The Red-Stained Lawn (1973): or, The Days of Wine and Robots

How do you know when it's love?

Is it that first surreptitious glance across the room, eyes meeting over swirls of cigarette smoke and strains of Wagner thumping in your ears? Is it those first furtive, fleshy fumblings in the alley behind the bar, all hands and lips and straps with complicated fasteners? Or does it come later, reclining comfortably on the couch in a shared apartment, sharing a bottle of wine and your last cigarette as you wait patiently for the next episode of Cupcake Wars to roll?

It's a mystery, parishioners.

But even though I can't say exactly when or how it happens, I know that love is real. I know because I've found it, a love that asks for nothing and gives everything. I've found it in
Riccardo Ghione's 1973 hippie-abducting, mad science-spouting, blood-bottling, ultra-groovy mad movie bonanza, The Red-Stained Lawn (Il Prato Macchiato di Rosso).

Let me tell you a little something about that girl o'mine.

Really. I insist.

We open with a hard-boiled UNESCO agent (Nino Castelnuovo) investigating what appears to be a wine-smuggling operation on the Mediterranean coast. Easily swiping a crate of contraband from a couple of very task-focused smugglers, he makes a disturbing discovery: the bottles in the box are not your run-of-the-mill Chianti, but are instead filled to the cork-line with human blood! Duly alerted, he scuttles off to headquarters to inform his superiors about this unprecedented threat to the reputation of Italian wines worldwide.

Meanwhile, in Piacenza, good Samaritan and Daniel Craig-lookalike Alfiero (Claudio Biava) travels every highway and byway in his BOSS powder-blue sports car, searching for walkabouts who look as though they might fancy a lift. He has no trouble, as the northern Italian town is apparently crawling with automotively challenged individuals of every stripe. Within moments he's picked up a flower-selling Gypsy (Barbara Marzano), a Drunken Tramp (Lucio Dalla), a modestly priced Hooker (Dominique Boschero), and young hippie couple Max and "Max's Companion" (George Willing and a stunningly afro'd Daniela Caroli). Being the accomodating sort, he invites each passenger to come back to his sister's palatial estate, to drink their wine, eat their food, and set a spell. All for free! Now just what kind of paranoid, ungrateful monster would turn down an offer like that? 

At the mansion, the guests are introduced to the lady of the house, Nina Genovese (Marina Malfatti), and her eccentric, science-enthusiast husband, Antonio (Enzo Tarascio). Through a series of rapid-fire and not-at-all suspicious questions, Nina quickly determines that none of her visitors have any friends, family, or employers who will be looking for them, nor have they informed any outside parties as to their current whereabouts. Which simplifies things, of course--I mean, you wouldn't want to set the table for eight and then have a dozen show up, would you? Particularly if any of the extras were police. Not that they would be, for any reason. Hey, did you check out our freaky robot statue in the corner over there?

"Pericolo, Guglielmo Robinson!"

It doesn't take long for the quintet to make themselves at quite at home. The Tramp displays his frankly amazing wine-drinking skills: not only does he down bottle after bottle with no apparent ill effects, he makes it interesting for the viewer by balancing one canister on his head between gulps, carrying on a conversation with his beverage, and at one point getting the alcohol into his system faster by pouring the wine directly into his eye! That's more than alcoholism, that's showmanship!

The Hooker, meanwhile, splays herself languidly on every available piece of furniture, regaling the group with unashamed tales of tricks gone by. The Gypsy steals a few unguarded knick-knacks, as is the custom of her people, and Max and his Hot Mama drape their bedroom with scarves and burn some incense before lighting up a truly monstrous spliff. The Genovese Estate is thus a hedonistic oasis, a sort of "Pleasure Island" where everyone does what he wants and there's never any price to be paid. Or...IS THERE?!?!*

*Nota bene: there is.

He never takes "no" for an answer.

Unfortunately it's true that nothing good lasts forever (q.v., parachute pants, jelly shoes, Slim Whitman's career), and before long some strange, slightly sinister things are happening in Chez Boom-Boom. First, the Tramp and Max discover the Gypsy girl tied naked to her bed with her mouth duct-taped shut--a circumstance that does not inspire quite the sense of alarm in them that you might expect. Later the hippies, going against type and availing themselves of a hot shower, are moderately surprised when the water suddenly changes to a torrent of wine--though again, not so much as you'd imagine. Even when Max and Maxine rake the coals in the estate's furnace and find a nearly complete human skull, their only reaction is to come back inside and have a bit of "the sex." Which normally I'd agree is a fine solution for any problem, but this is looking to be a special case.

The only guest who keeps his wits about him is, paradoxically, the Drunken Tramp, who eventually confronts the master of the house with his suspicions. Turns out, Antonio Genovese is more than just an eccentric benefactor to the Italian unwashed--he's a MAD SCIENTIST! And it has to be said, one of the most fabulous mad scientists in cinematic history. Don't believe me? Just take a look at this selection of dominant, scientific neckwear:

"To do: buy more wine..."

