Daily Grindhouse Supports Video Watchdog Kickstarter Campaign

Yesterday we had a terrific posting of support by Geoff Hunt over at DAILY GRINDHOUSE, which I want to single-out for your attention. It touched on an aspect of our Kickstarter campaign that's especially important to me.
 
When Geoff observes that VIDEO WATCHDOG is as much a community as a magazine, he touches a warm nerve that runs to the heart of this campaign. Obviously, it's our goal to make all of our back issues available digitally, but it's just as importantly about the creation of a fully cross-platform app for our magazine that will also be applicable to all our issues still to come. The more encompassing our app can be, to include Android and Kindle Fire and Nook HD as well as our existing iPad/iPhone outlets, the larger our digital readership will be, the broader range our interactivity can enjoy, and the more successful we can be at bringing this community of like-minded people together.

Geoff mentions that he's made some good friends through a shared liking for VIDEO WATCHDOG. One of my favorite reader encounters took place when I was in Los Angeles making a personal appearance. One of the people there approached me and shook my hand, saying "Thanks for continuing to produce such a great magazine." I thanked him, and a moment later, he came back as though he had reconsidered something, and he leaned forward and whispered, "What I really meant to say is, Thank you for showing me that I'm not alone." I've been fortunate enough to hear a lot of laudatory things from people over the years, but I promise you this: there really is no finer compliment than this.

What Kind of Person Reads VIDEO WATCHDOG? They're the kind of person who used to uncap a Sharpie and circle the movies they couldn't afford to miss in the next week's TV GUIDE. The kind who have at least a dozen stories about staying up all night as a kid to watch something as urgent as FROM HELL IT CAME or PHAROAH'S CURSE at 4:30am. The kind who mightn't have cared for Westerns as a genre, but felt compelled to see every Western that Jacques Tourneur or Lucio Fulci ever made... and ended up loving Westerns as a result. The kind who can't let go of the vintage big-box VHS tapes in their collection - not only because the cover art is cool, but because the films are cropped and pan&scanned a certain way and "someone must keep a record." But they are mostly open-minded people obsessed with cinema, not as an escape but as a way of living, committed to an ongoing search for those special films that attract a special few with a special light.

Those are our people and VIDEO WATCHDOG lives to inform and entertain them. If you recognize yourself or someone you care about in that description, get involved in this important campaign!

Click here: http://tinyurl.com/vwkickstarter

Make the VIDEO WATCHDOG Digital Archive a reality!

VW Kickstarter Support from CINEFEX Publisher Don Shay

This wonderful endorsement appeared today on CINEFEX magazine's Facebook page:

CINEFEX PUBLISHER DON SHAY'S FAVORITE FILM MAGAZINE
... EXCEPT FOR CINEFEX, OF COURSE.

If you have a passion for sci-fi/fantasy/horror films (and who doesn’t), you should be reading “Video Watchdog.” Published since 1990, this bimonthly journal is packed with in-depth interviews, articles and reviews on films old and new. “The critical analysis in ‘Video Watchdog’ is consistently
better than any other film publication I know,” says Shay. “There’s a reason Quentin Tarantino dubbed it ‘the most reliable film magazine in the world.’”

“Video Watchdog” has just released its first digital issue, but more exciting than that is its announcement of a Kickstarter campaign to bring the entire “V”’ catalog — all 176 issues — to your computer and/or tablet early next year, with lots of extra features and interactivity.

The campaign is already underway, and they need your help to reach their goal. This is a Kickstarter project well worth supporting.

http://kck.st/1bIqbDg

VIDEO WATCHDOG Digital Archive at Kickstarter

http://tinyurl.com/vwkickstarter

On Monday, November 25, Donna and I took the bold step of launching a new Kickstarter campaign. Our goal is to undertake the mammoth task of digitizing our entire back catalogue -- 174 issues plus two 178-page Special Editions -- and make it available on all devices: iPad, iPhone, Kindle Fire, Android, Nook HD, as well as PCs and Macs. We also intend to use this opportunity to do more than simply create a viewable pdf record of all we've done; we'll also be reinvigorating those thousands of pages with new interactive material!

VIDEO WATCHDOG prides itself on publishing content that doesn't grow old, and we are going to utilize our past material as a foundation for more creative expansion. Even our earliest reviews of VHS and LaserDisc releases remain pertinent as film criticism -- and we have a backlog of hundreds of feature articles and thousands of reviews that stand to become one of the most important archives of film reference, film thought and film discussion on the Internet. We are talking about more than 14,000 pages of the best writing from the best writers, critics, authors and thinkers specializing in genre cinema. That's roughly the equivalent of 40 books on a wide variety of topics, everything from classic to contemporary horror, martial arts cinema, Italian westerns, dark fantasy, film music, arthouse and grindhouse -- all of it searchable for the first time, so you could conceivably type any new topic that caught your fancy into your search engine and pull up everything VIDEO WATCHDOG ever had to say about it.

Donna has been working tirelessly and obsessively on this project for months, and by now you should have seen the incredible results of her efforts in our first digital issue, which is available FREE right here. For the first time, we're able to accommodate more pictures, more sounds, more information, even my own editorial annotations... How could our readers not want this x 176?

To realize this ambitious vision, we need numbers more than hefty contributions. Lots of people contributing modest but helpful amounts -- it's really that sort of grass roots support that's going to put us over the top! But for those of you who are able to contribute more, we've worked out a sizeable number of rewards to tempt you at different levels.

We urge you to click on the link above, watch the beautiful promo film that our friends at New Voyage Communications in Washington DC put together for us (with input from some of our most illustrious celebrity readers), and see what our campaign is all about!

UPDATE: Here is a direct link to our press release. 

Italian Horror Set for Renaissance with THE BOOK

 

I rarely, if ever, use this blog to help distribute press releases, but when producer David Bond sent me the following one, I could not believe my eyes... Of course, I was all too willing to pitch in and lend my support! Read on, and be prepared to lend yours... 

