Body of evidence... The Exquisite Cadaver (1969)

The seemingly clumsy title for this Spanish mystery is drawn from the practice of assembling a collection of words or images from a number of people none of whom has the complete picture or knows what the other has done. Invented by the surrealist movement, leading light André Breton reported that the exquisite cadaver started in fun, but became eventually enriching: presumably by being either a mess or revelatory.

On balance I would have to say this unusual film succeeds very well in the latter even though it does have the disjointed approach defined by the rules of the game: both narratively and literally as parts of a corpse are detached and sent to provide clues to one of four main characters, all acting independently.

Vincente Aranda directs with discipline and establishes the mystery well before resolving most of his entanglements in a pacier closing half hour. It’s kind of a love story, part-giallo and horror but all based on the existential crisis triggered by one man’s indifference to his lover’s passionate frailties and her lover’s determination to right her wronging.

Capucine

The few reviews there are online on IMBD et al are rather faint in their praises but I’d say this was one smart and engaging story and Aranda sets out the pieces of the puzzle carefully for them all to make sense later one, whether it’s the tranquilisers the young woman Esther (an excellent early performance from Judy Matheson, later Judy Jarvis) is playing with when she meets her man (Carlos Estrada) or even his throwing away of his children’s tortoise: he’s no time for sentiment and is as driven in his private life as he is in business.

There are two more sides to this bizarre love quadrangle and they are the man’s wife, Spanish actress Teresa Gimpera and Esther’s next lover, Lucia Fonte (the beyond glamorous Capucine). It is quite a line up and the four interact in unexpected ways throughout… there’s just a touch of Luis Buñuel about Aranda’s style: we think we know what’s happening, but nothing is necessarily as it seems and even at the end there are possibilities to consider.

The exquisite Judy Jarvis née Matheson

In the same way as the best horror films use mood and tonal signals to create audience anxiety so too does this film steer away from specific explanations until the very end. It creates a note of unresolved uncertainty that keeps you engaged throughout.

The set up is pure Giallo with a boorish publisher of horror fiction being interrupted by the delivery of a box containing a severed hand. We’ve already seen a young woman head down to place her head on an isolated railway track and assume that this belongs to her body.

The man buries the hand after initially thinking it was fake sent by one of his writers… his reaction makes us think the same. Another parcel arrives at home following a message read by his wife asking if he wants a forearm next time.

Carlos Estrada and Capucine

Too panicked to open the parcel he walks into town and leaves it on a bench hoping someone will steal it, but it ends up back at the house where his wife opens it to find a dress and a photograph of a woman, Lucia Fonte not, as we expected, Esther.

The man’s explanations do not convince his wife and she starts to follow him when she notices a glamorous woman in a chauffeur-driven Citroen following him as well…

The man gets driven by Lucia – calling herself Parker – to her mansion where she has the strangest of encounters with him. She has an artificial hand, did she cut it off to scare him?  She makes him take LSD and leads him deep into the house listening to recording of Esther’s voice before revealing her perfectly-preserved body in a fridge.

She knows... Teresa Gimpera and Carlos Estrada

The man wakes up at home on his couch, was it a dream – did anything actually happen?

Lucia had called his wife to her house after, she says, he turned up looking for her… neither wife nor watcher are now sure who or what to believe. There’s a neat Antonioni-esque moment at the park when the could fail to communicate whilst young men are flying a toy plane – it buzzes around like nagging doubt before the man breaks it.

Finally, we discover the relationship Esther had with the man… a brief fling according to him and years according to Lucia. Esther was full on and wanted truth in her life even at the extent of her own death… she was broken by the man.

But what happened and who stands to gain what… the twists and turns continue right to the end.

Dusty verdict: This is such a powerfully performed film and Judy Matheson is superb as the conflicted women who flutters between life and oblivion. Judy later went on to feature in a number of Hammer horrors as well as Peter Walker’s excellent Flesh and Blood Show which has something in common with this film: she is an actor with nuanced expression and here is indeed exquisite, creating a character we instantly connect with - perhaps the truest of any in the film.

 Around her Carlos Estrada is suitably broody and reminds me of an Antonioni male, lost in the subtext of life while all the while expecting that success and dominance will enable him to have his way. This affair is clearly not the first and Teresa Gimpera’s portrayal shows she has already reached a position of little trust, batting away his excuses and feeble explanations and following him to find out the truth.

Capucine is high intensity and as ever has intelligence and protean depths that convince you that her character is capable of anything. The film’s final twist is not something those other reviewers seem to have picked up and even then, we can only imagine what is going to happen…

The Exquisite Cadaver deserves to be less obscure and hard to find – there are currently no official home video releases and I got my copy from a US supplier of out of copyright schlock horror flicks a genre of which this most certainly is not! Seek it out if you can, hopefully it will get restored and re-released.

