Farewell to Monicelli

Please join me in bowing your head in memory of the great Mario Monicelli, who bade this world farewell today.

Best-known for BIG DEAL ON MADONNA STREET, he began his career writing comic screenplays with his longtime associate Steno, directed the first Italian film in color (TOTO A COLORI) and wrote and directed numerous comedies, two of which were shot by Mario Bava (VITA DA CANI, GUARDIA E LADRI). He was actively directing as recently as 2006, when he made a feature with Bava's grandson Roy working as his assistant director.

Today, at age 95, Monicelli leaped to his death from his Roman hospital window, a few days after being admitted for prostate cancer.

The Long and the Short of I VAMPIRI

Original Italian quattro-foglia (four-sheet), artwork by Arnaldo Putzu.

Pursuant to yesterday's post about the new DER VAMPIR VON NOTRE DAME (I VAMPIRI) release from Anolis Entertainment, the company's publicist Ivo Scheloske has sent me links to a pair of richly illustrated German-language web pages that compare the German and Italian versions of the film, and the Italian and US (THE DEVIL'S COMMANDMENT) versions. Danke to Ivo for the links; well worth checking out. The pages also contain Amazon.de links that will take you to where you can order the disc.

Der Nebula von Notre Dame

VIDEO WATCHDOG contributor Kim Newman and I are both honored to have work included in the newly published NEBULA AWARDS SHOWCASE 2009 (ROC, $16 US/$20 Canada), edited by Ellen Datlow.

Kim's contribution is an appreciation of author Michael Moorcock, the recipient of the 2009 Damon Knight Grand Master Award. (The book also includes Moorcock's story "The Pleasure Garden of Felipe Sagittarius," from his recent collection THE METATEMPORAL DETECTIVE.) My contribution is an essay about Guillermo del Toro's PAN'S LABYRINTH, the screenplay for which won a Nebula Award.

Kim, widely anthologized, must be used to this sort of thing, but it was a great kick for me to see my name highlighted on the back cover among the likes of Moorcock (a longtime hero), Barry N. Malzberg, Joe R. Lansdale, Jane Yolen, Michael Chabon and the illustrious Kim, among others. I thank Ellen Datlow for inviting me to work in such august company.

Go to your favorite bookstore now and buy it.

I also want to take a moment to recommend another new arrival. The German DVD company Anolis has followed their deluxe edition of Mario Bava's BLUTIGE SEIDE (BLOOD AND BLACK LACE) with an even more lavish presentation of DER VAMPIRE VON NOTRE DAME (I VAMPIRI). Unlike the domestic Image Entertainment release, which included the Italian version only, Anolis adds on the German version (which runs 4m longer than the Italian version, which was cut to appease the censor board) and also THE DEVIL'S COMMANDMENT, the US version containing additional exploitation footage.

Further sweetening the deal is a delightful, hour-long documentary, C'EST LA VIE, interviewing the great Swiss character actor Paul Muller, now 85 and living on a healthy pension somewhere near Rome. The program covers Muller's early life, early work in theater, and the films that preceded I VAMPIRI, then actually shows Muller reacting to scenes from the film, and wraps up with some generous comments about working with Jess Franco and Soledad Miranda on EUGENIE DE SADE. I am not sure I've ever seen Muller crack a smile onscreen, at least not a genuinely happy one, so it was a great pleasure to discover him to be such a charming, chuckling pixie offscreen. He's a very sharp 85, too, with valuable and unfaded memories of his long career.

Also included are trailers, still and poster galleries, and an interesting attempt to reconstruct the pre-credits sequence originally envisioned by Riccardo Freda, which was changed when he was replaced by Mario Bava in a rescue effort that required a rewriting of the narrative. English subtitles are provided, even for the Muller documentary, but these do not extend to Christian Kessler's German-language audio commentary. I'll be covering this important release in more detail in a future issue of VIDEO WATCHDOG.

Deep Deep Down

All fans of Eurocult cinema owe it to themselves to check out this YouTube clip of Mike Patton's Mondo Cane performing Ennio Morricone's "Deep Deep Down," the love theme from Mario Bava's DANGER: DIABOLIK. I've always liked the song, with its Christy vocal, without giving it too much thought -- it's not even my favorite musical cue in the picture -- but seeing it performed live by such an expressive vocalist, a full choir and orchestra brought tears to my eyes.

God bless them, every one.

