I Vampiri

Bathory Sphere

I Vampiri
aka The Vampires
aka Lust Of The Vampire
Italy 1957
Directed by
Riccardo Freda & Mario Bava  
Arrow Blu Ray Zone B

Shot in full cinemascope, I Vampiri is the second of the movies presented in Arrow’s wonderful, sold out before it actually hit the bricks and mortar shops, mini Blu Ray set Macabre Visions - The Films Of Mario Bava... although you have to look for it. Despite it’s prominent inclusion in the little, accompanying hardback of essays on the films included here (this one written by the great Alan Jones) it’s actually included as an extra on the first disc, Black Sunday (aka The Mask Of Satan, reviewed here). So you have to read the full list of extras for that movie to even realise it’s in here.

The reason for that, I guess, is because Mario Bava is not the credited director... only Riccardo Freda. Bava was the director of photography (and it certainly shows) but Freda walked out on the film 10 days into shooting (on a ‘shoot a film in 12 days’ bet) and Bava had to figure out how to rescue it and add and subtract from various elements and still finish the picture on time. Freda did a similar thing and left Bava ‘holding the bag’, as it were, on Caltiki, Il Mostro Immortale, reviewed by me here). So, for instance, the reason why one of the ‘mad doctor’s’ henchmen has a scar around his neck is because he was originally rebuilt from another character, who is now his own character played by another actor because various actors weren’t around for the last two days.

However, I’m thinking I Vampiri is an important film for a couple of reasons. Firstly, after decades of government censorship and not being allowed to make horror movies, it was the first talking picture horror film out of the gate in Italy. So that alone should mark it out as something to at least take a look at. Secondly, the villainess of the film, Gianna Maria Canale as Countess Giselle du Grand, is obviously inspired by the real life ‘Countess Dracula’, Elisabeth Bathóry (of whom so many films have been made), using her ‘weird science’ doctor friend as he gives her injections of various young ladies blood to maintain her youthful looks on a regular basis, long after she would have died (she transforms backward and forward from young to old age in the story).

In some ways, she’s actually more like the real life Elisabeth Bathóry, in that blood drinking was still a big no no, at this time, in what Italian films could get away with, so the weird science element injected into the formula means that the character is shorn of any actual supernatural abilities (no matter what you may think of the silliness of the scientific element presented here). Yep, there are no actual vampires in this film guys and gals, just metaphorical ones. This ushers in, of course, a whole wealth of films which did the same thing, where many movie protagonists over the years have sought to extend their life and youth by various malevolent means (I must remember to mention this film again when I get around to rewatching and reviewing The Night Strangler*, for sure).

Because it’s Bava doing the photography and some of the directing, it looks fantastic. The whole thing is set in Paris and, certainly, it looks like they shot it there. It was, in fact, just Bava being clever with his matte paintings again... most, if not all people, I would think, would not realise it was shot in and near a studio in Italy since everything, even the big Eifel Tower, looks like it’s all been shot on location in France.

Truth be told, if I didn’t know this was shot by Bava, I probably wouldn’t guess but, regardless, the film looks incredible. Bava uses various techniques to make the film look interesting. Vertical columns created by arches inside the Countess’ castle, for instance, to move the camera around and reveal new elements of a dance ball inside. Mirrors reflecting actors in conversation with others in another part of the frame. Corners with a lot of depth where one room leads into another to create rectangles to use to separate the actors in a shot, etc. There’s some nice things going on in this movie.

And, also, of course, there’s the special effect which Bava would use again three years later on his proper directorial debut, Black Sunday. Cribbing the old trick from Rouben Mamoulian’s 1931 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, coloured lighting on the shoot is used to hide make up of various wrinkles on the lead actress until a ‘transformation’ happens and the light is either taken away (and enhanced with an opposite light on the colour wheel) or added. In the black and white film, this gives an ‘in camera’ effect of wrinkles and gouges on the face of the actresss either appearing seamlessly or vanishing in the same way. It’s good stuff and, for a long time, a guarded secret of special effects departments, from what I remember of my youth.

