Ironmaster

Ironmaster
Original Title: La Guerra del ferro - Ironmaster
Directed by: Umberto Lenzi
Italy/France, 1983
Action/Adventure, 93min
Distributed by: NjutaFilms

After shocking his audiences with gut-munching cannibals, freaky zombies chomping down on disco dancers, hardened cynical criminals blasting their way through coppers and surreal violent Gialli, Umberto Lenzi shifts focus, if only slightly, to cavemen, ape men and the odd mutant, bringing all those traits of his – especially the head bludgeoning that leaves a gaping bleeding scalp visible - to the dawn of time.

A small tribe of cavemen stand on the brink of a change as its time for tribe head Iksay [Benito Stefanelli] to pass on the prestigious position of leader to one of the younger hunters. Vood [George Eastman] and Ela [Sam Pesco] are the two main contenders, but where Vood may be the logic choice, Iksay is thinking of letting Ela take command. The two young and buff warriors antagonise each other until Vood takes matter into his own hands. During an attack of a rival tribe he smashes in the head of tribe leader Iksay, which is witnessed by Ela.

Ela spills the beans and a fight takes place that results in Vood being expelled from the tribe. The tribe declare Ela their new leader, and that outcast Vood be hunted like an animal, but soon the hunted will become the hunter!

After a freakish volcano eruption and heavy thunderstorm, where some really neat special effects and awesome matte paintings are part of the mix, Vood discovers a slab of iron in the shape of a naively drawn sword and after defeating a lion that attacks him, he realises he holds a new weapon of power in his hands. Wearing the Lions carcass as a totemic headpiece and with the lush Lith [Pamela Prati] Vood attacks his former tribe and convinces them to expel Ela who is forced out into the wild. There he faces a trial of endurance that has him fighting vicious ape men, raging herds of Bison and meeting Isa [Elivire Audray – from Mario Gariazzo’s Sciave bianche: violenza Amazzonia (Amazonia – The Catherine Miles Story) 1985] who becomes his “matter of affection” and it’s quit obvious that Ela/Isa are opposing counterparts to Vood and Lith.

With the knowledge of crafting iron into swords Vood and his cohorts attack and slay a nearby village which stand defenceless against the hard, cold iron of Vood’s weapons. With his new power, Vood is determined to exterminate all other tribes, rule the land and hopefully kill off Ela along the way. Isa takes Ela to hide out in her village – the Mogo tribe - and start to make a new life. The only problem is that they are a peaceful tribe and consider weapons to be evil hence no weapons in their village, which is an obvious problem when Vood learns that Ela lives amongst the Mogo tribe. The stage has been set for the rapidly approaching climax and I know whom I’m rooting for.

Ironmaster is a goddamned wonderful flick, and even though Lenzi, under the hilarious pseudonym Humphrey Milestone, set’s his tale in prehistoric times there’s still a sequence in the middle of the movie that has Ela fighting off infected scarred beasts in what they hope can be their new home – a cave in the mountains – which is very much reminiscent of previous Lenzi moments, this time it’s almost like a cavemen fighting zombies sequence which is awesome. A slow build, establish the threat and then attack. It’s a great moment, which simply oozes classic Italian cinema.

All in all, The Ironmaster is a pretty straightforward caveman/barbarian action flick, but there’s also a tale of morale in there – especially in dialogue like the one where Mogo [William Berger] points out to Ela that weapons may give him freedom, but one day may take it back again. Mogo wanders out into the woods turning his back on the tribe who want to take to arms, and obviously he falls victim to Vood’s men only moments later.

Following the final battle, Mogo's statement comes back to haunt them as the cavemen experience their first encounter with remorse as the words of Mogo finally make sense to them. They are now slaves to weapons, and will never be free again... You could also look at the movie as a metaphor for how new technology and inventions often are used for warfare and destruction, or you could just look at the movie as ninety minutes of great prehistoric conflict and just go along for the ride!

I love the subplot with Isa who quite possibly is the most evil of all the characters as she manipulates her way through each encounter with Vood or Ela and treats the audience to more than one spontaneous nipslip as she runs around in the skimpiest of all loincloths, and unfortunately is killed off way to easy and fast. I’d have loved to see Lith and Isa wrestle it out as an appetiser to the final battle between Ela and Vood.