It's like seeing an entire city rise up in tribute to Mario Bava, Ennio Morricone, Marisa Mell and John Phillip Law. It's like seeing a modest film made forty years ago by humble artisans, shrugged off by most people at the time of its original release, triumphing over time by spreading the wings of a glorious phoenix.

I sent a link to Lamberto Bava, who turned 65 years old this week -- the age at which his father died in 1980. I wish Lamberto a much longer run.

Mille grazie to my friend Rod Barnett for alerting me to this.

Mario of the Desert

While watching the new Criterion Collection disc of Luís Buñuel's SIMON OF THE DESERT (1965), in preparation for reviewing it for next month's SIGHT AND SOUND, I saw a couple of things that struck me as worth noting here -- namely, a previously unnoted set of connections or coincidences linking the work of Buñuel and his contemporary Mario Bava.

There has been some debate on the subject of which came first: the little girl devil in Bava's KILL, BABY... KILL! or the one in Federico Fellini's TOBY DAMMIT. The answer to that brain-teaser, it turns out, is the one in Buñuel's SIMON OF THE DESERT, played with minxish aplomb by VIRIDIANA's Silvia Pinal. The Devil materializes to tempt the early Christian ascetic Simon (DR. TARR'S TORTURE DUNGEON's Claudio Brook) in various guises, the second of which is as a little girl rolling a hoop. When her innocence has no effect, she turns more womanly and coquettish, displaying a shapely pair of dark-nyloned legs and finally baring her breasts (a startling image which Criterion has boldly posited as the disc's inset), yet Simon remains inviolate.

The hoop accessory is interesting, being analogous to the white ball of Bava and Fellini's evil spectres, but also because it has a Freudian dimension of entrapment when contrasted with the phallic pillar of Simon's proud asceticism.

After the failure of her thwarted seduction, Pinal's Devil returns as a bearded, lamb-cradling Jesus Christ and, still later, as a bare-breasted goddess. The Buñuelian irony of all this, of course, is that Simon's prayers for godly intervention into his selfless life attract only the brickbats of a friendly Hell. Finally, abruptly, the Devil sweeps Simon off the top of his pillar by introducing a jet plane into this early Anno Domini fable.

The sudden assault of futurism anticipates the finale of Bava's LISA AND THE DEVIL (1973), in which Elke Sommer survives a harrowing night among ghosts in what appears to be another century, only to find herself aboard a 747 bound for Hell, piloted by Telly Savalas' Satan. Producer Alfredo Leone has taken credit for suggesting this finale, but it seems remarkably consistent with these and other Buñuelian tropes found in Bava's filmography. LISA AND THE DEVIL, of course, was also filmed in Toledo, Spain -- which Buñuel considered "a holy city." He filmed TRISTANA there in 1969.

Criterion has also issued Buñuel and Pinal's earlier masterpiece THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (1964), in which a severed hand briefly runs amok. The look of this deathly appendage is nearly identical to a sculpture of a disembodied hand that plays a prominent role in Bava's final feature, SHOCK aka BEYOND THE DOOR II (1978).

SIMON OF THE DESERT runs only 45 minutes and is perfect enough at this length. Buñuel always claimed that the money (supplied by Pinal's furniture magnate husband, who produced) ran out, preventing him from completing the picture. In a supplement on the SIMON disc, a 2008 interview with Pinal includes her surprise confession that she was responsible for pulling the plug, when Buñuel excused himself from another project she was planning, a vanity three-episode anthology inspired by the Mastroianni/Loren hit, YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW. The actress now regrets her fit of hubris and recognizes that only her work with Buñuel has entitled her to a place in the history of cinema.

Bava's Lost Super Giallo Opportunity

Tomorrow marks the commencement of the 59th annual Internationale Filmfestspiele in Berlin. I have a number of friends who are boarding planes today to attend, hopeful of meeting and attracting investors for their current projects, and I wish them all success. Their scripts are all something seldom seen in theaters today -- originals, not remakes-- so they can use all the positive thinking you can send their way. I, for one, don't believe a country that voted Barack Obama into office is interested in continuing to subsist on a steady diet of remakes, but evidently stubborn Hollywood thinks differently. Even flops like THE ILLUSTRATED MAN are being green-lit.

