, beating out such established figures as Christopher Lee, Jason Robards and Herbert Lom. At the festival where he received his award, he met director Terence Fisher, who complimented him on his role and showed enthusiasm in making a Jekyll and Hyde picture with the Spanish actor/scriptwriter. (Dare we note some similarity between EL JOROBADO DE LA MORGUE and Fisher’s 1974 FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL?)

For Naschy the award had particular significance. It meant that his name and the Spanish horror film had entered the ranks of actors and films recognized and applauded on an international scale. EL JOROBADO DE LA MORGUE would validate what LA NOCHE DE WALPURGIS had begun. The Spanish horror film had come into its own.

Now, weeks after the death of Paul Naschy on November 30, 2009, the first appearance on NTSC DVD of this Naschy classic comes from Mya to street in January. From what I can tell the source is the Spanish version (released by Spain's TriPictures several years ago) with the brief nude scene involving Rossana Yanni replacing the Spanish clothed edit. Pluses include English subtitles for all three audio track--Spanish, Italian and English. It has been Mya's policy not to have English subtitles when English audio is present, but thankfully here the company has gone the extra mile to supply English subs. There's also a photo/pressbook gallery (borrowing from Anolis' German DVD release of this title), a comparison between the nude scene and the non-nude one, the American trailer, and the Italian credits sequences (the beginning credits have different music replacing the familiar accordion um-pa-pa, and are white lettering over a black background). Colors are quite good, with blacks being very solid. Picture quality is a bit on the soft side. There's some slight aliasing and shifting to the picture at times, which will probably be more apparent on better systems will larger monitors. I also noticed two quick, minor horizontal breakups during a fight scene between Gotho and the Vic Winner character. The DVD can be ordered from Amazon.com.









German trailer for the Anolis DVD edition:

Shake-ups at ADA

Variety is reporting that the sales staff of ADA (Alternative Distribution Alliance) is being merged into Warner Brothers' distributing arm, WEA. The article continues:

"A source said that 17 staffers are exiting the company. Among those departing is former ADA president Andy Allen, who had acted as a consultant to the firm for the past couple of years. WMG is also reportedly closing ADA's video arm, Filmworks; VPs Jay Douglas and Rob McDonald are ankling as a result."

Why does this concern us? Well, ADA (which used to be Ryko until April) distributes Mya in the United States, as well as other indie DVD labels such as Blue Underground, Synapse and Mondo Macabro!

At the moment this news doesn't appear to affect these DVD labels and their distribution, but one wonders if this is not a bad sign in that direction.

BTW, Warners owns 95% of ADA.

UNTIL DEATH - review

Lucio Fulci thought he was going to direct this film, but instead the helming chores eventually went to Lamberto Bava, son of Mario Bava and a fine filmmaker in his own right. PER SEMPRE (UNTIL DEATH) was a feature for Italian television, part of the 4-film series, Brivido Giallo (literally, Yellow Shiver). The other films in this series: UNA NOTTE AL CIMITERO (GRAVEYARD DISTURBANCE), LA CASA DELL'ORCO (THE OGRE) and A CENA COL VAMPIRO (DINNER WITH A VAMPIRE). The now-defunct Italian NoShame division released a box set in 2006 with all four films, subtitled "Gli Incubi di Lamerto Bava/The Nightmares of Lamberto Bava." Of these, only THE OGRE has yet to be released by Mya.



I've not seen a significant amount of Lamberto Bava's output, but UNTIL DEATH makes me take special notice as this film is a splendid chiller that starts slowly, builds up its mystery, then, in the last 15 minutes or so, unleashes some terrifying sequences and images--not gross-out horror, but horror of incident, with some subtle, but impacting special effects and makeup.

