Horror, Imaginary British Cinema

#132 – Carrion Crow

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(1974, GB, 100 min) Dir Harold Andsley. Cast Ian Ogilvy, Franco Francini, Maria Perschy.

Good old Harrow Productions – there wasn’t a popular British film of the seventies that they didn’t half-assedly rip off and in Harold Andsley they had their star director. The Devil Rides Out does well? He can get you Death to the Devil! knocked off in a fortnight. Witchfinder General causing a stir? He’ll get you Carrion Crow – the tale of a medieval demon hunter – in a trice. The one thing that nobody could have foreseen however is that Andsley might have made a good film. Perhaps it was his passion for the subject, having studied the Middle Ages in Oxford? Perhaps it was a complete accident? Who knows! Carrion Crow is Ogilvy’s Crusades scarred knight brought into the service of the church to scour the haunted isles of Britain, rooting out the demonic influence that is trying to take hold with his aged Italian aide Father Carfat (Francini). The film finds them having completed passage to Ireland where it seems they might have met their match in rural priestess Maria Perschy (who was Austrian but dyed her hair red for the part and was totally dubbed so let’s not split hairs) and her village of acolytes. A surprisingly effective and atmospheric picture and worth seeing for evidence that Andsley could make a good film if he really tried.

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Erotic, Imaginary US Cinema

#131 – Howard Schlong

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(1973, US, 79 min) Dir Art Blitzen. Cast Harry Pork, Jemma Mitz, Orla Capp.

So, who’s to blame for the truly dire cinematic career of ‘Artless’ Art Blitzen? How about Ernest Lehman? How, you might ask, is the distinguished screen author (or co-author) of such film classics as Sabrina, North by Northwest and The Sound of Music responsible for the tin-eyed cultural crimes of as shameless and inept a smut merchant as Blitzen? Well, I’ll tell you. In 1972, for reasons best know to Lehman, he made his one and only directorial effort with an adaptation of Philip Roth’s classic novel of sex and Judaism Portnoy’s Complaint which was about as well received with the critics as a firebomb in a Kurosawa retrospective. Not only did the critics turn their nose up at the film but it so enraged one viewer in the shape of Art Blitzen (then known as a publisher of Z grade pornography) that he scraped together about a buck and a half and shot his own version which equalled more sex, less Judaism. The fact that it’s lead character (as personified by the sweaty Harry Pork) has been renamed Howard Schlong should clue you in to how much of Roth’s wit survived the process. It’s dire from top to bottom – it looks like it was shot through the bottom of a milk bottle, Jemma Mitz (as ‘The Chimp’) looks as though she’s dropped acid before each take and the boom mike is visible in so many scenes it should, by rights, have been given a co-lead credit. As Roth himself said, “I would have sued but it might have meant watching it.”

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Comedy, Imaginary US Cinema

#130 – Flunkies

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(2002, US, 105 min) Dir Andy Farmer. Cast Matt LeBlanc, Michael Imperoli, Adam Goldberg, Paul Sorvino.

The late 1990’s and early 2000’s were a golden time for the mob comedy with Analyse This, Mickey Blue Eyes and The Whole Nine Yards, among others, providing lackluster laughs for the less discerning audience. Pitching in a little late for the party is 2002’s Flunkies starring Matt LeBlanc as the lead knucklehead of a trio of wannabe heavies (along with Imperoli and Goldberg) for mob boss Tony ‘Two Fish’ Mogiano. In the course of protecting Tony ‘Two Fish’ from an imagined hit by a postman the three idiots manage to accidentally off the big man themselves with a badly placed bird feeder. Hilarious peril results with everyone from the cops to the Triads battling it out for supremacy. In lieu of any actual jokes the film is meta instead with Imperoli a veteran of Goodfellas (along with Sorvino) and The Sopranos and the three guys having witless conversations about TV shows and foot massages that is supposed to nod to Tarantino’s pulp literate hitmen but instead serves to remind us how much better QT does that kind of banter.

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Comedy, Imaginary Mexican Cinema

#129 – Mentiroso (Liar)

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(2000, Mex, 100 min) Dir Ramon Vélez. Cast Diego Luna, Ana Álvarez, Demián Bichir.

