7 DEADLY SINS (1962)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Seven directors each dramatize one of the seven deadly sins in a short film. In "Anger," a domestic argument over a fly in the Sunday soup escalates into nuclear war. In "Sloth," a movie star would rather pay someone to tie his shoe than bend over to do it himself, and he can't be bothered to accept a starlet's sexual favors. In "Gluttony," a peasant family on its way to the funeral of a relative who died from indigestion stops regularly to eat and drink en route, arriving in time to eat some more. In "Greed," a high-class prostitute refunds the price of a cadet's lottery ticket. In "Pride," an unfaithful wife finds reason to reform. And so on through lust and envy. Directors: Philippe de Broca ..(segment "La gourmandise"), Claude Chabro (segment "L'avarice"), Jacques Demy( segment "La luxure"), Sylvain Dhomme (segment "La colère"),Jean-Luc Godard (segment "La paresse"), Édouard Molinaro (segment "L'envie"), Roger Vadim (segment "L'orgueil"), Max Douy (co-director) (segment "La colère").
THE APARTMENT MURDERS (1982)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Directed by Marc Lobet, Cast: Anny Duperey ... Aurelia Maudru, Bernard Giraudeau ... Max Queryat. Based on the novel "Hotel Meuble" by Thomas Owen, this suspense thriller has a female police inspector Aurelia Maudru living in a baroque apartment house in Brussels, the site of a nasty murder. All the inspector's neighbors are suspects in the case, and she is hard-put to ferret out the reasons for the foul deed from among the building's strange inhabitants, including a death-obsessed undertaker and an aging photographer. As the suspense builds to the final scenes, the solution to who did it is as unusual as the residents of the building.
THE CONSPIRACY (1973)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director:René Gainville. Cast: Michel Bouquet, Michel Duchaussoy, Raymond Pellegrin, Jean Rochefort , Gabriele Tinti, Marina Vlady. By the early 1960s, the OAS is desperate to stop de Gaulle's freeing of Algeria. A small group, mostly from the military, steal weapons and rob a bank to prepare for a raid on Tulle prison to set General Challe free and spark civil war. OAS members within the police try to help their cause. The government appoints a mission director, Paraux, to track them down; he must work with the police, led by Lelong. The head of the secret OAS operation is Clavet, a decorated general. For him, it's a cause of honor, but he cannot control all OAS activities, and terrorist acts do occur. The police put the screws on informers and close in. Is there any honor in this losing cause?
THE FABULOUS TRINITY (1974)-IN SPANISH WITH ENGLISH SUBS FOR THE FIRST TIME, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director:Ignacio F. Iquino. Cast: Richard Harrison, Fernando Sancho, Fannie Grey. The three Trinidad brothers, accused of weapons smuggling, are imprisoned in a Mexican labor camp governed by the revolutionary Colonel Jiménez. Nora is a beautiful woman who, after making friends with Scott, a bounty hunter, goes with him to the Mexican prison, where she poses as the niece of the Trinidads, dazzles Jiménez with her flirtatiousness and manages to free the three brothers, whom she persuades to work under her orders in smuggling. The Trinidads head off in search of the shipment, while Scott learns of the large reward being offered for them and sets out to get it.
HOLOCAUST 2: THE REVENGE (1980)-PERFECT QUALITY LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director : Elo Panaccio, Stars : William Berger, Tina Aumont, Gordon Mitchell. 40 years have passed since the brutal atrocities were committed by the Nazis in the concentration camps during World War 2. But the memories of the horrible murders live on, as do many of the Nazis who are now hiding around the world. A secret group of Jewish activists band together and locate many of the doctors and solders and take vengeance upon these sadistic killers.
I AM CATERINA (1980)-IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Alberto Sordi, Cast: Edwige Fenech, Alberto Sordi and Catherine Spaak The story is about a manager who is tired both with his wife and his lover. In a travel to America he has the opportunity to buy Caterina, a antropomorphe robot that looks and acts like a maid. Alberto is so fond of this robot that will bump his wife, his lover and even his southamerican maid. But slowly it will show the construction mistake in Caterina. It can feel love and she falls with Alberto. She gets jealous and menaces Alberto. He will be forced to live with his robot as his new wife witnessing that love goes beyond anything (a la Blade Runner in a certain sense) and it was himself the real problem in the relationships with the real women. This movie is great in plot and acting and it's also one of the best directing efforts of Alberto Sordi. His acting is above his average of end of 70's and the themes of the movie are well developed and presented with a mild taste and with lot of finesse. I really like this movie and it's bittersweet finale is very nice to see.