Italy's master of cult screenplays, Dardano Sacchetti, had a hand in the story and script of lovers, Linda (Gioia Scola) and Carlo (David Brandon), who do away with and bury Linda's husband. They proceed to lead quasi-normal lives thereafter as restaurateurs, until the appearance several years later of a mysterious, handsome and intense young man, Marco (Urbano Barberini), who begins a simmering seduction of Linda. But along with Marco arrive occurrences that Linda's husband may still be alive. Are these occurrences the work of a noisy cop who dines at their restaurant, a squeeze play upon the couple's guilt? Or is something else, something more frightening happening?

All three actors are spot-on in their performances, and Simon Boswell's electronic score is sure to provide a nostagic fix to euro-cult fans who remember the Italian age of horror of the 1980s when Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci were kings. Lamberto Bava handles everything with smooth discipline and focus, injecting eerie suspense and touches of fantasy when necessary, before letting nightmares attain full expression at the end.

As with other films from the Dania catalog, UNTIL DEATH is very good pictorially. The English audio suffers later in the film from some minor ticking; unfortunately the superior Italian audio, which contains more pronounced incidental sounds (like water lapping when the characters are by a lake) is not subtitled in English, as is the norm for Mya titles that have an English audio track.

The Mya DVD is available at Amazon.com.

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The start of a splendidly chilling sequence from UNTIL DEATH:



See you later....!

Coming in March 2010

"The Films of Antonio Bonifacio." Or at least two of them: APPUNTAMENTO EN NERO (1990, aka, SCANDAL IN BLACK, NAKED RAGE, BLIND DATE--Mya's title) and KREOLA (1993).

BLIND DATE is supposed to be a nasty and sleazy later-day giallo. There's a review of the film on the Euro Fever blog--but, warning, a lot of spoilers there. KREOLA stars the Valentina woman, Demetra Hampton, who was actually born in Philadelphia! The one review of this film on the IMDB is not positive, but it does imply a slight supernatural element.

Now it will be for us to evaluate the work of director Antonio Bonifacio!

Coming in February 2010

Only one film is on Mya's schedule to come out in February of next year: ANNA - THE PLEASURE, THE TORMENT, with Edwige Fenech. This had been released by NoShame in the United States in 2005 as SECRETS OF A CALL GIRL. The original Italian title is ANNA, QUEL PARTICOLARE PIACERE (ANNA, THAT PARTICULAR PLEASURE.)



Mya's promo copy reads:

International sex symbol Edwige Fenech stars as Anna, a girl as beautiful as she is naïve, who falls into an abusive relationship with international crime boss Guido. He soon forces Anna deep into the abyss of depravity, violence and prostitution and, looking to start a new life, she escapes from Guido and seeks the help of Lorenzo, a sensitive doctor. But Guido finds her and wants revenge on the woman whose life he has so ruthlessly controlled for so long. In the end, Anna has no choice left but to face her wicked tormenter and fight him with all her strength.

This will be the 44th release from Mya.

Cover of the CD soundtrack release from Hexacord (limited to 500 copies):



Originally RCA put out the score on LP, with far less cues:



The score featured the vocals of Edda dell'Orso.

EVIL FACE - review

As the director of what were to become a couple of "video nasties" in Britain (SS: EXPERIMENT CAMP, SS CAMP 55: WOMEN'S HELL), Sergio Garrone is certainly an institution in euro-cult films. While his Nazi-exploitation films are notoriously known, his work in the horror genre, limited as director to two films, is rarely seen. Mya's release of LA MANO CHE NUTRE LA MORTE (THE HAND THAT FEEDS THE DEAD; on the Mya DVD as EVIL FACE) now provides one half of Garrone's horror output, the other half being LE AMANTI DEL MOSTRO (LOVER OF THE MONSTER), a film that shares much of the same cast, crew and locations. Both films are distinguished by their placement in a late 19th century East Europe or Russia, a world seemingly separated from humanity, where passions and bizarre weirdness can flourish, unseen by society or any national authorities. It helps enormously that Klaus Kinski is at the head of these two productions, and that the music by Elio Maestosi and Stefano Liberati provides an emotional handle on the stories and passions of the characters.