"No no, I'm sorry...but you may not touch the cravat."

"What? Have I got something on my face?"

"This one's actually a Steinkirk, only tied like a cravat. See the difference?"

It takes a lot to draw the attention away from his wife's boobs, but I think Antonio has nailed it.

If that's not a man who's getting ready to take over the world, then I've never seen one.

So yes, there's evil-doings afoot in the mansion, and as the guest list grows smaller and smaller, Max & Co. grow more and more troubled. Actually, scratch that--they're not troubled at all! The Gypsy's disappearance merits barely a nod, and when even his best friend the Tramp vanishes, all Max can deduce is that the Genoveses are kinky voyeurs who like to watch smelly hippies getting it on. Though to be fair, it's clear that the hosts are more than a little freaky-deaky. Leaving aside Nina Genovese's more-than-fraternal closeness with Alfiero and her show-stopping psychedelic outfits (which are AMAZING--in fact the flick is worth seeing for the fashions alone), there's still the little matter of the doctor's...shall we say, interesting architectural choices.

"And this, my fwiends, is the Wumpus Womb!"

In case your eyes have refused to accept what they're seeing and have replaced the image above with one depicting My Little Ponies™ prancing around a daisy-strewn field, let me confirm that yes, that IS a giant vagina portal on the wall. (Because lord knows I'd hate for you to miss out on the subtlety and nuance of that image.) Leaping through the labia like Lilliputian lust-puppets, they find themselves in a huge mirrored room, where the Hooker immediately deduces she's been brought to perform the service for which she's been hired.

"Still, it beats diggin' ditches."

Alfiero breaks out a couple of bottles of champagne and Nina puts on some super-groovy music, encouraging the Hippy/Hooker trio to agitate that with which their Mamas equipped them upon the occasion of their births. This they do, downing the booze and shucking off their clothes with admirable efficiency. This scene goes on for some time, and is in fact one of the grooviest things I've witnessed in quite a while: psychedelic music, frenetic hippy dancing, Laugh-In-style zooms, and warped, distorted reflections in which the director and crew don't even bother to hide themselves--it's a gas gas gas, truly.

Eventually the trio drop to the floor, their bodies shutting down due to sheer grooviness overload. Meanwhile the UNESCO agent is tracking down the source of those suspicious bottles, and no points for guessing where the trail leads. Sub-meanwhile, Dr. Genovese and Nina are arguing over the relative values of science and business, which ends with Nina filling the doctor's Super Robot full of lead...well, more lead. Max and AfroGirl FINALLY get suspicious and decide to investigate the basement, where they find a freezer full of dead, naked, bloodless bodies in a genuinely chilling scene. (What I did there--you see it?) The purpose of Antonio's robot is finally revealed, as is the reason behind the whole operation; the Hooker succumbs to the dictates of the Robot's silly but deadly prime directive, and the Hippies are next on the slab. Will UNESCO reach them in time, or will they be riding out in the next delivery truck, in 750 milliliter-increments?

Love Machine

It's hard to imagine The Red-Stained Lawn being made at any time other than the 1970s--in fact, it's hard to imagine it being made even then. But made it was, and I for one couldn't be happier about it. I loved the relentlessly groovy fashions, the broad-strokes characterizations, the repetitive and intrusive score, and even the overly earnest folk-rock title song (written and performed by the Drunken Tramp himself, Lucio Dalla, who was apparently a pretty big deal recording artist at the time--I will pay you for a translation! :) ). But most of all I love the unabashed weirdness of the flick, the sci-fi mixed with crime-thriller mixed with hippie drug culture and stirred up with mad science to create a hallucinatory souffle that Mad Movie fans will love getting between their molars.

The acting is all pretty good for a picture of this sort--Dalla steals the show as the comical Tramp, and both Malfatti and Tarascio as the dueling Genoveses are a delight--the missus with her Ice Queen gorgeousness and ruthless amorality, and the doctor with his kooky visionary ramblings and stunning neckties. (Both actors worked together a couple of years earlier in The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, a movie I really want to revisit now.) The rest of the cast is serviceable, and despite a few rather endearing flubs (equipment shadows in the shot, blinking "corpses," the director's pant-leg cameo in the Mirror Room sequence), the film is rather expertly and beautifully shot--the colors and compositions are often quite stunning, a testament to Ghione's eye.

♫ And I think to myself...what a wonderful world! ♪

In short, for fans of the weird, this is a little-known treasure. 2.75 thumbs.

A few more images from The Red-Stained Lawn (1973):

Anal Sex: Not For Everyone

"Now...where did I put that last bottle of wine?"

Blowout Patch

Rarrr!

Sure it is.

"Please, just try to relax."

Truth.

MORE MADNESS...

Summary only...