The last film of Ramon Vélez and one of the first of Diego Luna’s. Luna plays nineteen year old Bruno who still lives at home with his mother in a leafy street in Mexico City. His desire to move out is curbed by the arrival of a new next door neighbour in the shapely shape of Ana Álvarez and suddenly the sole purpose of the summer months is to steal glances of her whenever he can. Then, when returning from an errand one afternoon, he runs into her in the hall of their building and lies, telling her that he lives on his own in his apartment. The problem is when he gets back to his apartment he finds that his lie has come true – his mother is nowhere to be found. More than that, every subsequent lie he tells her comes true as well, from the new Lamborghini he’s claimed to have bought to the award he’s receiving from the mayor. Of course he gets in over his head real quick and before long he’s being chased all over town by Bichir’s drug kingpin while pining for the return of his mother and the sleepy normality he’s lied away. A slight bit of adolescent wish-fulfillment from the previously magisterial Vélez. It’s diverting enough but I can’t help but think that he would have been at least a little embarrassed that this turned out to be his swan song.

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Art Film, Imaginary French Cinema

#128 – Crystal Heaven Death Alarm

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(1973, Fr, 72 min) Dir Jean Anno. Cast Jean Publique, Fanny Fanny, Hors Bicche.

In 1968 Jean Anno put his finger to the pulse of the nation and produced Dans la Vallée Ouverte avec le Soleil (In the Open Valley, with the Sun), a mostly drippy hippy wander through some bleached out celluloid with a spurt of totally uncool violence from The Man at the end. In 1973 he took the pulse once again and, inspired by the likes of the Baader-Meinhof Group and the Red Brigade and so on, came up with Crystal Heaven Death Alarm in which he stripped the politics from current events, totally dug the aesthetic and made a flick where the hippies get their revenge. Okay, so Anno’s still not getting it and Crystal Heaven Death Alarm isn’t a ‘good’ film but it’s a totally Seventies film and because of that probably a better indicator of the confusion of the times than his previous effort. The plot’s thin stuff – beautiful hippies blow up a couple of banks and shoot some judges and stuff before the pigs get involved and gun the groovy terrorists down. If nothing else the fetishising of the gang’s death is something to behold, like a slow motion sex scene full of blood. Le Mog return with their most atonal music yet to accompany all this and if you’ve heard any of Le Mog’s albums (Death to Birds and Mice for example) you’ll know that that’s saying something.

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Drama, Imaginary Mexican Cinema

#127 – Hombre Discoteca (Disco Man)‏

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(1981, Mex, 89 min) Dir Alfonso Salles. Cast Hector Mendez, Sally del Toro, Eva.

I don’t know whether it’s the ubiquitous soundtrack or the fact that all anyone really remembers of the film is its dance floor scenes but people tend to forget how depressing Saturday Night Fever really is. This isn’t really a problem with Alfonso Salles’ unofficial remake Disco Man which ups the fantasy atmosphere of the nightclub scenes and really digs in with the squalor of the rest of the movie with graphic shotgun assisted suicide and not one but two dogs getting kicked to death particular highlights. Much like the original this isn’t a film about the transformative or restorative powers of dance and escapism and all of that but it makes more of the idea that the leads turning away from reality for the discotheque fantasy of the weekends is in some way a denial of that reality and that at some point it’s going to come back to bite you. Don’t mess with reality, basically. Star Mendez, who displays more grace and swagger than Travolta himself (and has a huge moustache too), also directed the film’s sequel, Disco Man 2, which was of course in turn an unofficial remake of Stayin’ Alive.

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Comedy, Imaginary Swedish Cinema

#126 – Färska Hallon (Fresh Raspberries)

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(1963, Swe, 75 min) Dir Isak Borg. Cast Isak Borg, Berit Alman, Henrik Åkerman, Charlotta Borg.

By the time the early sixties had swung by Isak Borg should have been a happy man. Of the three films that he had so far written, produced, directed and starred in all three were slapstick comedy classics that had broken the box office in his native Sweden. Isak Borg, however, wasn’t a happy man. A legendarily paranoid and depressive man, he had grown to resent more and more the influence of his fellow countryman Ingmar Bergman who was taken so very seriously while Borg was scorned by critics, festivals and awards ceremonies alike. Thankfully that curse that had struck so many before him had not struck him – he had no desire to be taken seriously. No, he didn’t want to go to the critics, he wanted the critics to come to him. Hence Fresh Raspberries – surely a spoof of Bergman’s films would puncture their pomposity, reveal to the world at large the ridiculousness of the man’s self-seriousness? Alas, it did not work. Borg’s film of a clumsy priest’s spasms of doubt being met by increasingly absurd interruptions – starting with long forgotten uncles, graduating to a troupe of mean-spirited clowns and finishing with a wise talking death – was coldly received by not just the critics but by audiences too, evidently alienated by his previous film’s good cheer having curdled so badly. Within the year the beaten Borg was back to basics with Accidental Postman Grun.