Eastman gives a fantastic performance as Vood, there’s no understatement that he was doing his finest work at this time period, and he owns this movie completely. If I had one of those tiger headpieces that he wears here, I’d wear it all the time. There’s an interesting approach to character here. Early on the medicine man states that Vood is the natural first in line to take over, which says something about his characters status – he’s most likely the son of Iksay, tribe leader. During the boar hunt, despite Vood having the boar in his sights and his spear raised for the kill, Iksay “steals” the kill from under his nose. Aggravated Vood rams his spear into the ground. When he learns of the pending threat that Ela may take over, he takes things into his own hands, he off’s his father and tries to force a shift in leadership. But the tribe cast him out and Ela takes charge, although after discovering power in arms the tribe chose to follow Vood instead, but his reign isn’t going to be long as his quest for Ela drives him into his untimely death. In more than one way there’s a Shakespearean quality to the story of the neglected, disgruntled Vood and how power turns against him bringing with it his own downfall. Vood - a fascinating character and undoubtedly one of Eastman’s finest hours.

Eugenio Alabiso sticks with Lenzi on yet another movie but this time the pacing is slower and the cut’s more meditative. There’s no fast transitions and rapid cuts, and in some ways’ it’s a fitting end to a collaboration that lasted on more than twenty movies movies, from Attentato ait re grandi (Desert Commandos) 1967 to I cinque del Condor (Thunder Squad) 1985, curiously both war movies dealing with mercenaries!

Dardano Sacchetti’s participation on the team of writers is noteworthy but never the less hard to spot any of his traits as there where at least six other writers on the team, Lenzi and Luciano Martino amongst them.

The movie really looks great, apart from the location shots in Custer State Park, Usa, where the buffalo roam and give sense of authenticity to the flick; there are the splendid Special effects by Paolo Ricci and visual effects by Emilio Ruiz del Rio. Ricci, nowhere near as known as counterparts like Gino De Rossi, Gianetto De Rossi or Carlo Rambaldi did work on a lot of gore laden and freaky movies, Deodato’s Ultimo mondo cannibale (Last Cannibal World) 1977 Lenzi’s Mangiati vivi! (Eaten Alive) 1980, Lucio Fulci’s Gatto Nero (Black Cat) 1980, and Lamberto Bava’s Blastfighter 1984, and in-between them he worked on Andrei Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia 1983. Spaniard, del Rio’s work can be seen in stuff spanning from the old Mario Bonnard, Steve Reeves Gli ultimo giorno di Pompei (The Last days of Pompei) 1959 to Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth 2006. Just a few years ago there was a documentary made on the work of Emilio Ruiz de Rio and of the ten Goya awards for special effects he’s been nominated for he’s won three. His models, miniatures and mattes work like perfection for Lenzi in The Ironmaster

Maurizio & Guido De Angelis score is fitting, there’s a chanty sit-down-by-the-firey quality to it that works for the movie, and on repeated viewings that tune may very well stick in your head.

Ironmaster is an enjoyable prehistory action flick, with an engaging story and a great movie to waste a hung-over Sunday on. Ironmaster is due for Scandinavian release in mid February, and it’s presented in a glorious widescreen print that will blow you away!

Image:

Widescreen

Audio:

Dolby Digital 2.0

Extras:

Trailers for other NjutaFilm movies, and it’s an odd selection, because I’d definitely had put more Italian related flicks on there instead of the series of US soft-core sexploitation junk.

So Sweet… So Perverse

So Sweet… So Perverse
Original title: Così dolce… così perversa
Directed by: Umberto Lenzi
Italy/France/West Germany, 1969
Thriller, 88min

For each Umberto Lenzi interview I see in documentaries, supplement material or on stuff like Mike Baronas' excellent Paura: Lucio Fulci Remembered Vol1, I get the feeling that he’s becoming (or perhaps is already) something of a Gene Simmons of the Italian genre-flick scene. There’s an ”I invented that, I was first” “I’m the prime innovator” tone to him – not that I’m going to argue him – it’s just that I’m always amused by people who claim to have invented, shaped and broke the mould for so many various areas. Just like Gene Simmons, who still to this day can’t see that the hard metal he thinks they invented was only makeup and disco at it’s worst.

Never the less, where Kiss music is complete tripe and could possibly only appeal to ten year old kids who didn’t have their own identity during the seventies and never once interested me no matter how hard I tried to see what’s supposedly so great about them, Umberto Lenzi did indeed stand amongst the forerunners of Italian genre cinema, and on many occasions did try out new terrain. It’s ironic that he’s so strongly associated to those gut munchers and tacky zombie flicks (not that there’s anything wrong with them) because I still seem to find myself becoming more and more impressed by his Gialli, and has a hard time forgiving myself for never quite taking the time to check out these impressive pieces back in the day.

But back in the day meant waiting almost a month for Greek Ex-rentals to fall through the letterbox, or gambling with Dutch imports or trading umpteenth generation copies with your mates and rarely stretching far enough to find these rare delights, but sticking close to the good old gut munchers and gore fests that initially drew me into the world of Italian genre cinema. Thank god for DVD and Internet traders, making all these fascinating films available in excellent or at least something that resonates as third-generation VHS dupes once again. It’s a thrill to settle down on the couch and get into a piece of forty-year-old Italian cinema for the first time.

