Alternatives To Valances

Kinky, Kinky! Lucio Fulcis UNA SULL'ALTRA



Una sull'altra (aka Perversion Story of naked corpses) - IFE 1969 - Director: Lucio Fulci - Camera: Alejandro Ulloa - Production: Edmondo Amati, Maurizio Amati (. Empire Films; Productions Jacques Roitfeld, Coop Trébol Films) - Edited by: Ornella Micheli - Written by: Lucio Fulci (also story), Roberto Gianviti (also story), José Luis Martinez Molla - Music: Riz Ortolani - Starring: Jean Sorel (Dr. Geroge Dumurrier), Marisa Mell (Susan Dumurrier / Monica Weston), Elsa Martinelli (Jane), Alberto de Mendoza (Henry Dumurrier), John Ireland (Inspector Forest), Lucio Fulci (graphologist) Others - FSK: 16, not free holiday - Length: 99 min. - Italy premiere: 08.15.1969, German premiere: 09/24/1971

Lucio Fulci was at home in all genres. Born in 1927 in Rome director made by the late 1950s until his death in 1997, over 50 films. Among them were so down to earth, honest works such as the Heinz Ruehmann comedy Operazione San Pietro (The Adventures of the Cardinal Braun, 1967), Spaghetti Westerns such as the sound of revenge Western Tempo di Massacro (Django - His hymn-book was the Colt, 1966) and to live the almost delirious I Quattro dell'apocalisse (damn - damned to die; 1975), the effect retrospectively as the last breath of the ghost genre in Europe. Added are more likely a peasant-proletarian audience oriented genre parodies with the in Italy most popular comedy couple Ciccio Ingrassia and Franco Franchi, such as the films of the agent "002", not just the James Bond series, but the wave of "Eurospy" Thriller ridiculed and Adventure Films by Jack London, thrillers, end movies and gangster movies. And, of course, the bloody horror films, for which the director is well known outside of Italy best. Although these films show Fulcis sure sense of atmosphere (no matter how miserable dog act, the actors and how the special effects are cheap). They frighten but also back hardly a hideous, but they offer it within the offensive pointing gesture: In L'Aldila (ghost town of the Dead, 1981), Fulcis perhaps the most beautiful horror film, the Dietmar Dath with The salt-white eyes (2005 ) pays homage proved, were allowed to tear tear the most most incredible plastic spiders in film history a human tongue (!) and a hapless eyes (!), in Paura nella città the morti viventi (A zombie hanging on the bell rope , 1980) is a protagonist like their own vomit Intestines, which dramatically was rather pointless, but presented as a circus attraction in itself had its own value.

Fulci was foremost genre director, a filmmaker, his films for the audience and did not for the critics. And as he not infrequently the public in the second-and third-class movie theaters had in mind, he sought to deliver the thrills by which they should require, thus particularly Sex and Crime and kiss kiss, bang bang . With the decline of the terza visione cinemas late 70s, the increase in average ticket prices and the consequent disappearance of a certain style of popular and genre cinema in Italy, was transformed in the time interval between the reception of Fulcis films. Today it is - not only in Italy - some academics among his fans. And some of his films are well worth to be seen again.

sull'altra Una (1967), published by the U.S. under the label "Severin" a good DVD edition is, is one of those films and has one of the lesser known works of the director. This is perhaps because he is neither Western nor horror film and something so seemingly falls from the oeuvre of the Maestro. Most likely to be the film as a hybrid of the time in Italy as popular "movie sexy" and Gialli call, but without having bloody murders in the style of Dario Argento or Sergio Martino's come up. The title already promises racy and could be translated as "One to the Other." The (current) U.S. distribution title is even less subtle: He immediately announced a "Perversion Story" which appeared in Germany Una sull'altra under the speculative Dada-called "naked at nothing". The plot is quite simple: The marriage of a wealthy doctor Dumurrier George (Jean Sorel) with the ailing Susan (Marisa Mell) is at a low point. When Susan dies under mysterious circumstances, the notoriously unfaithful husband quickly gets under suspicion. After the death of his wife, George can be in the red light district of San Francisco and learns to drive a stripper to know that his late wife out of a face is cut. occur as further evidence to suggest that George murdered his wife, he is sentenced to death. At the last moment of his accident to the rescue ...