Night of the Bloody Apes (1969): or, My Heart Belongs to Bonzo

In 1960s Mexico, female luchador Lucy Ossorio (Norma Lazareno) is an athlete at the top of her game. Resplendent in her Red Devil mask and form-fitting crimson jumpsuit, every night she wrestles to a packed house of adoring, sweaty male fans, tossing her hapless opponents around the ring like lumpy bags of week-old laundry. She's young(ish), sexy, strong and beautiful, and on top of that, she's dating Lt. Arturo Martinez (Armando Silvestre), a hotshot homicide cop with the brains of Hercule Poirot and the good looks and charm of a young Tony Orlando. Sure, it's a rough game, but this is one luchadora who really has the world by the tail.

But into the Happy Picnic of Life, the Swarming Ants of Tragedy are likely to crawl, determined to carry away the Pie of Contentment on their evil little chitinous backs. This is exactly what happens one evening when, drunk on her own in-ring indominatability, La Demonita Roja tosses her opponent, the unfortunate Gata Negra ( Noelia Noel) through the ropes and into the crowd. The girl takes a bad hop and lands on her noggin, pushing a splinter of bone into her brain and inducing immediate coma. Guilt-stricken, Lucy drops a couple of matches and then decides it's time to hang up the boots for good.

"Venir a mí, bro!"

Meanwhile, local brain surgeon and organ-transplant specialist Dr. Krallman (José Elías Moreno) has a problem. His angel-faced son Julio (Agustín Martínez Solares) is bed-ridden with terminal leukemia, and all the specialists at his hospital have given the boy up for dead. But like any devoted father, the good doctor is not about to take that lying down. In an astonishing feat of scientific reasoning, Krallman deduces that the blood of a more powerful creature--say, a gorilla, for example--might be able to fight off the cancer where puny human blood has failed. But since gorilla-juice is clearly too potent for the human circulatory system, he figures he'll need to swap out Julio's heart for an organ of the simian persuasion. Then bang! Roberto es su tío! 

It's true what they say: sometimes the simplest answer is the best.

With the assistance of his slavishly devoted manservant Goyo (Carlos López Moctezuma), the doctor sets about putting his plan into action. Sneaking into the Federal District's most un-security-conscious zoo, the two old men easily purloin a primate and plop its pumper into Papa's poor pestilential progeny, post-haste. In a few hours, the boy is on the mend, the doctor's hypothesis is proved, and the overcrowded monkey house at the zoo has some much-needed extra space. Everybody wins!

Well, almost everybody.

Of course near-death experiences are almost always transformative. People come back from the brink with a newfound desire to live life to the fullest, to help their fellow man, or to cash in and go on a book tour with John Edward. In Julio's case, however, the transformation is less spiritual--instead, his new ticker turns him into a rampaging half-ape monstrosity! (Actually, more like 1/8-ape...he only seems affected from the jawline up.) I guess everybody copes in his own way.

Soon the Bloody Ape (singular, despite the film's title) is out on the town, leaving a trail of mauled, broken bodies in his wake. Realizing his mistake, Dr. Krallman reasons that putting a human heart back in his boy's chest is the best way to correct things, and thanks to Lucy's earlier reasonless brutality, he has just the perfect subject in his hospital. Goya and the doctor remove the girl back to his basement lab (again with astonishing ease), and after recapturing Julio, perform the second transplant in as many days, again leaving Julio none the worse for wear.

"I can haz nanner puddin?"

The missing girl and the string of brutal murders finally alert the police to something amiss, and Arturo gets on the case. Most are blaming the "escaped" gorilla for the crimes, but when Arturo sees the fingerprints and notices they are "half-ape, and also half-human!" (Ed. note: Whaaaa?), he knows they're dealing with something a bit more sinister. Worse, Julio's condition isn't cured by his new ticker, and soon he's ripped Goya's head from his body and gone out to wreak yet more bloody havoc. Can Arturo stop him before he kills half the nubile women in the city? Can Dr. Krallman save his son from his own scientific hubris? Will Lucy ever wrestle again?

Night of the Bloody Apes (1969) is not a movie that pulls out all the stops--it's a movie that doesn't even acknowledge there are stops to be pulled. The ape-man's attacks are surprisingly gory, ina late-60s tempera-paint way: we have scalps being pulled off, throats being torn open, eyes being gouged out, and multiple vicious maulings, often perpetrated upon the unclad torsos of energetically screaming senoritas. In addition, director René Cardona also treats us to actual footage of real open-heart surgery--a circumstance that landed this film on the famous British "Video Nasties" list, and kept it unseen in that country for years.

"This really brings out your eyes."

There's an awful lot of nudity too. Lucy--who seems to gain about 30 pounds every time she steps into the ring, only to drop the weight when the mask comes off--thinks nothing of chatting on the telephone in the altogether, fortunately for us. Also, in keeping with the long-standing cinematic tradition of "rapey half-mans-half-monkeys" (further reading here), Julio frequently rips the clothing from his female prey before proceeding to rip at their flesh. Even the comatose Noel shows all pre-surgery, in the interest of medical accuracy, no doubt.


