Needed on Blu-ray: Lamberto Bava's IL GIOKO (1999)

I'm as guilty as most when it comes to looking down on new horror movies that are plainly derivative and not much more. However, I've also always appreciated those instances when a new film serves as a kitchen (or mad laboratory) of the genre, mixing up elements from earlier films that one wouldn't necessarily expect to be complementary, somehow producing a mutation that is fraught with familiar touchstones yet original in its approach.

One such film is Lamberto Bava's undeservedly obscure La gioko ("The Game"), his third of four offerings for Reteitalia's brief Italian terror-suspense anthology series Alta Tensione, which ran from June through July 1999. The others in this series, in their original order of broadcast, were Il maestro del terrore (aka THE PRINCE OF TERROR), L'uomo che non voleva moirire (aka THE MAN WHO DIDN'T WANT TO DIE), and Testamente oculare (aka EYEWITNESS). For some reason, Il gioko is misfiled on the IMDb under the title SCHOOL OF FEAR, which is a banal if reasonable enough title, but it seems to contradict the fact that it has never had an English-friendly release anywhere. The original teleplay was a collaboration with three writers with whom Lamberto had worked before: Roberto Gandus (MACABRE and his previous Brivido giallo series of 1987), Dardano Sacchetti (A BLADE IN THE DARK, BLASTFIGHTER, DEMONS and DEMONS 2, DEVILFISH), and Giorgio Stegani (the rebranded La maschera del demonio of 1990). The title of the film itself is tricky, a deliberate misspelling of "il gioco" in the then-timely manner of Stephen King's PET SEMATERY, the misspelling suggesting the word as it might be transcribed or coded by a child.

The pre-credits sequence opens with the story already in progress. It's the proverbial dark and stormy night, bursts of lightning flashing on and off a dreary, almost lunar façade that evokes Villa Graps from Mario Bava's KILL, BABY... KILL! Somewhere inside this educational facility, which is located somewhere near Pisa, a girl in her early teens is shown exploring a series of dark corridors. Sudden shadows and taunting voices goad her into an adjoining laboratory full of jars containing myriad creepy anatomical odds and ends. One of these is accidentally overturned and she flees the noise she has made. She soon finds herself with only one possible exit—by climbing up the bricks-and-mortar tunnel housing a deep well. She undertakes the climb in desperation, clobbered by the pouring rain, but her efforts are ultimately for naught. Her failure dissolves to the bedroom of another girl her own age—this is Anna Giusti (a coolly effective Morena Turchi), the shot opening on a shot of her stuffed toy dog (an important detail) and panning over to the child in bed with teary eyes. Despite her tears, she walks to her rain-lashed window, writes some illegible word on the pane with her finger, then runs back into bed, pulling the cover over her apparent sobbing, an illusion shattered once we cut below the sheet to find her laughing maliciously.

The story proper begins with the early arrival at the school by a new faculty member, Diana Berti (Alessandra Acciai), eager to begin her first day as an Italian Literature instructor. The school itself is upscale and its co-ed pupils are all the children of privileged families. The school uniform, worn by both the boys and girls, is a kind of oversized blazer that suggests the adults they will soon bloom into as well as David Byrne's fat suit from STOP MAKING SENSE. Diana knows she is entering into a delicate situation, replacing a teacher who made a spectacle of her death, and approaches the children gently, explaining that it's her wish to be one of them, to be accepted not only as a teacher but as their friend. At the end of her first day, she meets with the school's principal (a well-cast Daria Nicolodi, still looking good) and her handsy vice-principal (Stefano de Sando), whose abilities to say things sweetly while implying the sour and far worse suggests they might both be graduates of that catty academy in SUSPIRIA. After being "gently" advised by them to dress more conservatively for work in the future, a somewhat shaken Diana returns to her apartment where she grades surprisingly evolved philosophical papers by the students within view of a lovingly preserved teddy bear. Things take a steeply unpleasant turn as the disappearance of the pre-credits classmate becomes known, and as Diana attempts to form a bond with her most gifted student, Anna, who is clearly pursuing this bond for impish reasons of her own. By undertaking explorations of her own, Diana discovers a secret society among her students, whose status she initially respects until she feels herself at the center of the latest of its malicious "games"—one of which may have led her predecessor to self-destruction. One night, after witnessing the apparent rape of a newly-absent student by some of the boys, an hysteria Diana goes to the Principal—and to her incidentally collected police commissioner boyfriend (Jean Hebert)—to report all she knows, but her confessions only lead to making it known that she was only accepted for this teaching position following years of intensive therapy after being raped herself. This traumatic event is randomly cut into the film as a memory that unfolds into sense gradually, much like the red shoes trauma in Argento's TENEBRAE (which Lamberto assistant-directed), and it's given an absurd twist by having Diana dressed as Dorothy in THE WIZARD OF OZ while being chased and assaulted by a malevolent trio wearing amusement park cartoon heads. The empty swimming pool in which she was attacked dovetails nicely with the setting of the well in the pre-credits sequence, even proposing it as a metaphor for that earlier experience.  

