Black Sunday (La Machera del Demonio) was Mario Bava’s first fully directed film. Prior to this 1960 film he had worked as set designer and cinematographer primarily, but also as a replacement director (receiving no credit) for a couple projects. The story is reputedly based on a short story by Nikolai Gogol but Bava apparently took great liberties with his retelling. Bava was a lover of Russian literature and the only thing that seems to reflect the story is the setting of the tale in Moldavia and the resurrection of a dead witch. The plot is pretty basic and has been done a million times since then. A witch is burned at the stake and in her dying moments swears a curse on the descendents of the towns people, a curse she eventually begins to fulfill after her entombed corpse is revived with the blood of a vampire hunter. This may be one of the first movies though to use this theme so it was fresh territory back then. That trifle aside the film is a beautiful work and for the time the violence caused quite a stir, causing the film's release to be delayed for years in Britain (as The Mask of Satan) and in America having several prime scenes trimmed. Lovely Barbara Steel has the spiked door of an iron maiden slammed on her face causing blood to shoot towards the camera and rather than have a stake driven through a vampire’s heart Bava opts for the less traditional method of driving it through the beast’s eyeball. For the time it was quite new for American matinee audiences to see such scenes. AIP had distribution rights for the film in the US and most of their fare was the cheesy sci-fi and formula American horror material of the day, mutant bugs and mad doctors mostly. They cut over three minutes of violence from the movie before release. BLACK SUNDAY aka THE MASK OF SATAN The film is shot in moody and sharply contrasted black and white and the look is a tribute to the glory days of Universal’s atmospheric horror classics. Bava wanted some one special to play the lead role. British actress Barbara Steele had only had a couple minor roles prior to playing the witch Asa in Black Sunday and Bava was attracted to her “strange type” of beauty and she was selected from a set of photos he saw. She was purportedly difficult to work with and a wee bit xenophobic and even paranoid, at one point being convinced Bava was using a special film stock that would make her appear naked when developed. In fairness Steele was only nineteen years old and far away from her home in England. She spoke no Italian and worked under harsh budget restrictions. She never saw the completed script at any time and was given her lines and instructions each morning just before going on the set. She would go on to work with Bava again so things must have been suitable enough. She would also make a large number of films in Italy and generally became type caste as an Italian gothic horror queen (a title she later resented) and many people questioned why an ‘Italian” actress would change her name to an English sounding one. I have read some harsh reviews of this film online but dismiss them all. This is great little movie. Even if you just turn the volume off and look at it with some music you like it is stunning and lovely to behold. I wish Bava had done a few more black and white works like this. There are two versions of this film out and I have seen both. The purely Italian version called I Tre Volti Della Paura and the AIP version called Black Sabbath (which by the way is where the band got its name). There are some significant differences in the order the short films are played, some deleted scenes and plot changes in The Telephone and removing Karloff’s distinctive narration and introduction to each episode. While I like the Italian version and in particular because of The Telephone story which in the purely Italian version becomes less a supernatural story and more a crime story with lesbian overtones, I have seen the AIP version so many times that is what I am used to. Made in 1963 the film is a trilogy of stories that are claimed to based in part on stories by Chekhov and Tolstoy but no one has yet to discover exactly which stories the film scripts are based on and it is likely the names were used by AIP to give a literary quality to the movie, as they had done with Roger Corman’s Edgar Alan Poe films of the same period. It is beautifully filmed movie with good acting and not a bad score for the time. Bava's use of color is lavish and has recieved some criticism that it is overblown and unrealistic, but I do not get the same feeling. It is wonderful to behold and some parts of The Wurdulak are similar to the lush scenes Bava filmed for Hercules in the Haunted World (there is a clip from Haunted World somewhere in the Cafe). BLACK SABBATH/ITALIAN TRAILER I have been reading reviews of Bava on the net and gather some that people really do not like the guy’s collective work. I do not like everything he did and find some of his later films have a low quality to them, that begin to look contemporary rather than timeless. I think these naysayers simply miss the point or they are not swept away by his brilliant use of Technicolor or his intricate sets so prominent, for example, in the story here called The Wurdulak with Karloff. His films are artsy and European, of course, in their feel and that can be good or bad. Here it is not only good it is fantastic and if some people do not get then it is their loss. I hate people who feel elevated when they scoff at pure talent. May they all be entombed in an iron maiden for eternity! Most people’s favorite is the piece called The Drop of Water though I prefer the moody, medieval and lush The Wurdulak myself. The Drop of Water has a simple retribution plot and the ghost of the revenge seeking old lady is actually creepy for a bit. But there is drawback in that it is a modeled, grotesque dummy and after a while you want it to do something, show some expression, though it is unnerving for the lack of expression as well. It is a great, timeless movie not bereft of a few flaws. Seems some people miss the really big picture by concentrating on creative flaws which someone like Bava would have, considering his preference for small budgets and therefore more creative freedom and less corporate scrutiny. Now I have a twinge of regret at my harsh words towards Dario Argento in my post on Jenifer, as both Bava and Argento worked in the genre known as "giallo" or Italian suspense theater and literature. Similar to our pulp fiction culture. After reading a few negative remarks about Bava I wish I had been gentler on his devotee Dario. His films still confuse me, but