IT PAYS TO MAKE LOVE WELL (1975)-IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS, UNCUT LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Pasquale Festa Campanile. Cast: Fans of Agostina Belli, Eleonora Giorgi and Monica Strebel wil be in heaven over this one! I have seen WAY too many bad Italian sex comedies, so it's always nice to see one that is relatively clever, satirical, and entertaining (without skimping on the naked Euro-lovelies that make even some of the bad ones worthwhile). During a worldwide energy shortage, a scientist (Gigi Proietti) is trying to harvest the power of sexual passion as an energy source. He is ably, um, assisted by his two gorgeous nurses (Eleanora Giorgi and Adriana Asti), but he seems to get his best results from a couple (Agostina Belli and Christian De Sica), who end up in a hospital room together after they are both injured and whisked away by the scientist's fake ambulance. Both are married to other people, however, so their relationship does not go very smoothly. The movie takes the usual satirical swipes at Catholicism--the slender Belli has a laughably ridiculous number of kids, and the whole project becomes embroiled in the typical Vatican intrigue.
THE ODYSSEY (1968)-FINALLY, ALL 8 EPISODES IN PERFECT QUALITY AND REAL ENGLISH SUBS!! THIS COMES 2 EPISODES TO A DVD FOR A TOTAL OF 4. SPECIAL PRICE OF $35. Released as an 8-hour miniseries (it was a ratings hit in Europe) and shot on location in Tuscany and Yugoslavia with great attention to detail. The scenes look just as the Greeks might have pictured them, with minimal modern intrusions. Among its greatest episodes is Ulysses' encounter with the one-eyed cannibal giant Polyphemus—a triumph of imagination and effects work by Mario Bava. Franco Rossi's Hades is no ordinary purgatory either: its spirits stripped of both body and soul, and they know it. A chilling, ominous netherworld, and when Ulysses meets his dead mother, it becomes the setting of a great scene. And the climax is a stunner. Sweet pagan wrath—it's no Christian reckoning! Ulysses' bloodlust is as satisfying as the moment he accepts the elders' peace. Bekim Fehmiu is a scheming, active, engaging Ulysses, a warrior navigating peacetime and homesickness, and a plaything of the gods. And Irene Papas is a magnificent Penelope, warding off a revolting gang of suitors. It's an amazing work overall. In its scope and what it sets out to do, it may be unparalleled.
THE PERFECT KILLER (1977)-NOT ONLY FINALLY LETTERBOXED BUT UNCUT AS WELL WITH 5 EXTRA MINUTES OF BRUTALITY! Director: Mario Siciliano. Cast: Lee Van Cleef, Carmen Cevera, John Ireland, Robert Widmark, Fernando Sancho. Betrayed by his girl and best friend, thief Harry Chapman (Lee Van Cleef) takes the fall for a racetrack robbery. While in prison, he is offered a chance to participate in an escape plan. What he doesn't know is that once he is on the outside, the group responsible for the prison break has Harry in their debt and they use him as a hit-man. Naturally, he grows tired of the job and splits because he is hellbent on getting revenge on the former partners. So the mob puts young hit-man Luc (Robert Widmark) on Harry's trail.
THE PIMP (1961)-IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director:Ugo Tognazzi. Ugo Tognazzi, Ilaria Occhini, Margrete Robsahm, Mario Carotenuto. The film concerns Stefano's relationships with three women. There is a colleague at work who constantly resists his advances with the oh-so typical 'I'm not saying yes and I'm not saying no'. He meets a tart pretending to be a nurse with whom his friendship results in his being wrongly labelled 'a gigolo' by both the police and a gang of pimps. The final irony is that having been chased by a rich widow he ends up working as an employee in her supermarket, thereby becoming literally 'a kept man'. In the final scene we witness his anger and frustration boil over.Tognazzi has cast this well and especially of note is Ilaria Occhini as the manipulative tart.
QUIET IS THE NIGHT (1978)-INPOLISH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director:Tadeusz Chmielewski. A young man is finishing school and wants to go on to a sailing trip with his wealthy school chums, but his father, a great detective nearing retirement, wants him to enter a serious profession. The two are unable to communicate, and that problem is one of the two stories of the film. The second concerns the father's frustrated attempt to catch a serial killer , the first such criminal he has encountered in an illustrious career. The son's growing frustration with his father's lack of respect leads him to decide to compete with his father in tracking down the killer - without his father's knowledge. This section of the film is beautifully filmed with long sequences of following the main suspect during snowy nights. The ending is one of the most powerful in cinema, with the son and father confronting each other over the killer and their own flaws. On my second viewing, a young woman screamed out "NO!" during the ending, and that best sums up its impact.
SWEDISH GIRLS IN PARIS (1962)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS. Director: Barbro Boman, Peter Weiss. When Peter Weiss, Staffan Lamm, Johnny Samuelsson and Gustaf Mandal sat in a train to Stockholm from Malmö, during the production of the film Hägringen, they were accompanied by a bunch of young Swedish girls, who were obviously on their way home from a longer stay in Paris. The girls spoke openly and loud about their different experiences, both in terms of practical circumstances and erotic adventures, in the French capital. What impact this conversation between the Swedish girls on their way home from Paris may have had on Peter Weiss' imagination one can only speculate. In any case, Weiss would less than two years later engage in a film project in Paris, which in in the end would just get the title Swedish girls in Paris.