Yes. There's a mysterious dwarf in the film also.

The prior elements Il gioko recombines into an interesting new order can be traced back to Roman Polanski's THE TENANT (a protagonist stepping into the life vacated by a suicidal jumper) and Wolf Rilla's VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (the private education of a group of elite-natured children), as well as Narciso Ibañez Serrador's THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED (La residencia) and WHO WOULD KILL A CHILD? (Quien puede mater a un niño?)—the latter of which was first known in America as ISLAND OF THE DAMNED, thus arriving at its own conscious connection with the earlier Rilla film. As I believe the accompanying images show, one of the film's great strengths is the superb, often beautifully composed cinematography of Gianfranco Transunto, who photographed all the Alta Tensione films and two of Lamberto's Brivido giallo titles, HOUSE OF THE OGRE and DINNER WITH A VAMPIRE. As with many Italian films, particularly those made for television, the characters come across as more than realistically attractive and fashionable, but working within that standard, Lamberto has by now become a smooth and skilled professional; he is expert at staging atmospheric set-pieces but he can also put two or more characters together in conversation in ways that don't look awkward, as they sometimes do in certain scenes of SHOCK and his early solo work A BLADE IN THE DARK. The film is also nicely helped along by Simon Boswell's spidery soundtrack.

I was able to view Il gioko as a fan-made disc that added English fan-subs to the duper remains of a television broadcast, with commercial breaks edited out. I can't steer you to that, but a much better-looking copy of the film can be found on YouTube under a Russian title; it's worth checking out for a taste, but you'll probably be driven away by how the soundtrack is constantly overridden by a Russian voice translating the dialogue. We've had Dario Argento's DOOR INTO DARKNESS and Christopher Lee's THEATER MACABRE on DVD and Blu-ray, so why not Lamberto Bava's Brividi giallo and Alta tensione movies as well?

There is an accepted belief about these horror films that they don't really matter because they were made for Italian television as the Italian film industry sank into an abyss from which it has yet to fully recover. I see these films as a lesser, yes, but still important refuge where the surviving artisans the Italian Gothic were continuing to work, to experiment with new ideas, and even to realize some old unfulfilled dreams. For example, THE MAN WHO DIDN'T WANT TO DIE was based on poliziotesschi novelist Giorgio Scernanenco's novel Il centodelitti, an unrealized project of Mario Bava's—scripted by Gianfranco Clerici, the author of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST! I might have chosen to write about it instead, but I've never found this grueling drama with English subtitles.

While its story is somewhat dragged down by its obligation to unfold at least partly as a police procedural tinged with incidental romance, not to mention the obvious limitations imposed on its telling by its 1990s made-for-television status, Il gioko nevertheless offers a pointed cautionary tale about the hazy separation between adolescence and adulthood, the way the world turns on an ugly political system that ensures and perpetuates the untouchability of the privileged and the decadence of the indolent. Given its opening and other horrific moments, it may strike you as disappointing that it doesn't build to an electrifying climax. Instead, it gives us something we can chew a bit longer than the usual fireworks; it delivers our troubled heroine to a new stage of adulthood, where she realizes that growing up is just the accepted form of giving in... to the games the architects of our money-driven society continue to play, even as children.

   

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Needed on Blu-ray: MACISTE IN HELL (aka THE WITCH'S CURSE, 1962)

You may have heard the story that Mario Bava was first approached to direct 5 DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON on a Friday—in fact, on the Friday before the Monday when shooting began. He was approached in desperation because the contracted director fell ill (perhaps conveniently so) just before production was scheduled to begin. Trooper that he was, Bava stepped in and brought all his stylistic skills to bear and somehow miraculously averting disaster. He didn't care for the film, but his fans tend to like it a good deal, for which we can also be grateful to an uncommonly infectious score by Piero Umiliani, one of his very best.