Like many of the titles that get sold off as Gialli, Umberto Lenzi’s So Sweet... So Perverse is unquestionably not a Giallo. And even though is has a great title, it’s neither sweet nor perverse. But it is a pretty entertaining little movie that stays safely inside the thriller sphere and comes off more like an extended twist on the Boileau-Narcejac novel Celle qui n’était plus (The Woman who Was). Yes just like Henri-Georges Clouzot’s masterpiece Les Diaboliques 1955 and Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo 1958 and many, many more. Which makes Jean-Louis Trintignant’s choice of doing this movie odd as he’d starred in Giulio Questi’s La morte ha fatto l’uovo (Death Laid an Egg) 1968, a movie which plays of the exact same premise, just the year before. A movie that just like So Sweet… So Perverse adds a fair amount of the Italian seasoning that story which the original lacks.

Jean Reynaud [Trintignant] is a player kind of bloke who runs a chemical plant – but jus like most other movies of this kind, he never actually works – instead he spends time between his many mistresses and his depressed wife Danielle [Erika Blanc]. On several occasions he hears strange sounds from the apartment above his and Danielle’s. He also see’s a blonde woman rushing to the elevator and taking it up to that flat above theirs, but she’s dropped a piece of jewellery. One night he hears a woman screaming and goes up to investigate; finding blood outside the door he uses the key the previous tenant has left him. Inside he first finds a series of instruments, well knives, handcuffs and a good old cat o’nine tails that obviously make up someone’s kinky fetish, before surprising Nicole [Caroll Baker in her second of four movies directed by Lenzi] She tells him a sad tale of despair and how photographer Klaus [Horst Frank] holds her as a sadistic sex toy ever since raping and tormenting her during a photo shoot years ago. All shown in a great boldly coloured surreal flashback. Jean, being stupendously gullible falls head over heels in love with her and they take off for a few days to get Nicole away from the fiendish Klaus.

But their love escapade quickly goes sour when Nicole during a moment of serenity decides to spill the beans and reveals that she’s merely bait in a sinister plan to lure Jean into an affair with her and then kill him. Her former lover Klaus has been paid 25.000 to get rid of Jean, but she has no idea of who paid the killer. Jean comforts her and says that he lays no blame on her. Later that night in the one scene that has any Gialli quality to it Klaus wanders the flat, flips the switches on the power and tries to kills Nicole. Returning home, Jean tells his wife Danielle that he wants’ a divorce as Nicole is the one he really loves, at the same time he’s interrupted by a desperate phone call from Nicole who claims to have proof of who wants’ Jean dead.

Jean waits until midnight and then goes upstairs to Nicole’s flat only to find Klaus waiting for him. A fight starts that even wakens Danielle, who obviously also goes up to the flat and get’s there just in time to see what looks like Klaus knifing Jean.

So with Jean presumably dead and his body disposed of, the plot tightens, and even Danielle receives some wonderfully stylish death threats which all seem to be coming from Jean! There’s the Boileau-Narcejac novel coming back to make itself reminded. Danielle the wife is left to inherit nothing as Jean decided to leave it all to his new mistress Nicole. But as there’s still a third of the movie left, there’s a snag, and Klaus wants’ more money not to expose their deadly liaison.

From there on though it takes off in a complexly new direction, which isn’t part of the original source, but unfortunately not original enough to break new ground. You will find that you are triggered to solve the plot and figure out who’s playing whom for the wealth of Jean Reynaud, as it could be anyone of the three suspicious characters behind the fiendish plot. But that’s about it and when the climax has been reached it’s somewhat unsatisfying. Sure there is a decent twist to the end, but as mentioned not one that stands out but one that had already been done before and would be done again.

So why do I say that this isn’t a Giallo? Well first and foremost it holds no traits from that genre, and where there’s no red herrings in the shape of masked murderer or strange characters sneaking around, no cryptic devices or visual keys either, and it becomes more of a classic thriller than anything else. With that said though it’s definitely one of those movies that easily could have become a Gialli and does use a few convention gimmicks such as Trintignant’s snooping around in the first two thirds, which automatically designates him as an amateur sleuth of kinds. But that’s as far as it goes, and like I mentioned above the one single scene to be reminiscent of Gialli is the one with Klaus in the apartment, but Lenzi chooses to reveal that it’s Klaus before one has a real chance of starting to ponder who it may be. If it where to qualify into Giallo territory, he should have kept Klaus hidden and indicated that it might have been Danielle, or someone else who was stalking the couple.