 

ITALIAN MASTERS OF GENRE TO RETURN

AND COLLABORATE ON ‘THE BOOK’

"Rome, the Eternal City, as narrated by the Italian Masters of Horror."

THE BOOK sees the ultimate collaborative Italian horror film unfold before your very eyes.

A one off project of unprecedented scale, THE BOOK brings together, for the very first time, the writers, directors, actors, composers and artists behind the finest Italian genre cinema of the past sixty years. This includes the creative forces behind the Giallo movement, Spaghetti Westerns, Eurocrime and more. Each director will be given the opportunity to showcase their own personal vision of Rome, spread across a dozen episodes. Each segment in this feature film will contain a unique blend of macabre thriller, horror and the fantastic; all delivered with the unique style and method of the director in question.

THE BOOK features 12 individual episodes, each of which is helmed by a master of Italian genre cinema. The following directors are confirmed:

LAMBERTO BAVA (SHOCK, MACABRE, DEMONS 1 & 2, BODY PUZZLE, GHOST SON)

ANTONIO BIDO (BLOODSTAINED SHADOW, CAT WITH THE JADE EYES, BLUE TORNADO)

ENZO G. CASTELLARI (COLD EYES OF FEAR, THE HOUSE BY THE EDGE OF THE LAKE, THE LAST SHARK, INGLORIOUS BASTARDS)

LUIGI COZZI (THE KILLER MUST KILL AGAIN, CONTAMINATION, STARCRASH, THE BLACK CAT, PAGANINI HORROR)

ALBERTO DE MARTINO (THE BLANCHEVILLE MONSTER, THE ANTICHRIST, SCENES FROM A MURDER, HOLOCAUST 2000)

RUGGERO DEODATO (CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK, LAST CANNIBAL WORLD, CUT AND RUN)

ALDO LADO (NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS, SHORT NIGHT OF THE GLASS DOLLS)

UMBERTO LENZI (NIGHTMARE CITY, SEVEN BLOOD-STAINED ORCHIDS, THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER, EATEN ALIVE, GHOST HOUSE, CANNIBAL FEROX)

EDOARDO MARGHERITI (IN THE EYES OF A KILLER, SIX STEPS INTO GIALLO, BLACK COBRA)

SERGIO MARTINO (TORSO, ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH, MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD, THE CASE OF THE SCORPION’S TAIL, YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY)

SERGIO STIVALETTI (THE THREE FACES OF TERROR, THE PROFANE EXHIBIT, THE WAX MASK)

TONINO VALERII (writer of TERROR IN THE CRYPT and THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH, director of MY DEAR KILLER and MY NAME IS NOBODY)

The screenplay will be provided by DARDANO SACCHETTI (THE BEYOND, DEMONS, MANHATTAN BABY), with exclusive poster art by ENZO SCIOTTI (THE BEYOND, PHENOMENA, NON VIOLENTATE JENNIFER (I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE), THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY, DEMONS, CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD).

Featuring a brand new score by GOBLIN and CLAUDIO SIMONETTI’S GOBLIN. With more participants to be announced……….

Following the ambitious extremity of THE PROFANE EXHIBIT, producers DAVID BOND and MANDA MANUEL present: THE BOOK. Assembling the finest living Italian filmmakers, the project intends to provide these elite creative forces a platform with which they can showcase the dexterity and innovation which brought them initial acclaim. Free of studio constraints, THE BOOK will be Italian genre at its most raw and basic form, with the impetus placed upon recapturing the magic which resonates with so many fans the world over.

An INDIEGOGO project, designed to generate the start-up funding for THE BOOK, is now up and running. Tired of the standardized trinkets that are usually offered as part of these funding schemes, the producers of THE BOOK have gone to great lengths to ensure that genuinely exclusive and one-of-a-kind bonuses have been offered.What is currently listed is only the beginning of what will be unveiled along the way. To ensure that people are paying attention to the project, there will be sporadic offers posted throughout the 90 day campaign. This will benefit all collectors, fans and true enthusiasts of Italian genre cinema. Included in the delights on offer are:

Signed, rare VHS tapes of classic Giallo, Video Nasties and Horrors from the directors involved, plus options for personalization.
Original cinema posters (some of which are 30 -40 years old), signed by the directors, plus options for personalization.
A private SFX workshop with SERGIO STIVALETTI (Rome / LA)
Exclusive access to the filmmakers. Festival screenings. Wrap party invites. Set visits and much more.

This is a very rare opportunity to become part of the Italian film history.

For more info visit: The INDIEGOGO PAGE: igg.me/at/thebook 
TWITTER https://twitter.com/THE_BOOK_ITALY (@THE_BOOK_ITALY)
FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/THEBOOKITALIANANTHOLOGY
INSTAGRAM THE_BOOK_ITALY

For further information, interview opportunities, official stills and more, please contact: themastersreturn@gmail.com

Arrivederci, Teodoro

This morning, I received sad confirmation of the passing of actor/writer/dubbing legend Ted Rusoff, the subject of John Charles' feature interview in VIDEO WATCHDOG 159, at the admitted age of 74. This from Ted's sister-in-law, by way of Harvey Chartrand: ""I just got official word from Rome that Ted died on September 28, 2013. He was hit by a car in August and hospitalized near Rome for more than a month. He died in the hospital."

You can look up some of Ted's many (mostly uncharted) accomplishments on the IMDb or on his Wikipedia page. Even he couldn't recollect all the voice work he'd done, in everything from Italian pepla to porno, but his voice befriended all of us who loved European cinema - particularly European genre cinema - since the 1960s. For me, this is a fond farewell to a man I was proud to call my friend.

Ted loved language like no one else I've ever known. According to his daughter Giulia, "He has written poetry, lyrics to songs, music for songs and an opera, 500-plus dubbing scripts, a textbook on the Finnish language, short stories, and screenplays - all of them damn good, but I honestly think this [limerick] ranks near the top of his entire life's literary output...

