Slave Girls (1967)

Title		Slave Girls (AKA Prehistoric Women)
Origin		UK, 1967
Genre		Adventure: Cavegirl
Director		Michael Carreras
Starring		Martine Beswick, Edina Ronay, Michael Latimer
Music		Carlo Martelli
Blurb		Beaten into submission ... turned into slaves ... man at the mercy of a Kingdom of Prehistoric Women!

In 1966 Hammer produced One Million Years BC, and Raquel Welch's iconic performance made it a surprise smash hit. This classic still holds up well even today. The following year came Slave Girls, Martine Beswick this time, having already proved her catfighting cavegirl credentials, taking the starring role. In as much as it is remembered at all, this quickie follow-up is remembered for all the wrong reasons. Recently it gained a new lease of life after being included (under the title Prehistoric Women) in the Optimum Hammer collection, a selection much to the disgust of many sour and humourless individuals. Never having seen it before I was keen to give it an independent evaluation.

Our hero is David Marchant (Michael Latimer), an African game hunting guide. It sounds like every man's dream existence, but escorting doltish tourists into the jungle when they cannot even shoot straight is not giving David job satisfaction.

The story begins when an unusually boorish would-be hunter fires at but only wounds a leopard. Kind-hearted David stalks the suffering animal into the trees to put it out of its misery.

Ominous rhinocerous.

A sly over-the-shoulder glance to see if that girl's pants have fallen all the way down yet.

Temple of the White Rhinocerous - careful of what you touch!

Delving deeper into the jungle David notices strange carvings on the trees. They are the symbol of the Cult of the White Rhinocerous, and a warning that "Pale Ones" should stay away. Inevitably the hunter himself is soon bagged by a hunting party of natives. They further emphasise to him the importance of the Cult of the White Rhinocerous. Indeed a mountain is even shaped in the form of a giant rhinocerous, and the tribesmen point at it. It looks like David may have to die.

The party approach a clearing with their white captive. Watching cautiously from the shadows they observe a group of dancers arrive. At this point, just short of ten minutes in, a staid and relatively normal build-up suddenly turned, to my great delight, completely insane. And the madness doesn't let up until the very end.

It probably looked sensible enough on paper. The High Priest and his acolytes, in ceremonial robes and rhino masks, lead out the procession of dancers. The drums beat, and the dancers gyrate vigorously. (One girl's pants gyrate so vigorously they slip down her hips exposing part of her bottom cleavage. Back in 1967 this must have been very stimulating. In 2009, I am pleased to confirm, it is still very stimulating!) On screen the effect defies description. It is pure delirium. We will be seeing many more such dance numbers, almost enough to make it a musical.

The dancing reaches its climax and the High Priest has David dragged into a cave. The Temple of the White Rhinocerous! So this is the end - David is going to be sacrificed after all. And to put the finishing touch on a really bad day, it has started to rain.

In paradise with a beautiful bird.

No need for any more crap bird jokes, there's a proper one here!

If you're going to get beaten up you might as well enjoy it.

Suddenly things go "a bit like Doctor Who" and David slips away through a time warp into the past. Blimey! This new world seems a lot better than the old one, and not just because it's stopped raining. You could almost call it a paradise. Think of the home of the Shell People in 10⁶yBC. Because that's almost exactly what it is, the sets and costumes having been recycled from Hammer's earlier epic.

And what manner of delicate creature do we have here? It's Saria (Edina Ronay). She is strangely beautiful, with huge white eyes, and such heavy brow ridges that I bet you'd find pure Neanderthal in her bloodline if you went back two or three generations. She is fated to be David's principal love interest, but for now she just thumps him. Not always a bad sign, and he's going to have to get used to being thumped on a regular basis anyway.

By the Pool First encounter with Queen Kari.

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Such as by a tribe of darker and less attractive women. They drag him in front of their Queen Kari (Martine Beswick). She happens to be bathing by a waterfall, completely in the nude. She eyes David curiously and cheerfully teases him for not wearing proper clothes. I can't help thinking they got this bit the wrong way around. At least Kari seems to have taken a bit of a fancy to him, and this should give him some leverage later on.

The women of the tribe of Dark Ones, under the dominion of Queen Kari, have enslaved the women of the tribe of Fair Ones. Meaning the Dark Ones wear leather and carry whips, and the Fair Ones wear antelope-skin bikinis and must perform cheesy dance numbers for Her Majesty whenever the whim takes her. Oh, and each is also destined to one day become a Bride of the White Rhinocerous (ie. a ritual human sacrifice).

Hard at work in the men's room.

The ceremony of selection. "The bride will be..."

"...Amyak!"

So where are the menfolk in all this? Locked away in a cave that's where. And manacled to the bellows too - if they're lucky! An elderly gentleman (who could be the inspiration for the "It's" man from Monty Python) fills David in on the details. It appears that the Fair Ones were once the masters, but pride and vanity were their downfall. Can David help the men break free and overthrow the rule of cruel Queen Kari and her Cult of the White Rhinocerous? Or do you reckon he doesn't stand a chance and you might as well just switch off right now?

Martine Beswick is perfect in the role as the wicked and domineering beauty, equally at home in a catfight as soaking in a bubble-bath. Or even having strange concourse with mysterious spirits lurking in the jungle! In fact the cast all perform their parts well, at least judged on the film's own terms. It actually seems to help that all the beauties are a bit "different" looking. Such as Amyak (Stephanie Randall), a slim, ramrod-straight blonde who never smiles. Not once, ever, in her whole life. Her girlfriends bedeck her with feathers, flowers and sea-shells, but still she never smiles. It didn't stop me starting to fancy her though.

The pace is steady and compelling throughout, director (and screenwriter) Michael Carreras keeping up an unrelenting barrage of ludicrous imagery and situations. And all in deadly earnest with not even a hint of irony. Even the fact that the action is entirely confined to the studio becomes not so much a flaw but another aspect of otherworldliness. Though I'm not so keen on the anamorphic lens that causes such distortion that the image looks as if it's being projected on the side of a biscuit barrel.

Show Must Go On Kari expects the dancing to continue, no matter how flippin' "sad" the women are.

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One high point of daftness occurs when the spokeswoman of the Fair Ones petitions the Queen that they are in no mood to dance after one of their number has died. (Why am I being diplomatic? Kari killed her after she threw a stop over the dining arrangements. See the Slave Girls clip on Youtube). She phrases her request in an absolutely "elite level" silly line.

At last we must leave the world of the prehistoric women, fond memories cemented by a gloriously absurd final moment. I warmly recommend Slave Girls to anyone who just wants to enjoy a film and doesn't insist that judged by some rational standard it is actually any good.

Ratings

Quality: 3/10   Fun: 9/10

Review copy

Publisher		Optimum Releasing
Format		DVD Region 2, PAL 16:9 (2.35:1 letterbox)
Certificate		PG (UK)
Image		Good, slightly grainy. Original anamorphic image is distorted.

Even the Wind is Afraid (1968)

Title	Hasta el viento tiene miedo
Origin	Mexico, 1968
Genre	Horror: Ghost story
Director	Carlos Enrique Taboada
Starring	Alicia Bonet, Marga López, Maricruz Olivier
Music	Raúl Lavista
Blurb	-

This classic ghost story from Mexico is set in an exclusive girls-only boarding school. If you are even now starting to picture scenes of girls under communal showers and of music lessons turning into impromptu stripteases then maybe this film is not for you.

But if you want to see a beautifully made, atmospheric and suspenseful story then Even the Wind is Afraid could hardly be a better choice. Not only does it provide a few genuinely frightening moments, but watching this attractive cast in such an expertly crafted piece of work leaves one with the warm feel-good glow of satisfaction of seeing a job done almost to perfection.

Taking a closer look, the needs of school uniform fetishists seem well catered for. But at this establishment we find a situation, not uncommon in popular cinema, where the girls appear to stay on until their mid-twenties and have to squeeze into blazers at least two sizes too small. Never mind, at least the teachers are a believable age and will provide fantasy material for those amongst us with a headmistress fetish.

Claudia has a terrible dream about a girl dead by hanging.

Kitty and Marina visit - the doctor has prescribed bed rest.

No-nonsense Miss Bernarda has a few choice words for this doctor's advice.

The story opens with Claudia (Alicia Bonet) waking from a terrifying dream about a girl hanging dead from the rafters. And we haven't even reached the opening titles yet. Did I say something about this being a feel-good film? Well, this is a ghost story after all, so you've got to expect things like this to happen from time to time.

Claudia is confined to bed to recover from the shock. But, doctor's orders notwithstanding, headmistress Miss Bernarda (Marga López) won't put up with girls lying around in bed just because they've had a nasty dream (the subtitles make her manner of expression unintentionally coarse) and orders Claudia back to her algebra classes where she belongs.

Not surprisingly, martinet Miss Bernarda is unpopular with the girls. They much prefer soft-touch Miss Lucia (Maricruz Olivier). And what's not to love about a schoolmistress who takes the time to come and chat with a girl when she's with her chums under the showers? If she did that for me then I'm sure I'd go all gooey about her too!

Outside the haunted tower, Ivette is the most daring.

Claudia leads the girls upwards.

In serious trouble with Miss Bernarda.

On with the story. It is revealed that this school has a haunted tower in the grounds. "So what?" you say, all good schools have one of those. In fact send your daughter to a school without a haunted tower and you might just as well have her declared educationally subnormal on the spot and hand her over to the social services. But it appears that tales of this haunted tower might just be for real and, the door being found unlocked one morning, a supernatural presence is conspiring to draw the girls within.

Even though it is forbidden, the schoolmates dare each other to climb the tower. In a deliciously creepy scene Claudia leads a crocodile of frightened girls as it winds its way slowly up the creaking wooden staircase. But - alas! - Miss Bernarda catches them just as they are reaching the top. The stern headmistress orders the half-dozen miscreants to her study and administers what she would probably refer to herself as a "bollocking".

This is where the trouble really starts. To the girls' horror, Miss Bernarda punishes them by keeping them at school over the half-term holiday. So we can safely blame wishy-washy liberal educationalists for the tragedy that follows. If only the school had maintained a proper regime of corporal punishment none of this would have happened. And this film, though rather shorter, would have had a much heightened audience appeal.

So the frustrated girls are left to stew in the oppressive hothouse atmosphere. Oh, and Josefina (Elizabeth Dupeyrón) decides she'll be staying too. She's obviously some sort of poor-as-a-church-mouse scholarship girl if her domestic circumstances are so wretched that staying at school seems tolerable by comparision. Josie is disliked by her classmates, but Miss Bernarda is fond of her and asks her to do her favours so that sort of makes up for it.

I won't say more about the plot. Suffice it to say that this haunting is effective due to suspense and eerie atmosphere rather than blood and shocks. The wind gusting through the school gardens is a recurrent motif. A scene in the school chapel is a fantastic example of the Spanish gothic style. The only weakness is that the theme has become too familiar in recent times, and the conclusion, as is common with tales of the supernatural, seems a little weak in comparison to the build-up.

Even the Wind is Afraid is a classic piece of work. Made on studio sets in traditional style, masterful craftsmanship is evident throughout. This can seem artificial by today's standards (even the outdoor scenes are studio-bound), but even a genius of the calibre of Alfred Hitchcock would have been proud of it.

Ratings

Quality: 9/10   Fun: 10/10

A favourite scene to download

Why are the girls in civvies? What about those smart school uniforms? Well, Bernarda and Lucia are "out on the razz" tonight and have left the girls to their own devices. They can't get themselves into too much trouble as long as they know Josefina will tell on them.

Josefina the sneak.	"Hrrmmphhh!"	Kitty's idea of "fun".
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But the schoolmistresses reckoned without naughty-girl Kitty (Norma Lazareno). She frequently exhibits behaviour that would get her thrown out of a Turkish brothel let alone an exclusive school for girls. Putting aside morbid tales of ghosts, for tonight's entertainment in the music room Kitty decides she will provide the star turn herself - nothing less than a STRIPTEASE!

And if you're shocked at that, just wait till you see the looks on the faces of the other girls! They react like Kitty's biting the heads off small songbirds in front of their very eyes. Wonderful!

Review copy

Publisher	Unlicensed
Format	DVD Region 0, PAL 4:3 (1.66:1 letterbox)
Certificate	-
Image	Acceptable sub-VHS, incorrectly letterboxed by squashing so everyone looks squat. Fan sub-titles are welcome but a bit rough.

Zenabel (1969)

Title	Zenabel
Origin	Italy, 1969
Genre	Adventure: Comedy
Director	Ruggero Deodato
Starring	Lucretia Love, Mauro Parenti, Lionel Stander, John Ireland
Music	Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai
Blurb	-

Something for the Dads Zenabel, friends, cow and udders.

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Here's a saucy piece of swashbuckling adventure, adapted from a popular comic book, and directed by Ruggero "Cannibal Holocaust" Deodato. This bad-boy of Italian cinema has quite a following, yet in one lengthy forum discussion I read recently there was not a single mention of Zenabel.

Which is a shame as it's a whole lot of fun. We open up in gloriously rustic style with a group of beautiful maidens peeling off their garments and splashing into a river by a picturesque waterfall. In slow motion, to vibrant and unusual theme music. Talk about starting as you mean to go on! One glance at this and no red-blooded male could fail to sit down and watch to the end (in fact I stood so transfixed it took me twenty minutes to realise I hadn't actually got round to sitting down yet).

I think featuring the cow was truly inspired. It adds a homely touch yet is indefinably kinky at the same time (in real life it would inevitably have laid its pats in the water and the girls would have had to get out). All this nudity is even relevant to the plot, because the next scene is about women bathing by a waterfall with nothing on.

The story is set in Spain in the seventeenth century or thereabouts. Fair Zenabel (Lucretia Love), secretly of aristocratic stock, has her inheritance usurped by the evil Baron Don Alonso (John Ireland). So she raises an army of virgins to fight for her birthright. Along the way many women will show off their charms, and many men will be made fools of. Zenabel has a couple of male sidekicks whom she tries to make wear dresses. One is a strange-looking beanpole (probably a glandular complaint), the other is played by grizzly Lionel Stander, Max from Hart to Hart. Fans of his will be delighted to see him at one point strip down to a ridiculous pair of underpants!

Bum Pleasure Wicked Zenny gets her just deserts.

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Soon Zenabel's army clashes with a horde of bandits, much to the men's derision. But when their leader Gennaro (Mauro Parenti) contemptuously dares her to shoot him in the backside she actually goes ahead and does so. Lucky for him her rifle blew up in her face - and blimey did she look sheepish! Zenny makes haste in any direction but his, and in one of his occasional avant-gardeisms Deodato turns the camera upside down and has Zenny scarpering across the sky.

Justice must prevail and happily the Bandit King chases down the Virgin Queen and soon has her at his mercy. Hmm, what is her punishment to be? Pull her pants down that's right, take your belt to her and give that bare bottom a damn good thrashing! Argghh no you fool, don't perform a "sex act" on her! So not only does he throw away a golden opportunity with no more than a playful slap, but considering that later on Zenny is still claiming to be a virgin he also forfeits his right to call himself a gentleman. Bah!

Torture Chamber Zenny is forced to suffer the Baron's knob jokes.

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Mostly the tone is of light comedy, with many scenes of nudity (usually with discreet covering of the rudest bits). The more restrained scenes have just one or two women naked at a time, sometimes there's a whole screenful of them. This is boob and bum lovers' heaven! One fine set-piece has a pack of nudes hunted through the woods with horses and dogs.

Sometimes a slightly darker tone takes over, such as a very gothic scene in a torture chamber. Zenabel is at the Baron's mercy, but the worst she has to suffer is too much phallic innuendo. The jokes surely suffer in translation, but I suspect as usual they were on the weak side in Italian too.

Deodato's direction is lively enough, though not especially distinctive. Production design and locations are effective, despite the feeling there was not a lot of money to work with. The music is modern in style, and the standard is very variable, but the main themes are rich, bold and enhance the mood.

By far the film's greatest asset is its star Lucretia Love herself. She is beautiful and vivacious, and can act her part as well. She truly is the Queen, Zenabel!

Ratings

Quality: 7/10   Fun: 8/10

Review copy

Publisher	Unlicensed
Format	DVD Region 0, PAL 4:3
Certificate	VM 14 (Italy)
Image	English dub, Greek subtitles, weak VHS transfer from NTSC source

Mondo Candido (1975)

Title	Mondo candido
Origin	Italy, 1975
Genre	Adventure: Comedy
Director	Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco Prosperi
Starring	Christopher Brown, Michelle Miller, Jacques Herlin
Music	Riz Ortolani
Blurb	-

Most notorious for their shockumentary pieces such as Mondo Cane and Africa Addio, Italians Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi took on a literary adaptation for their final collaboration. Voltaire's classic of the enlightenment Candide seems an unlikely basis for exploitation cinema. But this scurrilous satire, once suppressed as obscene, is such a vast blank canvas for images of sex, violence, and just plain blowing things up it's a wonder no-one thought of it before.

Voltaire's aim was to poke fun at the optimistic world view of German philosopher Leibniz. To test it to the limits of absurdity, the philosophy of Dr. Pangloss is summed up by the motto of "all is for the best, in the best of all possible worlds". His pupil, the innocent young Candide, is naïve enough to follow this creed throughout the wars and disasters of the mid-eighteenth century. That philosophical spat may be forgotten, but paste in a backdrop of the conflicts and crises of today and the work must still have relevance. And it's obvious how it would appeal to a pair of cynical Mondo merchants.

Things start off quite faithful to the original. The fabulous fairy-tale castle of Château de Pierrefonds stands in for the seat of the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh (Gianfranco D'Angelo) in Westphalia. Alongside his sweetheart the Baron's pure and chaste daughter Cunegonda (Michelle Miller), Candido (Christopher Brown) lives a charmed life under the philosophy of his tutor Dr. Pangloss (Jacques Herlin). He's free to prance about the gardens making an absolute fanny of himself without raising so much as a snigger from passers-by. An ideal world indeed. During these frolics he may happen to encounter artistic tableaux such as a recreation of Manet's Dejeuner sur l'herbe. Already we have established that anachronisms will be tolerated and are even welcome, and that a subject has a greater chance of being included if it offers opportunities for nudity.

Harvesting fruit Pangloss & Paquette (Sonia Viviani) bonking up a ladder.

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Things are about to go all pear-shaped for Candido. Pangloss wanders through the orchard meditating, with his usual back-to-front logic, on the principle of circumference and all things round. He spies peasant girl Sonia Viviani up a ladder picking apples. In particular he spies her magnificently round bare behind and cannot resist the temptation. Cunegonda, aboard a swing, looks on and is intrigued.

Wouldn't it be nice to try something like that with Candide? Contriving an accident, she launches herself off the swing (in slow motion, and set to music) and lands with her legs wrapped around the neck of the innocent young soul. He may be shocked, but seems in no hurry to wrest himself free. By the time a furious procession of grotesques arrives from the castle he has his head firmly jammed up his sweetheart's skirts and is refusing to come out.

Exiled! Now Pangloss's philosophy will be put firmly to the test as Candido is forced to make his own way in the world. Press-ganged by the Prussian army, Voltaire's horror of militarism is illustrated by the troops' suicidal toughening-up exercises in readiness for a futile battle. Against the vast opposing army they are mere cannon fodder, and lots of things get smashed up, set on fire, and blown sky-high (some by anachronistic tanks).

Castle Invasion Hells Angels play fast and loose with the kitchen-maids.

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How are things going with Cunegonda in the meantime? Left alone in her castle chambers she plays the part of a typical Seventies bimbo, dancing in carefree style to pop music surrounded by the latest electrical gadgets.

This idyll cannot last forever. The castle is invaded! Demonic knights are pictured as Hell's Angels rampaging through the kitchens on motorbikes, terrorising the maids and (very important) ripping off their clothes.

This may seem a severe test for the world view of Pangloss. How can the castle being razed to the ground be "for the best"? But the crazy doctor not only has no trouble incorporating the disaster into his philosophy, he welcomes it gleefully. Of course it's for the best, even himself catching syphilis is "for the best"!

Inquisition Meatgrinders, nude nuns, wimples and figleaves.

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After harrowing adventures Candido returns to the castle, only to find that it's fallen into the hands of the Inquisition, and they are staging an auto-da-fé

Obviously this is an irresistible opportunity for any film-makers inclined towards exploitation to indulge themselves, and this is one of the principal set-pieces. Nuns stripped down to their wimples are handed out figleaves before being flattened in screw-presses, put through meat-grinders, and tied up in sacks full of cats and dogs. Amongst other things...

But Cunegonda is here! She dances to a rock band led by her idol Attila. Alas, Candido is to discover that his sweetheart is not as pure and chaste as he believed. Mortified, he is told that not only has she been repeatedly raped, she enjoyed it too!

This is to be the parting of the ways for the lovers, and the beginning of the second phase of the story. Cunegonda heads off to America, while Candido sets off in a distant pursuit accompanied by his faithful African slave.

Outdoor Shower Candido pursues Cunegonda amongst the girls of the IDF.

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This second half is also a parting of the ways between the original and the adaptation. The wars of the eighteenth century are replaced with contemporary conflicts in Northern Ireland and Israel.

In perhaps the visual (and musical) highlight of the film female soldiers of the IDF clash with Arab freedom fighters. Caught unawares after a shower the girls give battle still only partly clothed, in one case even blasting away with a machine gun completely naked. In symbolic futility the two armies mutually slaughter each other, their bodies left littering a field of poppies to the fading strains of one of the masterworks of Riz Ortolani.

Such an unusual mix of literature and exploitation is difficult to sum up. It's a work that is obviously aimed at a wide audience rather than a narrow arthouse crowd. As such the directors need to be judged not by the faithfulness of the adaptation, or the relevance of the ideas explored, creditable enough though these are.

The primary appeal of Mondo Candido is the richness of the imagery that it contains. There is an almost ceaseless parade of startling and original tableaux to compel the attention, and composer Ortolani excels himself in accompanying the images with some magnificently florid themes to round out the sensory experience. No fan of European cinema, arthouse or trash, will want to miss it.

Ratings

Quality: 9/10   Fun: 8/10

Review copy

Publisher	Unlicensed
Format	DVD Region 0, NTSC 4:3 (slight letterboxing)
Certificate	VM 18 (Italy)
Image	Acceptable but washed-out VHS transfer.

Murder Obsession (1981)

Title	Follia omicida
Origin	Italy, 1981
Genre	Giallo: Horror
Director	Riccardo Freda
Starring	Stefano Patrizi, Silvia Dionisio, Anita Strindberg, Laura Gemser
Music	Franco Mannino
Blurb	-

Riccardo Freda was over seventy when he directed this his final completed work. Always adapting to the times, the Italian maestro moved through the genres of costume drama, peplum, gothic horror, and finally the giallo. Murder Obsession could be regarded as his summing up of his career.

This one even begins on a film set, the fictional director Hans (Henri Garcin) always carrying a camera with him which he calls his "third eye". He also has "Director" written on his chair in childish letters with a marker pen, and allows his assistant's dog to run free between takes. Welcome to the world of Freda, and his often slapdash approach to his art.

The star of the film-within-a-film is also the star of our real one. Stefano Patrizi plays Michael Stanford, thirtyish, a successful lead actor so we are told. His role-within-a-role is as a leather-gloved strangler, jumping out on starlet Beryl (Laura Gemser), ripping off her top, and getting so murderously into the part that it goes well beyond the bounds of method acting. Everyone is shocked by Beryl's near-death experience, but it was the last scene anyway so the director just calls "print it". But Michael is mortified - where did all that rage come from? Could he be destined to suffer it again and again, until he finally kills someone for real?

The shoot wrapped up, Michael relaxes alone at home, strumming his guitar and singing (in English) a ballad, or judging by his interpretation, possibly a dirge. Proving he can manipulate items of furniture just as ineptly as guitar strings, Michael destroys a drawer and some photos fall out. Photos of Mother! It's a surprise and almost a relief to find a character in a psychological thriller so indifferent to his mother that he hasn't bothered seeing her for nigh on twenty years, and whose memories of her hold nothing but fondness. So this is going to be a very short film is it? About ten minutes?

But what the hell, Michael decides he'll go to see his mother (Anita Strindberg) anyway, and he'll take his girlfriend Deborah (Silvia Dionisio) with him too. It's while driving there that we get a hint of the truth: Michael has some serious Father problems. In a strange flashback reverie, Michael and his mother sit watching a formal concert (the dark atmosphere and high-backed chairs are very reminiscent of the "family torture" sequence in Fulci's Lizard) conducted by his father, the "Maestro". Bizarrely, grown Michael is the very image of his father down to the last facial hair, yet Michael aged ten looks nothing like him with his curly blonde locks. And he's staring at his father with absolute daggers! Father then collapses with a badly feigned heart attack. It's all beginning to look very Oedipal.

Michael swerves the Landrover off the road at this point. Events are conspiring to make Michael look like a cack-handed moron, though I'm sure that wasn't the intention. Things like this have to happen in bad films just to keep the story moving along. But it has to be said that Stefano Patrizi is rather poor in the role. Presumably he was the best they could come up with after all the money was spent on assembling such a solid crew of totty.

Eventually Michael and Debs make it to his mother Glenda's isolated mansion. She lives in this decaying pile alone, tended to only by eccentric and rather sinister servant Oliver (John Richardson). Soon the rest of the folks from the film-crew turn up too - Hans, Shirley (Martine Brochard) and Beryl (looking very un-glam in a yellow rain-jacket). Glenda, though more than delighted to see Michael, is unimpressed by the rest of this bunch. Especially poor Debs!

So let the murders commence. I'll spare you any more plot exposition. We've got our haunted house, filled it with our cast of fair maidens and homicidal head-cases, so who needs a credible plot anyway? Certainly not Riccardo Freda! For him it's all about the pictures.

Nighttime in his world is for lightning storms and candelabras. Disembodied footprints pace the stairs. There are zombies, bats and giant Satanic spiders. All clichés, bad ones too, but orchestrated by the Maestro into an almost musical symphony of delirium.

Forest of thorns.

Magical ceremony.

Arachnid sexual harrassment.

A dream sequence goes on for so long it has time to be interrupted by another dream sequence. This short scene, an austerely beautiful magical ritual in a deep crypt of flickering shadows, is perhaps the highlight of the film, and I was disappointed that there was not more in this sublime gothic style. I was eagerly anticipating a very special visual concoction saved up for the ending, and Freda certainly did not let me down!

Freda freely borrows imagery from other horror films, and even directly quotes himself. Such as the small yappy dog zipping up and down the staircase from Double Face, or my favourite, the black leather-gloved hand cutting the circuit-breaker from Tragic Ceremony. Are these deliberate homages, or has he simply run out of ideas? Who can tell, and when the final mix is so effective, who really cares?

Veteran scream-queen Silvia Dionisio is pretty and charming as principal babe. Though Debs being often somewhat put-upon, she's sometimes required to act a little tetchy, and her mouth goes all crooked. Laura Gemser, clearly cast for her name only, is functional, though wisely she is given little to do besides take off her clothes. Anita Strindberg, perhaps perturbed at being cast as practically a grandmother, seems unsure about how to play her role until her character becomes more clearly defined as the story progresses. All three ladies undress frequently enough to maintain interest, though not so often as to move into brown-paper wrapper territory. The rest of the cast make little impact.

There are a few gore effects but they are amusingly bad (an interview with rather sheepish effects man Sergio Stivaletti is included on the disc). At one point a character was bumped off without my even realising it. I thought it was a sort of subliminal flashback and it looked cool. Truth is the effect was so poor it didn't bear holding on screen for longer than three frames.

The music is a little odd, being a mixture of electronic riffs, classics from Bach, and some ponderously clanking contemporary piano pieces. Overall it's effective enough in producing an uncanny atmosphere.

I warmly recommend Murder Obsession to the more forgiving gothic horror fan who doesn't mind his films a touch ropey, and almost completely insane.

Unfortunately this edition from Raro Video is sub-standard. It's an English dub, with some restored scenes with subtitles only. Obviously mastered from VHS it often shows analogue artefacts such as ragged outlines and flickering horizontal lines. The sound is poor with lots of noise and crackle. The image is cropped top and bottom in pretend "widescreen", sometimes cutting off heads - it happens to Laura Gemser in the very first frame.

Clips for download

Laura Gemser nude (minor spoiler, click for stills):

http://rapidshare.com/files/237589801/Laura-Gemser-in-Murder-Obsession-1.avi
(2:12 minutes, 768x576, 17.1MB)

Anita Strindberg topless (minor spoiler, click for stills):

http://rapidshare.com/files/237457156/Anita-Strindberg-in-Murder-Obsession-1.avi
(1:23 minutes, 768x576, 13.1MB)

On Youtube, Silvia Dionisio is tied to a cross (stills):

Murder Obsession Youtube clip

Ratings

Quality: 4/10   Fun: 9/10

Review copy

Publisher	Raro Video
Format	DVD Region 0, PAL 4:3 (1.85:1 letterbox)
Certificate	18 (UK)
Image	Weak VHS transfer, overly cropped top & bottom

School for Unclaimed Girls (1969)

Title	The Smashing Bird I Used to Know
Origin	UK, 1969
Genre	Drama: Women in prison
Director	Robert Hartford-Davis
Starring	Madeleine Hinde, Patrick Mower, Dennis Waterman, Maureen Lipman
Music	Bobby Richards
Blurb	Where the initiation rites are wrong... Very wrong!

Re-released under the export title which captures its essence rather better, this unusual piece of British exploitation from the tail end of the Sixties wastes no time getting into its swing. Nicki, 16, in an unsettled sleep, suffers her worst (and recurring) nightmare.

She's back at the fairground, aged just 9, taking her first ride on the merry-go-round. Scared, she calls to her father, who reaches for her and falls, his skull crushed beneath the hooves of a mechanical horse as its helpless rider Nicki screams, and her mother looks on in despair.

"I want to get off!" Nicki screamed...

...her father tried to reach her and fell.

What a thing to have on your conscience - all your life!

It seems a bizarre, not to say tasteless, way to kill someone off even written down baldly like that. But on the screen, painted in the wildest psychedelic sensations, it even rivals the hallucinogenic extremes of Italiana such as Fulci's Lizard in a Woman's Skin for lurid excess.

Nicki wakes, only to find herself back in a real life nightmare. She cannot hide from the sounds of her mother's passionate affair with sleazy toyboy Harry Spenton. A more unsatisfactory Daddy-substitute Nicki could not imagine.

So here we have the sense of guilt and the family conflict that will fuel the drama, summarised in one of the most fascinating, if bemusing, opening sequences you're ever likely to see. The title theme is terrific too, if somewhat incongruous, suggesting a slow resolute march towards destiny (with breaks for mellow reflection) rather than the uncertain future of a guilty and troubled schoolgirl on the brink of adulthood.

It's all the more frustrating then that we immediately move into a cringe-inducing sub-soap-opera breakfast-table spat between Nicki and her mother. Anyone familiar with the works of director Robert Hartford-Davis (The Fiend, Incense for the Damned) will be all too familiar with these extremes of unevenness in execution and tone.

Madeline Hinde stars as Nicki, and to be honest she can't really act. She's not truly beautiful either, but still cuts a handsome figure - her jaw looks likes it came off the front of a JCB! She has a strong enough screen presence to play the lead (despite an uncanny knack of changing her appearance entirely with each new camera angle). On the other hand, Renée Asherson as Mummy wouldn't even get a role on Crossroads based on this showing, and Patrick Mower's Spenton is an adequate but shallow and lazy characterisation.

Matters need to be brought to a head quickly if the audience is not to lose interest. A melancholy Nicki sets off to school in her smart uniform (complete with straw boater) but (this well-spoken girl suddenly realising she attends a comprehensive), she turns back at the gates to jump into the sportscar of boyfriend Peter (Dennis Waterman). He isn't the Lothario you might expect - he's quite a nice young man in fact, who works in an up-market antique shop for boss Geoffrey (a wonderfully slimy Derek Fowlds).

But now it's time for the infamous launderette scene (I am grinding my teeth as I write this). Spenton goes and spends an inordinate amount of screen time trying to talk Mummy into investing in a launderette. Perhaps I'm missing out on the context here and this is something that was "of its time". Was "launderette" a word forever on the lips of the "in-crowd" back then? Was ownership of such an establishment a key to membership of the "jet-set"? Whatever, there's way too much of it (and too much of Mower entirely for my liking - the film isn't about him, he is merely a catalyst). But to get to the salient point, wide-boy Spenton is trying to buy the launderette with Nicki's trust-fund money. Oh dear!

Morning, and Nicki feels angry and betrayed.

Playing truant in Dennis Waterman's sports car.

Bitch-slapping Patrick Mower, a bounder and a cad.

Meanwhile, Nicki is making the most of her day's bunking off. Peter drives her to Mummy's riding stables. She takes her horse Dandy out for a gallop on the downs, and the music accompanies her in a glorious explosion of joy. I could almost forget about the launderette business after this! But for Nicki, returning home to find herself alone with the importunate Spenton, this is the first she's heard about what is to happen with the money that was to see her through college. Furious, lashing out, there's a flash of a blade, and then...

This is the incident that puts Nicki in a remand home. It's another infuriating moment. The scene, just as it builds to a blood-soaked climax, suddenly wraps up and jumps forward to place Nicki in the office of psychiatrist Dr. Sands. On reflection it's a wonderfully-done transition, but for the first-time viewer simply baffling and frustrating.

Anyway, it isn't such a bad place for a remand home. Nicki could hardly have hoped for better if Mummy had bundled her off to boarding school, though the clientèle leave something to be desired. Never mind, bubbly up-the-duff Susan (Janina Faye) is nice, and dorm supervisor Miss Waldron (Colette O'Neil) seems stern but fair. Perhaps Nicki is as puzzled as we are by the presence of a young and strikingly pretty Lesley-Anne Down, but research reveals that her character Di attempted suicide (though I've yet to notice the slashed-wrist make-up she is alleged to sport).

The rec. room, new face Nicki, and Lesley-Anne Down with a guitar between her legs.

Maureen Lipman amuses Michelle Cook with a rude but incomprehensible anecdote.

Nearly time for lights out on Miss Waldron's floor - Nicki heads for the bathroom.

Will Nicki be able to look after herself in here? Luckily for her the other actresses were (so the gossip goes) selected by Hartford-Davis by a practical examination in shaggabilty rather than for their commanding physical prowess. In fact I reckon I could smash any one of these girls' faces in (provided I got the first blow in when she wasn't looking). And Nicki attracts the affections of dorm bully Sarah (Maureen Lipman), a lesbian partial to sapphic kisses after lights out. Lying beside Nicki in bed Sarah opens up and tells her story. It's a remarkable tour de force monologue by the young actress, and does a world of good for the film's otherwise slim pretentions towards serious drama.

Otherwise, banal dialogue and wooden acting render much of the time on Miss Waldron's floor clunkingly dull. But occasionally the screen bursts into life in an astounding orgy of excess. Now is a good time to take back any flippant remarks I may have made about the girls' fighting abilities. When one girl attacks another out of jealousy the results could not have been more sudden and devastating if one of them had stepped on a landmine on the way to the lavvy. It's an absolutely thermonuclear catfight, with even the next dorm joining in, bursting pillows and ripping tops everywhere. Watch out for Lesley-Anne Down in pink pyjamas getting stuck in like Minnie the Minx!

Regressing with Dr. Sands.

Post pillow-fight - doesn't seem quite so clever now does it?

Wistful - friendship with Sarah.

Let's return to the more serious side of the story. Being a remand home, not a borstal, the girls are here for assessment, protection and help. When Nicki first arrives she is practically catatonic. It falls upon psychiatrist Dr. Sands, Marnie style, to delve into her past and get her head straight again. Faith Brook is excellent as the sympathetic older woman, reminiscent of Lilli Palmer as Britt Ekland's shrink in Night Hair Child, or Maria Schell as the prison reformer in 99 Women. What with Nicki's guilt over her Daddy's death, and then the stabbing business with Spenton, the doctor really has her work cut out, but begins to make some progress. "I finally got a reaction" she says, putting it mildly. Blimey, "I finally brought on an absolute screaming frenzy of psychedelic recovered memory" would be nearer the mark!

So will Nicki stick it out with the help of Dr. Sands, and risk being sentenced to a spell in borstal? Or will she take up with rebellious Sarah and her plans to escape? This genre being clichéd as it is I don't think I need to answer that one. But can there ever be a truly happy ending for a girl as ill-starred as Nicki?

Judged objectively, this is a very solid B-feature effort. The cast is remarkable for the number of present and future TV stalwarts, the camerawork is expertly fluid and involving, and the photography often beautiful with an unusual pastel palette. Those with better taste than myself might say it was over-scored, but I found that the music by Bobby Richards really helped to drive the story along.

Not surprisingly given its origins the sleaze factor is low by the standards of just a few years later, but there's a sprinkling of nudity, and Valerie Wallace in particular has reason to regret the advent of slow-motion and freeze-frame. I get the feeling Hartford-Davis was too fond of his starlets to subject them to too much real degradation.

Smashing Bird is difficult to sum up. High-points of classic delirium punctuate stretches of leaden banality, its unevenness leaving one reeling in exasperated bewilderment. I wonder how it would have turned out if it had concentrated on the fairly creditable drama at its core rather than emphasising the exploitation angle. Probably too much sanity would have destroyed much of its eccentric charm. I've totally fallen in love with it, and it's near the top of my favourites of any genre.

Clip for download

The classic introductory sequence:

http://rapidshare.com/files/235895784/Intro-from-The-Smashing-Bird-I-Used-to-Know.avi
(3:41 minutes, 480 x 288, 16.9MB)

or the Smashing Bird Intro on Youtube (low quality)

Ratings

Quality: 7/10   Fun: 10/10

Review copy

Publisher	Slam Dunk Media
Format	DVD Region 2, PAL 4:3 (1.66:1 letterbox)
Certificate	18 (UK)
Image	Very good - clean, slightly soft, with attractive colours.