What Una sull'altra now very attractive, makes are his Mannerist, extremely exaggerated and often startling Stilismen that explicitly do not want the service of a realistic and credible cinematic storytelling. Fulci shall send a large number explicitly anti-naturalistic camera angles. There is the "impossible" view of the camera from a refrigerator would be out on the protagonists, an irritatingly artificial moment, as it is well established in American cinema with films like the first Blood Simple (1984) by the Coen brothers. In another scene the camera looks out from actually the floor of an apartment on the figures go up, so an embedded in the floor of the studio glass. In another sequence, a couple is filmed in the act by a delicate fabric. Again and again distorting wide-angle, the vertical lines at the edge of the field of view, the action is often filmed through mirrors, fast zooms directed against established visual conventions used and used subjective attitudes which are sometimes filmed with a handheld camera. An autopsy sequence Fulci realized by means of split screen, with decorative frames in each glass flask and Destillierutensilien draped in which liquids boil in all the colors of the rainbow. Time and again, images strictly divided into two levels of equal size, with a close-up in the one and a half shots in the other half. Some use Fulci and his cinematographer Alejandro Ulloa of how Orson Welles and Gregg Toland in Citizen Kane (1941) ground lenses. The hierarchical images, externalized power relationships that prove to be but often deceptive. At the end of the film then there is a fairly conventional resolution, where the tragic and unjustly sentenced to death for adulterers is, ironically, by avenging a crime of passion. But even here Fulci manages sustainable irritation: Our hero disappears just before the end of the film completely from the film. The last time we see George after he has entered the gas chamber. That he has survived, we learn only from the radio. The undermines, well, "happy ending" of the film and irritated sustainable: The protagonist may not be dead, but his total absence has yet clearly against the conventionality of the resolution. In a way, the unfaithful husband, at least in the cinematic space with the step has died in the gas chamber.

fact is not nearly as Una sull'altra low-brow as one might initially assume. In particular, cross-references brings Fulci film with an almost post-modern self-consciousness. There are some references to Michelangelo Antonioni Blow up (1966), when the mistress of the hero, a photographer, the studio sex pictures in pop art style to be made and how blase Photographer David Hemmings seduces a model at a photo shoot. From Hitchcock's universe is of course condemned the innocent hero, who himself remains ambivalent long. The covers on famous of Hitchcock's classics are particularly striking, obviously Handlungsort in San Francisco and the hallucinatory daydream splitter assembly, in which appears to the protagonist having sex with the doppelganger of his wife's pale, supposedly dead wife bier. If one drafted by something acting sex scenes, the rather tame lesbian seduction sequence with sadomasochistic Undertones and visits to strip clubs from is obvious that Fulci has actually shot a Italianized sexploitation version of Vertigo (1958).

Colloidal Silver Genuine

Eastern / Western: Ferdinando Baldi Blindman



Blindman / il cieco / Blindman, the executors - Italy-USA 1971 - Director: Ferdinando Baldi - Produced by: Tony Anthony, Allen Klein, Saul Swimmer - Story: Tony Anthony - Book: Tony Anthony, Pier Giovanni Anchisi, Vincenzo Cerami - Camera: Riccardo Pallottini - Music: Stelvio Cipriani - Cast: Raf Tony Anthony ("Blindman"), Ringo Starr ("Candy"), Lloyd Battista ("Domingo"), Magda Konopka ("Sweet Mama"), Baldassarre (Mexican general), Agneta Eckemyr Others - Length: 105 min - Format: Techniscope, 2.35:1 - German Premiere: 06.08.1972 - DVD by Sony (unedited, in its original format, including bonus material and original version with subtitles)

The idea, as protagonists of a Western gunslinger a blind use, should be one of the most abstruse ideas in the history of the genre. And accordingly it is not surprising that behind the programmatic title Blindman no American Genre post is hidden, but a largely Italian-funded Western. The idea for this movie was the team of actor / co-producer / co-authors Tony Anthony probably during the filming of lo straniero Tues silenzio aka the silent stranger (The nightmare of Kung-Fu, 1968), the first Spaghetti Westerns, the twisting not only in Japan but also thematically with the chambara Western all'italiana combined. It has a long tradition of Japanese genre films about the blind samurai (and masseur) Zatôichi, which has produced to date more than twenty films and the direct model to Ferdinando Baldi Blindman represents.

actually began in the late 1960s and early 70s, Asian cinema increasingly responded to the Spaghetti Western. In Zatôichi to yôjinbô (Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo, 1970), the twentieth film Zatôichi series, referred the order four coffins no longer limited to Kurosawa yojimbo (1961), but also to the corresponding scene from the European remake per un Pugno Tues Dollari (For a Fistful of Dollars, 1964; R: Sergio Leone). Influences of the spaghetti western to Japanese Kozure Okami - series (1972ff.), the Hong Kong productions of the Shaw Brothers and its rival company Golden Harvest, as well as John Woo's kinetic force ballets and Tsui Hark's Wuxia movies are also unmistakable. For example, quoting Bruce Lee in Rome turned directing meng long guo jiang (The Dragon strikes again; 1972) several times musically C'era una volta il West (Once Upon a Time in the West, 1968; R: Sergio Leone) . Films like zhan shen tan (The Thunder Bay of Shaolin, 1973) referred explicitly to Leone's "Dollar" trilogy and Lung Chien tang ren piao ke (Wang Yu - More than 1,000 kamikaze; 1973) used as Morricone's title theme by il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (Bad and the Ugly, 1966). Especially the Hong Kong productions of the 60s and 70s, integrated international Influences. The Shaw Center, the mid-50's musicals, melodrama, opera adaptations, martial-arts - and produced wuxia films began in the late 60s to participate in international hybrids. The films of Chang Cheh and King Hu took over as motifs from the Japanese genre cinema and the Western all'italiana , including the exaggerated sound effects, new camera and editing techniques and the use of the zoom . parallel originated in Italy Westernmixturen with Japanese actors, such as Tonino Cervis oggi a me ... domani a te (Today I, tomorrow you; 1968) with Tatsuya Nakadai, the villains from yojimbo , and Terence Young's soleil rouge / sole rosso (red sun rivals, and in 1971 ) in the Charles Bronson, Toshiro Mifune, Alain Delon took over the lead roles. early 70s appeared more Italo Western martial-arts -crossings, such as il mio nome è Shangai Joe ( The man with the ball whip; 1972) botte and che, ragazzi (two through thick and thin; 1975). The Shaw Brothers involved at this time also in co-productions with the British Hammer studio produced, now Italian-Chinese community projects such as là dove non batte il sole (The Stranger and the Gunfighter, 1974) with Lee Van Cleef and Lo Lieh, Golden Harvest funded similar hybrids .