And that’s all I want to say about I Vampiri. The dashing young newspaper reporter hero (who must have shot all his main scenes in two days because he was a minor supporting character up until Freda left the picture), played by Dario Michaelis, is engaging enough and Roman Vlad’s score, while not my favourite stand alone listen on CD, is appropriate to the visuals and doesn’t grate too much in the melodrama stakes. It’s an interesting film and certainly worth a watch if you’re a Bava enthusiast and then considering its importance in being the first talking horror picture to come out of Italy (even though I don’t quite agree with that... not sure it’s not just a thriller in this form, to be honest... although the mad scientist does bring a guy back from the dead at one point). Maybe try and catch up to this one though, if you’ve not already seen it.

*Well that one made it’s way to the blog way before this review did in the end, right here and, yeah, I think I forgot to mention this movie.

The Iguana With The Tongue of Fire

Fiery Tongue In Cheek

The Iguana With The Tongue of Fire 
aka Lizard With A Tongue Of Fire 
aka L'iguana Dalla Lingua Di Fuoco 
Italy/France/West Germany 1971
Directed by Riccardo Freda
New Entertainment World Region 0

Wow. The Iguana With The Tongue Of Fire, eh?

People who know me or know my reviews should know by now that I adore the form of, predominantly Italian, cinema known as the ‘giallo’. I’ve mentioned my passion for the beautiful camerawork, overwrought shot design and fantastic music at the expense of bad acting and scripting on numerous occasions but, if you want to familiarise yourself with my summation of the giallo as a worthwhile, collective cinematic achievement, then please see my article on just that subject here. So what I want you to realise is that it’s quite a rare thing for me to say, or type, the statement that follows...

The Iguana With The Tongue Of Fire has got to be the most unintentionally, hilariously bad giallo movies I have ever seen.

Like most gialli, I wanted to see this one because of the gorgeous score to the movie, courtesy here of the wonderful, popular Italian composer Stelvio Cipriani. However, it has to be said that this is pretty much the only really decent thing going for it.

The film stars Anton Diffring (everybody and their pet iguana's first choice of multi-national, intimidating German), giallo favourite Dagmar Lassander and, as the main protagonist (although he doesn’t turn up for about 20 minutes or so into the flick), the one and only Luigi Pistilli. Pistilli is seen here in a rare portrayal of a hero figure, rather than a villain of some description. I’d have to say that, although he turns up in tonnes of stuff before his tragic real life suicide, this film really shows that he had what it takes to be a major star of a movie, rather than just the lead villain or a supporting role.

Now then, it has to be said that the version of this movie I was watching wasn’t, from the outset, being screened in the best conditions. Although not a bootleg copy, the official German release of this movie I was watching had one of the worst and faded prints I’d seen of an official release. Honestly, some of the establishing location shots at the start of the movie, and near the end, looked almost as yellow as the word this genre takes it’s terminology from... literally a yellow giallo! I can’t really comment on the transfer of the print because I just can’t tell how much of the picture is the transfer and how much is the print.  After having seen the film though... I would have to say I can understand why nobody has bothered to pay out for a new print from the negative as yet.

Dealing with a set of murders in, of all places, Dublin... the story involves a German diplomat (yeah, that’d be Diffring then) who gets involved in some acid in the face/throat slash murders while staying in Dublin with his family in the German embassy.

Did I just say acid in the face and throat slash murders?

Yes I did. Starting off with a sequence where a woman has her throat cut after acid has been splashed on her, making her face all red... just to make doubly sure. One has to assume that the motives of the murderer on this one are “better dead than red.” Now this all sounds quite ghastly, I’m sure, but I have to tell you that the special effects on this, and other sequences like it, are absolutely awful. Remember that taylors dummy which scrapes down the side of the cliff edge taking off its face at the start of Lucio Fulci’s Seven Notes In Black? Well this same kind of terrible dummy is used for close ups of the acid in the face in this one. Fortunate for me because, lets face it, I really don’t want to be subjected to a woman getting acid thrown in her face but, simultaneously, unfortunate for the film because the lameness of the technical effects makes you laugh out loud at the silliness of the problem solving going on here.