TOUGH TO KILL (1979)-ANOTHER ONE APPEARING UNCUT FOR THE FIRST TIME WITH 10 EXTRA MINUTES, LETTERBOXED PRINT! Director: Joe D'Amato, Cast: Luc Merenda, Donal O'Brien, and Lorenza Rodriguez. A finished version of an abandoned 1970 Alain Delon production entitled Crepa padrone, crepa tranquillo (a line which, once effectively translated, can be heard towards the finale of D'Amato's version), TOUGH TO KILL finds Luc Merenda as a high-profile mob assassin who lands somewhere in D'Amato's Dominican Republic of Africa in order to find his target, who has hidden himself within an outfit of psychotic white mercenaries masquerading as military men, led by none other than the great Donal(d) O'Brien himself. The vastly underrated Percy Hogan and Wolfango Soldati (as a Polish pianist-turned-killer named Polansky!) turn in equally memorable performances. Laurence Stark, Piero Vida, Isarco Ravaioli, Alessandro Haber, and Lorenza Rodriguez Lopez (in her only known credited role) also appear.
VERSATILE LOVERS (1970)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS. Director: Pierre Chenal, CAST: Marissa Mell, Robert Hossein, Ettore Manni. Isabelle (Marisa Mell) runs a nursing home for wealthy women who are trying to detox from their various obsessions. Her lover, Serge Belaiev (Robert Hossein), a petty gangster, has pulled off a big hit but his partners have denounced him to the police in order to appropriate his share of the loot. Isabelle takes him in and hides him in an attic of this strange house. In love with Isabelle, Philippe Lansac (Alberto Dalbes), the owner of the place, decides to close the castle.
WHITE SLAVE (1985)-FIRST TIME FOR THIS JESUS FRANCO FILM TO APPEAR WITH ENGLISH SUBS! Cast: Lina Romay, Mabel Escano, Yvonne Manuel. Mary and Oliver decide to go on safari for their honeymoon. The expedition's guide and his lover lay a trap for the newlyweds because there is a tribe who will exchange diamonds for young girls to sacrifice. The police are on the trail of the guide because of the strange dissapearances of young women in the area. Mary and Oliver have a number of adventures, and there's another group interested in the diamonds...
FANTABULOUS (1968)-IN ITALIAN AND FOR THE FIRST TIME WITH ENGLISH SUBS! Director: Sergio Spina. Cast: Richard Harrison, Judi West, Adolfo Celi. Ordinary Richard Vernon gets captured by a secret scientific organization to become a Superman that they hope to sell to the highest bidding country. This superman has only one flaw. SEX! When he sees his girlfriend Deborah, he short circuits and refuses to obey the commands of Adolfo Celi and his gang.
VULCANO (1950)-IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS. Director:William Dieterle. STARS:
ANNA MAGNANI, ROSSANO BRAZZI, GERALDINE BROOKS.Why isn't this movie better known? The principal actors and actresses are superbly believable; the intertwining of fact and fiction, place and personality, the era and its mōres are woven together as the finest cloth. It is one of those astonishing black and white films that feels like it is in color -- the dark and varied shades of emotions that run through the characters like fire and water, salt and hot seasoning. Plus it is deeply and deliciously melodramatic -- in the finest sense of this word: people drawn as figures who are good or bad & not without the possibility of rich, grey shading; sharp characterization deepened from two-dimensional cameo to three- dimensional sculpture; dialogue with strong emotional appeal and a plot driven by the determinism of forces larger than mere humanity.
IL PETOMANE (1983)IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT.-Director: Pasquale Festa Campanile. Cast: Ugo Tognazzi, Mariangelo Melato, Vittorio Caprioli, Ricky Tognazzi.
"Joseph Pujol, Le Pétomane, was a real-life character who had an astonishing range of bowel sounds: 'not every zephyr is alike'. In Belle Epoque Paris, he earned a fortune with his show at the Moulin Rouge, where he performed to musical accompaniment by his sons and blew smoke-rings from both ends at once. He is shown mixing with the likes of Gide and Satie, and Schönberg writes a piece for his sphincter (which, if true, says a lot about 'the great dodecaphonist'). Tognazzi, in marvellous form, plays the fartiste as a fastidious, rueful man who falls in love with an orphaned countess cellist, and goes to great lengths to conceal his profession, with predictable results. He also rouses the wrath of moralists who, having failed to deter him with heckling, brand 'TACI' (silence) on his right buttock. Festa Campanile's leisurely film includes the obscenity trial where Dante, no less, is cited in his defence ('And he made of his arse a trumpet'), and a bum-blasting finale in front of royalty. It's entirely inoffensive, and such handsome light comedy is not to be sniffed at. "
AGNES IS GOING TO DIE (1976)-IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Giuliano Montaldo. Giuliano Montaldo's followup to his power trilogy, L'Agnese Va a Morire (Agnese is Going to Die) was an adaption of Renata Viganò's novel about a peasant woman finding purpose in joining the partisan resistance after her husband is murdered by the Nazis. It featured Ingrid Thulin and among that star's occasional cinematic sojourns into Italy, this was her most memorable work. The excellent cast includes Michele Placido, Stefano Satta Flores, Massimo Girotti, William Berger, Aurore Clément, Ninetto Davoli, Gino Santercole, Flavio Bucci, Johnny Dorelli, Dina Sassoli and Eleonora Giorgi. Ennio Morricone contributes another excellent score.