they are not without merit now that I think about it, otherwise why would I have seen almost every one he ever made. More about giallo and Bava's and Argento's contributions to it in a future post. But for every ounce of spite there is a pound of praise for his work, and for the next one in particular, which was Bava's darkly, visionary foray into the world of science fiction. Bava did a curious and eerie science fiction movie in 1965 called Terrore Nello Spazio and it is translated as Planet of the Vampires, although the protagonists here are more like zombies than actual blood drinking vampires. AIP, having achieved some fair success with previous Bava films and Italian horror-fantasy films in general, took a more active role in the production of this and subsequent films out of Italy. Not only did they pay for distribution rights but film legends Samual Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson co-produced the film as well and thus had more say over the general creative process. Over time this new type of closeness with cooperate higher ups would make Bava bitter and drive him away from AIP. Some people have criticized the film for it low production values and in particular for the use of cheesy miniatures. In truth it seems in this case that Bava, who usually preferred low budgets and therefore creative freedom, felt constrained by the budget for this type of film himself. He complained in one interview of the entire set consisting of two plastic rocks. “…yes, two. One and one!” Actually if you look at the clip it appears there are lots of rocks, but maybe Bava was just really upset when he made this statement and perhaps he is talking of the larger rock props. In any case the two rocks in question were left over props from another fantasy film and were essentially donated to the production. Bava uses lots of fog and filtered lighting to make up for the dismal sets and in the process created a truly eerie effect. Mirrors were used to multiply the two plastic rocks and add some depth. The film relied on mood and atmosphere over gadgets and so it is a very gloomy and gothic sci-fi film, one of the first and a good one at that. PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES The creatures, as I have stated, are more like supernatural zombies that have reanimated the corpses of previous landing parties. The creatures are spooky enough and the film is claustrophobic and tense. Some scenes were recreated in Ridley Scott’s Alien, in particular the scene of a huge dead and petrified alien in an ancient space ship. The cast was international and led by Barry Sullivan (USA) and sexy Norma Bengell (Brazil) as the Captain and chief officer of the rescue ship Argos. To further complicate matters the cast all spoke their native languages on the set and the dialog was dubbed later into either English or Italian. They often had no idea what they were saying or what directions they were being given. I have not seen the film in years really. I recall not being bothered much by the miniatures and now find it resourceful on Bava’s part. The rocket landing scenes were miniatures shot in a fish tank full of fog and crazy lighting forcing the persceptive to appear larger and closer than it is. Sure, it looks silly in a way if you are thrilled by noticing such shortcomings. I believe Bava would have wanted to do more but he took what he had and made it work and that was one of the things he had come to be respected for in not only the film community of the time but in film history as well. Mario Bava was born one day after the beginning of WWI in San Remo Italy in 1914. His father was Eugenio Bava and it was at the side of his father that Bava would learn the tricks of his trade in the world of set design and cinematography. Eugenio was a master film technician during the period of Italian silent cinema and a creator of film special effects. Mario would work for several years as his father’s assistant and apprentice. Like his highly creative father Mario was an artist who painted and sculpted and developed a fine sense of design that made him one of the great arrangers of the “mise en scene”, or what can be explained as the total scene one views in a film, as it is shot and framed by the camera. This includes the arrangement and placement of not only the actors but of all parts of the set as well as choices for color and position of props. It means in one sense that nothing you see on the screen is accidental, in the same way nothing placed on a stage for a play is accidental or random. There is no denying that at his peak Bava's stage sets were on the one hand revoultionary in regards to lighting and shading, and yet at the same time they seem to pay homeage to a bygone era of not only Italian cinema but of old Hollywood as well. His transition from set design to cinematographer was gradual and almost accidental. Bava gained not only artistic recognition behind the scenes but was seen as a man who could work fast and on a small budget as a director after he finished a small number projects that were abandoned half way through (or less)by their original tempermental directors. He received no directing credit for these films. One was I Vampiri (I Vampire). Bava was working as cameraman and optical effects designer when Riccardo Freda left the project over time disputes. Bava finished half of the 12-day shoot in only two days. A professional conflict seemed to developed between Freda and producers and Bava, who producers were beginning to favor. Freda abandoned another project after only two days of directing. Bava finished the film to the delight of producer Lionello Santi, who gave Bava the opportunity, at age 46, to direct his first film with near complete freedom. Drawing on his fascination with Russian literature he chose a short story by Nikolai Gogol entitled “Vij” to film and which Bava changed significantly into La Maschera del Demonio (translated in Britain as The Mask of Satan or as it was released in the States, Black Sunday). See the comments above for my opinions of this B/W masterpiece. Bava’s true strength rested not on his beautiful B/W work (which harkened back to the finest horror films of Universal studios) but in his unbelievably lush and atmospheric Technicolor films. His first color film in 1961 was the sword and sandal epic Hercules in the Haunted World (there is a clip available in the Café somewhere, as of this writng I am using an old template which does not support site search but will resolve that problem at the next secret counsel meeting). While as far as the story went it was a slightly above average Hercules epic it was the