The Fifth Cord

THE FIFTH CORD (Giornata nera per l'ariete) from 1971 is one of my new favorite giallo films. (This blog is rapidly becoming a giallo blog!)  Like STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER, it represents things all giallo films should have. Featured here are beautiful women, a strong crime mystery element, a dashing investigator, and of course J&B whiskey which is a personal favorite of mine now that I've seen it in so many films. :::grin:::

The plot is classic gialli. A woman is killed and the search is on for her killer. But then more and more bodies start piling up and the search becomes more frantic as the awesome Franco Nero's drunk reporter character tries to solve the goings on before more deaths occur.


Nero is great in this. I've been a fan for a while and really need to track down more of his performances. He's like the Italian Clint Eastwood in the Dirty Harry era. Something like that. He has this machismo that always has me thinking, "I really should aim to be more like Nero in life." heh

But, the wondrous Silvia Monti really set me spinning here. She's striking. She has that classic Italian beauty that makes her look like she's been crafted out of bronze. But...I digress. :) She's fantastic in the film and the tensions between her and Nero are fun to watch play out.

The pace of the film and the writing really keep this film rolling along. Characters are introduced in interesting ways and, as the events play out, I was really making an effort to figure out was was going on and why. It didn't disappoint!

Luigi Bazzoni's direction was super solid. I was actually rather surprised to see that he only had 12 film credits to his name - two of which were shorts and 5 others documentaries. He seemed to really know his stuff. I need to seek more out.

The film has a great style to it overall. Things are very interesting visually, but not over the top and overdone. It just seemed like there were some real thinkers on set and that they wanted to take some risks and make an effort to make something that stood out.

And they did! THE FIFTH CORD is well worth a viddy!

Mario Bava Movie Mash

I recently checked out for more Mario Bava films. I'm a huge fan of THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH and BLACK SABBATH. A BAY of BLOOD is always a hoot as well, that strange film. I wanted to add some more titles to my list to get a good feel for Bava's works. The lighting and camera style is always pleasing and I wanted to see if it carried through to his other movies. It seems like it does!

I didn't love these films like I loved the work above, but they were good to see. They held my interest and some where so strange and crazed that they seemed like the stuff of nightmares. Pulled from someone's bad dream and placed on film. Rather cool if you dig that style.

And, as with this years new change, I'm going to keep these reviews short, sweet and to the point.




LISA and the DEVIL (1973)
This was a strange one for sure. Elke Sommer plays Lisa who stumbles her way through the streets of Italy and bumps into Telly "Who Loves Ya, Baby" Savalas who is buying a mannequin in some shop. And, oddly, that's not the strange part. SOMEHOW, Lisa gets lost again and....oh man....
Lisa ends up in a spooky mansion with a strange, Bava cast of characters including Telly again. The dummy he purchased is real....then it's not. There's a blind woman...but she's not blind. Her son...who seems.....not sane.  More dummy action. More crazy Telly WITH signature lollipop (KOJAK was in full swing in 1973).
This film had me wondering WHAT was going on out loud several times and I had to push through in some areas, but then the cool factor came into play. The film is bonkers, but it seems like a dream or nightmare. It has dream logic throughout and that makes it interesting and worth a viddy.

 

5 DOLLS for an AUGUST MOON (1970)
This was the weakest in this group for sure. I wasn't invested at all. There's a plot that had me yawning and at one point - I'll be honest, I wasn't watching at all. A group of people at a beach house and a plot to get a load of money. People die. :::shrug:::  The end. Not for me.

"He didn't like us, Dear. Stop writhing around and get me another drink."   :)

KILL BABY, KILL (1966)
Back on the dream logic train! WHOOO WHOOOOOOOOOOO!   :)
This is a very HAMMER feeling piece. Three years after SABBATH, this film has a similar feel -  a turn-of-the-century Carpathian village. Spooky ally shots, fog and the signature Bava lighting and shadows had me smiling. This small town has a ghost going round exacting vengeance. People in town are dispatched in various, bloody ways as a small ghost child peers through windows 32 years before the ghost of Sadako crawls out of the well in THE RING. :)

The dashing doctor and the ravishing blonde have to find out what's going on in Villa Graps before they are dispatched as well.
Fun story and some great visuals here for sure.