ANGELIQUE AND THE SULTAN (1968)-LETTERBOXED HD PRINT. Peyrac follows the vessel of the pirates who abducted his beloved Angélique, but finds that she is not board of that ship anymore. She is in the hands of the slave trader who had lost the auction for her, decided to steal her if he can't buy her, then the trader passes her on to the sultan's harem. Now Peyrac cannot openly sail into the port of Algiers with the whole crew, so he goes there alone, disguised as a galley slave, hoping to free Angélique somehow. But he finds that she is well guarded and already on her way across the desert... never to return? Colorful oriental adventure, basically worth watching and a good final part of the series. But the problem is the second third of the movie. The first 30 minutes were exciting, but in the next 30 minutes nothing is happening. Angélique sits in the harem, waiting either for the sultan or Peyrac to appear. You have to sit through 30 minutes, too, until in the last half hour, the action starts to move again. I voted 8/6/7/6/6 for the 5 movies of the series. Actors Mercier and Hossein continued their co-operation with a western, 'Cemetary Without Crosses', but the Angélique series was finished, probably at the right time before it became tiresome.
THE ARCANGEL (1969)-IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Giorgio Capitani. Stars: Vittorio Gassman, Pamela Tiffin, Irina Demick. Failing on the job, Milanese lawyer Furio Bertuccia (Vittorio Gassman) is always open for any funny business to make money. But even he is surprised when the beautiful model Gloria (Pamela Tiffin) visits him late at night, claiming she has murdered her doctor boyfriend and is in need of a lawyer. Turns out the girl is talking nonsense all the time, and there is no murder after all. Half in love, half interested in the her background, the girl mentioned, Furio follows her to Paris, where she tells him another crazy story, this time about a planned murder, the victim: Her rich industrialist boyfriend Roda (Adolfo Celi). Furio is getting introduced into this strange circle and does not realize he might become a scapegoat for a very real murder .
BEYOND FEAR (1975)-RARE ENGLISH DUBBED PRINT, LETTERBOXED PRINT. A group of outlaws takes a man's wife and child hostage. He must walk a fine line between working with the police to rescue his family and not angering the kidnappers to the point where they might hurt or kill them. The film stars Marilu tolo, Michel Bouquet, Michel Constantin, Michel Creton, and Paul Crauchet. An excellent French thriller!
BEYOND THE OMEGA (2020)-IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED HD PRINT.Director: Mattia De Pascali, Cast: Lorenzo Lepori, Benedetta Rossi. Aristodemus is a shy and submissive translator about to get married. When a maniac kills his girlfriend, the man isolates himself from the world in a mountain house. He seeks comfort in the absurd relationship with a life-size doll, but cannot avoid falling into a delirium that will drag him more and more tragically into madness. His impulses become more and more perverse, reality loses its boundaries and the maniac returns to strike, ever closer.
CITY OF SILENCE (1979)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED HD PRINT. Director:Jean Marboeuf. Stars:Jean-Pierre Cassel, Michel Galabru, Michel Duchaussoy. Creuzeville, a small very provincial town, calm and polite, with its woods, its countryside, its ramparts, its mass and its little Sunday cakes. A stranger arrives. He's a private investigator (Jean-Pierre Cassel). In Creuzeville, over which an old family of industrialists reigns, a murder has just been committed. The victim is the patriarch of this small empire that has outgrown one man. In Creuzeville, we hardly like foreigners, especially if they are vegetarians, perhaps homosexuals, undoubtedly anarchists like, precisely, this detective. However the detective by whom the scandal broke broke the silence of the city by going to the heart of family secrets hitherto well hidden behind purple shutters. The murders follow one another. We strike on the left - a young ecologist - as on the right - a cynical playboy. Continuing to dissect the motives and the characters, the detective dropped the masks one by one. And, little by little, fear and violence are settling in the small town.
DESCENT INTO HELL (1986)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Francis Girod. Cast: Sophie Marceau, Claude Brasseur. Man Sophie Marceau is HOT in this one!! Claude Brasseur is an older writer who is suffering from serious writer's block because his young beautiful wife (Sophie Marceau) is ignoring him. In Haiti on vacation, he goes on a bender, convinced that his wife is not going to change, and she, in turn, decides to have some fun with another man. While in a drunken stupor one evening, Alan accidentally kills a mugger who attacks him and is seen by a devious couple who opt for making some money on what they know. As a blackmail scheme takes shape, it has an interesting effect on Alan and Lola's relationship.