The above scan from a 1965 Italian trade paper reminds us that even the greats of cinema who have now passed on into history, such as Mario Bava, had to spend much of their careers in pursuit of funding. This ad attempted to stir up interest for a 1965 project called 12 bambole bionde ("12 Blonde Dolls"), described as a venture between Bava, actor-turned-producer Ulderico Sciarretta, and Sciarretta’s production company, Eco Film.

The advertisement asks: “Who killed Gino? Who killed Linda? Who killed Paolo? Who killed Romolo? Who killed Raymondo? Who killed Emerson? When these questions are asked, Inspector Klem will answer them!” (Apparently most of the “12 Blonde Dolls” were to be men!)

What is interesting about the ad—which goes on to promise “not just a Super Giallo, but a Colossal Giallo”—is that it says absolutely nothing about the movie's obvious and quite ambitious intention of doubling the body count of Bava’s vicious Sei donne per l’assassino (BLOOD AND BLACK LACE, 1964), a film that had the good fortune to be released all around the world. Instead, the ad hubristically proclaims that 12 bambole bionde “follows the grand success of Crimine a due.” This ultra-obscure title, directed by Romano Ferrara and starring John Drew Barrymore and Lisa Gastoni, was apparently Sciarretta’s first and only film as a producer, issued earlier in 1965 and never released outside of Italy.

Understandably, few (if any) investors were attracted by the ad's questions or its hollow boast of Crimine a due's "grand success." The upswing of this faulty strategy: 12 bambole bionde was never made and Bava and Sciarretta never worked together.

Follow the Bouncing Ball

Steve Bissette writes beautifully, and meaningfully, about Fellini's SPIRITS OF THE DEAD segment "Toby Dammit" today at his S.R. Bissette blog. Check it out here.

Lamberto Bava and the Family Cross

When I met Lamberto Bava at Cinema Wasteland this past weekend, I told him that I had two great fears about our meeting. One: that he would tell me wonderful stories about his father that I didn't know to include in my book MARIO BAVA ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK; and Two: that he would open the book, point to something, and say, as nicely as possible, "Uh... maybe not."

Both things came to pass.

On the first count, he told me a wonderful story about Mario Bava's first encounter with horror cinema, which may have been the childhood moment that predisposed him to a fascination with the macabre. When Mario was a young boy, he lived with his family on the top floor of an apartment building. From the bed in his room, Mario could look out the window at a neighboring movie theater. On warm nights, the roof of this theater rolled back to let in the cool night air... but, from Mario's perspective, the opening of the roof revealed the theater screen. One night, the young Mario happened to be looking out his window when the theater's roof opened to reveal... F.W. Murnau's NOSFERATU (1922), which he proceeded to watch with a sense of mounting terror. The film clearly left its impression on the boy, who included an inversion of NOSFERATU's undercranked coach ride sequence in his official directorial debut, BLACK SUNDAY. Good story.

On the second count, Lamberto is unsure of the validity of the Mario Bava signature on the Brett Halsey photo included in the book's chapter on FOUR TIMES THAT NIGHT. I told Lamberto that it was the only signed photo of Mario I had ever seen, and he answered, "Maybe not his." Lamberto's reason is that everyone in the Bava family signs their name in a manner that includes what has become known as "the family cross" -- a cross worked into one of the letters. He showed me what he meant with his own signature, in which the L of his first name grows out of an initial cross. Later in the day, Lamberto watched me sign a copy of MARIO BAVA ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK for someone and saw that I drew a line through the middle of the S at the end of my name. "Since [I told you]?" he asked, smiling. But no, I explained that crossing my S started years ago, when I carelessly added the bridge too my A too far to the right. I liked the effect and kept it, sometimes as a dash after my S, sometimes as an elongated tail of the letter that extends across it, but more commonly as a line through my S -- the way I draw lines through my 7's in the European manner. I'm sure there are copies of the Bava book which I signed that don't have a crossed S, because the task of signing one thousand books required some variation to break up the monotony; likewise, I remember signing some of the books straight across and others more diagonally. That's why I believe the signed Halsey photo to be genuine. I know that I'm inconsistent and occasionally careless about the way I sign my name. But you can see what Lamberto means by comparing the signature on the book's title page, which has the family cross, to the one on Brett's still.

As we were preparing to leave on Sunday, Lamberto presented both Donna and me with signed photos of himself. The one he gave to me was signed, in Italian, "To Tim - an honorary member of the family." As the recipient of this tremendous compliment, I will do my best to live up to it by taking care to cross the closing S's in all my signatures from now on.