 
HATCHET for the HONEYMOON (1970)
Again, 30 years before Patrick Bateman in AMERICAN PSYCHO, there was John Harrington in HATCHET. More mommy issues and crazy, dashing dudes in this thriller. But, they do the same American Psycho deal here - not the classic giallo black glove killer treatment. We know dude is crazy right from the start. HE tells us he is. He's bonkers and hates his wife. However, things take a few interesting turns as the cops try to catch the killer cat and mouse style. Fun stuff.

AMERICAN PSYCHO

HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON

"I'm a winner."

So, I think the winner here was KILL BABY, KILL because it was the most consistent and steady with a solid story and some really creepy shots. The nightmare feel was strong and the lighting rang the BAVA BELL - light and dark, shadows and colors that I just eat up with a spoon! :) LISA and the DEVIL was fun as well, but in a more wacky vein. It's a strange one.



Bava is still up there in my top Horror Director list. 

All of these are available on NETFLIX STREAMING as of the time of this posting.

Rod Serling

I was sitting here watching television when a commercial came on for THE TWILIGHT ZONE. My wife, mother-in-law and I talked about how great the show was and how amazing Rod Serling was as a creator and innovator of the television medium.

Writer, producer, novelist, actor and more, Serling was a fantastic influence on television and the art of storytelling.A paratrooper in the Philippians in the 40s, Serling lived through the war and survived to move on to radio and slid into the ground floor of television. He carved out a little spot for himself in Kraft Television Theater and onward and upward from there.

In 1959, Serling spearheaded THE TWILIGHT ZONE. His first series was a success and went on for five seasons. Science Fiction and Fantasy filled the ZONE with fantastic flights of fancy from some of the best writers in the industry at the time including Serling himself. Eventually, he ended up selling the series to CBS due to the fact that he wasn't able to consistently make money on the project. He wanted his own studio and production company and was willing to give up THE TWILIGHT ZONE to get it.

In 1969, THE NIGHT GALLERY was born. Evidently, he gave up much of the creative control to Jack Laird and regretted it later. However, it was worth it. The Night Gallery was a fantastic dive into a darker realm than the Twilight Zone lived in. The Night Gallery was creepy, full of shadows and scary. Again, Serling penned over a third of the stories himself, but also had the cream of the crop writing for him as well.

Serling returned to radio in 1973 to host The Zero Hour - a radio drama program that featured tales of mystery, suspense and adventure.  He even wrote some of the scripts. You can still listen to the show in podcast form, though the quality is a bit dodgy. 


Serling was involved in a lot more than writing and feature creation. He was an activist and a go getter. He was anti-war and pro racial equality. But, you can look all of that up on the WIKI.

Serling was an amazing thinker who was ahead of his time in many ways. People aim for innovative television series' like The Twilight Zone and The Night Gallery today and, while there are some great shows being produced, they don't break ground like Serling broke in the 50s, 60s and 70s. If death did not take him at age 50, he might have gone on to produce more amazing work in the 80s and 90s. Sadly, we'll never know.

I would have loved a paring of Serling and King or Serling and Clive Barker somehow. Something deep and dark and hard hitting.

Today's J.J Abrams types are fantastic, but much of the ground that they walk on is pathed by the likes of the genius, talent and exploration of Mr. Rod Serling.

Rod Serling. December 25, 1924 – June 28, 1975.

Happy Birthday!






Twilight Zone - Time Enough at Last Part One

Pulp Cover Artwork

I loved the era of the beautiful pulp covers. Wild illustrations and paintings that were designed to grab the attention of passers by - usually aimed a a male market with lovely ladies in peril.

The time and effort spent on the creation of original art for these covers is magical to me. And the stories within their pages were sometimes created by writers that were at the top of their game and free to play with strange themes and wild fits of imagination.

Take a look at some of these amazing covers.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil_Finlay

 The magazine above had several stories and poems within it. 

Serials/Complete Novels: The Vampire Master [Part 1 of 4]..........Hugh Davidson Novelettes: The House of the Worm..........Mearle Prout The Mansion of Unholy Magic..........Seabury Quinn The Pool of the Black One..........Robert E. Howard Short Stories: The Black, Dead Thing..........Frank Belknap Long The Festival..........H. P. Lovecraft [Weird Tales Reprint] The Plutonian Terror..........Jack Williamson The Seed from the Sepulcher..........Clark Ashton Smith Short Fiction: The Cat-Woman..........Mary Elizabeth Counselman Poems: The Ultimate Word..........Marion Doyle

Robert Bloch of PSYCHO fame