THE DESERT OF PIGALLE (1958)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS. Director:Léo Joannon, Stars:Annie Girardot, Pierre Trabaud, Sylvie Adassa. Abbé Janin is a young Catholic priest who works in a bar in the Paris district of Pigalle and he hopes, thanks to this professional activity, to do ordinary things in this district, to bring help to some happy girls who ' he saves the sidewalk. The task is difficult in a neighborhood on which the rule environment in master and where the law of silence is the rule.
DON'T LOSE YOUR HEAD (1959)-IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Mario Mattoli, Stars: Ugo Tognazzi, Franca Valeri, Carlo Campanini. Here is absolutely one of the crazier films I have seen from the great archive of Italian films unseen by the rest of the world. Directed by the prolific Mario Mattoli, and starring Ugo Tognazzi, Franca Valeri, Carlo Campanini, Aroldo Tieri, Gianrico Tedeschi and Tina Pica Mistaken for a terminally ill, the simpleton Tony Cuccar (Tognazzi) is hosted by a lady of charity (Valeri) in a house full of pretty girls where, however, spends his trouble, saved only by a beautiful waitress (Rocca) which has fallen in love. Film debut of the couple Scarnicci and Bitterns, authors of many performances of Tognazzi.
A DYING NEED (1965)-IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS. Director: Duccio Tessari, Cast: Annie Giradot, Raf Vallone, Michel Lemoine, Janine Reynaud. Two women on vacation decide to see who the better seductress is. When an accident causes tragedy, their husbands do what they can to cover all traces of a scandal. A somewhat loose entry in the Giallo genre, Someone dies, but we don't know who and then they try and turn the situation to their advantage.
EXCUSE ME ARE YOU NORMAL (19790-IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. When you think of screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti and director Umberto Lenzi together for a film, you are probably thinking either Cannibal or violent Eurocrime films. Well, I have never been one to follow the usual path of eurotrash so for me, it's a sex comedy from 1979 starring Renzo Montagnini as a bigoted judge who doesn't know his nephew is gay (Ray Lovelock) and dating a transvestite. Nor does he know the daughter (Anna Maria Rizzoli) of an important politician has a secret career as a porno actress. SCUSI LEI E NORMALE is chock full of nudity and totally politically incorrect actions that today's cancel crowd would jump all over! So of course, I just had to subtitle it!
EYES OF THE DEAD (1958)-IN SPANISH WITH ENGLISH SUBS. Director:Antonio Santillán. Writers: Cornell Woolrich (story "Through a Dead Man's Eye")Ignacio F. Iquino( adaptation) José Antonio de la Loma(screenplay). Stars: Carlos López Moctezuma, Armando Moreno, Beatriz Aguirre. With the intention of stealing the compensation for a work accident, Enrique kills an old man. However, it turns out that he had not yet collected it, so he will try, then, to falsify the signature of the check. Meanwhile, at the same time that the police are investigating the case, the son of the police inspector investigates on his own.
FANNY STRAWHAIR (1984)-IN SPANISH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED HD PRINT. Director: Vicente Aranda.Stars: Fanny Cottençon, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Algora Fanny, the young woman at the center of the story, has been in jail and now, free at last, looks for the rotten policeman that broke her teeth when he arrested her. Having to wear dentures for life, she wants to deal with this monster in whatever way she can. Little does she know, Andres, the bad cop, has some plans of his own, which involve getting her in bed.
GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN PANTIES (1980)-IN SPANISH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED HD PRINT. Director : Vicente Aranda. Stars: Victoria Abril Lautaro Murúa Hilda Vera. Summer 1976. Luis is a writer with a Falangist political past, who lives isolated in Calafell, a town on the Catalan coast, writing his memoirs (actually rewriting them and adapting his biography to the new times), and thinking about his failed marriage. His sister in*law is worried about him and decides to send his daughter Mariana to find out how she is doing. She arrives at the town and shakes the stable world of Luis with her free and uninhibited personality. Soon begins a game of seduction that ends up unmasking the intellectual game of Luis.Victoria Abril has never been as nude again as she was in this one!!
HALLELUJAH TO VERA CRUZ (1973)-LETTERBOXED HD PRINT. Director: Stelvio Massi. Cast: Lionel Stander, Riccardo Salvino.Two con-men, disguised as priests, become involved with a search for gold during the Mexican revolution.
I'M A ZOMBIE YOU'RE A ZOMBIE SHE'S A ZOMBIE (1979)-IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS. -Chances are most Americans haven't seen this Nello Rosati takeoff on George Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD. A cemetery caretaker reads from a horror pulp novel and accidentally raises the corpses of three gentlemen who were killed in an accident. He dies from a heart attack and they in turn, raise him from the dead. They are failures at trying to eat passing motorists and so head out to an Inn owned by the Aunt of one of the zombies. They turn the place into an all you can eat diner, munching down on the guests. The highlight of this very black comedy is when Nadia Cassini (an actress with the perfect ass) turns into a zombie and does a striptease.
THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL BEFORE THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY (1975)- Director: Gian Vittorio Baldi, Cast: Lino Capolicchio, Macha Meril, John Steiner, Riccardo Cucciolla, Delia Boccaccio, Laura Betti. Don’t let the title fool you, this is one of the most disturbing films you will ever see. It serves as a precursor to Pasolini’s SALO: 120 DAYS OF SODOM. A local bus picks up its next to last passenger, Athos, a student on his way to school. The other riders include a bunch of older women, a young girl and her mother along with other females. They make a last stop to pick up another student and when he is late, the bus driver sends Athos out to fetch him. As Athos enters the house he happens upon a trio of fascist sadists, murdering all the inhabitants. They follow him back to the bus whereupon they commandeer it and head to Moderna to meet up with the rest of their gang. They beat an old woman half to death for calling them names and make her friends take her outside (along with the bus driver) and kill them. As they head on down the road, the lady fascist along with her sadistic comrade decide to make all the remaining passengers (except for Athos) to strip naked. Even the mother’s small child is not spared this indignity, they are marched behind a wall, forced to lay face down and then machine gunned. Unfortunately what is planned for Athos will not end this film on an upbeat note. The three actors playing the fascist sadists (see the picture below), do their job all too well. We are used to seeing John Steiner as a sadistic Nazi and Macha Meril was the bourgeoisie bitch in THE LATE TRAIN MURDERS, but both REALLY go overboard here. Meril makes ILSA look like coy ingenue here. And to top it off, I was really taken by Capollichio’s performance. He starts off rather mousey, but by film’s end, he’s the worse of the bunch. Director Baldi also directed FUOCO, a film I reviewed awhile back about a man waking up one day and deciding to get his gun and start picking off his neighbors, one by one for no real reason. Other interesting works include DIARY OF A SCHIZOPHRENIC GIRL (1968) and NIGHT OF THE FLOWERS. Too bad here in the US there is next to nothing on his very interesting career. This film will stay with you LONG after it’s over.
MASSACRE MANIA (1967)-IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS. Hipnos follia di massacro. Is this movie a Giallo? Well, there is an opening POV killer knocking off a pretty blonde. Is this a Eurocrime film? Well, the police are looking for a maniac called the Thursday Killer. Is this a war movie? Well, there are a lot of people with machine guns (but no it's not). Is this a Eurospy film? Well, there is a mad scientist in golden mask and black leather head to toe costume who wants to rule the world. A science Fiction thriller? Well there is a device that uses hypnotism to send signals to people's brain to turn them into assassins (shades of VIDEODROME and a French film called KAMIKAZE produced by Luc Besson). Is this a Spaghetti Western? Well, there is an important cameo by Fernando Sancho (but no, it's not). What it is, is a very enjoyable mashup of all these genres and more. Robert Woods puts on some spectacles to look smart and play an action hero doctor who can fire a machine gun, go toe to toe with a crazy bastard and use kung fu on his ass. Rada Rassimov has the Erika Blanc role of the loyal girlfriend who never listens to good advice and get her ass in all kinds of trouble. Ken Wood exchanges his SUPERARGO costume , for a suit and tie. Director Paolo Bianchini made this between THE DEVIL'S MAN and SUPERARGO AND THE FACELESS GIANTS so he knew what the Hell he was doing.Finally, big props to the Balls of these filmmakers for not revealing the super villain behind the golden mask below. He dies without ever revealing who he was!
NO GRAVES ON BOOT HILL (1968)-LETTERBOXED HD PRINT. Western with Craig Hill, Ida Galli, and Ken Wood, directed by the late great Sergio Garrone. Three men, Jerry (Hill), Reno (Wood) and Paco (White), meet in the same prison and in their cell they find a Mexican boy condemned to death for murder. One night the three convicts are mysteriously released by a priest and the father of the Mexican boy who promises them a reward of $30,000 if they can find the real murderer within ten days. Certain that the Mexican boy is not guilty, Reno and the others organize a plan which leads to the unmasking of the real killers.