HATCHET For the CD Player

Our friends at Xploited Cinema are now carrying the latest release in the "Mario Bava Original Soundtracks Anthology," Sante Maria Romitelli's complete score for HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON [Il rosso segno della follia, 1969]. Some of you may already have some of these cues from their previous release in tandem with Roberto Nicolosi's BLACK SABBATH [I tre volti della paura, 1963] score, but this seventh Bava Anthology release from Digitmovies contains more than twice as much music, running a total of 61 minutes. The disc also includes a special full-color illustrated booklet containing liner notes by disc producer Claudio Fuiano and Tim Lucas, and an exclusive message from the star of the film, Stephen Forsyth.

New Bava Book from Italy

A new book about Mario Bava has surfaced in Italy: KILL BABY KILL! IL CINEMA DI MARIO BAVA, edited by Gabriele Acerbo and Roberto Pisoni, with a sizeable introduction by Joe Dante. This book was apparently published last October in a very limited edition of only 1000 copies, but I received mine only yesterday. It's 312 pages, priced at 25.00 Euros, and carries an ISBN number of ISBN 978-88-89481-13-4. It was published by Un Mondo A Parte (Viale Angelico 77, 00195 Roma), whose website can be found at www.unmondoaparte.it. That's as much help as I can be in terms of directing you to a copy of your own.

This book is an expanded print version of the Sky TV documentary film MARIO BAVA OPERAZIONE PAURA, containing what appears to be transcriptions of the full (or at least fuller) interviews originally recorded for the program with such people as Lamberto and Roy Bava, Alfredo Leone, Carlo Rambaldi, Ernesto Gastaldi, Barbara Steele, Daria Nicolodi, John Saxon, Dino de Laurentiis, Roger Corman, Quentin Tarantino, Tim Burton and others, including me. (The book actually contains two chapters of interviews with me, apparently a general one and the other about Bava's special effects work.)

Beyond this, the editors have continued their research into the subject by appending to this already sizable brain trust additional interviews with numerous Bava colleagues, including Christopher Lee, John Phillip Law, Dario Argento, Fulvio Lucisano, Mario Monicelli, Luciano Emmer, Mark Damon, Elke Sommer, Don Backy, Alberto Bevilacqua, and directors Christophe Gans, John Landis, Sam Raimi and Umberto Lenzi. Sergio Stivaletti contributes an essay about Mario's own Mitchell camera, used by him in creating special effects sequences, which Lamberto Bava gave to him after Mario's death. (The essay includes a photo of the sacred machine, the only image in the book I hadn't seen before.) Mind you, this is just a partial listing of the book's contents. Also included are short chapters by various leading Italian Bava specialists, including Manlio Gomarasca, Alberto Pezzotta and Stefano Della Casa, as well as some input from Mario Bava himself. In a creative chapter entitled "L'Alfabeto," the editors have excerpted comments from Bava's few granted interviews to compile a literal A to Z of his observations on various topics.

For me, the book's greatest surprise corrects a grievous error in my own MARIO BAVA ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK. There, and in my recent audio commentary for ERIK THE CONQUEROR, I reported the death of actor Giorgio Ardisson, who played the title role in that film and also Theseus in the wonderful HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD. My sources told me that he had died of a heart attack while watching his last movie at a preview screening, but Gabriele Acerbo now confirms that Ardisson is "alive and kicking." The book contains a two-paragraph reminiscence of Bava that Acerbo obtained in a 2005 telephone interview with the retired actor, who today is the owner of the Villa dei Principi. Of course, I regret the error, but I'm very happy to learn that Giorgio Ardisson is still with us.

The text (which includes filmography, videography and an especially welcome bibliography) is entirely in Italian, of course, and the interior is entirely in black-and-white. It's an attractive volume and Bava fans and scholars should seek out a copy while the very limited supply still lasts.

On another topic, thanks to everyone who has written to express concern over my illness. It started out as a sore throat but got quite a bit worse over the past several days. This has been the worst case of flu I've ever endured, and the first case that helped me to understand how influenza was once able to actually kill people. I haven't slept for any length of time over the past week because, whenever I would lie down, I could hear something in my larynx trying to send Morse code messages to Mars. This would then develop into a bubbling or crackling sound that signalled the approach of another hellish coughing jag, for which I'd have to sit upright. My throat was so abused from deep coughing that I couldn't speak above a whisper without causing myself horrific pain. Last night my temperature got up to slightly over 103°, which was quite alarming, as my normal temperature usually hovers below the usual norm, at about 97.2°. I resorted to ice bags and cold compresses, which helped my fever to break, and which allowed me to get more sleep than usual last night. Today is the first day in about a week that I've felt so close to my usual self; the soreness in my throat is gone and I can talk, though my voice presently sounds an octave deeper. I'm still not well, but I think I'm getting there.

4 BY AGNES VARDA reviewed

My "Nozone" review of Criterion's box set 4 BY AGNES VARDA -- containing her films LE POINTE COURTE, CLEO FROM 5 TO 7, LE BONHEUR (HAPPINESS) and VAGABOND -- appears in the current April 2008 issue of SIGHT & SOUND, on newsstands now. As usual, my review also appears on the BFI's S&S website and can be read here.

Sidebar to Bava fans: CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 (1962) is shot in real time, like Bava's movie RABID DOGS (1975, released 1998). In my chapter on the latter film in MARIO BAVA ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, I explained how Bava managed to shoot inside a moving car on a public highway without permits by using different fragmented vehicles mounted on the back of a flatbed truck. Unfortunately, no production stills I have ever found showed how this was done. But, happily, the supplementary materials on CLEO in the Varda set show how a sequence inside a moving cab was shot -- exactly the same way! It's hard to tell if Bava was familiar with the film and heard through the grapevine how it solved such technical problems, or if he solved them the same way intuitively, but it's fascinating that two films shot in real time encountered the same problem and solved it identically.

THE DEVILS A Hoax? and LA Bava Retro in March

Over the past few days, my in-box has been modestly inundated with e-mails related to two subjects. Today I might as well address them both.

First of all, there's a rumor going around the Internet -- complete with the cover art shown at left -- that Warner Home Video is preparing a DVD release of Ken Russell's THE DEVILS for May. I have ignored this rumor till now for several reasons: first of all, experience has taught me that I shouldn't believe any such rumor until I receive an announcement from the company itself; secondly, the artwork at left looks phony as the "hell that holds no surprises for them." There's an onlooker to the right of Vanessa Redgrave who looks like casting more appropriate to JESUS OF NAZARETH, the spear wound in Reed's abdomen is on the wrong side, the image is highly inflammatory not only as a religious metaphor but as a cunnilingual one, and I've never known Warner or any other major company to trumpet the word "Unrated" in the lower front corner of their DVD packaging. This is an uncommercial word they prefer to insert in the tiniest possible box on the back cover, if at all. But where I really smell a rat is in the accompanying promotional text, which appears on the DVDActive site here:

"Originally rated X, this film combines historical, comedic, and surrealistic elements to tell a tale of politics and witchcraft. In order to take over pre-rennaisance France, Cardinal Richelieu and his power-hungry followers will have to eliminate Father Grandier. Grandier controls the one town that keeps Richelieu from having total control of the region. The plan is to convince the townspeople that Grandier is a warlock and that all of his nuns are possessed by devils. The accusations are heard at a public trial - whose results may surprise you."

"Originally rated X" is nothing Warner would openly cop to about this vintage release, the word "comedic" is highly misplaced (at least without the adjective "darkly" attached), the movie has nothing remotely to do with witchcraft, and there's nothing at all surprising about the results of the trial. It's all a matter of historical record. While it's true there are strong political undercurrents in the film, it is exceedingly bizarre for any synopsis of the film to overlook the matter of Sister Jeanne's nymphomaniacal obsession with Father Grandier. If you were planning to sell this movie, would you opt for anti-Catholic intrigue over sex? Finally, the complete absence of extras seems highly suspect. So, while the release could conceivably turn out to be real, the reason I haven't reported it earlier is that I think I smell a rat. And, if it does turn out to be authentic (it's skedded, to use an old VARIETY term, for May 20, the rumor mongers say), the absence of any supplementary materials is nothing less than an outrage.

Now on to the second subject, which is confirmed, but for which I had reason not to speak earlier. The American Cinematheque will be presenting "Mario Bava, Poems of Love and Death," a 10-day retrospective at the Egyptian Theater in Los Angeles, from March 13-23. You can find the full details of the retrospective here, but 17 different features are being shown (including CALTIKI THE IMMORTAL MONSTER, not yet available on domestic DVD) and each of the films is being introduced by special celebrity guests, including directors Joe Dante, Eli Roth and Ernest Dickerson, Bava actors Elke Sommer and Dante Di Paolo (his first public Bava-related appearance), and -- just added to the program on the evening of Ms. Sommer's appearance -- producer Alfredo Leone.