LA MANO CHE NUTRE LA MORTE takes its cues from surgery horror films like EYES WITHOUT A FACE and THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF. Here Professor Nijinsky (Klaus Kinski) attempts to surgically reclaim the beauty of his burn-scared wife Tanja (Katia Christine), the daughter of the late Baron Ivan Rassimov (yes, "Ivan Rassimov"!), who died tragically in a laboratory fire. Professor Nijinsky, a devoted assistant of Rassimov, needs the skins of beautiful women for his work. With the unexpected but welcome arrival of a newly married couple, Nijinsky finds his most suitable source of flesh in the bride (also played by Katia Christine).

Garrone builds up his suspense through a stately, not flashy, progression of incidents. It's not art, but it does have eventual impact, providing several memorable frissions in the last fifteen minutes or so of LA MANO CHE NUTRE LA MORTE. (Btw, the original title makes no sense in the context of the film; Mya's new title--EVIL FACE--is suitable, however much it lacks in finesse.)

Klaus Kinski performs with his usual mixture of somberness and intensity, though his presence on the shoot must have been limited, as in most of the lab scenes a stand-in, mask covering face to hide the duplicity, takes his place. Kinski's most amazing moment comes when he talks to a doll, Anjuska, about his love for his wife and his dejection over her betrayal. Though the set-up may seem completely ridiculous, Kinski manages to searingly impress us with his character's suffering sincerity. It's a dazzling lesson in acting.

Special effects are handled with gruesome expertness by Carlo Rambaldi, and the set decoration and costume design by co-producer Amedeo Mellone are precise and fine. Though obviously done on a limited budget, the film has a suitably rich veneer for its intentions.

As with their presentation of L'AMANTE DEL DEMONIO (LUCIFERA, DEMONLOVER), Mya uses an obvious video element for its source. This time, though, the presentation is in the film's proper aspect ratio of 1.66:1 (non-anamorphic) and the colors are bolder and the picture sharper. If it weren't for the numerous video imperfections that streak throughout the play of the film, and the noticeable aliasing that comes from using analog video, the quality would have been quite good.

Mya's presentation is in the original Italian language, with optional English subtitles. (The film probably never had English dubbing.) Included is a picture gallery, mainly of Italian photobustas. There are a couple of cover shots of recent CD releases from the score, one cue from which is obviously used for the menu screen, as it has a fuller and cleaner timbre than what comes across in the film itself.







EVIL FACE is available on Amazon.com.

LUCIFERA, DEMONLOVER - review

L'AMANTE DEL DEMONIO, the original title of the film now released by Mya as LUCIFERA, DEMONLOVER, was chiefly known by euro-horror enthusiasts for a couple of lascivious stills that have appeared in magazines and books since the film's production date of 1971. Otherwise, the film, which apparently has never had English dubbing, was little seen, except by those who chose to order a video or DVD-R from bootleggers. Even then, the film was not available with English subtitling. At the very least its appearance on the Mya DVD is welcome, because now, with optional English subtitles, the Anglo-speaking viewer can understand what the hell is going on. Other aspects of this release are problematic, as will be discussed later in this review.

It's understandable why L'AMANTE DEL DEMONIO never had a theatrical release in the United States. Despite those hot stills, the film contains little exploitative elements and drive. A cave scene with nude women and a nude blonde vampire seems tacked in and provides little eros, only a smattering of ridiculousness; an end torture scene, though it promises much, is demur even by 1970s standards. L'AMANTE DEL DEMONIO doesn't even rely on atmosphere that much, but rather on incident, plot. These are presented in a pleasing old-fashioned, matter-of-fact way, a tale for a campfire or beside a cozy hearth on a cold windy night.

[Spoilers in the paragraph below.]

At its heart L'AMANTE DEL DEMONIO is a fairytale of a woman and the Devil. Three women in contemporary Europe, impelled by one--the adventurous Helga (Rosalba Neri)--arrive to visit a castle that is rumored for housing the Devil. They spend the night at the castle, with Helga falling into a night-long dream of a past life in another century in which she became the bride of the village's prime young and handsome bachelor, Hans. The Devil (Edmund Purdom) intrudes, however, seducing Helga, who craves more than what a traditional life can offer--and torrid passion from a lover, which the gentile and boyishly clumsy Hans cannot provide. The Devil is never to be trusted, of course, and he lays a trap for Helga that will see her caught by the townspeople as a witch. Yet the film doesn't end with a mere Faustian warning, for not only does the Devil win, but the woman does, too. We find out that, contrary to the records of her trial, she did not repent her sins and dealings with the Devil, and has now turned up, reincarnated, to relive her frightful yet pleasurably consuming experiences in a dream. The night and the dream over, the contemporary Helga's last expressions are of wistful, if not bemused, contentment. She is pleased. The Devil is pleased, as well. Both share a common knowledge and satisfaction of their passionate connection in another life. It is this no-regrets, anti-religious stance, subtly underlined, that raises L'AMANTE DEL DEMONIO above many other Devil stories, which tend to be moralistic warnings about dealings with demons and evil.

Composer Elvio Monti's catchy music helps the picture establish the proper euro mood, and the Italian countryside breathes with the spaciousness of a different, more tranquil time. Occasionally, cinematographer Antonio Midica's compositions attempt to recall Dutch paintings, but there's a periodic clunky element to Francesco Bertuccioli's editing that reveals the low-budget nature of the film--and the possible cuts made to it.

Shamefully, Paolo Lombardo, the scriptwriter and director, almost hides Rosabla Neri's body from us, shooting any nude scenes with her in a coy manner. What was he thinking? (Or did Neri insist on such prudish tactics?) He also duplicates a lovers-beyond-fire scene from LADY FRANKENSTEIN, though it's unlikely he was familiar with this film during his helming of L'AMANTE DEL DEMONIO.

It is not Rosalba Neri who makes a strong impression, however, but Edmund Purdom, who has only minutes in the film, yet steals every second with a reptilian seductiveness and charm. When he was briefly a major Hollywood player in the early part of his career (THE EGYPTIAN, THE PRODIGAL, etc.), the Jesuit and Benedictine-educated Purdom seemed a stiff presence, but here he's loosened up completely and enjoying himself. A delightful devil.



It's unfortunate that Edmund Purdom passed away in January 2009, so that we are denied having an opportunity ask him about his euro product that's now seeing more light of day on DVD. I've a feeling that Purdom would probably have forgotten much about this film, though, as would Neri, but it would have been interesting to trek with him his Italian journey and impressions after his Hollywood days.

Mention should also be made of Robert Woods, who, as Helmuth, provides an inflamed sincerity to his role as Hans' rival and an anchor to the more serious elements of the story.

For the DVD presentation, Mya uses a noticeable video element that will look the poorer the better one's player system. In darker scenes tinges of muddiness compromise the picture and, just as reminder of the source material, stark video glitches momentarily pop up now and then. Furthermore, the presentation is full-frame, slicing off the film's more generous original widescreen framing. There are glaring day for night errors that no one seems to have had any concern to correct, probably even when the film was being theatrically exhibited around the world in the 1970s. Curiously, the opening credits are played over a black screen, unlike the drive to the castle that shows up in another version. (Check this blog page.) Despite these disappointments (which some will rightfully howl about), enough comes across, so that one can enjoy film on its own merits. Remember: it's the story that counts. Engaging the viewer through incidents and a fairytale's innate appeal, L'AMANTE DE DEMONIO is ultimately haunting, at least for me, and will leave a positive impression behind that so many other films, louder and with far heftier budgets, cannot produce.











L'AMANTE DEL DEMONIO (LUCIFERA, DEMONLOVER) is available from Amazon.com.