hallucinogenic and fantastic cinematography and camera work that made the film one of the best of the genre ever made (and believe it or not I saw this film on a fine print in a small theater in Seattle and it was lovley). He would go on to film some of the greatest color gothic horror movies to ever come out of Italy (or anywhere else for that matter) over the next few years, including I Tre Volti Della Paura (Black Sabbath) and Terrore Nello Spazio (Planet of the Vampires). See above for my personal comments on these films. Also during this period he made Blood and Black Lace and The Whip and the Body. These and a few others from this period show Bava in control of his craft and as his work became increasingly more violent and erotic conflicts developed with American International Pictures. There seemed to an issue as well with the consistently downbeat tone of his films and their endings, usually which meant the deaths of all heroes, and they were becoming viewed by commercially concerned AIP as unmarketable matinee fare. Bava did one more film for AIP I have never had much interest in seeing even though it starred one of my favorite B-actors, Vincent Price, Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs. His next 1966 movie, Kill, Baby… Kill!, is a stylish, nice looking film with dreamy sequences and the reappearance of a haunting looking little girl bouncing a ball that drives people to suicide. Though alow budget film it has become rather influential in its theme and technique, and directors as varied as Felleni, Scorese and David Lynch have admitted to using the film for inspiration. Money ran out for the film and towards the end and Bava, actors and crew finished the film without pay. In 1966 Bava’s father and mentor died and the distress over the loss combined with personal and professional problems Bava took a two year break from filmmaking. He returned to the process in 1968 with one of his last great stylistic films based on a European comic book called Danger Diabolik. It is an action type movie about a jewel thief and adventurer who has a bunch of James Bond like gadgets to get him out of trouble and Marisa Mell running around in some tight white hot pants to ehlp get hm into trouble. Like the other films here it has been many years since I saw this really nice looking work and it is hard to give a good comment on it from memory alone. It is one of the last movies where he used his trademark lighting and slick sets before he shifted gears and went into a series of pysho-thriller movies such as A Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1969), Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970), Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971) (which is credited with starting the “body count” style movies of the 70,s onward,) Lisa and the Devil (1973) with sexy Elke Summer. The films all focused on sex and violence in the 70’s Euro style but they also distanced Bava from his old techiniques and images. Twitch of the Death Nerve is basically a splatter film and considered groundbreaking, but it is also less lovely a work than what Bava had been consistently churning out prior to 1966. Bava was finding it harder to work in the mid-70’s and many of his movies were just were not receiving the attention and respect his earlier films did. They were panned as failures and compared to his more brilliant early work. He was becoming disillusioned and now spent time helping his son Lamberto’s career develop and even did set designs for Dario Argento’s Inferno (1980). In 1977 he did the very odd Beyond the Door II (a sequel of sorts of the Exorcist rip-off Beyond the Door with Juliet Mills and directed by truly awful Italian director Ovidio G. Assonitis) which wound up being Bava's last complete film. The movie is also released as Shock. I will say that Beyond the Door II was not so great a movie in my opinion and even a little unsettling even for my taste in a couple scenes, for example where a little boy develops incestuously oedipel feelings towards his mother and in one scene where they are playfully wrestling he begins to, well, gyrate on her. Kind of out there really. When I first saw it years and years ago I had no clue who Bava was then really and figured it was the work of yet another disorginzed Italian director. Some great films have come out of Italy in all genres, but some of the most atrocious have as well. Bava died of a heart attack in 1980 and while some of his latter films showed his lack of passion and vision his earlier work did it is worth noting Bava did not direct his first film until he was 46 years old, and so he is some twenty years older and disillusioned and still trying to make horror movies. Even most of his 70’s work has an entertaining quality his films from 1960 to 1966 is simply some of the best the genre has ever turned out. They are lavish and beautiful and Black Sunday has been called the most beautiful horror movie every made. His classic work is stylish and lush and loaded with beautiful, mysterious European women. He is a great director and artistic visionary.
No doubt some of the most entertaining of the men’s “true adventure” covers to be created were the men against ruthless animal covers. As if Bushido warriors, Nazis, assorted dark skinned savages and commies weren’t enough, our hairy chested he-men had to also grapple with out of control varmints from every corner of the world. Now a couple of these covers may almost seem plausible in a far fetched way. For example the cover for MALE where the guy is tearing blood sucking leeches from his flesh in the swamps of Ceylon. The other MALE cover with two tough guys hacking up piranha is not really inconceivable. But it soon takes a turn for the near ludicrous (and therefore more thoroughly enjoyable) when the same magazine portrays some lost at sea heroes fending off a horde of savage meat eating water monkeys from their rubber raft. I am not a zoologist but I have never heard of such a thing happening. It would be a more interesting world however if it did.
Even more stunning a revelation is that the masters of evil the Nazis had trained mandril apes from remote areas of Africa to eat pretty young half naked white girls alive. No fear however since always lurking nearby and out of sight is a stud with a gun. In this case a Tommy gun. Blast ‘em Joe! Not to be out done by their Nazi rivals in evil some stinking red commies tie yet another half naked white girl down with stakes and have a bunch of minks (a cute name for weasels) prepare to rip her flesh to shreds. These Nazi and commie guys were so evil and insidious you almost have to love them.
