The Filmgoers' Guide
DISCUSSING FILMS CULT AND CLASSIC
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Not Tonight, Josephine
Enzo G. Castellari’s The Loves and Times of Scaramouche (1976 – originally Le aventure e gli amori di Scaramouche) has been released on DVD in the UK by Cornerstone Media. It’s an Italian/Yugoslavian co-production set at the time of the French Revolution, with Michael Sarrazin as the eponymous philandering hero. The animated title sequence promises Carry On-style bawdy farce, but the movie is tamer, a slapstick period comedy. Scaramouche escapes Paris and via unlikely circumstance, he and his comrade, a barber named Whistle (Giancarlo Prete), end up in the French army fighting the Austrians and Russians.
The Loves and Times of Scaramouche was shot in Italy (the familiar tiered Monte Gelato waterfalls in Lazio appear) and in Yugoslavia, and boasts a good battle sequence and first rate costumes and settings. Aldo Maccione played Napoleon Bonaparte as a buffoon and the film’s mocking tone constantly ridicules the French (who significantly had no financial input into this Euro co-production). The cast is filled with familiar faces from Italian genre cinema. Lee Van Cleef’s stunt double Romano Puppo played Napoleons’ sultan-like bodyguard, Sal Borgese appeared as an inept assassin, Riccardo Garrone was a French captain, and Michael Forest played secret service agent D’Anglade. Also keep your eyes peeled for Peter Berling (from Aguirre, The Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo), Massimo Vanni, Dante Cleri, Enzo Fiermonte and stunt coordinator Rocco Lerro. Gisela Hahn played Babette, one of Scaramouche’s conquests, and ‘Alan Collins’/Luciano Pigozzi was her understandably irate husband.
The film’s trump card is the presence of Ursula Andress, as Napoleon’s Josephine. Andress shot to fame as ‘Bond Girls’ Honey Ryder in Dr No (1962) and Vesper Lynd in Casino Royal (1967). The ‘sex goddess’ wasn’t nicknamed ‘Ursula Undress’ for nothing. She was often employed throughout the 1960s and 1970s in such adventures as Scaramouche, to add a little spice and to disrobe, as what might be termed ‘set undressing’. She did this regularly in films, including The Blue Max, The Southern Star, Perfect Friday, Red Sun, The Sensuous Nurse, The Fifth Musketeer, Mountain of the Cannibal God, Stateline Motel and Mexico in Flames, to name a few. In 1965 she posed nude for Playboy magazine. When asked why, she simply answered, ‘Because I’m beautiful’.
Castellari completists will want to see Scaramouche, as it’s one of the cult director’s films not to have seen the light of day on DVD. Andress and James Bond completists will want to see it for the brief moment towards the end when Andress parodies her star-making walk from the surf in Dr No. The many fistfights, swordfights, duels and trampolining acrobatics imitate the physical style of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer’s comedies of the period. The Euro-pop sing-along theme song and bubblegum score by Bixio-Frizzi-Tempera are guaranteed to grate on your nerves after a while. While Castellari is an excellent action director – check out Kill them All and Come Back Alone, Eagles Over London, The Marseilles Connection, The Inglorious Basterds, 1990: The Bronx Warriors and Keoma for evidence of his finest work – he’s no farceur. The non-stop zaniness on display here eventually becomes tiresome and the running gags barely stumble. Euro-completists will view it from a historical perspective, as it’s yet another little-seen 1970s comedy, and it’s good that it has finally had an official UK release. The Region 2 DVD is fullscreen (the picture’s a bit soft and may be from a videotape source), with the English language dub, and is available from Amazon UK.
For more information on Castellari’s work, read Cinema Italiano: The Complete Guide from Classics to Cult, which has recently received two more reviews, in Electric Sheep magazine (read here) and the Canadian Chronicle Herald (read here)
Kindle Supplies
As of Easter weekend, 5 of my film guides from I.B. Tauris have been made available for the first time as Kindle downloads. The titles are:
Once Upon a Time in the Italian West: The Filmgoers’ Guide to Spaghetti Westerns This features extensive coverage of the great Italian westerns A Fistful of Dollars, A Pistol for Ringo, The Return of Ringo, For a Few Dollars More, Django, The Hills Run Red, Navajo Joe, A Bullet for the General, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Django Kill!, The Hellbenders, The Big Gundown, Death Rides a Horse, Face to Face, Day of Anger, The Big Silence, A Professional Gun, Sabata, They Call me Trinity and My Name is Nobody.
Crime Wave: The Filmgoers’ Guide to the Great Crime Movies
This includes chapters on the background and making of the classic crime films The Public Enemy, High Sierra, The Maltese Falcon, White Heat, The Asphalt Jungle, Kiss Me Deadly, The Big Combo, Point Blank, Bonne and Clyde, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Get Carter, Shaft, Dirty Harry, The Godfather, Chinatown, The Godfather Part II, Once Upon a Time in America, Lethal Weapon, GoodFellas, Pulp Fiction, L.A. Confidential and Ocean’s Eleven.