The same anecdotal circumstances also once befell Bava's mentor Riccardo Freda. A short time after completing the Maciste film that became SAMSON AND THE 7 MIRACLES OF THE WORLD for Panda film, Freda received a call from Panda associates Luigi Carpentieri and Ermano Donati, who had also been his producers on 1957's breakthrough horror film I VAMPIRI. They were looking forward to producing their next Maciste film, MACISTE ALL'INFERNO ("Maciste in Hell," rebooting a title from Italy's silent days) when its unnamed director suddenly fell ill. (Perhaps he saw Bava's HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD, released around this time, which managed to do everything one could accomplish in such a Hadean setting as well as it could possibly be done at Cinecittà.) Freda got the call and, professional worker for hire that he was, he accepted the job. There wasn't a lot of time to prepare, and the resulting film is hardly a resounding success, but it is a fascinating and picturesque piece of work especially when seen in its proper widescreen dimensions. I grew up seeing the film on late night television, cropped down to fit the square screen in that special way of imposing side-to-side edits on shots that were meant to be stationary and uncut.

As you can see from these frames below, the entire frame must be visible to convey the emotions of any given scene. 

I recently recorded an audio commentary for SAMSON AND THE 7 MIRACLES IN THE WORLD, which required me to take a crash course into the tangled history of Panda's Maciste series, which would seem to have no film-to-film continuity whatsoever as the lead actor in these films is constantly changing. They began with Mark Forest in SON OF SAMSON (Maciste nella valle del Rei, 1960), continued with Gordon Mitchell in ATLAS IN THE LAND OF THE CYCLOPS (Maciste nella terra dei ciclopi, 1961), and then Freda's film (originally known as Maciste alla corte del gran Khan, 1961). Each of these films is set in different areas of the globe and also in different eras of history. Each film ends with Maciste saving the day, being invited to stay, and explaining that he must move on to find and correct the injustices of the world and the plights of the oppressed. 

In MACISTE IN HELL (the title I prefer to use for Freda's emergency rescue), a new Maciste—Kirk Morris, a former Venetian gondolier named Adriano Bellini who won the 1961 Mr. Italia bodybuilding competition—suddenly appears on horseback in 17th century Scotland, Loch Laird no less. As before, he appears to have been summoned out of thin air, out of Time itself, by the need for a champion. It is 100 years after the burning there of an accused witch, Martha Gaunt (the beautiful and sultry Hélène Chanel, made to look hideous), at the merciless hands of Judge Paris (Andrea Bosić), whose romantic overtures she rejected in their youth. The local villagers are already in superstitious overdrive from the anniversary and the fact that the dead tree where the witch was burned recently burst into bloom when a decendant of Judge Paris hung herself from one of its branches. When it is announced that a new bride by the name of Martha Gaunt (Vira Silenti) is honeymooning at the local castle, the locals ram the barricades down and put the innocent Martha on trial as an accused witch. When she is invited to swear her innocence on a Bible, the accursed memory of the witch Martha Gaunt causes the sacred book to burst into flames. 

It's a powerful set of images, and the movie offers them in spades. To save the woman before she can be executed, Maciste wrests the wicked tree out of the ground and finds a passage leading straight down to Hell, where he is challenged by numerous obstacles—a lion, a giant, a large vulture (interrupted while lunching on the liver of a screaming Prometheus, no less), a gigantic door of flame, and even the distractions of love and amnesia—before finding and destroying the previous Martha Gaunt. Hell is played, in large part, by the Grotte di Castellana—a popular tourist attraction in southern Italy.

Seen today, it is impossible to miss the debt of the film's opening sequence to the opening of Bava's BLACK SUNDAY (La maschera del demonio, 1960) but Freda had the decency not to steal more than was courteous. He approaches the sequence from a radically different angle: the scene is not filmed in black-and-white but in autumnal color; it is not set at night but in overcast daylight; and the witch is ugly not beautiful. While Bava's film inspired a number of pictures (Roger Corman's THE HAUNTED PALACE, 1963, for example) to open with an execution and a curse pronounced across time, it is the look of Freda's sequence (as photographed by Riccardo Pallottini) that would have the greater influence on such films as Michael Reeves' THE SHE BEAST (1965) and WITCHFINDER GENERAL (1968), Michael Armstrong's MARK OF THE DEVIL (1970), and Adrian Hoven's MARK OF THE DEVIL II (1971). The specific difference between the Bava and Freda films is enough to posit MACISTE IN HELL, moreso than the spookier BLACK SUNDAY, in the context of what is now being recognized as Folk Horror.

It should be noted that MACISTE IN HELL was Kirk Morris' third stab at the role, preceded by Il trionfo di Maciste (1960, called THE TRIUMPH OF THE SON OF HERCULES on US TV) and Maciste contra Ercole nella valle dei guai (HERCULES IN THE VALLEY OF WOE (both 1961)—neither of which were produced by Panda Film, who would appear to have not secured the exclusive rights to the Maciste character, at least at that time. For me, one of the most fascinating and surprising aspects of MACISTE IN HELL is that screenwriters Oreste Biancoli (whose idea it was to resurrect the strongman hero of 1914's CABIRIA for the peplum era) and Piero Pierotti (who I suspect was the Freda film's original intended director) seize the opportunity to assert this Maciste adventure as the latest in Panda's ongoing series. At one point, Prometheus advises Maciste—who has been placed under an amnesiac spell by taking a bite of the witch's apple—to refresh his memory of himself and his purpose by seeking out his reflection in the Pool of Fire. When Kirk Morris does this, the film treats us to a "Maciste's Greatest Hits" reflection that dares to insert Morris into Mark Forest's, Gordon Mitchell's, and Gordon Scott's scenes from Panda's previous three Maciste pictures. When I recorded my recent commentary, I noted that the series with its many different Maciste actors had no real continuity, possibly because the name Maciste had no resonance outside Italy. (Hence the renaming of this character on all English export versions—even in THE TRIUMPH OF THE SON OF HERCULES, that son is named Machistus rather than Maciste!)  

Kirk Morris replacing Mark Forest in a scene from SON OF SAMSON...

... Gordon Mitchell in a scene from ATLAS AGAINST THE CYCLOPS...

... and Gordon Scott in SAMSON AND THE 7 MIRACLES OF THE WORLD.

     

All in all, eleven well-muscled actors would inherit the role of Maciste from its originator Bartolomeo Pagano (1878-1947), who would follow CABIRIA with no less than 28 (!) Maciste adventures of all kinds. (There is now an English-language book devoted to Pagono's story, THE MACISTE FILMS OF ITALIAN SILENT CINEMA by Jacqueline Reich, which I whole-heartedly reccommend.) Eight of these heroes supreme would play the role only once: Alan Steel (real name: Sergio Ciani), Gordon Mitchell, Reg Park, Ed Fury (real name: Rupert Holovchik), Reg Lewis, Samson Burke, Renato Rossini, and Richard Lloyd. Then there was the great Gordon Scott, who played him twice. Kirk Morris would ultimately play Maciste six times, and Mark Forest (real name: Lou Degni) would top them all—in terms of quantity anyway—with no less than seven Maciste pictures.

Not everything in the film works, of course. The drugged lion (courtesy of Circo Cipriano's) meekly challenging our hero matches poorly with the heavily-maned, fierce-looking stuffed head with which he grapples in closeups; the ratty vulture is obviously stuffed; the giant obviously isn't; and the cameo by Prometheus (though an intriguing lesson for Maciste about interfering in other people's karma) is risible. Also, Maciste isn't given any lines to speak (nor is he mentioned by name) until we're well into the picture, apparently Freda's way of circumventing his star's inability to handle dialogue. But the name of the game is cinema, and this film is undeniably a visual treat—not on the level of mystic fantasmagorical illusion (which was Bava's game in HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD) but in terms of Freda's command of art history and his ability to quote with conviction the work of such netherworld explorers as Hieronymus Bosch, Gustave Doré, and William Blake—as well as the great artisans responsible for the scenic splendor of Guido Brignone's original MACISTE IN HELL made for the silent cinema of 1925. Bottom line: it's much more beautiful and entertaining than I remembered.

Carpentieri and Donati were sufficiently pleased with Freda's work on the picture to next assign him Ernesto Gastaldi's script THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK (1962) and then its semi-sequel THE GHOST (1963), both of which are now among his best-loved movies. MACISTE IN HELL has enjoyed a few DVD releases overseas, in France, Italy, and possibly Spain as well. None has been English friendly, though a fan-made composite has circulated on the torrents circuit. This composite revealed that the soundtracks for MACISTE IN HELL and THE WITCH'S CURSE were radically different, with the latter jettisoning Carlo Franci's original and intriguing musique concrète score altogether in favor of familiar blood-and-thunder library tracks. (Reader Tom Pederson informs me that Franci's score was later reused in a later film in the series, Maciste e la regina di Samar, released in English as HERCULES AGAINST THE MOON MEN, released in 1964.) Should a Blu-ray release of MACISTE IN HELL ever be undertaken, a choice of soundtracks should be represented.

 

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Four Years On from "The Episode"

Smoking far fewer than last year.

Four years ago last night, an undiagnosed and soaring blood pressure “episode” took me to the ER and effectively rewired my nervous system along the left side of my body. As I assess my condition now, my left arm and foot still feel affected but not to the extent of interfering with my concentration as it once did; my sense of balance has improved but remains somewhat affected - suffice to say I take much greater care now when I’m faced with a steep set of stairs. I imagine some nerves in my left inner ear remain impaired, which would explain my persisting if diminished balance issues. I’m now down to two daily BP meds and most lingering issues are negligible/acceptable.

My doctors never could find any sign of a stroke or mini-stroke. (Curiously, they did find evidence of a much older one on the other side of my brain that somehow went unnoticed and undiagnosed at the time.) What caused my nerve damage remains a mystery to the doctors but Donna suspects the problem may have been somehow shingles-related, something she’s had experience with. The tingling numbness that revisits her leg now and then is something I’m now more or less resigned to feeling in my left shoulder and parts of my foot. I’m eating now much more healthfully than I used to, and taking my BP reading daily (at least that’s the goal). I do believe that observing a more sensible diet might have helped me to avoid all this, but no one has been able to point to any one specific cause. The fact is that health fails us all, one way or another, eventually; if we’re lucky, we live to become more conscious of our self-maintenance in an effort to keep moving forward as long as life is worth that effort. 

On a strange but related topic, I became aware in the last few days that I have now actually outlived Mario Bava, who died three months before his 66th birthday; I will turn 66 slightly more than two months from now. It’s a sobering insight into how young he actually was, despite his many achievements; but time is relative. He was obviously feeling and looking more than his age, winding things down at 65, turning the family business over to his son. It’s not the same for me; I am still becoming what and who I want to be. I have no son and still feel there is much to accomplish, to put in order, to learn and enjoy. 

Here’s to us all - may we find and keep the will and ability to claim what remains within our reach!

(c) 2022 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.

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A Look Inside My Childhood Theater

I've posted images of the exterior of the Plaza Theater (my childhood refuge) in the past, but now I can show you what was just inside the front door. This dates from 18 June 1969, when the Plaza was reopening with some redecorations after a closed spell. I'm seeing this for the first time since probably 1971. This is structurally the same concession stand area where I ran for shelter when the giant spider of THE INCREDIBLE SHIRNKING MAN scared me out of the dark as a wee tot. You can see where the popcorn was popped, where the candy bars were arrayed, where the Pepsi products were dispensed. To the right, outside of shot, there was room on the walls for two "Next Week" posters to be displayed. This is the lobby where a young me was stunned by the Coming Soon poster for THE ASTOUNDING SHE MONSTER. This is where I saw HORROR OF DRACULA, THE TRIP, SPIRITS OF THE DEAD, and so many others. I always went in through the right door and sat somewhere close to the front, on the aisle at center section left. Not visible here, just to the left of the left-side entrance was a Fanta soft drink vending machine which offered Orange, Grape, Cola and Root Beer in carbonated and non-carbonated options.   

A closer look.

Another short newspaper piece I found tonight informed me that the Plaza seated 600 and that, at the time I started going there (circa 1962) its personable young manager was none other than Bob Rehme - subsequently the first movie guy to cut me a check (for a synopsis I'd written for the PINK FLOYD LIVE AT POMPEII pressbook) and later an executive at New World Pictures, Avco Embassy (where he green-lit SCANNERS and THE HOWLING) and Universal, and for awhile serving as the President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences! - proving that it was a fateful place for more than just me. I wish he and I had discussed it. 

At the time of its grand reopening, YELLOW SUBMARINE was the big attraction... but it didn't draw the huge crowds that A HARD DAY'S NIGHT had. It was followed in subsequent weeks by a double bill of DOCTOR NO and GOLDFINGER (which, for some reason, my mother did not want me to see), then by THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED MINSKY'S, THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR/THE SCALPHUNTERS, THE ODD COUPLE/THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER, and ROMEO AND JULIET. If you examine this photo from the time of the YELLOW SUBMARINE booking, you will see—behind the Gabled and Monroed column—a portion of the one-sheet for PLANET OF THE APES, then "Coming Soon." It didn't actually arrive at the Plaza till July 31, at which time it's co-feature was none other than Hammer's THE LOST CONTINENT. It was at that time that the theater began selling me the occasional one-sheet poster for 75 cents (the price of a Plaza ticket); the manager wanted to keep PLANET OF THE APES for himself, but I still have the LOST CONTINENT one-sheet originally displayed at the Plaza framed here in my office.

 

This is a much earlier piece (Cincinnati POST, 14 December 1963) about the theater's first imminent "reopening" as an upmarket "fine arts" theater. As best I can determine, this reinvention of the Plaza lasted less than a year, until Wednesday, 12 August 1964, when the theater booked A HARD DAY'S NIGHT. The huge influx of teens and children, especially at the weekend matinees, apparently convinced them to bring back their weekend matinee programs of old—but they didn't often advertise them in the papers, leaving it to the local kids to check out the weekend marquee and posters.

On 29 August, I see they booked William Castle's STRAIT-JACKET as their main weekly feature but foolishly chose PT-109 as that weekend's matinee feature! Of the few later matinees they mentioned in print, most tended to be Elvis, beach, or action pictures. I noticed that, on Saturday 31 October, when the main features were THE KILLERS and CHARADE, they booked an unspecified "BIG MIDNIGHT HORROR SHOW TONIGHT - 10:45" - for Halloween, but that would have been well past my curfew. The matinee listed for 7 November was THE NUTTY PROFESSOR and NIGHT CREATURES, which I'm certain I attended. Then Elvis and surf matinees prevailed till 20 December's showings of THE COMEDY OF TERRORS. Looking back, this must have been a sad time of slim pickings for me at the Plaza, but it helped me to save my allowance toward the all-important primo comics that Marvel were streeting each and every week, and I imagine I saw as many horror films as were being broadcast on weekly television. By March 1965, their weekend matinee bills were back to classic scare fare for the most part, including this memorable booking:

In retrospect, I'm sure the Plaza's short-lived detour into art fare had a bigger effect on me than I realized at the time, giving me an insatiable curiosity about the films being shown there which I was too young to see. You would have had to grow up in a place like Norwood to understand how far out of left field this plan really was at the time; a good idea in itself, I suppose, but imposed in an insanely wrong place. Even so, because of this, the fusion in my memory of the Plaza as both horror movie heaven and art film palace is as much my DNA as whatever I got from my mother and father.

(c) 2022 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.

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Still Set Oddities: THE COMEDY OF TERRORS

While jaunting around the world of Google recently, I discovered these two fascinating promotional or behind-the-scenes images from AIP’s THE COMEDY OF TERRORS (1963, listen to my audio commentary on Kino Lorber DVD and Blu-ray). Both pertain to stand-ins and I’d never seen either of them before. 

This first shot captures Peter Lorre’s long-time stuntman Harvey Parry (he even did the fall for Lorre in the flaming stairwell scene from STRANGER ON THE THIRD FLOOR, 23 years earlier!), wearing his trusty PL mask while waiting for his long shot.

The second offers confirmation of the rumor that 1950’s-60’s feline star Rhubarb (aka Orangey) was indeed more than one cat, each cat having its own on-camera specialty; I've read that each of them had been a rescue animal. Of course, this shot isn't necessarily proof that there were nine Orangeys altogether, as AIP's publicity photographer may have added to their number to make a “nine lives” joke. Even so, I found this shot a startlingly public confession of the cat star's multiplicity.

(c) 2022 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.

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Vote in the 20th Annual Rondo Awards!

Bless their bald little heads! Dont forget! Remember to cast your votes for the 20th Annual Rondo Awards! You can find your ballot at rondoaward.com. And when you do, please consider voting for me in those categories where I (Tim Lucas) or my work (commentaries, Video WatchBlog) is nominated, and in those all-important "write-in" categories. It's true the Rondos have been very kind to me in the past, but it's been four years since my last - I checked, and that's 60 audio commentaries ago in Watchdog years!

Suffice to say, your remembrance and support would be most encouraging and much appreciated. Thank you for your consideration.

* * * *

I've been a bit scarce here of late, but know that it's all been time put to the greater good - doing the final proofreading on THE MAN WITH KALEIDOSCOPE EYES, and most recently scripting and recording audio commentaries for forthcoming releases of AIP's DE SADE (Scorpion Releasing) and SAMSON AND THE 7 MIRACLES OF THE WORLD (Kino Lorber). Next up is an elusive Mario Bava title that should make you all very happy. I'll tell you more when I am able.

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