The film is badly paced--there are many, many scenes of a character walking slowly from one end of the set to the other, that could have been profitably trimmed--and most of the acting is expectedly terrible. The lone exception is Moreno as Krallman, who imbues his laughable lines with a certain genuine gravitas, and manages to be emotionally effecting as a father desperate to save his son. It should also be mentioned that this wouldn't be the last time the hunky Solares (Julio) portrayed a man-beast: he also appeared as the lycantrhopic Rufus Rex in the brilliant luchador epic Santo y Blue Demon vs Drácula y el Hombre Lobo (1973, reviewed on MMMMMovies here).

With nothing to do but lie in bed all day, Julio had time to make some interesting personal discoveries.

This film is deservedly one of the more popular subjects of the MST3K crew's derision, but in my opinion you don't need Joel (or Mike?) and the Bots to facilitate your viewing enjoyment. You can watch it for the xenotransplantation and pseudoscience, or for the hard-hitting wrasslin' action, for the blood or the boobs or the rather ridiculous beast. You can count the flubs--for instance, Cardona conveniently ignores the discrepancy between the number of medical personnel in Krallman's lab (two) and the number of hands working in the chest cavity (six); also, while Julio wrestles with a particularly spirited victim in a local park, her thrashing limbs displace the grass clippings standing in for a meadow, revealing the bare concrete beneath! Or you can just sit back and let the madness wash over you in waves. That's my suggestion.

2.25 thumbs

A few more images from Night of the Bloody Apes (1969):

"And you should see what I gave him from the elephant! Woohoo!"

"What are these fuckin' iguanas doing on my coffee table?!"

Waste of a Perfectly Good Monkey Suit

Splendor in the Grass...Clippings

Separated at birth? (reference)

"Now that I've got my framed portrait of the Duke of DVD, I really do have it all!"

MORE MADNESS...

Summary only...

Captive Wild Woman (1943): or, I'm Going Ape for You, Baby

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 16!

Daring circus man and animal trainer Fred Mason (Milburn Stone) returns from a 2-year journey with a cargo hold full of big cats, zebras, and one very intelligent gorilla named Cheela (Ray "Crash" Corrigan in one of his patented and excellent ape suits). Girlfriend Beth Coleman (scream queen extraordinaire Evelyn Ankers) is happy to have him back, and introduces him to mysterious Dr. Sigmund Walters (a never-more-dapper John Carradine), a brilliant glandular specialist who has been treating Beth's friend Dorothy (The Big Sleep's Carmen Sternwood herself, Martha Vickers) for an overabundance of "the sex hormone." Of course Dr. Walters is a scientist of the extremely MAD persuasion, and hopes to use Dorothy's hormones and his own surgical know-how to transform Cheela into a human/ape hybrid, which will be the first of a race of supermen to help him rule the world, blah blah blah.

He succeeds beyond his wildest expectations, for when the bandages come off Cheela has become the smokin' hawt Acquanetta. However, when the simian sweetie figuratively goes ape for Fred, the strong (sexual) emotions cause a glandular chaos in her system, which results in her going ape literally. As Dr. Walters targets Beth for his next lethal transplant and Fred finds himself at the mercy of a cage full of storm spooked cats, Cheela's animal and human natures fight to decide the fate of all involved.

They sure don't make 'em like this anymore. Captive Wild Woman is a briskly paced mad science thriller whose one-hour running time is packed with action, thrills, and more than a little post-Code perversity. Director Edward Dmytryk does a nice job juggling the circus and laboratory scenes, and even the lengthy lion-and-tiger-taming sequences (comprised mostly of footage lifted from the 1933 circus flick The Big Cage, according to Tom Weaver's excellent book Universal Horrors) kept me on the edge of my seat. (And would likely be the scariest thing in the movie to a modern, ASPCA-sympathetic viewer.) The half-ape/half-woman makeup by the legendary Jack Pierce is, of course, excellent.

The cast is full of wonderful genre actors of the era, including Fay Helm, who played alongside Ankers a couple years earlier in 1941's The Wolf Man, as Dr. Walter's ill-fated nurse. Carradine gives a remarkably restrained performance as the mad doctor, and Corrigan's ape-acting is great as always. While Acquanetta was billed as "A New Sensation in Savagery!" she's not really given much to do in her non-speaking role--still, her exotic beauty and big, expressive eyes make a definite impression.

A fun second-tier Universal flick I'd been meaning to check out for a long time, and am very glad I did. A great Sunday-afternoon popcorn muncher: 2.25 thumbs.

"Gimme some sugar, baby!"

MORE MADNESS...

Summary only...

The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Rock n' Roll Musical (2003): or, Some Things are Not for Us to Sing

It often seems to me, parishioners, that making an independent horror movie is like running a creative marathon--just finishing is a praise-worthy accomplishment. The only cause for shame would be if you give up before reaching the goal, or took such shortcuts as to sully the glory of the unearned participatory medal at the end. I try to think of independent filmmakers as self-trained, self-sponsored marathoners, determined to get their vision out there through hours of sweat, tears, and sore muscles. Even if they're limping badly in the last mile or soil their spandex through an ill-considered over-exerting sprint, I still have to applaud their efforts.

I can only imagine, then, that making an independent horror MUSICAL must be like training for the abovementioned marathon, but with a 50-lb. sack of flour strapped to each leg and a 1930's Victrola around your neck. Why would anyone want to do that to himself?

But ours is not to question why--ours is but to watch and judge. If director Andre Champagne and actor/songwriter/script writer Alan Bernhoft are driven by some inscrutable passion to create a rock musical based on one of the horror genre's most-filmed properties--in 2003, forty years or more since the heyday of the American movie musical--I can only say "Go Team Dreamer!" and wish them well. Then crack open a beer, plant a tubfull of extra-butter popcorn in my lap, and watch the race begin. (MORE MADNESS!)

MORE MADNESS...

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DVD Review: The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff (1973)

My dearest friends, I bid thee welcome and well-met! Yes, you can cease your weeping and unclench your butt cheeks, the Duke of DVD has returned once again to further debase your souls and once more hurl you headlong into the deepest abyss that is MAD cinema! Too long have I been absent these hallowed pages, but it is for good reason, I assure thee. I have just returned from my winter holiday, but it was holiday in name only, for I funded and lead an expedition into the deepest regions of Wallachia, in search of objects of such demented nature, rank with dark energies, that they twist all but the strongest minds.

Employing the use of several guides from Severin and Hungary, we journeyed deep into forbidden mountains, jagged, twisted formations that claw at the sky like the claws of a demon. Crusted with snow, consisting of blackest obsidian and rough basalt, they were home to only the most devout of cults. Their enclaves, hidden from the eye and entered only by the use of weighted stone doors which open only upon speaking certain arcane rituals, contain untold treasures of dark portent. It was in one such temple that I found a certain artifact belonging to Mircea the Elder, a brutish, vile heretic who ruled most of the region during the 14th century until his mysterious death from 37 stab wounds to the back.

Hidden deep in a storage area, behind weeping casks of honeyed, salted meat (long gone rank) and amphorae filled with a black, tar-like liquid that claimed the life of one of my entourage when he came in contact with it (he died screaming as his eyes erupted and his tongue turned black, swelled, and ultimately choked him to death), sat an ossuary carved with blasphemies against every benevolent god in existence.

Inside, wrapped in the cracked, stretched hide of a burned saint, a most foul treasure…

The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff! That’s right, friends, one of Jess Franco’s “Orloff” series of movies dealing with the apparently sinister-eyed Dr. Orloff. In other Orloff movies (going from The Awful Dr. Orloff to The Orgies of Dr. Orloff, and I think there’s probably one called Dr. Orloff Goes To Buy Groceries), the good Doctor is usually played by Howard Vernon. Franco apparently needed someone with more sinister eyes, so he employed the supreme talents of William Berger, a man who once stared down a charging grizzly and who killed a wildebeest with his bare hands.

"Don't make me angry.  You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

Our movie starts off with the fevered nightmare of the apparently helpless Melissa (Montserrat Prous), the daughter of a well-to-do man who has passed away, leaving her a considerable fortune. In the nightmare, she is a young girl in her nightgown, cringing in terror from a flailing man who looms over her, and drips blood on her gown. She awakes screaming. Martha (Loreta Tovar), a busty blonde, comes in to comfort her, wearing a long black gown that she doesn’t bother to keep closed, flashing her vag at her step-sister Melissa.

"Also, check out my hoo-hoo."

It turns out Melissa is paralyzed from the waist down, confined to a wheelchair and needing the constant ministrations of her faithful butler Matthews (Jose Manuel Martin), who had served her father for years. Matthews is mistrustful (for good reason) of Melissa’s step-sister Martha, and the new lady of the house, Flora (Kali Hansa), an ex-showgirl who is shacked-up with Melissa’s uncle Robert (Jaume Picas), who currently runs the house. (Whew!) Melissa seems to spend most of her days either in bed or being pushed around the estate gardens by Matthews.

Martha the step-sister and Flora bring in Dr. Orloff, on the pretense that Melissa’s paranoia and dreams are getting out of hand. Melissa is convinced that people are out to get her and that the dreams she has about the man dripping blood on her somehow have to do with her departed dad. Dr. Orloff arrives, sporting a black suit and piercing, nay, sinister eyes, and really doesn’t help Melissa at all, instead telling her that both he and her dad loved the same woman, Melissa’s long-dead mother, and that when Orloff didn’t win her hand in marriage, he moved away, married another woman, and had a daughter who was eerily also named Melissa, who then died. WTF Doc, you need to go back to shrink school!