A certain young dubber from Venice
Was greatly addicted to tenice
He practiced the serve
With both vim and with verve:
Said it lengthened the shaft of his penice."

That was Ted. (And to be perfectly candid, for all I know, Giulia may have been Ted also - she shared his sly way with words, and I've never been completely sure that he wasn't just pulling my leg by adopting the occasional guise of an adoring, erotica-writing, lingerie model daughter. Giulia hasn't responded to any of my queries about her dad's rumored death, so I really can't be sure whether or not I'm saying goodbye to her, as well. I wouldn't put such a prank past him. Pranks ran in his family.) Ted and I became pen pals as the VW piece was heading into print, especially after he received a gift copy of the Bava book, which he admired and respected so much that it replaced the dictionary he considered the best in the world on the lectern in his home. He was a smart, wily, impish devil of a man, and I wish I'd known him a lot longer.

Hot Digital Dog!

You've asked for it and, after months of intensive labor and development... we've done it!


VIDEO WATCHDOG is going digital... and so is my Saturn Award-winning book MARIO BAVA - ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK!

And they're not coming soon... they're available NOW!

Get 'em for your PC, iPad, iPhone, iPod, and anything that supports Flash. Head over to our website and read all the juicy details. But there are some things you'll want to know...

First things first:
No, we are not abandoning print. VIDEO WATCHDOG will continue to be published the way it has always been! The print version gets done first and while it's at the printer, we'll knuckle down to the digital edition -- loading it up with interactive material (trailers, pop-ups, audio samples and extra content) that will bring you, as our reader, much closer to the films and other subjects under discussion. Just look for all the little play arrows and icons, feel your way around... I'll explain more when you get there! This is a wholly immersive experience, like reading VIDEO WATCHDOG in 3-D.

And here's the sweet part...
Each new digital edition of VIDEO WATCHDOG will be absolutely free!

What? Are we crazy? You bet! Donna has conceived a business model for this baby that's sure to please everyone. Our back issues will be priced at $3.99. So as long as you get the current issue before it becomes a back issue, it's yours for the taking!

The digital version of my critical biography MARIO BAVA - ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK is reasonably priced at $29.99. Remember, text-wise, this is the equivalent of 10 regular-sized books, plus you need to factor in the value of its hundreds of meticulously restored, full color illustrations, many from the Bava family's own personal archives. To further sweeten the deal -- and make it an essential acquisition even for those who own and cherish the hard copy -- the Bava book has been likewise enhanced for its digital edition with a slew of trailers, commercials and short films. Most of these are available elsewhere online, but here they are uniquely cued to the story of Bava's life and career! We think it makes a great book even greater, but we're not quite done with it. We are planning to make further special amendments, additions and corrections to ATCOTD to coincide with the Mario Bava Centenary next year... and if you buy the book now, your copy will be automatically updated to our Centennial edition at the time of its publication! At no extra charge!

Our goal is to make this material available to all formats, but as of right now, at the time of this launch, they are available only for Flash (ie., your PC) and Apple products like the iPhone, iPod and (the ideal delivery system, in our opinion) the iPad.

When I got my first look at the Bava book on the iPad, I had the strange, elating sensation that I was finally seeing the book I labored so long to create in its native technology. I know the tangible book is a glorious thing, an epitome of the bookmaker's craft, but it's 12 pounds and bulky, so not the most comfortable book to hold and read. The hard copy is also a little expensive, as many of you have pointed out! But now, at last, it's within everyone's economic reach -- and easier to read and use than ever! Now the pages can be enlarged for detailed perusal without even an inkling of distortion... now the entire text is completely searchable so you can immediately access the information you're seeking (eliminating the need for the Index it took us six months to prepare!)... but, best of all, it's no longer 12 pounds! In its digital edition, the Bava book is now something you can carry with you anywhere. You can read it on the bus. You can read it in bed. In the dark!

What about those of you who use Android, Kindle Fire and the other formats?
Well, Donna is still working to make these, and our other future ePublications, adaptable to these and other formats. It will get done, but this much we can deliver now.

Since 1990, we at VIDEO WATCHDOG have made it our business to redefine what genre film criticism is, what a magazine about genre films can be, what a book about a genre filmmaker can encompass. This is the most important step we have taken since the publication of the Bava book in 2007, and it's only the beginning of a new era in our history.

So what are you waiting for? Visit our website, get your VIDEO WATCHDOG app, and experience the new digital realm we've envisioned!
 

My "Citizen Clarke" Published

In stores shortly: LITTLE SHOPPE OF HORRORS #31, with its DEMONS OF THE MIND cover story. This issue also features my long-promised memoir "Citizen Clarke," a 10-page look back at my eleven years of training for my life's work under Frederick S. Clarke at CINEFANTASTIQUE. Editor Richard Klemensen has done a really nice job with the presentation, which is nicely illustrated with vintage pics of Fred, Donna and I. This is my first-ever appearance in the pages of LSoH -- a marvelous magazine I first discovered in a Toronto bookstore back in 1981, while I was up there covering the making of VIDEODROME for CFQ -- and it's an addition to my working roster that pleases me particularly.

Eight Years A Blogger

Yes, it was eight years ago today that I decided, very spur of the moment, to launch this blog. I still post things here, although I now have another blog (Pause. Rewind. Obsess. II) where I tend to post my free-floating ideas and responses to the movies and other programming I watch... primarily because I much prefer the template I have over there to this one, which I don't feel right about changing. Besides, as a Gemini, it somehow makes sense to be running two blogs at once. Blogger tells me that Video WatchBlog has chalked up... well, this will be the 1,060th posting. That still averages out to 132.5 postings per year, so my overall average isn't that bad, especially with everything else that's been going on. Even so, I'll try to do better.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, Video WatchBlog seems to have become a kind of obituary blog this year. I need to discourage this tendency because people then look to me for formal acknowledgements of the passings of numerous worthy luminaries, and I don't always have enough time to balance my surplus of heart. Hammer's Anthony Hinds recently passed away and, although I wasn't able to write something appropriate here at that time, Constantine Nasr has agreed to write a eulogy for the next issue of VIDEO WATCHDOG. It was also terrible news to hear of the death of that charismatic Italian actor Giuliano Gemma at age 75, as the result of a head-on traffic collision. Less than an hour ago, I learned from a friend of the passing of Diana Harryhausen, since 1963 the wife of animation legend Ray Harryhausen, who passed away just five months ago.