When it is all said and done nothing compares to the horror our hero on the cover of True Men must contend with. It is a fate we all fear when lost in the wilds of Burma or Borneo but one we tremble to voice. What you ask? Devoured by a Bengal Tiger or gored by a jealous water buffalo? I wish it were that civilized a death he faces. No. I am talking about the most feared and vicious animal in all of the wild kingdom. You may have guessed by now riveted reader what savage beast I am referring to in hushed terms: yes, I am talking about flying squirrels. Meat eating, insane flying squirrels. Imagine the world we would be living in now had Spielberg selected this bloodthirsty beast as the heartless killer of his first film rather than that wimpy great white shark. My God.
After the death of his father Graham Ingels began drawing comics for money when he was 16 years old. He started off drawing romance and western comics for EC during the 50s but it was obvious his talent lied in the horror field. He worked with titles edited and written by other EC greats Al Feldstein and Johnny Craig. As is shown by the samples posted here he had a nature ability to depict horror and his meticulous style was perfect for drawing old rotted houses and twisted figured with decomposing flesh. His style influenced the genre for a long time to come and Bernie Wrightson’s style is obviously drawn from Ingels, who often signed his work “Ghaslty”, after the nickname he picked up around EC. One trademark of Ingels was a line of saliva in an open frightened or screaming mouth, and this is found often in Wrightson’s drawings. He was a self taught artist and later left the comics field and became an art instructor. He never talked mush about his years as a great horror comic book artist and eventually refused to acknowledge that period in his life really until a few years before his death in 1991, possibly because of the fan revival in the EC titles and his incredibly spooky work on them.
DON'T MOVE! IF YOU DO, I'LL KILL YOU! I am not sure how this fits into the general theme of what I am trying to do with the Café, but it does perhaps fit into a tag I have been toying with called Mondo Nippon, a sort of variation on the Asian Aberration Oriental Oddities tag, that focuses only on Japanese cult culture. Outside cinema and art from the sole super power of cool culture, the US of A, and the former imperialistic ruler of the known world and pop radio, Britian, I am most intrigued by what comes out of Japan, though much of it can be in very poor taste and a little too vile for the family style viewing promoted here at the Uranium Cafe. So this clip may be just the place to start the new tag. The highly acclaimed AAOO will still cover Japan but will aslo include Hong Kong, S. Korea and other such places as are found in the part of the world we policitically incorrectly term the Orient here at the Cafe. This is a wacky almost surreal little workout video that is all the more bizarre because I think they are utterly serious. What the hell is the big guy with the knife wearing over his face?! I have watched this over and over and am constantly perplexed by the thing. The lesson I guess is to learn just enough English to ward off the inevitable attack by barbaric white guys on demure Japanese girls. She runs to a British accented cop but the muggers sound like Americans. Are they in Japan? The segment where they chant “spare me my life” to the aerobic dance beat is so cute and yet very creepy at the same time. Well, all I can say is welcome to the new Uranium Café tag we call Mondo Nippon. Domo Arigato.
Vacancy 2007/Director:Nimród Antal/Screenplay:Mark L. Smith Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Luke Wilson, Frank Whaley, Ethan Embry,Scott G. Anderson, Mark Casella, David Doty
The story here is a Psycho type thriller that really was not as bad as the reviews made me think it was going to be. There are a few references to Psycho, for example in the assorted stuffed birds that decorate the office, the quirky manager played very well by the dependable Frank Whaley and the invasive voyeurism that takes place in the honeymoon suite. The voyeurism though lacks the psycho-sexual peeping Tom aspect that characterized Norman Bates though, and here it instead is done in the form of videoing taping snuff films and supplying them in quantity to the booming snuff film trade I guess (though I belong to the school of thought that puts snuff films into the category of urban-myth… but what a suitable myth to base a slasher style movie on).
The film is not a gratuitous gore film and the edgy drama is built up perfectly before the actual mayhem breaks loose. While there are no real surprises for the most part it is a watchable film. The story centers on an unhappy couple played by Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson who have some serious problems in their marriage that are about to break them apart when suddenly in the middle of their ongoing tirade of insults to one another their car fan breaks after Wilson swerves to miss a raccoon on a dark and sparsely populated stretch of highway in the middle of backwater USA. They trek back to a gas station and hotel and reluctantly stay the night to wait for the garage to open. Frank Whaley plays the genuinely unnerving hotel manager who from the very beginning makes you uncomfortable. The simple scene where he is counting out dimes is sheer personality disorder incarnate. He is a Norman Bates type psycho in that he does not belong to the class of modern film "super" pyscho slashers and he dispalys uncertainty and anxiety later in the film as he loses control of the situation little by little. His unimposing physique seem to make his character more believable and common and therefore more frightening. I am so happy there was no "sexy master mind" killer here. God, that is such a bore anymore.
Frank Whaley shows consternation at the realization that his hotel has a phone booth that still only takes dimes for a phone call. After Beckinsale and Wilson get in to their room and continue their litany of complaints and criticism the tension begins in the form of banging doors and phone calls. It is done very well and soon they find copies of video tapes showing the former occupants of the very same room being murdered and taped. The film develops into a cat and mouse game soon as our couple go on the offensive but the predators are well seasoned and have all the upper hands. Beckinsale is a commanding presence of a woman (Underworld and Van Helsing) and this movie would be much different had Mia Farrow been in the lead role, but she is vulnerable and shaken up and out of control here and does some good acting. Wilson is fine in the role of the more sentimental of the wayward couple who wants to salvage some of the relationship and confront some losses (the death of a child?) that Beckinsale wants only to forget. He is not a strong man really but soon takes control and shows Beckinsale he has some testosterone after all, until he is knifed in the gut in front of her. In movies it always works out that as you show the woman what a real man you are you get knifed or shot saving her and she can suddenly realize that she had over looked all this qualities and feel a little bad. Not only is our couple stranded in Hicksville and are the unwilling stars of a snuff movie but they suddenly find out that the magic fingers machine is out of order. The ending is no surprise as Beckinsale kicks all the bad guys asses in no time flat. The movie is predictable in the way a good movie like this will be (the only alternative ending is what, where the bad guys win and kill all the good people and you are left feeling depressed and nihilistic... I guess you could have an ending where the good guys and bad guys all decide to change and team up and become friends, but that would really suck too). But it is how the formula unfolds that makes the difference I suppose, the way two roller coaster rides can be different and yet you expect the same ending from both. The film is well made and well acted and not over the top in the violence department which can be a relief really. There is blood and violent death, do not worry about that okay. But it is controlled effectively by director Nimrod Antal who does not use the film as an excuse to simply show intestines and livers dangling from people, which brings us to our second film, the dismal and forgettable, exploitation mess Maintenance.
Maintenance 2007/Directors: Paulo Diaz and Jil Guenther/Screenplay: Paulo Diaz and Jil Guenther Cast: Mark Masten, Melissa DeBaca,Rondi Temple, Justin Frumkes, Doc Pingree
This movie has the feel of the type of films made by the Film Threat Video company. Really low quality, almost with a shot on video look, and usually with an emphasis on gore and graphic violence and no concern towards the acting or technical aspects. I will admit that there were a couple scenes in the beginning where the dialog and basic acting looked promising, but all those hopes disappeared quickly. The story is so simple as to defy belief. Of course the story line in Vacancy is simple too and it has been done in one form or another a million times. The problem with a movie like Maintenance is that it takes a simple form and makes no effort to do anything with it other than exploit it for gore purposes. If you think about it the concept for Rocky is simple and unoriginal, but Stallone made a great script out of it. Okay, not every movie will be Rocky, I know. I did not buy this DVD thinking it would be an Oscar winner (as if that were an indicator of a good movie). Two female victims frantically run down the hall after watching ten minutes of this movie to get their money back. This is the plot. After a short introduction that shows some percentages about the release of dangerous prisoners back into society and their reoffense rate the movie goes right into the story. A guy played by Mark Masten gets a job in a high rise apartment complex with only four female tenets living in it at the time because of ongoing renovations and then immediately begins killing them off one by one. Well, that’s about it. Okay the ad in the classified said no deposit necessary and 1st month's ulities free. Now Ms Pennypincher realizes, if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is. The murders are brutal and are followed up by dismemberment scenes. He stores his “trophies” in his refrigerator and a clueless detective never seems to consider searching his apartment since he is a violent ex-con and he began work the same day the disappearances begin. It ends on a fatalistic note with the heroine being killed by the landlord himself. I hate these kinds of endings as they are not a twist in any way. They are a cop out and an attempt to make the film have some sort of impact on the viewer that the film maker could not acheive in some more subtle or sophisticated fashion. Another thing that drove me up the wall was the camera work. It seems like 80% of the film is shot from a really low angle, like the camera is mounted on a hand dolly and is pushed around everywhere. Even in scenes where two people are simply having a conversation the camera is aimed up from knee level and it gets old real fast. Furthermore, the film is all washed out in some green tone or something. I do not know if this is on purpose or what. The look of the scenes I posted from IMDB.com is exatcly how the movie looks! The happy ex-con thinks of all the fringe benefits his new job has... a nice room... TV... flexible hours...girls to hack up at will... a sauna... It is hard to get into the suspense because the acting is bad and the story is implausible and the camera work is inane. Like I said before, these two films are like two different roller coaster rides. They do the same thing, but take the one with some vacancy because this one needs a lot of maintenance.
THE BRILLIANT PEN AND INK WORK OF BERNIE WRIGHTSON It is fitting that Bernie (also spelled Berni on signed works) Wrightson was born in the same city as Edgar Allan Poe since Wrightson would become somewhat of a horror master himself in the field of comic book art and would one day illustrate a series of Poe stories. Wrightson is a self taught artist whose style is similar to Graham Ingles (I am preparing a post on Ingels so stayed tuned) and even the early pen work of Frank Frazetta. He became some what of a comic book super star after his superb work on Swamp Thing in 1971. He worked for both Marvel and DC successfully and for Warren Magazines as well. He always worked with comic book style sequential story telling he also moved outside the field. He was part of the Studio, a loft shared with Barry Windsor Smith, Jeff Jones and Michael Kaluta. Included in my selections here are a couple pieces from his Frankenstein series (including the single comic book page he did). He sent seven years on the 50 drawings (while doing other works as well as he is a prolific illustrator) and the work is superb. I have no clue how he gets that effect. He must me using a combination of brushes and pens in a meticulous manner and the look is like a print from the 19th century. He did a lot of work with writer and friend Bruce Jones and else where are some samples from their story Jenifer, which was made into a gory short film by Dario Argento. A great comic book artist who tried hard to do a body of work outside the field as well. Like most artist who have tried this they seem to get little respect from the “real” art community or graphic community in general, and even part of their comic book fan base spend time scratching their heads and waiting for something in a panel with word balloons to reappear. He has done both and continues to do both still. Below are some samples of his sequential art (some new term for comic book art, with one from the immortal Swampthing series from DC.
JIM STERANKO'S CAPTAIN AMERICA Here are some excellent samples of some of Jim Sternako’s Captain America work. While in some of the design of course there are the obvious Kirby influences that were all but inescapable in the super hero work of the time there is also some design departures as well that are classic Sternako signatures. The top page with Lady Hydra giving a rousing speech to the Hydra gang shows an all over page design that at the time was not very common, with the open spaces and camera work style close ups of facial parts divided by a couple scenes, one with a guy in bondage. Pretty cool, huh? It is hardly anything special at all in today’s comics to see this borderless type design, but prior to a few guys like Steranko the page design was usually completely made of square or rectangular panels containing only drawings and word balloons.
Even more patently Sterankoesque is the Salvador Dali looking dream sequence with Bucky Redborn running through some psychedelic 60’s looking “wavy things” towards an unsupported door in the middle of a dream world. There are no panels at all on this page. This was breakthrough work and later imitators went hog-wild on the freaky visual aspect with little regard to the story itself. But like all great and enduring comic book artists Steranko was a top-notch storyteller and the "gimmicks" were there to enhance the story and not stand alone as snazzy, mindblowing graphics.
Lastly worth an extra look is the second page from the top. Here the story is all contained in panels, but there are no word balloons or narrative boxes. The scene is told as pure visual narrative. The colors in these first three pages are so bright and vivid, almost florescent in ways. I believe the inker on the first three pages is the talented Joe Sinnott and Steranko inked the bottom hallucination page himself. Sinnott turned the mundane pencil work of John Buscema into some of the finest Fantastic Four comics ever produced. The inker (the unsung hero or unhung villian of comic book design) is often the person who can turn a mediorce penciller into a great artist or ruin the layout of a skilled penciller. Sternako eventually would do most of his own inking though Sinnott did not hurt his pencils at all here.
Steranko was a master designer, storyteller and artist. His legacy lasts to this day despite an absence of contemporary work in the field he helped to pioneer during his brief career in it. Before working in comics the dashing looking Steranko was a stage magician and escape artist and has written some books on that subject as well. His web site is:
Also for your enjoyment is this fantastic site that contains every cover Sternako did for Marvel Comics. The thumbnails open up into large scans of high quality. This site is a real find!
Finally, if you're interested in a really long and exhaustive outline of the career of Madame Hydra (and who the hell wouldn't be) then click on the link below and see that some people have way too much free time on their hands.
Jenifer 2005/Director: Dario Argento/Screenplay: Steven Weber, Story by Bruce Jones Cast: Steven Weber, Carrie Anne Fleming, Brenda James, Harris Allan, Beau Starr, Laurie Brunetti, Kevin Crofton, Julia Arkos, Jasmine Chan Some people simply worship Dario Argento. For years and years I just figured I was missing something or that I was not enough of a true film fanatic to see the brilliance in his work that his rabid sycophants did. Now I remember my reactions to films like Tenebre ( by the way, the second picture from the left in my banner is a scene from Tenebre I touched up in Photoshop) and Phenomenon and even his “magnum opus” Suspiria and do not feel I was so out of touch by feeling confused and bewildered. They were not really great movies at all in my opinion. Maybe not terrible movies, but Tenebre was so… so… terrible that I do not see what the big deal has always been about that movie. Okay there was a great axe murder scene with a spurting stump, but the rest of the film was so weird and Italian.
A pensive Dario Argento comtemplates taking a night course in how to direct a sensible narrative.
Often supporters will admit his narrative technique lacks…well… narrative technique and that his story lines are illogical and incohesive and that his true skill lies in his camera work and atmospheric settings. I have even read some people compare his work to Mario Bava's. There is no comparison and his technical skill and set designs are average at best even in his better work. The last thing I saw before Jenifer was something called Do You Like Hitchcock, and I figured it would have all these slick Hitchcockian references and gags but it had nothing of the sort really, not on any sophisticated level anyway. It was a goofy movie with a typical Argetno ending that was more like the ending to an EC comic book than a good horror/suspense movie. Well, now that I have expressed my general feeling about this “horror genius” let me give you my opinion of a short piece he did for the cable TV series called Masters of Horror (view my insightful comment on Takashi Miike’s ode to to incest and abortion Imprint elsewhere in the Café).
Poor Steven Weber comes home from working all day as actor and scriptwriter for horror megalomaniac Dario Argento and has to settle for cold cuts for dinner again.
Jenifer is a short made for TV film and to be honest, I did not completely dislike it, in the same way I did not dislike another shorter work Argento did in a double-feature called Two Evil Eyes with George Romero , where he did a graphic and psychotic version of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat with Harvey Kietel in the lead role. Neither of the episodes were great pieces and hit and miss master Romero absolutely wasted one hour of my life with a Creepshow style “return from the dead and chase the girl ( played by the amply endowed Adrienne Barbeau ) around the house” story, but the shortness of the pieces made them endurable and somewhat enjoyable really. Honestly, I am not expecting Martin Scorcese or David Lean when I watch this stuff. Argento’s narration challenged approaches that undo his longer films were thankfully absent in these two shorter films (each about one hour long) and I found both of them decent little horror bits. Of course in Argento’s hands Jenifer has more than a few problems. Some of these can be excused if you realize the story is from a comic book story by Bruce Jones and illustrated by Bernie Wrightson ( I even found page samples below on the net). So we are not transposing Poe from paper to film here. Jones is a capable writer of suspense and horror comics that typically have a surprise twist at the end in the way older style horror comics did, such as the EC and Warren titles did, as well as the old Marvel and DC titles from the turn of the 70’s period.
Lovely Carrie Anne Fleming before Dario Aregento gave her a make over.
The general story is this: Police detective Frank Spivey (Steve Weber) rescues a girl from being murdered with a meat cleaver by an apparently homeless, deranged man. The man is shot and mutters the girl’s name with his last breath: Jenifer. As it turns out Jenifer is a mentally retarded and grotesquely deformed girl who happens to have a knock out body. For some reason Spivey allows the girl to live in his house where in no time she bites his wife in the face, rips the family cat to bits and is found sucking on its entrails in the bathroom, murders a carnival circus freak collector and chops him up and hides him the frig, then finally murders the innocent, little neighbor girl and does the same to her as the cat (I might add that no police ever appear to question anyone in the disappearance of the child… is this the same country that has the Amber alert?). During all this Spivey allows the slobbering freak to seduce him in bed and does not try to stop his wife and teenage son from leaving. To regain his balance and perspective on life he decides the best thing to do is to quit his career as a police detective and live in a run down , ratty cabin in the woods. Needing a career change he manages to beg a woman into giving him as job as a stock boy in a local grocery store. He lets Jenifer hang out at the cabin all day while he stacks pinto beans and toilet paper but she sneaks into town and sees him chatting with the woman and gets jealous and stalks her teenage son at an outdoor teenage party. Later Spivey finds her chomping on his guts in a tool shed. Needless to say he finally decides enough is enough (most guy’s would have decided that when he bit their wife’s face or ate the house cat and when they took a gander at her mutant face) and takes Jenifer out to kill her with an axe, but is shot by a hunter who rescues Jenifer and no not doubt the cycle starts all over.
Miss Fleming as Jenifer, a girl not concerned with the politics of vegetarianism.
The movie is a no brainer and to try and make anything more of out it is a lost cause. That a man like Spivey, no matter how unhappy, would throw away his family and career and cover up the murder of a child to protect a mentally retarded deformed girl who is “good” in bed is simply too unbelievable. Yes men can be slime, but most would not do this even to protect a Playboy playmate! The violence is excessive and is simply exploitive gore. Every murder involves intestines and body organs and the scene of the nude little girl being gnawed on is simply bad taste. It the type of trick a no talent film maker would employ, the proverbial hammer on the head, trying to appear controversial because they are incapable of doing anything else. I put a photo of Argento in front of a fire place in this post that typifies the guy in my opinion. He is really trying to be this master of cinematic horror and wants us to be intrigued by his dark mind and black heart but ultimately his work is lacking and directionless and falls back over and over again on outdated shock and gore gimmicks to hold it together. You cannot say the same of Argento’s role model Mario Bava, though Bava did dabble amply in violence and even gore, but at his peak he was a brilliant film maker. While I admit Argento can be engaging and entertaining on one level I simply do not consider him to be in the same league as Bava. A post on Mario Bava is in the works by the way. Argento did do much to usher in the revival of the "giallo" style films in the 70's and his use of color is sometimes interesting, but it is the continual lack of consistency that I find annoying with this guy's work as a whole.
PAGES FROM THE ORIGINAL JENIFER COMIC BOOK STORY BY BRUCE JONES AND BERNIE WRIGHTSON
Born Philip St. John Basil Rathbone in Johannesburg, South Africa, Basil Rathbone’s family fled after his father was accused of being a British spy. An auspicious beginning for a man who play suave and sophisticated villains as well as portray the master mind sleuth Sherlock Holmes. His long and colorful career included work in silent films as well as on the stage. He most wanted to be remembered for his stage work and yet he will no doubt be remembered not only for his engaging interpretation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s keen detective but also for his swashbuckling adventured along the likes of Errol Flynn and his host of often campy horror films. I have hardly even read a quarter of the Sherlock Holmes adventures that originally appeared in the Strand magazine (and the illustrations by Sidney Paget, to me, look like Rathbone, though have it on good account by my friend and G.K. Chesterton devotee Delsen Wall that Doyle did not like the Paget drawing all that much) , but when I read or reread the tales I fashion the image of Holmes in my mind after Rathbone’s portrayal. I will be frank, I have not seen another Holmes I like except for the performance by Peter Cushing in the fine Hammer version of the Hound of the Baskervilles. I have about eight of the fourteen Holmes movies filmed between 1939 and 1946. Twelve were filmed by Universal and the first two (Hound of Baskervilles and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) by 20th Century Fox. Now I have to admit I not always satisfied with the fact that 20th Century Fox took Holmes out of his late Victorian period and placed him in then contemporary London. A couple have WWII themes and one even has Holmes fly to Washington DC and cruise around the capital in a convertible car. But some of the films capture a gothic essence that is atmospheric and timeless. Another slight issue I have is with the way that Dr. Watson is portrayed as a bubbling often addle headed good meaning oaf. It is not the way the stories portray him at all. In the stories he is married and quite sharp and keen himself. You must recall he is the chronicler of the stories and all interpretations of Holmes comes through the eyes of dr. Watson. That being said however, the portrayal by Nigel Bruce is endearing and the balance created between Rathbone’s moody and arrogant Holmes and Bruce’s kind and mumbling Watson are one of the classic “cop” partnerships in movie history. Rathbone would become type caste after Holmes and found it hard to escape the huge shadow the role cast over his life. Despite this his career continued onward at a busy pace until his death in 1967. As a note, unlike many of his fellow country men who came to Hollywood in the 30’s and 40’s, Rathbone never renounced his British citizenship and was a decorated for service in WWI.
WE WILL PERSEVERE AND OVERCOME. NO ONE, YES NO ONE ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH, WILL STOP US FROM TEACHING THE WORLD ABOUT FEMALE PRISON MOVIES OR SUPPRESS OPEN DEBATES ON EXACTLY WHO THE GREATEST CATWOMAN OF ALL TIME WAS.WE WILL NOT GIVE UP THE GOOD FIGHT!
Dance Bill Robinson! Dance! We have reason to celebrate! God Bless Apple Pie and The Uranium Cafe! Our greatest fears here at The Uranium Cafe have come true and we suddenly find ourselves the target of a vast and complicated Communist conspiracy to prevent the dissemination of valuable life altering information to the needy public. Yes, that is correct. Senator Joe McCarthy was right all along. We have found ourselves not only behind the Bamboo Curtain but our valuable cyber tramissions to the freeworld are being blocked by the Great Fire Wall of Red China. Let me be clear on this matter. The people of the PRC are a proud and noble and hardworking people and we at the Cafe acknowledge this. They have only been supportive of our efforts here to get out our message and under torture have revealed none of the whereabouts of our staff, but now we are all victims of an insidious and sophisticated Marxist technology. But by my blood we will not give up. Until they pry this mouse from my cold, lifeless hand we will continue in our efforts to bring to the world the truth about truly great men, true voices of freedom, such as Roger Corman, who brought us The Man With X-Ray Eyes and Big Bad Mamma, and Ed Wood Jr who starred in as well as wrote and directed one of the 1st great film classics about transvestitism, Glenn or Glenda. And we will not be slack in praising great film gems such as Ted V. Mikel's The Corpse Grinders or Russ Meyer's ode to the violence in women Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!. Dance little soldier girl. Dance! More grindhouse exploitation film trailers on the way. Be happy! And let us not forget to remind you we will do our best to bring you high quality images of Jungle Girls in Bondage comic book covers as well as US GIs in WWII roasting Imperial Japanese jungle fighters with flame thrower covers... these are the images that resonate the true American spirit and by Mark Twain's moustache we will not lay down and surrender. They will try to silence us, but until they put me in front of a firing squad (or just raise their voices rather loudly and glare at me in a rude way) you can always come here and find slimy Men's Magazines scans and southern USA drive in movie culture as well as sexy Bettie Page pictures and info on underground Japanese cinema. You can find all that and more but you can also find long winded pompous essays on art rock bands like Yes and King Crimson. Will we have to compromise quality and quantity? Perhaps, yes, perhaps. But we will not forget the motto on the placemats of a fine Beijing eatery: Better Read Than Dead! God Bless the USA and Shirley Temple! Dance Bill Robinson! Dance! DON'T YOU BE TRICKED INTO TRADING YOUR TREASURED FREEDOM FOR ANOTHER "ISM" Can I help, you ask? Is there some way that I, John Q.Public, can assist my fellow countrymen living in nice apartments and eating at great restuarants every night in a repressive regime spread the message of low brow western culture? Yes, as a matter of fact you can. I will sit up a link to a Swiss bank account under a false identity soon and you can contribute money, preferably in the five digit range, to there and it will help tremendously I assure you. I prefer American dollars, British pounds or Euros and if you want to give me your account number and PIN to expedite transactions that will help too. All funds will go directly to maintaining this site and helping me to travel around the world and stay in lavish hotels and nothing else I promise. Together we can move mountains! Don't worry comrade, no need to be angry. That promised post on flesh eating zombie films will be here soon. Celebrate the good tomorrow!
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