Even more rattled than before, Melissa takes the only solace she can find: sitting in her wheelchair amongst the flowers and plants of her sprawling backyard. It is there that she hears the dewy, dulcet tones of Sweet Davey Brown (Robert Woods), a folk singer who has apparently struck it rich enough to afford the neighboring mansion and keep a smoking hot chick who only wears panties, a tight t-shirt, and boots at all times around him. He’s out by the pool, strumming and singing, when Melissa hears and rolls closer to get a better look. Using preternatural instincts no doubt honed from years of touring and singing, Sweet Davey Brown senses Melissa’s virgin poon nearby and begins encouraging her to come over for a dip, not knowing she’s wheelchair-bound. He jumps over the hedge, and is suitably ashamed when he sees that she can’t just up and come over. Matthews arrives, runs the folk singer off (he’s no doubt an Engelbert Humperdinck fan) and takes Melissa back inside.

The predatory hippie, seen here, readies his instrument as he stalks his prey.

That night, Melissa has a dream in which her uncle is murdered. We see in the dream a Melissa that can walk, sneak into her uncle’s study and cut his throat using the apparently razor-sharp edge of a clock’s pendulum! She wakes up the next morning, immediately asking where her uncle is. Step-sister Martha says he went hunting like he had planned, and Matthews confirms that uncle Robert’s car, which he always drives when going hunting, is missing from the garage. We quickly learn, through a couple of rather dashing and awesome detectives, that uncle Robert has been found with his throat cut sitting out in his own car out in the middle of nowhere. Melissa is distraught!

Time is a maniac scattering dust...and also internal organs.

At about this point, we get a long monologue from Dr. Orloff that reveals his evil plans, which I assume have something to do with loving Melissa’s mother in the past, getting screwed by uncle Robert, and such. I have to assume, mind you, because the DVD from Intervision is faulty! The subtitles wig out for almost 5 minutes right at this crucial juncture in the film, and since my Spanish is only good when applied to Paul Naschy films, I had to infer everything from Dr. Orloff’s sinister glares and gruff growl.

I do know this: the seeming-off-the-cuff plot involves the help of Martha and Flora, who are promised a cut of the wealth if they’ll help Orloff kidnap and then murder Melissa. Orloff, with the help of a blond assistant who only wears all-black uniforms it seems, also repeatedly hypnotizes Melissa, getting her to do murder most foul. Martha and Flora do indeed pull off the kidnapping, with Flora wearing a pantsuit and Martha wearing, no lie, an ultra-short nightgown (short enough to show her underwear the entire time) and knee-high boots. Franco, bless you sir, you pervert you! Unbeknownst to them, however, is that Sweet Davey Brown witnesses the ‘napping!

Exhibit A of why we love Jess Franco.

Matthews finds out as well, and goes to rescue Melissa, putting her in a car and driving out into the country. The car breaks down on a fog-shrouded hillside (and by “fog-shrouded” I mean a smoke machine coupled with someone holding a stained plexiglass sheet directly in front of the camera lens), and Matthews gets out to repairit. Melissa stands up in a fugue state, gets a tire-iron from the car’s boot, then proceeds to whack poor Matthews to death, who only ever wanted to help her. It seems the sinister eyes of Dr. Orloff know no human decency! Flora and Martha arrive very quickly, having found Melissa missing, only to find her passed out on the ground and Matthews lying nearby, presumably dead.

Exhibit B

They take Melissa back with them to their house, where they then have a nice dinner together, talking about how they’re going to spend their riches. Martha heads off to take a bath, and we finally see her naked, but it comes at the cost of also seeing Flora beat her to death with the shower wand, screeching about how she’s not going to share the wealth. While Flora is dragging Martha’s dead body through the house, the doorbell rings, and it turns out its Sweet Davey Brown, still sniffing around trying to find out what’s happening with Melissa. Flora blows him off, but he doesn’t give up, instead going to the police Inspector from earlier. After first getting rebuffed by the Inspector (I mean, really, who wants a dirty hippy yapping away at the them?), Sweet Davey Brown finally wins him over, enough to go check things out.

The arrive just as Dr. Orloff and his assistant are taking Melissa to his secret lair. They follow, and manage to track them down and kick in the door, right as the evil Doctor is about to inject Melissa’s neck with something. Something sinister, no doubt! The good Inspector fires a few bullets into Dr. Orloff and into his assistant, while Sweet Davey Brown scoops up Melissa and carries her to safety. Fin!

My eyes... apparently not sinister enough to stop bullets.

Dearest readers, despite its inherent flaws, and despite a less-than-stellar DVD effort, both in missing subtitles and in a admittedly shitty transfer, I liked this movie. Was it Franco’s best? Absolutely not! Does it hold value for a Franco worshipper such as yours truly? Why yes, yes it does. “But Duke,” you shriek in a piping voice, one hand gesticulating wildly while the other probes the bottom of an oversized Funions bag, “What happened to Sweet Davey Brown? Did he become bigger than the Beatles and Jesus combined?!” Dearest friend, I can only assume this to be true. He was already mega-rich, mega-handsome, and mega-heroic. I can only assume his star continued to rise upon the news that he put life at risk thwarting the evil Dr. Orloff and rescuing the fair Melissa.

A glimpse inside the Calgon testing facilities.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Franco’s expert use of camera and sense of placement. His every shot ensconces us with the grandeur of mansions, the expansive palatial estates filled with flowers, birds, and hedgerows carved into the shapes of Leprechauns fornicating. OK, I made that last part up, but it should have been included in the film, and I can only surmise that Franco left such shots on the cutting room floor, causing him much personal anguish. As usual in Franco films, lots of bad people do bad things while wearing sexy outfits or while staring menacingly, sometimes both.

The Sinister Penetration of Dr. Orloff

I’m betting this is a rather divisive film, one that Franco-philes will enjoy for what it represents, but not exactly love because it doesn’t really add much to the Dr. Orloff canon. Franco himself must have loved this movie, as he remade it later in life under the name Alone Against the Terror, which while a killer title for a movie, doesn’t have quite the ring to it that The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff has. I enjoyed myself while watching this movie, and while it doesn’t have the usual amount of blood-letting or top-removing that other Franco movies have, it is still worth your time dearest reader. Has the Duke ever lead you astray? Certain parties would claim “yes” when I enthusiastically gave a blurb to the Vicar’s latest book A Cut Above The Rest: A Study Of Late Sumerian Circumcision Practices by stating “If you don’t love this book then you are a fucking moron who should be burned alive while your horrified family watches on in, uh, horror. Fuckers!” on the back jacket. Don’t listen to them, friends! The Duke knows what’s good for his faithful: a liberal dose of MAD cinema, and a healthy shot of The Duke’s Own™ Man Ranch across the lower back!
Until next time, I bid thee aideu!

Oh, and TWO THUMBS UP!

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The Asphyx (1973): or, Who You Gonna Telegraph?

In Victorian-era England, Sir Hugo Cunningham (Robert Stephens) is a real Renaissance man. Born to a life of wealth and privilege, he has been free to follow his talents and interests wherever they lead , and as a result has created some truly remarkable inventions: among them, his own photographic system, a rudimentary motion picture camera, and a powerful high-beam spotlight that runs on the focused interaction of phosphorus crystals and water. Moreover, Sir Hugo is a champion of humanitarian causes, including the abolition of the death penalty in England. As he tells his adopted son Giles (Robert Powell), "Privelige means power, and we must never abuse that power! We're in the midst of great social change, and we must ensure that change is for the best!"

However, like many dabblers of years gone by, Sir Hugo is also interested in proving scientifically what most believe the sole province of the Almighty. Since the death of his wife, he has been an active member in the Psychical Research Society, and with his still camera has captured some startling images of dying TB patients--dark shadows on the print, blurred but definitively present, showing what he believes is "the soul departing the body at the moment of death!" However, when his movie camera captures a tragic punting accident that claims the lives of his son Clive and fiancee Anna, the film shows the shadow moving TOWARD the doomed subjects rather than away. With Giles assisting him, Sir Hugo begins seeking an explanation for whatever (the fuck) he's caught in his remarkably hi-def glass-plate prints.

"And that, gentlemen, is how we know the human soul to be banana-shaped."

Brainstorming in the lab, Sir Hugo posits that the image he's captured must be an Asphyx--an evil spirit from Greek myth that "manifests itself only in times of danger, having existed in eternal agony. It seeks out the dying, or the damned, for only by possessing those about to die is it at last released from unspeakable torment!" Of course he's 100% KEE-RECT, and his quest to discover, capture, and tame this supernatural creature make up the plot of Peter Newbrook's 1973 film The Asphyx (aka The Horror of Death).

The preceding paragraphs describe roughly the first third of the movie, which from a filmmaking perspective has its highs and lows. I was impressed by the sumptuous period sets and costuming, and by the mostly upper-level acting from the British cast. Robert Stephens was a respected Shakespearean actor considered by some the next Laurence Olivier, and his Sir Hugo would be at home in any top-drawer Charles Dickens adaptation. His sons and daughter Christina (the sort of Steele-ish Jane Lapotaire) are engaging and likable. In the negative column is some extremely incongruous, treacly score work by Bill McGuffie, whom  Newbrook allows to lay sweeping soap-opera ad-bumper music over what are meant to be chilling dramatic scenes. That said, Sir Hugo's old-school scientific apparatuses are well realized, even if the amazing zoom/close-up function on his movie camera prototype is never fully explained.

Hugh Jackman celebrates his 3rd consecutive Shite Eating Championship

Sir Hugo is distracted from his increasingly macabre experiments--one of which involves exhuming his son's two-week-dead corpse in a failed attempt to photograph the apparition again--by a summons from his civic-minded friends, who want him to record a public execution in order to show the British people the barbarity carried out in their names. When the hangman pulls the lever and the trap door drops, Sir Hugo turns on his phosphorescent spotlight and rolls the camera--only to discover the condemned man's Asphyx caught like a bunny in the headlights! As long as the screeching creature is held by the beam, the criminal dances at the end of his rope, unable to die; but when the last water droplet sizzles on the crystals and dissipates, the lights go out and so does the candle flame of the hanged man's life.

Of course to Sir Hugo this is a pseudo-science bonanza. Not only does it prove the Asphyx exists, it further shows that his phosphorus light can capture and bind the creature as long as the water holds out! What are the chances? Back in the lab, he and Giles rig up an Asphyx Trap and test it by poisoning a Guinea pig. It works like a charm, resulting in proof of their theories as well as one immortal rodent. Later that night Christina inadvertently lets the test subject escape, but no one's too worried. After all, what harm can an undying Guinea pig do? A second experiment with a moribund TB patient nearly works, until the subject, trapped in his death agony, throws acid at Hugo to make it stop. Scarred like a low-rent Phantom of the Opera, Hugo presses on.

"Fantastic! Now, switch to Reverse Cowgirl!"

Drunk with power and rationalizing that the longer he lives, the more good he can do for mankind, Sir Hugo enlists Giles' aid in helping him immortalize himself by capturing his own Asphyx. Of course to do this Sir Hugo must put himself in mortal danger, and this is where the film's secondary theme comes front and center: the barbarity of capital punishment. For his immortalization, Sir Hugo devises an electric chair that will put the volts to him slowly, so that when he's on the very point of death Giles can fire up the phosphorus beam and catch the Asphyx. It works, of course, and the two men imprison Hugo's Asphyx in an underground crypt where water will drip on the containment crystals forever. They further safeguard Hugo's immortality by permanently sealing the crypt with a lock that only Giles knows the combination to.Because hey, what could possibly go wrong?

Not wanting to live forever and watch his loved ones die of old age, Hugo insists that Christina and Giles (who are engaged to be married--since Giles is adopted this is okay, I guess) become immortal with him. Carrying on the capital punishment theme, Sir Hugo straps Christina into a WORKING GUILLOTINE, hoping to catch her Asphyx just as the blade falls. Why he didn't use the electric chair again, or, you know, ANY FUCKING THING ELSE BESIDES A GODDAMN DECAPITATION MACHINE, is a question that will be forever unanswered. As might have been foreseen, the plan goes horribly awry, thanks to a bug in the system--or more appropriately, an immortal guinea pig. Ah, Hubris!

Nota bene: NEVER a good idea

Not spending too much time reflecting on why he EVER thought the guillotine was a good idea, Hugo wants to end his crushing guilt by releasing his Asphyx and dying. But Giles has a different idea--arguing they can only overcome the guilt they feel for Christina's death with time and good deeds, he persuades Hugo to go ahead and make him immortal...this time using a jury-rigged GAS CHAMBER. Hugo learns too late that it's revenge and not immortality that's motivated his adopted son's scheme, as a self-sparked explosion destroys their equipment, the lab, and the secret of the immortality chamber's combination all at a go.

The Asphyx takes its share of missteps over its running time. There are several extremely talky and static sections that had me checking my watch, wondering when something was going to happen again. Also, the capital punishment theme, while potentially interesting, falters quite a bit in execution (ba-dump). The methods for luring the Asphyx out are so needlessly elaborate and uncontrolled--I mean come on, a GUILLOTINE?--that it's clear the writer and director just put them in there to make a point. Which would be well and good, except that whatever point they hoped to make is either lost or forgotten in the mad science ravings and action-packed finale. I kept expecting a payoff--either a reversal of attitude or else something bringing Hugo's philanthropic ideals back into play--but instead the script falls lazily back on the old Tithonus trope, i.e. "living forever ain't all it's cracked up to be."

BOOM goes the dynamite!

On the other hand, there's a lot to enjoy here as well. I'm a sucker for period-piece Mad Science, and Stephens plays an underwritten part with a great deal of enthusiasm. He seems to turn on a dime from "well-meaning experimenter" to "stark raving megalomaniac," but when he DOES get ranting, it's an awful lot of fun. I'm also a fan of the "goofy leaps in logic that turn out to be precisely correct" and "protagonist happens upon EXACTLY the way to fight monster by blind luck" shortcuts, both of which The Asphyx leans on heavily. And while it is more than a little dumb, the sheer audacity of the ever-more-ridiculous execution methods has a certain charm for fans of over-the-top silliness.

But the real joy here lies in the Asphyx itself, as realized by effects maestro Ted Samuels . Accomplished through simple puppetry and double-exposure camera tricks, the Asphyx is a Muppet gone MAD: a gauzy, caterwauling gargoyle coated in layers of shroud-like blubber. The scenes in which Giles and Hugo trap an Asphyx in their magic beam--and give them credit, these guys NEVER MISS--resemble nothing so much as a similar set-piece with Slimer in 1984's Ghostbusters! In fact, I would not be at all surprised if Reitman and his FX crew were big fans of this film.

Caught on tape: the elusive Squealing Worm

The Asphyx has been hard to find since the VHS edition went out of print some years back, and has had limited DVD release (legitimately, at any rate). However, if you're a fan of Victorian-era mad science (or steampunk ghostbusting), it might be worth your time to seek this one out. 2.25 thumbs.

Gettin' Old Ain't for Pussies, Kid

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