Just yesterday, the news came of the death of Philip Nutman -- novelist, screenwriter, journalist and FANGORIA foreign correspondent -- at the age of 50. I didn't know Phil well -- when you love the same things and produce work in a similar vein, it's almost like there's no need; you know you've got each other's back. What people like that do well together is socialize, and we never had that opportunity. But we were friendly acquaintances for a long time; every few years, Phil would call the office and we'd catch up; he would regale me with stories of his adventures in the film trade in that funny, larger-than-life, almost Australian cardsharp's voice of his. I remember him telling me about years that were wasted trying to get a film together with members of The Doors. I thought of Phil first when Ray Manzarek died. When he joined FB, I hoped it would be an opportunity to stay in closer touch with Phil, but his behavior was taking erratic turns and I finally just minded my own business. A talented man. I'm just so sad that he wasn't looking out for his own best interests. If you were a friend of Phil or a fan of his work, please make whatever contribution you can manage to his funeral fund.  

Things here at the homefront have been extremely busy, engrossing and promising. Donna has been deeply engrossed in a project concerning VIDEO WATCHDOG whose details we hope to be sharing with you very soon. In the meantime, I have been supplementing my time with scripting and recording audio commentaries for various upcoming Blu-ray and DVD releases. I was recently engaged by the BFI (British Film Institute) to record commentaries for five Alain Robbe-Grillet films they have licensed, beginning with TRANS-EUROP-EXPRESS (1966) and SUCCESSIVE SLIDINGS OF PLEASURE (1974), which were first announced for this December but which I now hear may be slightly postponed. The other three titles have yet to be announced. I've also agreed to record two commentaries for Britain's Arrow Films: Roger Corman's PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1962) and Robert Fuest's DR. PHIBES RISES AGAIN (1972), which should surface sometime before next Spring. I've already recorded the commentary for SUCCESSIVE SLIDINGS and will be recording TRANS-EUROP-EXPRESS very soon; Robbe-Grillet was one of the writers whose work and example persuaded me to become a novelist, so it was a great honor to be invited to speak at length about his films, which has given me permission to delve back into his books and also into some of the fine books written about him. The strange thing about this assignment is how much I feel that the liner notes I wrote for the Redemption Jean Rollin discs, and the commentaries I recorded for their Jess Franco titles (especially NIGHTMARES COME AT NIGHT) and for Kino Lorber's recent disc of Mario Bava's FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON prepared me for it. There is a continuity with all this work I think you'll find surprising and interesting.

Beyond that, I've also contributed to a couple of books now newly on the market: the BFI Companion book GOTHIC: THE DARK HEART OF FILM, to which I contributed two pages on Italian Gothic cinema; and John Szpunar's account of the diabolic side of desktop publishing, XEROX FEROX: THE WILD WORLD OF THE HORROR FILM FANZINE, which includes a lengthy new interview with me about VIDEO WATCHDOG and our 23-year publishing history.

But the most exciting news concerns a certain screenplay of mine, which is finally moving forward and should be going into production next spring. 

  

THAT'S SEXPLOITATION! (2013) reviewed

Frank Henenlotter's new documentary for Something Weird, THAT'S SEXPLOITATION! is a rollicking ride through the tassled hills and cat-masked valleys of America's uniquely uncomfortable history of silver screen erotica.

Co-hosted by Henenlotter and veteran exploitation king David F. Friedman (who died in 2011), the movie covers a lot of varied ground in its generous 136-minute running time: arcade shorts, pre-code peekaboos, nudie-cuties, pious STD mellers, goona-goona, '50s Euro imports, burlesque films, nudies, roughies, druggies, white-coaters and more, everything up until the time, as Friedman groans, "hardcore put an end to everything." Each excerpt is properly identified and their particulars are so fascinating (absurd/silly/funny, rather than seriously erotic), and the gear shifts between chapters so extreme, that each subheading begs for its own feature documentary -- or further investigation of the Something Weird back catalogue, which was surely part of the plan.

Though the necessarily shared narrative duties give this the feel of television rather than documentary, it holds together because the footage is always lively and interesting, because each new twist in the tale says something different and valid about the changing face of 20th century America, and because Friedman keeps the story's focus on how these films filled a need and were sold. Because the story is left to a producer's perspective than that of directors, it's not really about who set the highest artistic standards in the genre (Radley Metzger and Joe Sarno don't really get a mention or a showing) as much as it's about less-than-beautiful hootchie-coochie girls coyly modeling 1930s pubic hair or motor-boating the camera. As the narration freely admits, most of these films seemed able to cope with their content (and remain within the bounds of the law) by keeping it as infantile as possible, or, in the case of the roughies, as violent as possible to counter the temptations of the imagery. Adding to the fun, Henenlotter sometimes uses screen text on clips to direct our gaze, to help us overhear things we weren't meant to hear (like one hapless man in an orgy scene, telling his partner that he's wearing two pairs of briefs to help discourage his arousal), and to follow-up on unkept promises like the "Coming Soon to This Theater" OLGA'S GARDEN OF TORTURE.

The on-camera host approach probably doesn't work as well as a traditional narration/montage approach would have (Henenlotter taking a long walk to Friedman's house, in the rain, no less, and elsewhere addressing us from a stool in a nude bar, while ogling a nude male bartender, feel particularly forced), but the film deserves particular credit for allowing men a place in this history, reserving space for gay exploitation and the history of male nudity in straight features. The clips are extremely well-selected and cleverly edited together throughout, and Friedman's raconteur revelry, albeit token, nevertheless brings us into the raucous presence of the enterprising, carny-barker spirit that got most of these films made in the first place.