Inspired by the Zatôichi- series Blindman is thus at least in terms of its genesis is not as far fetched as it first may seem. He is not a direct continuation of the "Stranger" films, has directed the former Method actor Tony Anthony before with Luigi Vanzi (next lo straniero Tues silenzio the team created the minimalist low-budget Western Dollaro tra i denti un [A dollar between the teeth; 1967] and un uomo, un cavallo, una pistola [Western Jack, 1967]). Although Anthony's protagonist has here, as in the previous films no name. But even in his dress is different, the blind gunman, who took over for 50 000 dollars a task, 50 mail order bride (!) By the desert to drive and to deliver it to a group of Texan miners: instead of the torn Stetson of "Strangers" Anthony with this time a monster on the head that looks a little like a melted, brown carpenter's hat and is additionally provided with a small ammunition. Even the pink shirt, poncho and a black mare of the previous figure are missing. Instead, he has a blind horse, a disabled compass, a tattered duster and a bolt action rifle with a bayonet attachment, which serves as the cane.

Like the "Stranger" is the protagonist a hero is anything but sovereign and is hardly ever taken seriously by his environment. In general, the Plot as largely meaningless sequence of humiliation and retaliation is created. Even as we meet the blind, it has carved its partners over the ear and the sight, when he bitterly clinging to the tail of his horse in a city is just pathetic. Although the blind men who robbed him of the women (played by Beatles producer Allen Klein and the Beatles' roadie Mal Evans), blow it up. The 50 women, however, are now in the hands of psychotic bandit Domingo (Lloyd Battista), his moronic brother Candy (Ringo Starr [!] in his only western role) and their sadistic S chwester Sweet Mama (Magda Konopka). Together with the village beauty (Agneta Eckemyr) and a Mexican general (Raf Baldassarre) can be "Blindman" off while Domingo and company, at the end of him, the women, however, stolen by the Mexicans. As in previous Vanzis anti-Western, the hero at the end of the losers.

Anthony described his role now as a more everyday heroes: "He's not your typical gunslinger. He's more of an existential hero [...]. I never wanted to be a superhero;. I felt audiences could relate to me as someone in the street "Indeed I think the actor and his director Baldi with this film have created probably the most vulnerable Italo-Western protagonists. The film takes an amazing amount of space to put the handicap of the blind man in the picture, as when he relates a hotel room or difficulty without his gun and horse wanders helplessly. Ultimately Blindman but above all, a large-scale action Western that may come up because of the enormous budget with some impressive crowd scenes and good sets, by the bizarre elements of the film are still more evident. The principle described Anthony once as: "Everything was exaggerated, then played straight." Sun inhabit the baddies around a medieval castle, the bulk of the band seems less like Mexicans, but more like a cross between hippies and heavy-metal-barbarians. Otherwise, Baldi proves to be Champion in setting up more or less metaphorical castration pictures. As the blind man with "Sweet Mama" is fighting, biting him as this between the legs. After he broke her neck with his legs, said he shocked (!): "Being without eyes is one thing, but without that whew ..." The subject of necrophilia is touched also when the village beauty to be forced into a large-scale wedding scene to marry the now dead Candy. The detailed sequence in which 50 women will be dressed naked in a giant laundry for sale and to buckets doused with water breathing, similar to the sequence in which they half naked driven through the desert, the spirit lowest Exploitation cinema.

in the U.S. was $ 1,300,000 for the twisted and critics unanimously panned film no great success. A reviewer (Donald Mayerson) decried the "excessive, pointless, and sadistic violence, as well as [a penchant for] undraping women in the most humiliating way. " This can hardly be contradicted, especially since this was probably exactly the goal of the filmmakers. Outside the U.S., however, the film played over 15 million and has been a huge commercial success. In the Pakistani city Karachi, he was reportedly as many as six consecutive months in an always sold-out cinema. Today he is a curiosity from a time when the European genre films were produced on an assembly line, which despite its often crude plots crafted amazingly well and worked as an entertainment films work very effectively.