So there’s that.

Then there’s some other crazy and mostly laughable stuff going on. Like the killer wearing sunglasses at the start of the movie means that every time during the movie that any of the characters decide to pull out a pair of sunglasses, and they do, frequently, whether you are expecting them to or not, there is this highly charged and ever so over dramatic musical sting to accompany a close-up shot of said sunglasses. Honestly, this is so funny you’ll be wishing every character in the movie has a pair of sunglasses to pull out so the sound guys can whack you over the ears with another musical sting.

And there’s the accents. Most gialli are shot in several languages with the predominate language usually being English to help lip synch any of the UK or US actors in the film. The sound, is then, very badly dubbed with no regard to lip synch in any language you happen to watch it in. You will never, I would guess, see an Italian giallo where the spoken word matches up to what you are seeing. This particular film is dubbed into English for the print I was watching, which would be the correct way to view it but... it’s a terrible and highly comical Irish accent that everyone in the movie, apart from Anton Diffring, has been dubbed with. Seriously. Even Luigi Pistilli is talking in this highly fruity Irish accent all the way through and I’m sorry but I was not always able to contain my mirth at this viewing.

And little details that the production design slipped in didn’t help matters either. When questioned if the chauffer of the German family was going to get some laundry done, he is asked to confirm the receipts when shown them by the investigating police. Noticing, in the top right hand corner that the washing was done by a company called “Swastika Laundry Ltd” did nothing to relinquish the sense of accidental comedy on display in this one.

To be fair to it, the story was actually quite a good one for a giallo and it even had Luigi Pistilli living with his mother and his daughter, with the mother referencing both Agatha Christie and Miss Marple as she gives her son pointers as to who the killer is. It also takes a quite nasty turn near the end when the killer is revealed, with Pistilli’s mother being severely battered (possibly to death) and his young daughter having acid thrown in her face. This is quite sobering in the face of the unintentional comedy on display throughout the movie, but utterly wasted as, days or a week after this scene in terms of movie time passing, Pistilli doesn’t see fit to reference or comment on this turn of events, not rushing back to hospital by his daughters bed but instead going off with his boss for a cheery pint down the pub... presumably a nice, clichéd pint of Guinness.

If the film had been in the hands of a better director, is my guess, then this would have seriously been a giallo to contend with. But it’s just limply and half heartedly put together... although the acting in this one is mostly pretty good. Pistilli really was a great actor and this should be better recognised, I feel.

I looked at the director’s biography on the IMDB and it was very revealing. I noticed two of his films were I Vampiri and Caltiki - Il Mostro Immortale... two films I know Mario Bava had to unofficially finish off directing due to problems with the director on the set. Similarly, his last entry on the IMDB is for La Fille De D'Artagnan, a film I really love, from which it says he was “fired” and “uncredited”. I’m guessing this particular director may have been a little highly strung to say the least. I notice that one of the gialli I have in my “to watch” pile, Murder Obsession, is also directed by this guy... so I’m not really looking forward to watching that one so much now.

The Iguana With The Tongue Of Fire is a well plotted and well acted (for once) giallo that is in every way terrible to watch... in all but the musical score, which is excellent, as you’d expect from composer Cipriani. The score is free on a separate feature on the German DVD release although I’d personally recommend getting the limited edition Digitmovies CD release if you like the music as it has more of the score on there (plus, you know, it’s a CD).

Cipriani and Pistilli fans will definitely get something out of this movie and some people will also, like myself, get a good laugh. But to most people I would say... “stay away from this one”. There are much better gialli out there and very few that are as badly put together as this one.