THAT'S SEXPLOITATION! is presently playing different film festivals here and abroad. There has been no announcement as yet about its home video release, which is surely forthcoming.

12 Unpublished Novels They Wish They Could Read

I found myself in some unexpectedly grand company today, thanks to Joshua Chaplinsky and the folks at LitReactor. My humble thanks -- I suspect your patience and curiosity will be rewarded next year.

R.I.P.: Dante DiPaolo (1926-2013)

I was just notified by Kathy Brown, who runs the Rosemary Clooney website, of the death last week, on September 3, of actor-dancer Dante DiPaolo, who was the very last person I interviewed for MARIO BAVA - ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK.

Dante broke into the movies in 1939, as a hoofer, and appeared in a couple of the great MGM musicals: MEET ME AT THE FAIR and SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS. It was during this period that he met the great love of his life, Rosemary Clooney, but they were both married at the time: she to actor-director Jose Ferrer, and he to a Hotel Tropicana showgirl then known as Nadine Ducassay, who later found work in Rome under the names Nadia Sanders and Nadine Ducas. (She went on to appear in a conspicuous role in Fellini's 8½, among other films.) Dante followed Nadine to Rome and was floored when producer Virgilio DeBlasio, who had taken them to dinner to become better acquainted with her, suddenly shifted all his attention to Dante, upon learned he had been in SEVEN BRIDES, then a perennial on Italian television.

Suddenly Dante became a much in-demand actor. He started out as henchmen and villains in such sword-and-sandal films as Riccardo Freda's epic SAMSON AND THE 7 MIRACLES OF THE WORLD (1961), Marcello Baldi's THE SON OF HERCULES VS. VENUS (1962) and Irving Rapper's PONTIUS PILATE and JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS (both 1962), but he gave his best performances to Mario Bava's greatest giallo thrillers, THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1962, as the mysterious reporter Landini) and BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964, as the frazzled drug addict Frank).  When the Italian film industry began suffering a crisis in the late 1960s, so was their marriage and Dante returned to the States, where he was able to appear in one last important musical, Bob Fosse's SWEET CHARITY (1969).  He and Clooney reunited in the 1970s and they remained devoted and together for the remainder of her life, with Dante producing her stage act. They finally married in 1997, only five years before her death in 2002. Some years later, he made a few appearances on the short-lived but interesting HBO series UNSCRIPTED, co-produced by his nephew George Clooney, playing an actor named Dante (a clip from THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH was used to touchingly illustrate his former screen career).

Dante gave some of the very best, most nuanced performances found in Bava's films -- he had the goods to have become a first-rate film noir star -- and I was so pleased to be able to interview him and get some of his memories into the book. During our talk, I mentioned to him that THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH had been reworked into a light comedy, which completely surprised him. I arranged for him to see it, and we also sent him a gift copy of the book, which he told me made him feel tremendously proud -- and also happy for Mario, whom he considered a hugely underrated talent. At the time I interviewed him, on June 13, 2006, Dante was living next door to his elderly mother, who was dependent on his care (even though he was then 80!), and sharing an apartment with none other than his first wife. I'm told that his mother lived to be 100, but did predecease him. He cared for her as he had cared for Rosemary through her final illness.

Here's to you, Dante! My book would have been grievously incomplete without you, and I'm grateful for your work, your input, and so glad we got to touch base.

First Look: VIDEO WATCHDOG 175

This time, your first look is right here in my hand! Donna hasn't yet updated our website page -- you wouldn't believe how much she's been juggling of late -- but the next issue is already printed, here at Chez Watchdog and it will be shipping soon! Among the contents in this exciting new issue...

DOG BYTES (short reviews)
247~F
THE DARK MIRROR
THE FIELDS
FINAL DESTINATION 5
THE PETE WALKER COLLECTION
ROCCO: DER MANN MIT DEN ZWEI GESICHTERN (aka SUGAR COLT)
SEA OF SAND

RAMSEY'S RAMBLES by Ramsey Campbell
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN

FEATURE ARTICLE:
"We Love You, Jo Walker..." THE KOMMISSAR X LEGACY by Tim Lucas

DVD SPOTLIGHT:
KARLOFF: CRIMINAL KIND and BORIS KARLOFF TRIPLE FEATURE
reviewed by Kim Newman

DISCS IN DEPTH (longer reviews):
AMERICAN MARY
DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK
DARK SHADOWS
THE DEVIL'S SISTERS
FOREVER EVIL
HELL
HIGH LANE
THE LADY VANISHES
LIFEFORCE
MOTHER'S DAY (original and remake)
THE NICKEL RIDE / 99 & 44/100th's % DEAD
NIGHTMARES
NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT
SCREAM THEATER DOUBLE FEATURES
ZOMBIE LAKE

BONUS FEATURE:
"Digital Alchemy: ZOMBIE LAKE and the Ever-Evolving Art of Film Mastering" by Bret Wood

BIBLIO WATCHDOG (book reviews):
HORROR AND THE HORROR FILM
DARK SHADOWS Comics Series

Plus Douglas E. Winter's AUDIO WATCHDOG and MORE!

Street date: September 30!