MICROSCOPIC LIQUID SUBWAY TO OBLIVION (1970)-I HAVE BOOSTED UP THE FADED COLOR AND TONES DOWN THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE GREEK SUBS SINCE THIS WILL PROBABLY NEVER HAVE A BETTER RELEASE. John W. Shadow, Cast: Alex Rebar, Ewa Aulin, Carlos De Mejo. Corrected the aspect ration, found a balance with brightness and contrast and corrected the colors. Fortunately the VHS source had all the right blacks in it, mostly red was off in general. Done. Nope! I cleaned up the terrible noise from the tape, but I kept the grain like an alpha channel almost and reapplied it to a certain degree. The tool smooths out only large surfaces and sharpens up edges and shapes. All and all, you wouldn't believe this came from the same source. The use of dope is running rampant at a small college. Even a teacher has jumped to his death under the influence. Convinced the college's reputation is at stake, Professor Dr. John takes it upon himself to get the college's biggest user to go straight. John is helped by a dorky student who helps lure the addict into seclusion at the professor's Italian villa with a plan to dry him out. The professor's submissive wife is not thrilled about having to share her vacation with a dope addict. While trying to save the student, the professor realizes that his wife has become a hooked, sweaty, shivering addict. Now they have two drug addicts on their hands. The crazed addict ties himself to a bed in order to deal with his harrowing withdrawal symptoms. Meanwhile, the professor's stoned wife dances about the house pretending to be a Greek goddess.
THE PERVERSE DOLL (1969)-IN SPANISH WITH ENGLISH SUBS. Director: Rafael Baledón Stars:Marga LópezJoaquín, Cordero, Lilia Michel. The Montenegros have real problems. Their matriarch has just died and moments after the funeral, her daughter Leticia announces that she believes that someone in the family poisoned her. Meanwhile, one of her son's wives has escaped a mental asylum - a place she landed in because she killed the gardener with pruning shears and was led into alcoholism by the dead woman never accepting her and her own daughter Rosi de Ella, who in turn paid for them via sexual favors. Seriously, if you like the psychobiddy genre, Perverse Doll has so many female family members that are constantly on the verge of absolute mania and have absolutely no issue with going completely berserk (Berserk!) any time and every time. Amongst all of them, Rosi is the worst, because despite looking like an angel, she's the one who killed the gardener and put the murder weapon right into her mother's hand, just like she did the bottle. Who would you believe? The alcoholic screaming covered in blood or the perfect child upset that her mother has lost her mind?
PISTOL PACKIN' PREACHER (1971)- LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Leopoldo Savona, Stars: Mark Damon, Pietro Ceccarelli. Actor Mark Damon portrays a bum who accompanies a pizza baker and his two daughters on their travel. When Damon finds out about a forthcoming eclipse he gets a luminous idea: The pizza baker (whose business is not going to well) gets to wear to the suit of a man of God. Conveniently the eclipse can serve as one of the many examples of the 'wonders' that the man is capable of; all to con the inhabitants of some town. Meanwhile the guy who runs the town keeps a hidden treasure somewhere. The odd quartet make plans to steal it...
THE RAT TRAP (1963)-IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director:t Jean-Gabriel Albicocco. Charles (Charles Aznavour) is a youthful Frenchman traveling to Paraguay to start a new life. Seeking out a rich uncle, the idealistic nephew is rejected by his miserly relation, and he goes on to get involved with a shady woman and a band of gun runners who supply arms for the revolution of the week. Charles and his new girlfriend head for the border after a shootout with federal troops, and a kindly railroad worker hides the couple in an abandoned copper mine. Charles is later thrown in prison while the girl becomes a prostitute.
SOLEDAD MIRANDA A FLOWER IN THE DESERT (2015)-IN SPANISH WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director :Pepe Flores, Francisco Millán. think the interviews with her family and with her costars (Gomes, Sacristán, Fernández) are priceless and very important, as are the many childhood photos shown in the film. I think the tribute event that was organized in Sevilla at the end of filming was precious and even healing, for so many of her family to see her on the big screen and for her to be on the news was a big thing. The fact that this documentary was made is a testament to her lasting star power, only I wish the producers would release it on DVD for more people to see! The inclusion of footage from Un día en Lisboa is incredible, as few living people have ever seen the film and it is in the archives of the Spanish Filmoteca.
THE STORY OF A MURDER (1977)-IN ICELANDIC WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Who knew that the influences of the Giallo genre in Italy had such a broad appeal? Not that it's a clone with a black gloved killer murdering young models. The influence is more the way the murders are carried out with violence NOT associated with the Icelandic settings. It's a brutal tale of rotten family life that ends in a horrific scene that includes a young blood-covered naked woman being raped by her stepfather. Its an odd thing that the first 100% native film from Iceland is so far away from the atmosphere that surrounds most other Icelandic produced films. Features nasty knife killing from an unknown party (or parties), lots of nudity and a surprise twist at the end!
THE TEACHER DANCES WITH THE WHOLE CLASS (1979)-IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director: Giuliano Carnimeo, Cast: Nadia Cassini, Paola Morra, Alvaro Vitali, Lino Banfi. Set in the obligatory teen secondary school, Cassini is cast as Claudia, the gym mistress. Cue a suitable excuse to show off her fine physique in tights trying to teach pupils and staff how to dance. Girls' dance instructor Claudia Gambetti takes over the boy's gym class after gym teacher Martorelli breaks both his legs owing to one of his student's pranks. Soon both teachers and students are interested in learning more of Claudia's athletic dance moves. Director Fiorontori has made some debts betting on horses and wants Claudia to win a disco competition to balance the school budget, too. When the boys team are invited to face off against their superior Russian counterparts, Claudia calls in her dancing girls to be used as a secret weapon.