As an added enticement, copies of Anchor Bay's MARIO BAVA COLLECTION box sets and a half-dozen copies of MARIO BAVA ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK will be raffled off during the course of the retrospective -- so, if you haven't been able to afford the most-discussed film book of the year, here's your chance to win a copy for the price of a ticket!

Some correspondents have asked if I'll be attending the retrospective but, unfortunately, the American Cinematheque doesn't have the budget to fly me in. I was offered opportunities to do a book signing but, also unfortunately, the book's cost and weight are enough to discourage me from undertaking any kind of promotional jaunt. However, I have agreed to make myself available for interviews to coincide with the screenings, and I'm doing one with Susan King of the LOS ANGELES TIMES on Monday afternoon.

Update 7:57 pm: The webmaster of DVDActive has announced that THE DEVILS has disappeared from Warner's list of upcoming titles. In other words, "Never mind!" The misinformation was not the fault of DVDActive, as this link explains.

Also, some folks have written to correct me about my comment that the word "Unrated" never draws attention to itself on major studio product. I expressed my point badly. I wasn't talking about teen-targeted movies like AMERICAN PIE and HOSTEL, which practically append the word "Unrated" to their titles in big red headsline type, but more adult fare as was under discussion.

Before and After Bava

Top: Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Allen Rydell, taken December 17, 2006 at Tor Caldara.

Bottom: A trick shot from Mario Bava's 5 DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON, shot in October 1969. "Not quite the same perspective," Jeff allows, "but not too far off..."

Believe In What You Think You See

Mario Bava fans, does this place look familiar?

During my audio commentary for Bava's LISA AND THE DEVIL, to be released on October 23 as part of the MARIO BAVA COLLECTION VOLUME 2, I note -- as Lisa (Elke Sommer) exits the antiques shop and gets lost in a series of backstreets -- that some of the locations recall the labyrinthine passages of Karmingen, the fictional village where KILL, BABY... KILL! (1966) takes place. In his audio commentary for THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM, producer Alfredo Leone remarks that all of these early scenes were filmed in Toledo, Spain, where the mural of the Devil carrying away the dead is seen by Lisa's tour group.

On the basis of Alfredo's remarks, I scrapped from my book manuscript (to the best of my knowledge) any reference I had once made to the possibility that some of these set-ups might have been filmed in Faleria, the ancient Italian village where KILL, BABY... KILL! was made. As I recorded my commentary, I couldn't resist adding a mention of the similarity, and after watching the film again on my preview disc, I was driven to pull out the two films and look for shared points of compass.

The above shot is a frame grab of one such supposedly Spanish location from LISA that has always jogged a little KILL, BABY... KILL! muscle in my brain. Now, compare it with the following shot:

This is a fairly famous image from KILL, BABY... KILL! featuring Giacomo Rossi-Stuart and Erika Blanc. The location is obviously the same, albeit with Bava's peerless knack for atmosphere applied to it, making every shadow pregnant with the unseen presence of the ball-bouncing spectre Melissa Graps. We know for a fact that KILL, BABY... KILL! was not shot in Spain.

Here is Elke Sommer, passing through the same location in LISA AND THE DEVIL, filmed seven years later. Not in the nearly 30 years I've been acquainted with both films have I ever consciously matched the location shared by these two shots.

And here is Lamberto Bava revisiting Faleria more than 30 years after LISA AND THE DEVIL, in David Gregory's "Kill, Bava, Kill!" featurette -- intended for release on Dark Sky Films' regrettably withdrawn KILL, BABY... KILL! DVD. I rather prefer that stone wall with the green moss clinging to it, don't you?

Also in LISA AND THE DEVIL I found this shot, which is another setting I felt I had seen more recently. It turns out it was also photographed in Faleria, on the street outside their San Giuliano L'Ospitaliero Church. This particular set-up doesn't appear in KILL, BABY... KILL!, at least to the best of my notice, but the church's bell tower memorably does.

Finally, here's Lamberto Bava again, rediscovering the location in the David Gregory featurette. He notes, a few moments later, that the crew of KILL, BABY... KILL! used to take their meals on the steps outside that church on the very cold evenings of the production.

Certainly, I'm not blaming Alfredo for not remembering a little side trip to Faleria during the making of LISA AND THE DEVIL thirty-some years ago. How could I, when these shared locations weren't obvious to me after countless viewings of both films over a period of decades? Also, as you can see, there's a world of difference in how these locations can look in different times of day and also over the years.

The confirmation of recurring Faleria settings in LISA AND THE DEVIL is actually significant, because the film originated from a screenplay co-authored by Roberto Natale and Romano Migliorini, the authors of KILL, BABY... KILL! After finally confirming the logistical connection I long intuited between the two films with these screen grabs, my imagination began to accelerate and still more connections between the two films began to suggest themselves. The Baroness Graps (played by Giovanna Galletti) dies at the end of KILL, BABY... KILL! and the Contessa (played by Alida Valli) in LISA AND THE DEVIL is blind and dies differently... but are they not, in some inexplicable way, the same character? They look and dress much the same, and both are noblewomen who never leave their morbid, secluded villas. Is the Contessa's "shrine of death" villa not an echo of Villa Graps? Are not both women doomed by their unhealthy attachment to their children? And, as I ask in my LISA commentary -- in the movie's closing minutes, as Lisa emerges as a ghost from the ruins of the villa with a ball in her hand -- might not Lisa be short for... Melissa?

These are discoveries and ideas that didn't occur to me until long after finishing my book, so I am evidently still learning about my subject, even after writing close to 800,000 words. I can assure you that you'll learn some new things about LISA AND THE DEVIL from my audio commentary for the DVD, even if you've read my chapter on the film in MARIO BAVA ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK... and vice versa. But it's only now that I have confirmed for myself this spatial relationship between the two films, and I'm glad to have an additional venue like Video WatchBlog, where I can share these eurekas with like-minded folk immediately.

First Look: ABE's LISA AND THE DEVIL

Because I worked as a commentator for a number of the movies included in Anchor Bay Entertainment's forthcoming MARIO BAVA COLLECTION VOLUME 2, I've been sent a set of preview test discs for the new remasters included in this compendium, as well as ERIK THE CONQUEROR, which will be released separately at the same time. I've already watched a few of the movies and I'm here to tell you that the movies have indeed been conspicuously improved over their previous issues. If you're already excited about this incredible bargain of a set, prepare to get more excited.

My breath was taken away by Post Logic Studios' restorative work on Bava's baroque masterpiece LISA AND THE DEVIL (1973). I've never seen this film on video in a presentation that didn't look like a poor cousin to HOUSE OF EXORCISM (1975, which is largely composed of footage from LISA) -- which makes sense because the original negative of LISA was lost or destroyed as it was being used to create 16mm TV prints at Allied Artists. Only once did I see the film as it was meant to look, at a showing of a restored 35mm print supervised by the late Carlos Sylva at the American Cinematheque in the early 1990s. That version, I recall, was sharper and more boldly colored than any other I had seen... and that stunning viewing experience is pretty much perfectly replicated by ABE's newly remastered version.

The heightened detailing is evident from the very first shots of the animated titles sequence, with new textures evident in the red table surface and the white glove turning over the cards of the Tarot deck.

Even when Cecilio Paniagua's nostalgic-looking cinematography turns misty-eyed, in closeups of Elke Sommer and in faintly sun-dazzled shots like this, the mistiness never softens the essential sharpness of the picture.

In this shot of Alida Valli familiarizing herself with Sommer's face, as Telly Savalas rhapsodically describes the coloring of her hair, you can see how the colors have a certain Technicolor strength without losing the naturalistic subtlety of their coloring. The blue of Valli's eyes manage to pop while the purple of her dress remains muted and not overpowering.

This closeup of Savalas, as Leandro, is one of the shots I remember best from the American Cinematheque screening. I remember Alfredo Leone being annoyed by the pale quality of the color in past home video presentations, which diminished the ruddiness of Savalas' skin and god knows what else. On the big screen, Savalas looked distinctly redder than the other cast members, betokening his devilish caste, and this was something always lost on video. The effect has now been fairly well reinstated.

And here you can see how lovely are the presentations of skin tones, hair gloss, even the honeyed warmth of Sommer's hair color. All of these improvements help to make a very sensual film play more sensually, and to better delineate the fascinating components of its rococo set decoration. LISA AND THE DEVIL finally arrives on disc as ravishing as it was always intended to be, and it actually looks better to me than the glimpses I stole of HOUSE OF EXORCISM, which is featured on the same disc. But the LISA footage has always looked good in that heretofore prevailing context.

The only drawback: Sylva Koscina's bludgeoning death (intact in HOUSE OF EXORCISM) remains unintegrated, a problem that I hope can be corrected at some point in the future. Otherwise, Bava fans can rejoice because LISA AND THE DEVIL has finally triumphed in pictorial beauty over its more financially successful, frog-barfing twin.

And, in the "if I do say so myself" department, I was very pleased with how my audio commentary for the film plays. This is partly the work of disc producer Perry Martin, who edited my talk, eliminating some "um's" and "uh's" and sometimes shifting bits around for heightened effect -- a very happy collaboration. Together, I think we've done a very good job of shedding a bit of light on one of Bava's most mysterious and beckoning works.

I'll be continuing with previews of other titles in the BAVA COLLECTION 2 set in the days ahead.

FANGORIA Radio, Here I Come

I'm going to be one of the featured guests on tomorrow night's installment of FANGORIA Radio, hosted by Dee Snider and Debbie Rochon. Nobody's told me who the other guests are, and their website doesn't have any information about this week's show either, but I at least know that I've been scheduled.

For those of you who haven't heard FANGORIA Radio, it airs every Friday night from 10:00pm to 1:00am on Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 102. If you're not already a Sirius subscriber, I believe you can get a free three-day trial run online. Sign up now and get it just in time to hear Dee and Debbie interview me about Anchor Bay's new Mario Bava box set! I'll probably be asked about the Bava book too, and if so, I just may have an historic announcement to make. (How's that for a teaser?) Anyway, I'm scheduled to be interviewed between 11:00 and 11:20pm, so do pop in and lend an ear.

Need more incentive? I'm told that a copy of the Bava Box set and the KIDNAPPED/RABID DOGS disc will be awarded to a lucky listener!

By the way, it's worth visiting FANGORIA Radio's website, where various excerpts from past interviews are interred. I spent some time last night listening to Dee and Debbie's past talks with Roger Corman, John Waters, and Tom Weaver -- fun stuff.

A Word to Reviewers of KIDNAPPED aka RABID DOGS

I received my advance copy of Anchor Bay Entertainment's KIDNAPPED aka RABID DOGS today, which features both versions of the Mario Bava thriller, a nice 16m "making of" featurette featuring Lamberto Bava, Lea Lander, and Alfredo Leone, and an audio commentary by your friendly blogger.

There was something about this release that was never quite confirmed for me while it was in production, and I was nervous about it. After checking the disc, I have my answer and feel it's important to say something about this, otherwise it's bound to lead to confusion in reviews of the disc and my commentary. This matter has nothing to do with the film's transfer, which is unbelievably improved over what it's had in the past -- visually, the film has been completely revitalized.

When RABID DOGS was first released on DVD back in 1997, I was invited by Lucertola Media to write the English subtitles. I gladly accepted this opportunity to collaborate with Mario Bava, and approached the job as a novelist -- holding true to the Italian dialogue, but taking care to reflect the nuances and intonations of each performance and also bringing the film verbally up to date, because even though it was made in 1975, it was being released in the era of Tarantino.

When I began working with Anchor Bay on this new release, I made my subtitles available to them, and I also made some minor revisions/improvements to the text, which I had been wanting to make over the years. Assuming that my subtitles would be used, I made more than one reference to them in my audio commentary and explained some of the translation choices I made.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, my subtitles were not used, so these parts of my commentary -- which were left in the track -- are now irrelevant at best, and completely confusing at worst.

The track still has value, I think, but it concerns me that some reviewers might take my comments at their word and credit me with the translation of these English subtitles. If you compare my subtitles on the Lucertola disc to those on the new Anchor Bay release, I think you will find the new ones drier, more formalized (speaking in English, would a couple of toughs like Bisturi and Trentedue really call their boss "Doctor"?), even somewhat restrained. My subtitles -- juicier, more freewheeling, and frankly dirtier -- I think allowed the film to be more deeply felt in English while also bolstering its contemporary feel. That was my intention, anyway.

Reviewers can draw their own conclusions, but I ask them to not credit me with the subtitles used here, regardless of what I say elsewhere on the disc.