There are several of these small scenes that make me feel that the movie misses the ball on some occasions. The first woman that we see Trintignant in bed with is his “rival” Mr Valmont’s [Giovanni Di Bendetto] wife Helene [Helga Liné], there’s an obvious tension between them, and even in the scenes where Reynaud’s family socializes with the Valmont’s. There’s even a scene where the two men shoot clay pigeons and Mr. Valmont “accidently” fires off a shot that just misses Jean’s head. So in that minor subplot there is a great source of red herring material that I feel is completely unused. They could have easily used one or both the Valmont’s as a possible suspect for wanting Reynaud dead, but unfortunately don’t.

But keep in mind that the Giallo was still not defined in any concrete way at this time, and So Sweet… So Perverse certainly does explore images and lines of narrative that are close to the Giallo. It is a movie that undoubtedly is delicately moving towards the Giallo area, but Lenzi still needed a few years to get all the pieces into place before perfecting his Giallo traits.

The masterful Ernesto Gastaldi wrote his screenplay from a story by producer Luciano Martino and Massimo D’Avak. D’Avak who would together with Francesco Barilli script Aldo Lado’s Chi l’ha vista morire? (Who Saw Her Die?) 1972 and Lenzi’s first cannibal flick Il paese del sesso selvaggio (The Man From Deep River) 1972. Two years later D’Avak and Barilli would write the script to Barilli’s debut feature, Il profumo della signora in nero (The Perfume of a Lady in Black) 1974 at which time the Giallo had found it’s tricks and traits.

Executive producer Sergio Martino may have worked side by side with Ernesto Gastaldi on some great movies previous to this one, but it would be the string of magnificent movies that they would make between 1971-1975 with Martino directing that would be their landmark pieces together. In only a few years the genre had become more firm in its language and most of the classic devices and visuals that So Sweet… So Perverse lacks had become standard.

One of the main things to irritate me with this movie is the opening sequence. It starts off with Ortolani’s great score, this time in its’ theme version with lyrics by Norman Newell who wrote the lyrics to Ortolani’s hit More off Mondo Cane 1962, and sung by J. Vincent Edwards. The tempo is fast, showing Trintignant’s Jean Reynaud driving his yellow car through along the roads of Paris – so once again the movies plot space is shown through the opening credits.

Editor Eugenio Alabiso throws in some random images as the scene moves forth, and this is where I start to question what’s going on, as these seemingly random images – the hunting rifle in the back seat and a close up on Helene Valmont’s earring – and having seen a couple of these vehicles, you know that there’s always indicators and referents to important stuff being flashed at the audience every now and then… but these things have absolutely nothing to do with the movie or it’s plot! It’s irritating as it instead leads thoughts off on a trail that never is intended, and possibly another reason why I feel that the Valmont's are underused too...

And what about that Riz Ortolani score? Well it’s a real wonderful piece, especially the suave and lush croonery vocal version, but unfortunately the rest is mostly a variation on the theme that returns in various forms. The track Why? is so lush that Lenzi reused it three years later in the movie which may possibly be his best Gialli of them all, Sette orchidee macchiate di rosso (Seven Bloodstained Orchids) 1972. Never the less it’s once again a testament to the great Ortolani who sadly still hasn’t really received the recognition he should be having. Where Morricone still can pack the likes of the Royal Albert Hall in London, UK, I’d happily pay money to see Ortolani conduct a full orchestra playing his great scores.

Even though I say that So Sweet… So Perverse isn’t a Gialli, it is an important movie in the evolution of Lenzi’s filmography that lead up to those great Gialli and Poliziotteschi films he made only a few years later. It’s an entertaining piece, that definitely get’s you involved, even though you may be able to foresee where it’s going at an early stages. And despite the fact that it’s more of a thriller than Giallo it’s still a neat piece of stylish cinema that you should check out if you are into Umberto Lenzi’s great movies.

Image:
2.35:1 Anamorphic

Audio:
Mono – English dialogue presumably lifted from separate source as there still is not a widescreen, English language version officially released yet.

Extras:
None. But instead you get a splendid presentation of the movie, as this is one of those great FanDubs where one enthusiastic genius has taken the audio from one source and used the great widescreen image so that we can all enjoy this film without the shitty cropping that most old video tapes used to present the movies in.

Here's that annoying opening for you, and that grand vocal track by the great Riz Ortolani and Norman Newell featuring J. Vincent Edwards.