THE TERRIBLE INSPECTOR (1969)-IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Directed by: Mario Amendola, Cast: Paolo Villaggio, Agostina Belli, Umberto D'Orsi, Elio Crovetto. The ambition of a simple porter to become a real doctor, even though he has no diploma or degree, pushes him to enter the environment he likes so much, even though he has no qualifications!
THE TOUCH (1992)-IN RUSSIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS. Director: Albert S. Mkrtchyan. Rated as the scariest Russian horror movie ever, Prikosnovenie is one of those films viewers don't watch twice -- at least that's what many of them admit online. A low-budget supernatural murder mystery filmed with a bare minimum of homemade special effects succeeds brilliantly in creating a truly inhuman, otherworldly atmosphere you won't want to experience again in a hurry. A detective investigating a series of suspicious suicides realizes too late he might not be dealing with an organized crime group of hypnotists as he first believed....
TRIO (1967)-IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Director:Gianfranco Mingozzi. Stars: Luciano Bartoli, Maurizio Bonuglia, Luigi Casellato. Parallel stories of three young people of the '60s: a Beat singer, former saleswoman at nothing to succeed; the provincial Anna who, in opposition to the family respectability, leads a life very libertine; the introverted and frustrated Enzo putting into practice his criminal tendencies. Awarded at the Cannes Film Festival in 1967.
ULYSSES VS THE SON OF HERCULES (1962)-LETTERBOXED HD PRINT. Throw away that shitty Mill Creek release and revel in this, the way the film should be seen. Georges Marchand, Dominique Boschero and Raf Baldassare star and Mario Caiano directs. By bursting the single eye of the cyclops Polyphème, wife of Poséidon, Ulysses s' attract the lattention of the other gods of Olympus. To punish the courageous navigator,who is on the way home to Ithaca, for his impetuosity, they ask Hercules to bring him back it to Sicily where he will be punished.
VIRILITY (1974)-IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT.By the director of BLACK BELLY OF THE TARANTULA, Paolo Cavara. Cast: Turi Ferro, Agostina Belli, Marc Porel. Turi Ferro, the father in Malizia, is a widower in a small village on an island, who has remarried young and pretty Agostina Belli. For this hypermacho, sex-obsessed conservative, the pinnacle of mirth is to be able to call someone a cornuto, a man who has been cheated by his woman. When his son returns from university, with his girlfriend, the father thinks his son has become gay, because he wrongly assumes that the girlfriend, who is flat chested, has very short hair and wears pants, is a boy. To make this insult to his virility go away, and to avoid becoming the laughing stock of the village, the father drives his young wife and his son into each other's arms, and when they finally give in and make love on the beach, he makes sure the whole village is watching, because it's better being a cornuto than the father of a gay son.
THE WARRIOR EMPRESS (1960)- Top-heavy with wild action scenes and female pulchritude, this Italo/French costume adventure is set in the 7th century B.C. on the island of Lesbos, where the immortal poetess Sappho (Tina Louise) is leading a revolt against the corrupt government of Mytilene led by despotic ruler Melanchrus (Enrico Maria Salerno). Aiding her in overthrowing the yoke of tyranny is the handsome Phaon (Kerwin Mathews). For some reason it is the temple of Aphrodite that is the focus of attention in this supposed battle for the rights of the ordinary people, and not the temple of Mars. Sappho's sexual orientation is a moot point though....
WHISTLE IN THE NOSE (1967)-IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS, LETTERBOXED PRINT. Directed by Ugo Tognazzi, Cast:Ugo Tognazzi, Tina Louise, Marco Ferreri, Janine Reynaud. A successful business man occasionally develops an unusual physical disturbance: his nose whistles, whenever he breathes. Because of this peculiar circumstance, he enters a private, luxurious hospital. The whistle is cured, but new problems, real or unreal, are discovered by the hospital's staff. The man loses his confidence and vitality progressively. In a steady progression, he is first requested, then forced to move from one floor to another. Each floor is less elegant than the lower one, the staff is less appealing and courteous, the independence of the man reduced. At last, he has only the caring company of his lover to comfort him, amidst the indifference of his family.
THE WHITE SPIDER (1963) LETTERBOXED HD PRINT WITH 5 EXTRA MINUTES OF FOOTAGE! Highly enjoyable Krimi done in the Edgar Wallace style complete with series favorites like director Harald Reinl and stars Joachim Fuchsberger and Karin Dor, one of four adaptations from novels by Louis Weinert-Wilton. Dor plays a recent widow whose gambler husband is tied to a recurring white spider trinket and a sinister man of many disguises played with gusto by Dieter Eppler. Also starring Horst Frank, Werner Peters, and Chris Howland, with a catchy score by Peter Thomas.