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Horror, Imaginary Australian Cinema

#125 – Hannah Blet

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(1981, Aust, 104 min) Dir Chuck Mallory. Cast Jenny Bitz, Pete Pooter, Jim Billing.

Through the desert haze comes Hannah Blet, a twentysomething woman with an antique suitcase. She takes up position at the side of the road. Cut to a wide shot – this road is running through the middle of nowhere and the desert that she has just emerged from goes on forever in every direction. Cut to a close up – Hannah has a smile on her face, the same smile she’ll be wearing throughout the film no matter if she’s watching a child play or pulling apart a trucker who’s made unwanted advances like he’s nothing more than a rag doll. Who is Hannah Blet? Why is her suitcase full of Victorian clothes and sand? The film does little to answer these question but gives us a very still, very stylish atmosphere in the shape of DOP Jim Dixon’s spare compositions and Dingo Drift’s synthy score, a still atmosphere that is occasionally punctuated by very effective and very bloody violence. An accomplished debut from Chuck Mallory and a fine performance from Jenny Blitz set this Ozploitation classic apart.

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Art Film, Black and White, Imaginary Mexican Cinema

#124 – Delitos Menores (Petty Crimes)

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(1948, Mex, ? min, b/w) Dir Luis Buñuel.

Between Gran Casino and The Great Madcap Buñuel made the short Petty Crimes which seems to have lasted all of three weeks as a completed short following the edit before a small fire at the studio spirited it away. Buñuel, it is said, wasn’t entirely pleased with the film they had produced and regarded the incident with no great emotion, moving swiftly on to the next project. Thus the fleeting existence of Delitos Menores remained of no real consequence until the late 1970’s when a copy of the script appeared in a suitcase in the attic of Ramon Valdez, the son of famed Mexican filmmaker Pablo Valdez and future director of Sol Diablo. Valdez Senior, it transpired, had worked on Delitos Menores as script boy and general gofer. Suddenly the film attained the mystique of the irretrievably lost and Buñuel had to fend off questions about it in interviews for the remainder of his life apart, that is, from when he fell back on his deafness to dodge the inquiries. Stills soon appeared in mislaid and mislabelled boxes in an archive in Switzerland and in 2000, as part of the celebrations for the centenary of Buñuel’s birth, a sort of slide show version was produced with the voices of Martin Sheen, Gabriel Byrne and Julianne Moore reading the parts. More recently Guy Maddin included it as one of the subjects of his Seances series with Udo Kier in the lead.

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Art Film, Black and White, Imaginary US Cinema, Silent

#123 – Cogs of the World, The‏

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(1924, US, 786 min original/119 min studio cut, b/w) Dir Hans Bismark. Cast Dabney Leigh, Josie Robin, Pat Basket, Horace Pet.

So in a single film you’ve vaulted to the ranks of the most popular and well regarded directors in the world – what do you do now? Something a little lighter than your last epic feature? A comedy, or perhaps a romance? Or do you take three years to make a thirteen hour pseudo-communist, mysticalist epic about the foundations of civilisation as you see it and the barbarism of modern industry? It’s going to be the latter, isn’t it? Well, you’re not alone – with his skilled but slight debut At Flight! With the Devil’s Wind… buckling all kinds of swash at the box office, Hans Bismark was handed a blank cheque and no provisos. Trouble started quick with his star, Francis de Pascal, dropping out three weeks into production citing a recurrent facial cramp. Then the massive sets of an Arctic paradise that had been erected in Alaska melted. It went downhill from there, a litany of difficulties that culminated in the legendary only screening of The Cogs of the World in its complete state that was regularly interrupted by the loud weeping of its broken director. Royal Brothers Studios eventually released the film in a severely truncated form that, according to contemporary reviews, mangled the story into incomprehensibility and somehow still managed to feel too long. This version flopped and it, along with the original edit, are now lost to film history. Bismark repaired to a sanatorium until 1928 at which point, for the third time in his life, began his career anew.

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