The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist

The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist
Original Title: Il cinico, I’infame, il violento
Directed by: Umberto Lenzi
Italy, 1977
Poliziotteschi, 100min
Distributed by: Alpha Digital

Of all the genre’s that Umberto Lenzi tried his directing skills in, I feel that the Poliziotteschi flicks are among his finest. Obviously there are several brilliant entries of his to be found on the other sphere’s – Cannibal Ferox 1981, Nightmare City 1980, The Oasis of Fear 1971, Seven Bloodstained Orchids 1972 and Eyeball 1975 to name a few, but it’s the Poliziotteschi that I find myself returning to and rediscovering with a new passion that wasn’t there the first time around. The Tomas Milian pieces, like Almost Human 1974, Rome; Armed to the Teeth 1976 and The Rat the Cynic and the Fist, stand out and have against all odds stood up to the tests of time.

The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist is a fantastic piece of Italian genre cinema where the title possibly refers to Sergio Leone’s splendid spaghetti western The Good, The Bad and The Ugly 1966 and saying that, there’s more to the movie than just a cryptic title. Maurizio Merli is obvious the Fist as he slugs his way through the antagonists of the film, then there’s Tomas Milian in one of his finest performances ever, as Luigi “the Chinaman” Maietto, without a doubt the cynic of the piece, leaving John Saxon as the rat, or rather the Infamous as the original titles call him. Some stuff just get’s lost in translation doesn’t it.

Performances are tight, and well acted, Merli is great in this sequel to Lenzi’s previous piece Rome: Armed to the Teeth, which also sees Merli in the role of Inspector Tanzi. But the movie definitely belongs to Tomas Milian in a performance that out shines both Merli and Saxon by yards. He owns this piece with his sneering, sinister criminal who just oozes cynicism towards the law officials, the mob Boss Frank Di Maggio and even towards his once cohorts that he eliminates on his struggle towards the top of the food chain.

As usual, here’s a quick fix on the movie to remind you, or wake your interest for the film: Leonardo Tanzi, once Rome’s most feared police inspector has handed in his badge and now works as an editor of murder mystery novellas. (Watch the scene closely and you’ll see that its Gialli books he’s working with) When he learns that upcoming criminal Luigi “The Chinaman” Maietto has been released from the pen, he’s not so surprised to find his own obituary waiting for him under his door when he returns home. Shortly there after Maietto’s hit men make their entry [Bruno Corazzari and Claudio Undari], and after taking a few shots at Tanzi, they leave him for dead. Once a cop, always a cop is the pathos that Tanzi lives by, and after his former boss, Commissioner Astalli [Renzo Palmer] forces him into hiding so that they can lure the guilty by claiming that the legendary Tanzi is dead, Tanzi becomes a one man vigilante working outside the law. Obviously Tanzi doesn’t hide from anyone, and pretty soon he gets himself involved in rescuing a colleagues young sister from the hands of a pornographer who keeps his models/prostitutes on a strict diet of smack. (Bo A. Vibenius Thriller - A Cruel Picture anyone?) Herein also lies the connection to Maietto.

Trying his damndest to move in on American mobster Frank Di Maggio’s [Saxon] turf, Maietto is pushing the good old “Protection” racket, which obviously clashes with Di Maggio’s interests and Tanzi’s morale values. Slowly but surely the three opposing parts twist and grind their way through a grid of double crossing, enforcing violence, cunning heists and sadistic actions towards a climax, a climax that comes with a splendid blaze of glory as the three leads finally stand face to face.

What I feel makes this piece quite entertaining is that there are so many rifts and conflicts on both sides of the law. There are the conflicts on the criminal side, Di Maggio vs. the newcomer Maietto, and there’s certain tension between Tanzi and commissioner Astalli, which gives a deeper dimension to both the characters and the narrative. It’s an amazingly entertaining ride which I already said stands out among both the genre and Lenzi’s work.

Along the way there’s some great supporting cast performances by Bruno Corazzari, Claudio Undari, and the man who is almost everything worth watching Fulcio Mingozzi makes yet another short appearance. It’s a pretty male dominated movie, as nearly no women hold any specific role in the plot, other than scared victims for Merli to rescue and save, although Gabriella Lepori does have a bit of importance as she brings the narrative to an important junction, and connects the pornographer’s mischief to the racket Maietto has going.

