Cinema Suicide has had a close and loving relationship with Richard Griffin and Ted Marr’s production company Scorpio Releases ever since we interviewed Richard about his movie Beyond the Dunwich Horror back in May. Since then, the crew has shown the film numerous times to packed theatres, created their faux nunsploitation trailer for Nun of That, and released the DVD of their insane musical Splatter Disco.
On Friday night at Club Gallery, a Providence club known for putting on Scorpio parties and celebrity impersonators, the crew officially unleashed the DVD of Beyond the Dunwich Horror onto the world. The majority of the cast was there to celebrate the release, and actor Carlos Brum spun records as everyone drank shots out of test tubes. Now, the DVD itself doesn’t actually come out until the 15th, so I think they really just wanted to have an excuse for a really good party.
The DVD for Dunwich is awesome; the picture seems like it looks better than when it was shown theatrically, and the sound also seems crisper. There’s a great audio commentary with Griffin and Marr, as well as actors Sarah Nicklin and Michael Reed and cinematographer Ricardo Rebelo that gives you all the backstory on their influences and production work that you’d want know. There’s also a great photo gallery with all of the posters and lobby cards plus behind the scenes stills. And there’s the fake Nun of That trailer included as an extra!
So go ahead, you’ve been reading about it here. Go out and pick one up, you know you want it.
The 70’s was certainly a great time for sleaze cinema. The public was finally not subjected to seeing stag films in someone’s basement or secretly trying to wank off to an erotic movie at an art house theater. And the amazing success of Deep Throat not only made pornography a suitable commodity but also made its leading lady Linda Lovelace a household name. Hoping to score big off of Deep Throat’s success, producers secured Lovelace for a mid-budge release called Linda Lovelace for President. Never before in cinematic history did an actor go from making dog porn to the oval office.
The movie opens with Lovelace wearing nothing but an army helmet, saluting the America flag while a warning to the audience pops on the screen; “this picture is intended to offend everybody-regardless of race, creed, or color.” The focus then shifts to a convention in the middle of woods with all of the weird and wonderful different types of people in America. Black Neo-Nazis, Polish men (wearing misspelled “Polund” shirts) making Polish jokes, and even the society of people who commit suicide for fun. The purpose of gathering all of these citizens together is to nominate someone for president that every citizen can agree upon. But nobody fits the bill quite right (Wolfman Jack and the Egg McMuffin were both nominated, but unfortunately neither appear in the film), but that changes after someone drops the name Linda Lovelace who is unanimously decided as a perfect candidate.
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Ennio Morricone is undoubtedly a genius and the maestro of Italian cinema, but part of his genius is including the right people in his work; Edda Dell’Orso is the voice, Franco De Gemini is the man with the harmonica, and Alessandro Alessandroni is his wizard of sound. Alessandroni may not be a familiar name to most, but his contributions to the Italian cinema have been countless and indispensable. Alessandro reflects on his long career in soundtracks with Cinema Suicide writer Tim Fife.
Alessandro Alessandroni was born in Rome in 1925. He began his musical career playing with the locals of Soriano nel Cimino; “I became a musician step by step while I was a student. My first experience (playing music) was in a small village where I spent my summer vacations. I learned to play the mandolin in a barber shop; I was 12 years old. I soon moved to the accordion and later took three months of lessons in piano. On my own I gradually learned double bass, tenor sax and guitar.” Alessandro at the time was studying economics at a university in Rome, but eventually gave into devoting his life to music.
Alessandro began performing in nightclubs regularly and eventually met future collaborator Nora Orlani, who soon after meeting asked Alessandro to sing with her vocal group 2+2. Alessandro eventually left the group to start his own quartet, I Caravels. During this time, he also was recording music for television series, commercials, and documentaries. Through this medium, he found himself working on movie soundtracks and eventually caught the ear of frequent Fellini collaborator Nino Rota. During an early 1960’s session for a Rota score, Alessandro began to whistle and Rota was instantly floored at what he had heard. “Nino Rota was a very good musician—it was a pleasure to work for him—and also a great gentleman.” Alessandro recalls. “He was excited with my whistle and I recall he summoned me into the recording studio and asked me to whistle for Fellini!”
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On a recent vacation I visited a local Blockbuster to find a movie for my then girlfriend’s parents to watch inbetween endless games of Boggle and chasing down copious amounts of Frangelico. Uninterested in Blockbuster’s selection of new releases, my wandering eye for cinematic trash came upon a box cover with a cheaply digitally drawn image, looking similar to the graphics of a scientology book, of an alien ship blowing up something or other. To my surprise, it was a sequel to War of the Worlds; instantly my curiosity level was raised.
I turned over the box cover to see what else this obvious cash-in had to offer, and found a picture of the Soul Man himself C. Thomas Howell, who apparently was not only the star, but the director as well. “But who is that slightly pudgy frog eyed guy standing next to him?” I thought to myself. Oh my god, it’s Kid from Kid ‘n Play! From those awful House Party movies of the nineties! Now my curiosity was definitely peaked and I had to give this one a go.
The movie starts off nice and campy, just how you want it to; a 20 second montage of shots depicting the original Wells story (or, more likely, the Spielberg version) opens the flick and then the story jumps to two years afterwards. The hero of the original story, George Herbert (played by Howell), has been living in a shack in the woods with his prepubescent son, waiting for the day the Martians will return. On his ham radio, George hears the sound of the Martians (which sounds more like an early modem) and leaves his son to go tell the local scientists his discovery.