Doctor at war… Fräulein Doktor (1969)

This takes the sixties fascination with war films into new and surprising directions by showing us a narrative based on German success most of which is built on the superior cunning and ruthlessness of a female protagonist.

It culminates in a quite spectacular attack on Allied forces by German cavalry with horses wearing gas masks and coats: quite the most disturbing thing I’ve seen for a while. Extra precautions are required for a gas that permeates anything less than full body cover and as the French, Belgian and English troops reel from the gas, a relentless tide rushes through their lines… if you didn’t know any better you’d swear this was the turning point in a victory for the Fatherland.

The haunting image of horses in gas masks

The gas, developed by the Allies who were too principled - or squeamish - to use it, was obtained through the undercover activities of the woman known as Fräulein Doktor an unconventional role for Suzy Kendall in many ways and one she does very well in.

The film loosely based on the life of Elsbeth Schragmüller a First World War spy who had already inspired a number of films from the thirties onwards. Schragmüller did indeed have a doctoral degree in political science from the University of Freiburg and had smashed the glass ceiling academically before excelling her male colleagues in the war by rising through the ranks of the intelligence corps to become chief of the Kriegsnachrichten Antwerpen. She was awarded the Iron Cross First Class but much of her record is obscure and the subject of myth.

Did she even snog Capucine in order to obtain secrets? Suzy’s Doktor does in another eye-poppingly atypical moment - well, if it’s good enough for James Bond…

All's fair in war and love?

But first, to the capture of two German spies sneaking onto British soil – Meyer (James Booth) proves less robust than his colleague Schell (Roberto Bisacco) and cracks under pressure as the Brits – led by Kenneth More as Colonel Foreman - stage phoney firing squads. He agrees to spill the beans and to tell all about his mission to assassinate Lord Kitchener and to reveal the threat posed by the super spy Fräulein Doktor.

While Meyer tells all das Doktor goes about her business, blending into the coastal town from which she can learn of Kitchener’s plans. She gets a job a a cleaner and seduces a sailor (played by Michael Elphic) who tells her all she needs to know. Picked up by a German U-Boat she heads out to where the Kitchener’s ship will be and sees her mission succeed with its destruction.

Kitchener's battleship

She’s smart this one but she has a weakness: she is addicted to morphine…

Back at British intelligence, Meyer tells of how his colleague had acquired a deadly gas from underneath the noses of the Allies… The Doktor has passed herself off as a maid for Dr. Saforet (Capucine) who is a chemist developing an unstoppable gas. Dr. Saforet cannot resist a pretty face and falls hard for her young maid as the two begin a relationship that followed on from The Killing of Sister George – released just four months before.

Capucine falls

The older woman shares everything including her work and there’s a genuinely unsettling sequence during which she gases numerous caged dogs: her lover screams and you also wonder how they achieved the effect of so many animals in fear…

Dr. Saforet is convinced by the young woman’s reactions to the brutality of the chemical weapon – it is for the greater good something the sweet thing might not understand but then, just as the formula is completed, Frauline Doktor strikes, shooting her in the back and making off with the key to possibly swing the war in Germany’s favour.

Kill or be killed?

Now things get complicated as the British try to use Meyer to get to the Doktor whilst her commanders appear to respect what she has done but not her methods. She receives the Iron Cross for assassinating Kitchener but military solidarity prevents the German Generals from congratulating her.

Her morphine addiction is also a concern for her commander Colonel Mathesius (Nigel Green – excellent as always!) a mna every bit as sharp as his British counterpart. When Meyer turns up after apparently escaping the Brits, Mathesius quickly assesses what has been planned – helped by a traitor in the opposing camp. Meyer has been lined up to kill the Frauline with poisoned champagne… a plan that Mathesius seemingly allows to happen – killing two birds with one stone?

Frau Doktor briefs the assasins

But, whilst Meyer reports back that the Doktor is dead, she is very much alive and now sent to Spain as a volunteer nurse to infiltrate the Belgians in order to steal battle plans for the allied front. The Americans are about to enter the war and the Germans are getting desperate to land the knockout blow…

All of which leads to that climactic battle – a scene from Hell every bit as frightening as any contemporary re-enactment.

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I won’t reveal the ending…

Beautiful from all angles: Suzy Kendall

Dusty verdict: Fraulein Doktor employs enough style and twist to transcend the period of its making. Suzy Kendall is one of the defining “it” girls of the sixties but she plays this horrific character really well, overcoming the not inconsiderable distraction of being beautiful from every angle…

There's also good support from Kenneth More and James Booth - two British greats from different generations who both bring believability to their roles.

Kenneth More knows the score and so does James Booth

Stylishly directed by Alberto Lattuada the film also features a super score from young Ennio Morricone.

It's available on DVD from Amazon and elsewhere: definitely worth watching and being disturbed by... the image of horses in gas masks, protected from the poisonous clouds, reinforces the literal inhumanity of chemical warfare.