Adiós, José Ramón Larraz (1929-2013)

Spanish writer-director José Ramón Larraz has passed away at the presumed age of 84. News of his hospitalization was circulated a week or two ago, but no cause of death has yet been announced. Horror fans who came of age in the 1970s remember Larraz as one of the most exciting new European voices of that decade. He began his career as a graphic artist and cartoonist. Like his compatriot Jess Franco, he left Spain at the height of Franconian oppression to create his art under freer conditions; unlike Franco, who gravitated to France, Larraz went to London. His works, marked by morbid themes and often explicit violence and carnality, include WHIRLPOOL (1970, possibly the first X-rated horror film released in the United States -- released one week before Franco's EUGENIE... THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION -- and an obvious influence on Wes Craven's THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT), DEVIATION (1971), SYMPTOMS (1975, arguably his best film), the erotic terror classic VAMPYRES (1974, for which he recorded a memorable audio commentary when it was issued on DVD and Blu-ray by Blue Underground) and THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED (1974). He was often credited on these films under such names as J.R. Larrath or Joseph Braunstein. After this, when creative freedom was permitted once again in his country, he returned to his homeland, where he made such films as THE COMING OF SIN (1978), STIGMA (1980), THE NATIONAL MUMMY (1981), BLACK CANDLES (1982), REST IN PIECES (1987) and DEADLY MANOR (1990), which did not receive the same level of international exposure. He was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2009 Sitges Film Festival and the subject of a documentary, ON VAMPYRES AND OTHER SYMPTOMS, directed by Celia Novis in 2011. A major figure, whose passing comes as a major loss to Spanish culture, especially as it follows so soon the recent deaths of Jess Franco and Bigas Luna.

RIP: Producer Luciano Martino (1933 - 2013)

I have just learned of the death today of legendary Italian film producer Luciano Martino, the brother of director Sergio Martino, at the age of 80. Simply put, the Golden Age of Italian Fantasy would have been no more than an aberration without his financial support and encouragement of this man, who sometimes went by the name of "Martin Hardy" on screens trying very hard not to appear Italian. Among his most important productions: Brunello Rondi's IL DEMONIO, Mario Bava's THE WHIP AND THE BODY, Antonio Margheriti's THE GIANTS OF ROME, Romolo Guerrieri's THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH, Umberto Lenzi's SO SWEET... SO PERVERSE (aka ORGASMO), Giuliano Carmineo's WHAT ARE THOSE STRANGE DROPS OF BLOOD ON JENNIFER'S BODY?, Lenzi's CANNIBAL FEROX, Lamberto Bava's BLASTFIGHTER, and Sergio's own marvelous series of giallo thrillers, including THE CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL, THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH and ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK. He continued to produce as recently as last year, and he was also credited as a writer or co-writer on many films of the early 1960s, often with the great Ernesto Gastaldi, including Sergio Leone's THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES and Alberto De Martino's MEDUSA AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES. The husband of actress Wandisa Guida (the innocent female lead of the first Italian horror picture, I VAMPIRI), Martino was credited with discovering and fostering the career of Edwige Fenech, one of the great European sex sirens of the 1970s. We owe him more than we can ever repay, but his movies will hold our attention through posterity!   

RIP Cerlet "Haji" Catton (1946 - 2013)

Francesca "Kitten" Natividad has just posted on Facebook news of the death of Russ Meyer actress Haji at the age of 67. Haji (real name: Cerlet Catton) was best known as the Italian third of the female gang in FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!, but she also appeared a few short times in his other masterpiece BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, as well as more conspicuous roles in MOTOR PSYCHO, GOOD MORNING... AND GOODBYE! and SUPERVIXENS. Outside of Meyer's orbit, she also appeared in such exploitation fare as BIGFOOT, WHAM! BAM! THANK YOU, MR SPACEMAN and ILSA, HAREM KEEPER OF THE OIL SHEIKS, as well as in John Cassavetes' THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE.

Though her stage name carried a heady whiff of more exotic intrigue, Haji was North American -- a Quebecoise, according to most printed sources, though her own Facebook page set her origins in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She found her way into acting as an exotic dancer, taking her stage name from a term of endearment given her by her brother. She was the fiancée of actor and impressionist Frank Gorshin at the time of his death, at age 72, in 2005. According to Natividad, Haji was in apparently good health but succumbed to a heart attack shortly after complaining about not feeling well.

The news of Haji's passing strikes me as pertaining less to an actress or sex symbol than to a sorceress. Here is a link to a beautiful fan video that serves as a magnificent tribute to her potent and unearthly charms. There is nothing in it that is indecent or pornographic, but it is sufficiently erotic and powerful to fall under the heading of Not Safe For Work.

He Burns For VIDEO WATCHDOG

I haven't yet seen this for myself, but I'm told that VIDEO WATCHDOG gets a couple of nice mentions in Christa Faust's latest novel, THE BURNING MAN, the second of three projected books spun off from Fox's sci-fi series FRINGE. Robert W. Getz wrote to tell me: "THE BURNING MAN concerns itself with the early years of the show's Olivia Dunham [played on the show by Anna Torv]. One character, we're told, 'always read his copy of VIDEO WATCHDOG as slowly as he could so it would last as long as possible.'" 

Thank you, Christa Faust!

Peek o' Boop

This new Olive Films release was dropped through the mail slot today, for which I count myself a fortunate man. (Though I would count myself as still more fortunate if Olive would kindly upgrade VW's screeners to Blu-ray.) I watched two of the cartoons while eating a late breakfast; they were both restored from UM&M TV Corp. fine grains or negatives, so the source materials date back only to 1955. The surreal "Chess Nuts" (1932) looks like a fine grain, nice but not too substantial an improvement over what we have seen before; but the hilarious "Betty Boop, M.D." (also '32), with its uproarious closing poke at Fredric March's Mr. Hyde, looks a good deal more detailed and suggests negative sourcing.

I am annoyed, as I imagine many other collectors are or will be, that Olive Films appears to have been guided in compiling the Boops by which titles are not in the public domain. As a result, these sets are pitched to casual fans rather than being given the deluxe box set, complete-and-in-chronological-order treatment. (IndieWire's Jerry Beck has pointed out that only one title in this set, "Betty Boop's Rise To Fame" (1934), is in the public domain. There are a dozen cartoons in this set, ranging from 1932 to 1937, and a second "Essential Collection" has been announced for September.

BETTY BOOK THE ESSENTIAL COLLECTION VOLUME 1 streets August 20. $24.95 DVD, $29.95 BD.    