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Chances are, when you think of Italian horror, the first name that comes to mind is Dario Argento. Like all great filmmakers, the director is often complimented with a collaborator who helps bring form to their art. Kurosawa had Mifune, John Woo had Chow Yun Fat, Scorcese had DeNiro and Dario Argento had Claudio Simonetti. Yet, unlike the aforementioned directors, they worked with actors and while Argento certainly has his actors and actresses, one of the strongest characteristics of an Argento film is often the soundtrack, Where most Italian filmmakers got in line to have Ennio Morricone score their films and for good reason, Argento took a decidedly sharp left turn and instead employed the synth heavy sounds of one of Italy’s premier progressive rock bands, Goblin. Cinema Suicide’s Tim Fife speaks with Claudio Simonetti about his realtionship with Dario Argento and his career in soundtracks that spans over four decades.
Claudio Simonetti was born in February 19, 1952 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. His father, Enrico Simonetti, came from Italy to have a successful career as a composer and became a popular TV host in the 1960’s and 70’s. Around the age of 8, Claudio wanted to walk in his father’s footsteps and began to play the piano. Claudio says that his father never pressured him into being a musician, but stressed that he should study classical if he was interested. “Even though my father played a genre completely different from mine, I think he influenced me especially in the way of playing the piano,” says Simonetti. “I was very lucky to have a father like mine; he was also a great friend.”
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Just when I think I’ve seen the best the sexploitation world has to offer me and I decide to kiss it goodbye for good, along comes a film like Spermula. Made in 1976 by French painter and filmmaker Charles Matton, the film is a surprisingly artsy erotic movie that is as surreal and eccentric as they come.
“On the far side of the universe where man has never penetrated” (from the movie, not my own joke folks) is the planet Spermula, a planet populated by bodiless female beings that can auto reproduce. As Spermula is being overshadowed by another planet and losing all of its light, the all seeing godlike Big Mother decides to evacuate the planet and take over the Earth. And HOW do the plan on doing this you ask? Why by taking female form and giving blowjobs until all the men are rendered impotent, destroying the human population!
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Fernando Di Leo’s Milano Calibro 9 (aka Caliber 9, 1972) has been described as a cinematic achievement for Italian cinema and is widely regarded as one of the greatest poliziotteschi movies. And its soundtrack is just as engaging and full of tension and surprise as the movie itself.
Argentinean composer Luis Bacalov composed the original score to the movie, and it is a beauty. Bacalov had previously made amazing scores for such Italian films as Django (1966) and The Summertime Killer (1972) and would later in his life receive an Oscar for his score for Il Postino (aka The Postman, 1994). His orchestration is a perfect complement to the movie, and is melodies are powerful, haunting and unforgettable. If the movie had an alternate soundtrack, it may not have had the same effect it ultimately deserved.
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In what seems like news from a completely different dimension, a musical version of Dario Argento’s classic 1975 thriller Profondo Rosso (known to US fans as Deep Red) was recently performed in Italy. Although this isn’t exactly current news as the musical’s performance ceased in March, Cinevox recently released the soundtrack CD.
I found out about the musical a few months back and just didn’t understand how the film could be transformed onto the stage, and honestly I still don’t. Argento and the Italian movie market are a source of pride for the country, so in comparison to our Broadway versions of Billy Joel songs and Disney films, in a way it kind of makes sense. The reviews seem to be glowing, and many of the film’s infamous scenes are said to have been included; there’s still the windup dummy, the head still gets decapitated (somehow) by the car at the end, and even the bizarre mirror tricks of the movie have been incorporated.
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Before he was the Terminator (1984), before he fought the Predator (1987), and even before he was Pumping Iron (1977), Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in his first movie, the low budget crap fest Hercules in New York (aka Hercules Goes Bananas, Hercules: The Movie, 1970). Calling it a crap fest so callously does do it some injustice as it is a hell of a lot of fun to watch.
The film begins on Mount Olympus, as Hercules whines to his father Zeus that he wants to have adventures with the mortals below. Zeus gets annoyed with Hercules’ discontent and launches him to Earth by blasting him with a lightning bolt which hurdles him off the mountain. After scaring old women on an airplane, Hercules lands on a naval ship and somehow gets enlisted. He then promptly throws another fit, beating up the entire crew as it docks in New York City. There in New York, Hercules befriends a schlub of a pretzel vendor named, aptly, Pretzie (played by veteran character actor Arnold Stang). Pretzie persuades Hercules to become a professional wrestler to pay for their hotel bill, and then the two start to get muscled by the mafia. All the while, hilarity is ensuing.
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One of the big draws to Italian Cinema is their use of atmosphere, using lush, clever, well composed soundtracks as a foundation for their images. Italy has produced a long list of brilliant composers throughout the years, and one of the most renowned and respected is Rome’s Fabio Frizzi. Fabio began his career working with famous Italian composers Franco Bixio and Vince Tempera, and went on to infamy scoring the soundtracks to Lucio Fulci’s most loved works. Cinema Suicide writer Tim Fife corresponded with Frizzi to learn about the history and the future of one of Italy’s most loved composers.
Fabio Frizzi was born in 1952 in Bologna, Italy, and grew up listening to Bach, the Baroque, and the Beatles. “I have been lucky,” Frizzi recalls, “I have loved music since I was a baby and had the chance to begin early. At 14 I had my first band, a quartet, and then many others until I was 19 playing Beatles, Rolling Stones, Mamas & The Papas, Crosby, Stills… today we’d call them “cover bands”, but we played with maniacal care on arrangements.” While his father pressed for him to attend college and become a lawyer, Fabio shopped himself around different publishing offices around Rome.
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