Now there’s no way to discuss this movie without mentioning the great Ernesto Gastaldi. Ernesto Gastaldi’s name in the screenwriting credits is enough to make me want to watch the movie. If you are a regular reader, you will now that I can rant on about on his resume – Bitto Albertini’s Human Cobras 1971 and all those great Sergio Martino, Luciano Ercoli and Lenzi movies to name a few names - and there’s no doubt that Gastaldi is among the greatest of the Italian screenwriters. He frequently manages to bring depth, and complexity to the characters that so usually are mere generic personality. Just take a look at what he did to Maurizio Merli’s character police detective Leonardo Tanzi in the two movies of that series. In the second of the films, The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist, he injures the lead character, Tanzi, early on in the movie only to have him rubbing his sore wound over and over again. It also works as an instrument to give the character some personality and bring him down to a human level. He is vulnerable, but still doesn’t back down from busting up a few criminals despite his injuries, even if his actions make him sore. It’s something that action hero’s seldom consider as they move from one scene of severe damage to full fledged ass kicking without any side effects in the next scene. If you pay attention to the names of the writers in the opening titles, you will also spot Dardano Sachetti among the writers. With movies like Dario Argento’s Cat o’ Nine Tails 1971, Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood 1971, almost everyone of Lucio Fulci’s classics, Murder to the Tune of Seven Black Notes 1977, Zombie 1979, City of the Living Dead 1980 and the others, Antonio Margheriti’s Cannibal Apocalypse 1980 and many many more, it’s no understatement that Sachetti is quite possibly the greatest of them all, and with the two giants of Italian screenwriting working off a Sauro Scavolini story, on the same movie, there’s no more reason to hesitate about this one. The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist is a must see movie with an excellent script, great actors, and a terrific entry into the Poliziotteschi genre.

Franco Micalizzi’s score is excellent, and holds some strong reminders of Stelvio Cipriani’s scores for movies within the genre, although with Micalizzi’s unique fully orchestrated funk jazz umph to it. For some strange reason the Soundtrack is available under the name Violence… Once again Eugenio Alabiso’s editing is tight and ferocious, adding to the rapid pacing of the scenes, and thanks to the widescreen presentation that I recall wasn’t there in the previous vhs version I used to have of this magnificent movie, Federico Zanni’s excellent cinematography come to it’s right. Certain scenes could actually be lifted from this movie to show cinematography students the power of composition and value added to a scene by simple effects as framing the shot in the right way.

The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist is a definitive statement to the craftsmanship of Umberto Lenzi, a guy who easily get’s lost as a second rate director among the many cheesier of his movies, especially the later ones, but this one is a gem and proves that Lenzi really had the knack for putting forth tight action movies that still work perfectly to this day.

Image:

Widescreen 16:9

Audio:

Dolby Digital Mono, English Dubbed version, which will give you a few laughs with the voice Saxon has been given.

Extras:

Nothing special, just the original theatrical trailer.

Island of the Fishmen

Island of the Fishmen
Original Title : L’isola degli uomini pesce
Directed by: Sergio Martino
Action/Adventure, 1979
Italy, 93min
Distributed by: Mya Entertainment

Sergio Martino. Say his name and many a genre fan, especially myself, will start salivating and ranting on about those magnificent Gialli he directed during the seventies. But Martino also directed a bunch of films beyond those initial Gialli, as he also made movies in the Comedy, Spaghetti Western, Science Fiction and Action/Adventure genres. One of these is the entertaining Island of the Fishmen.

Loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth, the story was written by Sergio and his brother Luciano Martino (who worked as a producer and director, but also wrote several movie scripts, among them some of the great Gialli and Spaghetti Westerns) and reworked by Cesare Frugoni [Mario Bava’s Rabid Dogs 1974, Ruggero Deodato’s Cut and Run 1985] and Sergio Donati [Sergio Leone’s For a Few Dollars More 1965 and Once Upon A Time in the West 1968]. This many writers could possibly cause a mumbled jumble of varied influences and a mixed bag of complications as storylines and subplots come and go. But I feel that they brought themselves together to write a highly entertaining little film, and anything relying on Lovecraftian mythos grabs my attention and is going to fall in good ground with me.

Island of the Fishmen is not a horror flick, but more an Action - Adventure flick that rubs up against the Science-fiction/Fantastic genre. It starts with a boat drifting in the mist with a few men sat exhausted in the tight space. Quickly the tension between the few men onboard is set and we understand that the power structure is ruptured and they really don’t like each other. Then, strange creatures move in the water and the men are spooked, and to make things worse the boat starts picking up speed and smashes into the cliffs hurling the men into the water once again. Obviously the strange creatures in the water attack and we have an initial attack assuring us that the “fishmen” are not gentle dolphin like playthings. They are vicious killers.

Awaking on the shore of an island, Lt Claude de Ross [Claudio Cassinelli – a fine leading man indeed who died all to soon by a freak accident during the shoot of Martino’s Fists of Steel 1985. But his movies remain and among them you’ll find highlights like Massimo Dallamano’s What Have They Done to Your Daughters? 1974 and Martino’s previous film Mountain of the Cannibal God 1978 to name a selected few.] De Ross roams the island finding various crewmembers dead in the nearby swamp… And Martino starts playing visual gags with us to keep us confused about what sort of movie this is going to evolve into.

The short but great scene of de Ross looking over his shoulder screaming “No! No!” at the lurking – staggering shadow making the groaning noises definitely sets off the Zombie alarm, but in the next second de Ross screams “No José, don’t drink that, if you do you will end up like him!” pointing to the dead guy in the distance. It’s a grand little scene that is humorous, pokes fun at our expectations and at the same time sets up the friendly relationship between José and de Ross. And with every good note in this film there’s a negative contrast waiting. Finding death in the swamp leads to finding his friend José [Franco Iavarone]. Finding a second friend, Francois, leads to meeting up the other survivors, the ones in the beginning that don’t like de Ross. They make a clear comment that they are no longer his prisoners and they won’t take orders from him anymore (which brings a neat little bit of back story into the flick. – and it’s going to be dropped like this each time we need to understand de Ross further during the movie). From this point it’s easy to think that the film is gong to be a survival horror as the men start wandering through the marshlands and surrounding jungle. Alliances are tested in a rather tense sequence where José proves his alliance with de Ross against the others, and before you know it they walk into a cemetery that brings Lucio Fulci’s Zombie 1979 to mind, as José screams out “Don’t touch it! It’s Zombies, ZOMBIES!” de Ross calmly tells him to relax, zombies never existed. Again Martino taunts us concerning genre as there definitely has been enough Italian zombie set-ups established that all we need now is a groaning guy with clay n his face to jump start this baby.

Instead we get Amanda Marvin [Barbara Bach - from Paola Cavara’s 1971 Giallo, The Black Belly of the Tarantula featuring not one, not two, but three Bond Girls; Bach, Barbara Bouchet and Claudine Auger. Bach also featured in Aldo Lado’s creepy black magic Giallo Short Night of the Glass Dolls 1971. Obviously she’s probably most know for being the wife of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr who she met on set of Caveman in 1981] Anyway, Amanda saves the four grown men from a tiny snake with a perfectly aimed bullet from her rifle and delivers some valuable exposition. The Island is uncharted, it belongs to Edmond Rackham and that they would be safer returning to the beach.

As retraining to their point of start, the beach, would make for a shit movie, the men obviously push on forward and eventually find the mansion that Amanda and Edmond Rackham inhabit. Rackham [the great Richard Johnson – Robert Wise’s The Haunting 1963, Fulci’s Zombie 1979] makes his grand entry. He offers the men a place to stay and sees a use for the good-looking de Ross who apparently was the ships doctor! See, there’s more back-story laid out elegantly here. The movie takes a new turn into a more superstitious ground as the Rackham’s house maid Shakira [Beryl Cunningham] performs a voodoo ritual and Amanda pays a visit to the strange Fishmen creatures that don’t tear her apart but act friendly towards her as she offers them a strange milk like fluid. But they do chomp down on the wreck survivor who follows Amanda into the jungle attempting to rape her.

The entrance of Rackham sees the horror element fade out of the movie and shift more into a sci-fi / adventure area. Shakira performs Voodoo sacrifices for Mr. Rackham and José panics and flees the mansion after the last of the group is killed leaving him and de Ross the only survivors from the boat, and in his panicked flight he falls down into an underground cavern… De Ross goes after his friend only to have Amanda once again save him from deadly traps (which trigger the mental image of Charlie the pilot being nailed in Ruggero Deodato’s Last Cannibal World 1977.) and an attack by a Fishmen! Rackham and Shakira recapture the two men and force de Ross to drink a strange fluid that brings Zombie/Voodoo origin rituals to mind. Enter the Professor Ernest Marvin [Joseph Cotten – Yeah Orson Welles' 1941 Citizen Kane Cotton and Mario Bava’s Baron Blood 1972] who is in such bad shape that he has to be saved by de Ross. Remember he’s a doctor, and earlier Rackham made a note of how he could benefit from this. Underneath the island there is an advanced series of tunnels and labyrinths that leads down to ATLANTIS! Wow and we’re just gone halfway!

Now the sinister Rackham turns out to be a treasure hunter and the Fishmen are the original inhabitants of Atlantis… But there’s always a but, to get his hands on the treasures hidden in Atlantis Rackham has had Professor Marvin concoct a strange potion that he’s got the Fishmen addicted to. In return for the gold and treasures they get the drink… so now you know why Rackham so desperately needs de Ross to keep the Professor alive so that the Fishmen slaves keep busy at work. The twist comes suddenly; Amanda is the Professor's daughter, who Rackham holds captive. And as she can communicate with the Fishmen Rackham needs to keep Professor Marvin alive until all the treasure is salvaged, for Amanda is against the exploitation of the Fishmen and Rackham fears she would make them revolt against him if her father died. It’s greed that motivates Rackham, greed for the treasure, greed for Amanda’s love. In the professors secret laboratory de Ross finds out what happened to his mate José, and it’s apparent that the Fishmen are not the original inhabitants, but fiendish experiments!

In a rage de Ross tears apart the laboratory and puts the terrifying experiment José out of his misery. Ironically the José hybrid was the most successful specimen of Professor Marvin’s attempts to save the future of mankind. An amphibian creature that can take salvage in the depths of the ocean when modern man ruins earth. And the experiments are so controversial, that they only could be conducted on an uncharted island, out of sight, out of mind.

Needless to say Rackham busts into the room at this time, bringing death and mayhem with him as the film grinds up to it’s climax and to make things even more nail biting, the bloody volcano that the island sits on is coming to an eruption. The last twenty minutes is really just all action adventure, several leads are in pursuit and there are a lot of subplots rushing forth to their conclusion. But the road there is all great entertainment with a fantastic swashbuckler fight off and poetic justice served out to end it all. Splendid stuff indeed, and something I’ll be showing my kids in a few years time as I cradle them into the fantastic world of Italian genre cinema.

I guess that the easiest way to describe this film would be to call it a hysterical mix of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Island of Dr Moreau, Jules Verne - H.G. Welles, - H.P. Lovecraft science fiction, Atlanian myths and an episode of the hit TV show Lost. It uses the same sort of “cut the crap” narrative as Lost, and exposes only he necessary info needed to shift the value of each scene from negative to positive and vice versa. Neat work indeed. It starts right where we need to start, on the boat AFTER the shipwreck. We don’t have to see the prisoners board the ship, we don’t need to establish power positions on that boat, we have no interest seeing men scream and splash into the sea as he ship goes down. We start AFTER the situation that brought the men towards the island. Fragments of de Ross’ background are portioned out at the exact time it is needed as to keep his origin and back-story a mystery. Much of the events on the island are mysterious, and each time we think that we have a grasp on the main ingredient, Martino throws us a curve ball and introduces new elements of mystery – Cannibals, The mysterious Edmund Rackham, the Voodoo priestess Shakira, the Fishmen, the traps in the jungle, the underground caves, the secret experiments. You see it’s like a concentrated double episode of Lost but without that annoying ever-fresh cast.

Like many other EuroMovies, even this one was picked up by American distributors, re-cut, re-shot and trashed as it was turned into a stinker. Obviously Roger Corman was responsible for the reshooting, reediting and remarketing the movie as the appalling Screamers with Mel Ferrer and Cameron Mitchel in parts in an attempt to turn it into a more horror oriented flick.

Corman also did this with Pavel Klushantsev’s fantastic Planet of the Storms 1962 – Klushantsev, the director that Stanley Kubrick snatched his entire glorious Award Winning special effect tricks from for the 1968 film 2001 – A Space Odyssey. Corman reshot scenes with corny dialogue, a silly new plot and bikini girls selling it as something other than the masterpiece it was. These new versions where retitled and ”directed” by Curtis Harrington [Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet 1965 with Basil Rathbone in a new lead] and Peter Bogdanovich [Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women 1968 with Mamie Van Doren in the lead] the original cast where billed as ”archive footage”. Nice touch Roger. Luckily the Mya release (most likely the same source as the previous NoShame disc) makes sure that this is the intended Italian version without the Corman manipulation.

This is especially important when it comes to the score. Gone is the Sandy Berman stuff and back in is the original Luciano Michelini score full of its fuzzy guitars, swaying strings and vibrant beats. It’s wonderful stuff and at times the score is reminiscent of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s symphonic poem Isle of the Dead fitting to say the least. Even though Luciano Michelini isn’t a very known composer, you will probably have heard one of his pieces if you ever saw that Larry David show Curb Your Enthusiasm. That theme song is a Luciano Michelini composition.

The cinematography by Giancarlo Ferrando, who worked with Martino on more than a dozen of his films, is wonderfully accompanied by Eugenio Alabiso’s editing. He moves fast and there are a few wonderful scenes beautifully edited, usually with something happening outside of Cassinelli’s view, his turn/reaction/reveal, work like textbook examples of how to create the best results in the editing suite. Alabiso who edited Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 1966, Sergio Corbucci’s Companeros 1970, Umberto Lenzi’s Oasis of Fear 1971 and Martino’s Case of the Scorpion’s Tail 1971 to mention some of the 160 and counting great movies that he’s worked on.

I'll say it again; Island of the Fishmen is a marvellous piece of film that could easily play as a Sunday matinee for the whole family to gather around. It’s action packed, it’s scary in an innocent way, and it’s fun to watch.

Image:

Aspect Ration 2.35:1 (16x9 Anamorphic)

Audio:

English or Italian Dialogue, Dolby Digital Mono. Unfortunately there are no English subtitles on the Italian dub, but luckily

Extras:

There’s the original Trailer, a two-minute photo gallery and that’s it.