RIP: Michel Lemoine (1922-2013)

Our friend Lucas Balbo brings us the unhappy news that French actor, writer and director Michel Lemoine (pictured above) passed away on July 27 at the age of 90.

An uncanny screen presence, handsome yet otherworldly, Lemoine had been acting in films for more than 15 years when he got his first real starring role in Romano Ferrara's PLANETS AGAINST US (1962). He also starred in the first features by Jose Benazeraf, SIN ON THE BEACH, NIGHT OF LUST and JOE CALIGULA, which initiated his continuing interest in erotic cinema, while also playing the villain in Mario Bava's first western THE ROAD TO FORT ALAMO (1964); in an interview, he remembered his incredulity at working with Bava, one of his heroes, and plaguing him with all manner of fannish questions at the end of each work day.

Later in the 1960s, he worked in two of the Gamma I films by Antonio Margheriti, and he and his one-time wife Janine Reynaud worked together in Jess Franco's SUCCUBUS, KISS ME MONSTER and SADISTEROTICA (now known as TWO UNDERCOVER ANGELS, in which he played Franco's recurring character Morpho). The image above, from SUCCUBUS, finds Franco proposing Lemoine's mind-controlling character as a "new" Aurora monster hobby kit meant to accessorize a new era of post-modern fantasy cinema; it's still one of the most brilliant and hilarious moments I've ever seen in a movie. Lemoine's many other films of interest include THE CASTLE OF CREEPING FLESH, FRUSTRATION (also by Benazeraf), SEVEN WOMEN FOR SATAN (which he directed) and numerous erotic films, some of which he helmed under the aliases John Armando and Michel Leblanc.

One of the most extraordinary faces of the Eurofantastique, and one of its biggest fans, he will be missed.

To Fight Monsters: Initial Reaction to PACIFIC RIM

Guillermo del Toro's PACIFIC RIM is a leviathan of a movie. I have minor complaints but I can't urge people enough to see this movie now, in IMAX 3D if at all possible, where the action is whale-sized and the sound mix thuds against the chest like atrial fibrillation, and not wait for its Blu-ray 3D debut. This is a film built to be enveloping and felt like a tsunami wave. It's bound to lose a great deal in its translation to home entertainment -- I imagine it must lose something even when viewed in 2D, though it was shot that way. The 3D conversion is spectacular and I suspect this might become one of those movies, like Gance's NAPOLEON, that will demand a generational reissue to the big screen 50 or 80 years further down the line, if we still have such things.

It's not a remake or a reboot of anything, but it is also a microscopically detailed tribute to many things in our genre. I noticed homages to STARSHIP TROOPERS, CLOVERFIELD, JURASSIC PARK, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD, WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS, and there are also homages incorporated into the creature design, little nods to characters like Gamera adversaries Zigra and Gyaos. As I expected with Guillermo del Toro guiding things, the film is an expression of love directed toward a veritable panorama of fantastic cinema, with its fantasy gently but firmly steered onward and upward, toward levels of adult stress that those aforementioned films may have noted but never dared address with such gravity or intensity.

Most commentators about the film are getting completely hung up on the monsters and robots element, but there is a human element at work here too, and it's what elevates this story above the level of the rock 'em sock 'em. The movie is rich with great characters -- certainly not original characters, but familiar archetypes given a renewed sense of life and depth with better writing and heavyweight performances. Likewise, while ethnically diverse, the film is refreshingly unburdened with racial stereotyping. Everyone here blends together under a common threat.

Idris Elba (as Stacker Pentecost) and Rinko Kikuchi (as Mako Mori) are extraordinary, Ron Perlman is properly larger than life as the cheekily named Hannibal Chau (whose crew cannibalizes the dead kaiju, harvesting their remains for various purposes), and even the secondary characters are remarkable. Burn Gorman as Gottlieb is a fusion of Colin Clive and Dwight Frye, doing everything but stopping to pull up his sock, and Robert Kazinsky plays the thorn in our hero Charlie Hunnam's side shadings of complexity that reminded me very strongly of the young Oliver Reed. The heart of the film, the scene it most needed to pass with full marks, the fulfillment of its essential promise, is Mako Mori's childhood flashback -- and it's one of the most emotionally wrenching scenes I've ever seen in a monster movie. Little Mana Ashida makes it a classic, reminding us that it's really the acting -- not the special effects -- that sells this stuff.

My only real complaint about the picture some might consider a big one, but for me it's just an incidental complaint in the midst of a very rich meal: I wasn't too impressed by the creature design. The creatures were supposedly designed with the idea that they could be men-in-a-suit, but they didn't strike me as conceptually original and basic as the screen's most memorable monsters; instead, they reminded me of the CLOVERFIELD critter put through a customizing kit. As a kid, I saw many of the forerunners of this film at weekend matinees and I would spend the next week or so drawing them from memory. Could kids today go home and draw these creatures from memory? Would they want to? That's the one level where I feel the film's imagination failed. The creatures are overwhelming, they are believable, but they are lacking something all the great Toho characters had in spades: character. Instead, they have a block-fisted comic book dynamism that, for me, consistently brought to mind the art of Jack Kirby, much as SPOILER the plotline about the monsters being the exterminating vanguard of a planet-sucking being SPOILER OVER made me think of the Silver Surfer and Galactus. (Really and truly, the film's dedication should have been extended to include Kirby, who gave us all those Marvel Monsterworks with Fin Fan Foom and Googam, which have much more to do with this brand of film than anything by Ray Harryhausen -- as I believe Harryhausen himself would be the first to agree.) I feel the movie could only have been enriched further, it would have raised its stakes, had del Toro given us something soulful to champion about the monsters, as they marched toward the dehumanized colossus robots sworn to protect humanity. At the same time, the level of talent in the human performances frequently breathes fresh life into some clichéd dialogue -- such as "This is for my family."

As it is, I don't believe PACIFIC RIM is pure entertainment; as with the best genre fare of the 1950s, I think it contains some subtle messaging that makes it as slyly political as PAN'S LABYRINTH and THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE were overtly so, and the most balanced of all del Toro's films between art and commercialism. It's all there in the notion of "To fight monsters, we created monsters."