Stagecoach to Tombstone: The Filmgoers’ Guide to the Great Westerns
The great American west and the films set there is celebrated. Films featured include Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, Red River, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, High Noon, Shane, Johnny Guitar, Vera Cruz, The Man from Laramie, The Searchers, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Forty Guns, Ride Lonesome, Rio Bravo, The Magnificent Seven, One-Eyed Jacks, Ride the High Country, The Sons of Katie Elder, Once Upon a Time in the West, Support Your Local Sheriff!, The Wild Bunch, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, McCabe & Mrs Miller, Ulzana’s Raid, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Unforgiven and Tombstone.
Aim for the Heart: The Films of Clint Eastwood
This covers Eastwood’s career in front of and behind the camera, from Revenge of the Creature to Gran Torino, with chapters focusing on The Westerns (including the Dollars trilogy, Hang ‘Em High, Two Mules for Sister Sara, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Unforgiven), The Cops (the Dirty Harry quintet, The Gauntlet, Tightrope, In the Line of Fire, A Perfect World), The Lovers (The Beguiled, Play Misty for Me, Breezy, The Bridges of Madison County), The Comedies (the Clyde the orang-utan movies, Bronco Billy), The Dramas (Honkytonk Man, Bird, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby), The Thrillers (Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Escape from Alcatraz, Absolute Power, True Crime, Blood Work), and The War Movies (Where Eagles Dare, Kelly’s Heroes, Firefox, Heartbreak Ridge, Flags of our Fathers, Letter from Iwo Jima).
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aim-Heart-Films-Eastwood-ebook/dp/B007REBGKU/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3
Cinema Italiano: The Complete Guide from Classics to Cult
Uncover a treasure trove of Italian films from The Leopard to Puma Man. Chapters discuss mythological epics, gothic horrors, science-fiction, spy films, war movies, costume adventures, swashbucklers, political cinema, spaghetti westerns, comedies, gialli and ‘poliziotteschi’ crime films. Films include: La dolce vita, Hercules Conquers Atlantis, The Leopard, The Terror of Dr Hichcock, Contempt, The Gospel According to St Matthew, Castle of Blood, Fists in the Pocket, Django, Battle of Algiers, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Blowup, Diabolik, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, The Conformist, They Call Me Trinity, Violent City, The Marseilles Connection, Illustrious Corpses, Suspiria, The Big Silence, The Mask of Satan, Maciste in Hell, Blood and Black Lace, Hercules Against the Moon Men, The Last Man on Earth, The Wild, Wild Planet, Special Mission Lady Chaplin, Django Kill!, Fellini Satyricon, Deep Red, Sons of Thunder, Tentacles, The Inglorious Bastards, Zombie Flesh Eaters, Puma Man, 1990: Bronx Warriors, 8½, Once Upon a Time in the West, L’Avventura, Black Sabbath, Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion.
When Eagles Has Landed
My new book, When Eagles Dared: The Filmgoers’ History of World War II is out now in the UK and is published in the USA on 10 April 2012. It covers the hundreds of films that have depicted the war on screen and the historical events that inspired them, as a guide to history though cinema. It features many diverse films, from international epics to obscure B-movies, from well-known classics to world cinema gems, and will appeal to both WWII historians and film enthusiasts alike.
Films covered include The Guns of Navarone, Battle of Britain, The Great Escape, Saving Private Ryan, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Longest Day, Das Boot, A Bridge too Far, Tora! Tora! Tora!, The Dam Busters, Battle of the Bulge, The Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare, The Cruel Sea, To Hell and Back, The Heroes of Telemark, The Eagle Has Landed, Inglourious Basterds, Sink the Bismarck!, Stalingrad, Downfall, Kelly’s Heroes, Come and See, Cross of Iron, The Thin Red Line, Von Ryan’s Express, The Battle on the River Neretva, Reach for the Sky, Anzio, Days of Glory, Dunkirk, The Big Red One, Sands of Iwo Jima, Tobruk, In Which We Serve, Went the Day Well?, Ashes and Diamonds, They Were Expendable, Is Paris Burning?, Max Manus, The Battle of the River Plate, The Colditz Story, The Cockleshell Heroes, 633 Squadron, Letters from Iwo Jima, Patton, Objective Burma!, Ice Cold in Alex, Paisà, Eagles Over London, Rome Open City, The Dirty Heroes, Midway, The Desert Fox, Raid on Rommel, Merrill’s Marauders, Kanal, The Train, Battleground, Flame & Citron, Force 10 from Navarone, Valkyrie, The Secret Invasion, Operation Crossbow, Angles One Five, A Walk in the Sun, The Battle of El Alamein, Escape to Athena and many more…
When Eagles Dared: The Filmgoers’ History of World War II is available in the UK and the US.
Who Was Solomon King?
The Old Testament has provided the inspiration for many works of art, from cinema, sculpture and painting, to classical music. In the world of film it has inspired Hollywood epics such as The Ten Commandments and Solomon and Sheba, big budget international co-productions like Sodom and Gomorrah and The Bible…in the Beginning and lower-tier Italian sword and sandal flicks such as David and Goliath and The Old Testament.
In the early 1960s, Marcello Baldi made four films – a short film and three features – depicting various stories from the Old Testament. They were shot on location in Spain and on sets at Cinecittà Studios in Rome, and were Italo-Spanish co-productions.
The short film, Genesis (1963), was 34 minutes and depicted the Creation (via paintings), and then re-reacted with actors the stories of Cain and Abel, Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood, and the Tower of Babel.
Jacob, the Man Who Fought With God (1963 – I patriarchi della bibbia) took up the story, with Abraham and Lot in the Promised Land, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the tale of Jacob and his conflict with his wildman brother Esau.
The film’s reverence is closer in atmosphere to Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St Matthew than Hollywood epics or Italian pepla. It was shot on location near Madrid – the landscape looks like the area at Alto De Morcuera – and is poetic, realistic, if a bit plodding and longwinded at 105 minutes, in its telling of a story that isn’t exactly brimming with action.
Saul David (1964) is much better and is perhaps the best of Baldi’s adaptations, thanks to its good performances and large-scale battle scenes. Gianni Garko played harpist shepherd David and Norman Wooland played despot King Saul. Wooland is a monstrosity, his overbearing performance brilliantly dominating the film. Future spaghetti western star Garko is good too, as Saul’s rival for the throne of Israel. Interiors and city sets were at Cinecittà, while location work was lensed in Almeria, southern Spain, on the same deserts and sierras used in Sergio Leone’s ‘Dollars’ westerns, which were shot there in the same period. Sergio Sollima (as ‘George Higgins III’) worked on the film’s dialogue, and actors such as Milo Quesada, Antonio Molino Rojo and Aldo Sambrell propped up the supporting cast. It runs 114 minutes, but is never dull.
The Great Leaders (1965 – Il grandi condottieri) brought the series to a close with a 105 minute two-parter. Francisco Perez-Dolz is the film’s credited director, but Baldi oversaw the production. The first episode had Gideon (Ivo Garrani) advised by a mysterious stranger (Fernando Rey) on how to defeat the Midianites and become King of Israel – with a bit of help from Jehovah, of course. Expansive, arid location shooting in Almeria again makes this look tremendous. The second story, the sorrowful tale of Samson (Anton Geesink) and Delilah (Rosalba Neri), is closer in style and content to what we expect from Italian pepla, with location scenes even shot at Tor Caldara, Lazio (as well as in Almeria and Cinecittà). Samson is up against the Philistines, his only weapon the jawbone of an ass. Paolo Gozlino was an excellent villain in Gaza and Ana Maria Noe was well cast as Samson’s mother. If Saul and David is the best film of Baldi’s series, then this one packs the greatest emotional punch.
Baldi’s films were shot on a grand scale, with dozens of extras and convincing sets and costumes. Giacomo Alberione was billed as ‘Biblical Consultant’ and he seems to have carried out his task well. Teo Usuelli provided the music for each film and the magnificent scores to Saul and David and The Great Leadersare tremendously moving, lifting the drama several notches.
These little-seen epics are now available on DVD in a boxed set called, appropriately enough, Epics of the Old Testament. None of them are fantastic picture quality (the blurb claims they are ‘digitally re-mastered’), though they are presented in 1.85:1 widescreen (they should be in 2.35:1 Techniscope). The set also includes Irving Rapper’s Italian-Yugoslavian production Joseph and his Brethren (1960 – Sold into Egypt) which was a retelling of dreamer Joseph and his ‘coat of many colours’. The anglo guest star here is Robert Morley, as Egyptian Potifar. Geoffrey Horne starred as Joseph, sold by his brothers into slavery into Egypt, and the cast includes Vira Silenti, Belinda Lee, Arturo Dominici (as usual, the villain) and Terence Hill as Benjamin. It also seems the English language dubbers were having some fun here too. When an Ishmaelite calls over two of his henchmen – ‘Mohamed! Ali!’ – it is perhaps the only instance of a world champion boxer being namechecked in a Biblical epic.
The set is available from Amazon UK and from Amazon US
All the titles are also available separately.
And so as to the identity of Solomon King. The stories told in the Old Testament also inspired one of my favourite pieces of choral music, ‘Zadok the Priest’, by George Frederic Handel. After over a minute’s build-up, the opening lyric to this Coronation anthem reveals:
‘Zadok the Priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon King
And all the people rejoiced!’
Read more about Italian Biblical adaptations, including The Bible…in the Beginning, The Gospel According to St Matthew, Esther and the King, Moses the Lawgiver and Sodom and Gomorrah, in Cinema Italiano: The Complete Guide from Classics to Cult.