EMMANUELLE ET EMANUELLE Report

As promised earlier, here is John Charles' statement about Lianne Spiderbaby's feature article in the about-to-be-released VIDEO WATCHDOG 174:

Once evidence of Lianne Spiderbaby’s plagiarism was posted online, I decided to examine the “Emmanuelle et Emanuelle” piece we have upcoming in VIDEO WATCHDOG 174 to see whether there were any instances of impropriety. I did this by entering 50% or more of each paragraph into Google and examining the results. What I got were random word matches that did not seem to constitute plagiarism and thus I told my editor, Tim Lucas, that the article seemed to pass muster.

This result was backed up in my mind when Tim reached out to Lianne about the controversy and asked about the work she had submitted to us. She replied,

"The Emmanuelle piece and the Skin piece I wrote for you is entirely my work.  It's my writing.” 

However, in light of further revelations, I decided to look at the article again using a different, more intensive method of searching that ultimately contradicted her claim of the work being entirely original.

Here are some examples that surfaced within the EMANUELLE IN AMERICA section. The passages in question have been taken from a review of the film on the Monsters at Play site by Lawrence P. Raffel that can be found here.

LS: "Emanuelle remains at a distance when she watches a woman getting off to a grotesque 8mm snuff film"

Monsters at Play review: "Emanuelle stumbles upon the fact that some of these richie folk are actually getting off on watching grotesque 8mm snuff films!"

LS: Emanuelle is willing to go the extra mile(s) to get a new and fresh scoop

Monsters at Play review:a nosy reporter fashion photographer who's always willing to go the extra mile for a fresh scoop

LS: powerful businessman named Eric Van Darren (Lars Bloch). Van Darren is a real winner; he keeps women of every astrological sign in his mansion

Monsters at Play review:  wealthy businessman Eric Van Darren. Van Darren's harem is comprised of one woman for each astrological sign

LS:  In the midst of a Caligula-like orgy

Monsters at Play review:  in the midst of a Caligula-like orgy

LS: an island where unattractive women can go to purchase sex from gorgeous young men

Monsters at Play review: some bizarre island where unattractive rich women can buy the services of nubile young men!

This was the extent of my examination as it was enough to indicate that the article was not wholly original, as promised.

In addition to what Tim and I have posted, this unfortunate occurrence will be discussed further in VIDEO WATCHDOG 175 for the benefit of our print readers.

John Charles

Associate Editor

VIDEO WATCHDOG

About the Lianne Spiderbaby Situation

Last week, on July 11, I was among the recipients of a blind-copied email from one John Timmerson. It forwarded a mass of unsigned documentation charging one of VIDEO WATCHDOG's contributors, Lianne Spiderbaby (McDougall), with plagiarism. The documents alleged that her articles for the Fear.net website had been removed after one of her articles -- a piece on Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA -- was found to be composited from writing obtained from three unattributed online sources, including critical-film.com, empireonline.com and blueray.highdefdigest.com. There was no indication in the mailing of how this investigation was launched, by whom, or what prompted it.

Two days later, on July 13, writer Mary Ann Johanson blogged that Lianne had plagiarized her review of the movie TURN ME ON DAMMIT! The news fuelled various fires on various discussion boards. As more examples began to surface, including some tied to her previous VW article about Pedro Almodóvar's THE SKIN I LIVE IN, Lianne posted the following statement on her Twitter page:

"I apologize for the plagiarism in my work. I am leaving journalism behind for awhile. I’m so very sorry to everyone esp those I’ve wronged."

Needless to say, this came as very distressing news to us at VIDEO WATCHDOG, not least of all because our new issue is now at the printer and it contains a lengthy feature article by Lianne Spiderbaby, about the Emmanuelle films of Sylvia Kristel and the Black Emanuelle films of Laura Gemser. VW's associate editor John Charles checked its content against Google and, I was relieved to hear, the piece came up clean. I would have been surprised had it turned out otherwise, because I worked closely with Lianne on its development, encouraging her to dig deeper into this and that, identifying more material that she needed to include, so it developed under close editorial guidance. I think it stands as a fine example of what she is (or was) capable of doing.

I don't really know Lianne, outside of a dozen or so emails. We've never spoken on the phone. It's my nature to trust the people I know and like until they give me a reason not to. She has always projected a public image of leading a charmed life and, on Facebook and elsewhere, I've seen muckrakers devote themselves to taking her down a few pegs, which is another reason I initially responded to this news with guarded suspicion. It was with these factors in mind, over the weekend, that I took the (in retrospect) presumptuous step of posting on a message board about all this -- before I was in possession of any facts, armed only with Lianne's shared side of things, my suspicions about that initial mailing, and my own beliefs about the integrity of her work for VW. I now regret doing this. Two days later, I am still not in possession of all the sides of this story -- who is? -- so it was wrong of me to involve myself as any kind of source, though I did so with the most solvent of intentions. As it happens, I only fanned the flames.

I don't argue the point that she abused her colleagues, and of course they have a right -- indeed, a duty -- to object, but they still have the integrity of their work and their good names. In contrast, Lianne's misconduct has already had a devastating effect on her authority, reputation and a most promising career.

I was asked earlier today if Lianne will continue to write for VIDEO WATCHDOG. In the eyes of its readers, a magazine is only as reliable as the people who write for it, so -- with the greatest regret -- I think not.

Addenda 7/15, 2:40pm:

Unfortunately, new findings have forced me to retract a portion of yesterday's statement. John Charles has notified me that evidence of plagiarism has been found in Lianne Spiderbaby's coverage of EMANUELLE IN AMERICA. John is preparing a statement we will be posting later in the day.

First Look: VIDEO WATCHDOG 174

Now at the printer. Click here for an advance skim-through and free four-page sample.

Sometimes I Get Inspired

 And this...

... becomes this: