The Phantom (1996)

The Phantom was released in 1996. It was an Australian-U.S. co-production.

The movies of the 90s pretty much passed me by at the time. To some extent that was true of the 80s as well. For me movie history began just before the First World War and ended at the close of the 1970s. Recently I’m been filling in these gaps in my movie-watching experience and I’ve been particularly surprised by just how many good (and fun) movies were made in the 90s.

I love comics but for me that means mostly European comics, with the only exceptions being Modesty Blaise and Vampirella. In general I have zero interest in American superhero comics and consequently zero interest in modern Hollywood superhero comic-book heroes. I do however have very dim memories of reading a few Phantom comics as a kid and the Ghost Who Walks does have some appeal to me as a character.

The 1996 Phantom movie failed to kick off a franchise. It’s possible that the timing was not quite right.

The backstory is disposed of very quickly right at the start with a voiceover narration. That means we can get on with the story. It is of course set in the jungle, possibly a jungle island. The Phantom’s home is the mythical island of Bengalla so I assume that’s the setting.

The Phantom, the mysterious Ghost Who Walks (played by Billy Zane), has made a serious error. He has allowed a magical skull to fall into the hands of the dreaded Seng Brotherhood. If these arch-fiends get their hands on all three skulls they will have access to unlimited destructive power. The Phantom has to retrieve that skull.

Meanwhile in America a crusading newspaper publisher, Dave Palmer, is set to to lift the lid on the nefarious activities of businessman-gangster Xander Drax (Treat Williams). Of course we figure right away that he is the sort of villain who might well have an interest in those magical skulls.

Palmer’s daughter Diana (Kristy Swanson) sets off on a Pan Am Clipper flying boat to further Palmer’s investigation. Diana is of course a Feisty Heroine and as such she is quite capable of punching out muscle-bound guys who outweigh her by a hundred pounds or more, because girlpower! Yes, sadly, there is a certain amount of tedious Girlpower kickass action heroine stuff in this movie.

Diana is kidnapped on the way by sexy lady pirates. Now this is more like it. I very much approve of sexy lady pirates. Their leader Sala (Catherine Zeta Jones) is not just a sexy bad girl, she has a cruel sadistic streak as well. At this point I’m really liking this movie.

There are several different groups of bad guys after those skulls. Which leads to plenty of action.

My biggest issue with this movie is with one of the character arcs which develops disappointingly and unconvincingly.

A minor problem is that the Phantom comic books were aimed at kids and the Phantom is a goody-goody hero who never kills people (or at least very rarely kills). This makes him a less interesting hero since he is never faced with awkward moral dilemmas. The movie also has very much the feel of being aimed at kids. But that’s OK. This is intended as a lighthearted fun movie.

Billy Zane is OK, but his Phantom is just a bit too sensitive 90s guy. The part needed a bit more gravitas and definitely needed more of a hint of the ruthless crusader.

Diana is slightly irritating but at least she’s cute.

Performance-wise the film’s saving grace is Catherine Zeta Jones as Sala - she oozes wickedness. I like that in a girl. And Treat Williams makes a pretty decent super-villain.

I like the way Diana and Sala instantly hate each other. Sala assumes that no man can resist her charms, but apparently the Phantom can. That naturally pisses her off. Sala and Diana both think the Phantom is rather hot so they’re not likely to become best friends.

Despite my minor reservations about a few aspects of the film there is a great deal to like here.

I love the visuals. This movie aims to look gorgeous and it succeeds. It’s bright and colourful and it captures the right comic-book feel. I do like the 1930s setting. The fact that considerable parts of the movie take place in New York is utilised effectively - this was a time when men dressed with style and women wore slinky glamorous dresses. And the contrasts between New York and the jungle work well.

The production and costume designs are excellent, the cinematography is top-notch. The effects work and the stunts are very well executed. This movie is very very stylish.

This movie was directed by Australian director Simon Wincer, also responsible for a couple of bona fide ozploitation classics - Snapshot and Harlequin. The pacing is brisk Wincer resists the temptation to make an overlong movie. There’s always something happening.

The fact that it failed to ignite the box office is one of those depressing difficult-to-explain things. Maybe it just didn’t take itself seriously enough. The emphasis is on fun. It’s an old-fashioned feelgood adventure movie and I have no problems with that.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. Highly recommended.

The Blu-Ray looks terrific.

Jade (1995)

Jade is a 1995 erotic thriller with a dash of neo-noir. It was written by Joe Eszterhas and directed by William Friedkin.

In 1992 in the wake of the smash hit success of Basic Instinct Eszterhas was the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood. After this his career crashed, he had three box-office failures in a row and the critics moved in for the kill. In fact those box-office failures were extremely good and extremely interesting movies, the movies bombed largely due to extreme critical hostility and the perception that Eszterhas suddenly lost his touch is entirely wrong. But then critics usually are wrong.

Back to Jade. This is very much a San Francisco movie. It opens with the brutal murder of a very rich powerful man, Kyle Medford. Assistant DA David Corelli (David Caruso) is in charge of the investigation. Corelli has his own problems. He was in love with Trina (Linda Fiorentino), now a leading psychiatrist, but she married hot-shot lawyer Matt Gavin (Chazz Palminteri). Corelli is still carrying a torch for her, and still hoping that her marriage to Matt Gavin will break up and he’ll finally get to marry her. On the subject of Trina Corelli is perhaps not entirely rational. The situation is complicated by the fact that Corelli and Matt are friends.

The murder case takes a disturbing turn when it is discovered that Medford owned a beach house. The beach house was used by other rich powerful men for sex romps with very high-class hookers.

There are some interesting clues found in Medford’s houses. Medford was a collector. His collection included a large number of beautiful silver jewellery boxes. Inside each box is a lock of female pubic hair. There’s also a box with the word “jade” engraved on it. Not to mention some excellent photos of the Governor of California having sex with a hooker.

And there’s a video tape which had been thrown into the fire. Perhaps the scientific boys can salvage it. They can. It’s no surprise that it shows a rich important man having sex with a hooker but there’s something else about the tape that throws David Corelli for a loop.

There are also a couple of witnesses whose evidence is unsettling. One of them saw quite a few women entering that beach house. He saw them clearly.

It’s fairly evident that Jade is a woman, but finding her will be a challenge.

There are more killings and attempted killings and someone seems to have taken a murderous dislike to David Corelli.

There are thematic similarities to Basic Instinct which Eszterhas also wrote and the two films have a slightly similar vibe. There are some differences, party of course due to the fact that Basic Instinct and Jade had different directors. With Basic Instinct Paul Verhoeven was clearly homaging Hitchcock and to some extent film noir. It can be considered a neo-noir. In Jade Friedkin is going for a grittier scuzzier feel. Both movies deal with sex and power and with sex as a game in which the price the loser pays is death. Basic Instinct is more concerned with power within relationships while Jade is concerned with power in a broader sense. It also adds money to the mix. And corruption.

The world of Jade is entirely corrupt. Every person in any kind of authority is either corrupt or too scared to confront the corruption. Everyone is morally compromised. David Corelli is keenly aware that he too is in danger of being morally compromised.

There’s a spectacular and extremely clever and imaginative car chase which is of course what you would expect from William Friedkin.

Is this neo-noir? I think it just about qualifies. Corelli is a noir protagonist of sorts. He’s basically a decent guy but he’s already partially morally compromised (you don’t get to be Assistant DA without making a few sleazy moral compromises). He’s accustomed to a world of corruption in which it’s taken for granted that if a line of investigation seems to be leading to someone as powerful as the Governor then the normal procedure is to abandon that line of investigation immediately. Such people are above the law. He understands that the rich and powerful never get convicted. He’s not crooked but he has learnt to turn a blind eye to corruption.

Now he finds himself sliding further into this murky world. He’s also watching his own emotional life self-destructing. He also has people trying to kill him.

There’s a femme fatale of sorts. There’s a sense of events spiralling out of control and Corelli is certainly losing control.

David Caruso makes a pretty good lead but the standout performer is Linda Fiorentino. She’s sexy but disturbing - it’s not at all clear what makes this woman tick.

There’s a nice atmosphere of sleaze and plenty of suggestions of kinkiness.

I have mixed feelings about William Friedkin but he does a fine job here.

If you like movies that wrap things up neatly at the end, tied up with a pretty bow, you might not be entirely satisfied with the ending although I think it’s fine and it works. I don’t care what critics thought about this movie, I liked it a lot. Very highly recommended.

I bought the Spanish Blu-Ray which is (unlike some of the other releases of this film) in the correct aspect ratio and it’s a very nice transfer.

The Dirty Dolls (1973)

The Dirty Dolls is a very obscure 1976 softcore sexploitation crime thriller film which has been released by the American Genre Film Archive (paired with Things To Come) in their Smut Without Smut series on Blu-Ray.

Smut Without Smut may be the silliest idea in the history of home video. The idea was to take X-Rated movies and chop out all the naughty bits. Perhaps their next project will be Thrillers Without Thrills, or Comedies Without Comedy.

At least they had the decency and just enough intelligence to include the uncut versions on the Blu-Ray as well. I watched the uncut version so that’s the version I’m reviewing.

Johnny leads a gang of desperate armed robbers. There’s Johnny, and five hot babes including his sister Dee Dee.

And one of the babes, Sherry, is played by sexploitation legend Sharon Kelly! Sharon Kelly started out as a go-go dancer, made a major splash in softcore and later moved into hardcore.

They’re not the world’s smartest or most efficient criminals. They kill someone in a bar heist. Then they move on to something much more ambitious, stealing uncut diamonds from a diamond exchange. They find themselves having to take two hostages and then they don’t know what to do with them. And maybe they can’t unload those diamonds. Johnny is out of his depth. He’s small-time and definitely not cut out for the big time.

The bar heist is fun. The girls are masquerading as missionaries collecting money for their church. Only they collect the money at gunpoint. They’ve found that this stimulates people to give more generously.

The problem they face in the diamond heist is that the diamonds are in an attache case chained to the wrist of a security guy. They have to take him along with them. And they run into a witness in the lift. They have to take her along as well.

There are already tensions in the gang. Johnny is sleeping with all of his girls. Except for Dee Dee, although he and Dee Dee are very close. Dee Dee is worried that things are getting out of hand.

The female hostage is rich and stuck-up and treats Johnny with contempt. Two of the girls decide to have some fun with her. They’ll subject her to some sapphic loving, and since they’ve handcuffed her she doesn’t have any choice in the matter. She is naturally outraged but the girls are persuasive and Sherry is impressed. For a beginner this lady can give a girl a surprising amount of pleasure.

Sherry also persuades the captive security guy to pleasure her. He’s tied up but the parts of him that are of interest to Sherry are easily accessible. Sherry has a very nice time, and she thinks he has such nice eyes.

The relationship between Johnny and his sister will also develop in an interesting way. This is the real heart of the movie and it works better in the uncut version because it needs to have a real impact. It needs to be a gut punch. I’ve watched the butchered version and it doesn’t quite have the impact and the shock value required. It works better in the uncut version because you get a sense of erotic desperation and lust out of control. The uncut version adds a slightly more disturbing touch as well, with the suggestion that Johnny’s suspicions about Dee Dee’s feelings might not be entirely wrong.

Chopping out all the sex scenes in this movie really is an insane thing to do. The butchered version runs for a mere 49 minutes. This is a sex movie. That’s what it’s all about. Yes, there’s a rudimentary crime plot but it’s lust that drives the plot and it’s the sleaziness and depravity and out-of-control unhealthy sexual desperation that provides all of the character motivations. The sex scenes are softcore but very raunchy and steamy and sweaty. Take out the sex and you have a ridiculously short second-rate ultra-cheap boring crime movie. With the sex it’s a wild crazy roller-coaster ride of sex and crime. It’s dirty and sleazy because it needs to be dirty and sleazy.

And this is a Sharon Kelly movie. She is quite a good actress and she’s cute and charming and amusing but people watch a Sharon Kelly movie to see her take her clothes off and get down to some bedroom action. That’s because once she’s naked she’s even cuter and more charming and more amusing and she sends the eroticism levels through the ceiling.

The sex is strictly softcore.

This movie is not in great condition. There’s a lot of print damage. That’s a feature rather than a bug. It makes the movie feel grimy and dirty, which is as it should be.

Don’t bother with the hacked-to-pieces cleaned-up let’s-not-offend-anybody version. In its uncut form The Dirty Dolls is a delightfully nasty, violent and scuzzy exploitation movie and it’s highly recommended.

Things To Come (1976)

Things To Come is a very obscure 1976 softcore sex science fiction film which has been released by the American Genre Film Archive (paired with The Dirty Dolls) in their Smut Without Smut series on Blu-Ray.

Smut Without Smut may be the most senseless idea in the history of home video. The idea was to take X-Rated movies and chop out all the X-Rated bits. I know, it’s a bit like taking comedy movies and chopping out all the jokes. I did get the impression from the commentary track by the AGFA team that there was a bit of an ideological agenda behind the Smut Without Smut project.

They did at least show some faint glimmerings of intelligence by including the uncut versions on the Blu-Ray as well.

I watched the uncut version so that’s the version I’m reviewing. Having also sat through the irritating audio commentary to the non-naughty version I can say that I’ve seen both versions.

OK, back to the movie. This is a story that takes place in a dystopian future. It’s a soft totalitarianism in which the population is controlled by television. So it’s basically the world we have now but with TV rather than the internet as the method of social control. The TV shows endless sex and violence because that calms people down.

One thing that is interesting is that the movie doesn’t get ideological. It doesn’t have an actual ideological axe to grind. The subject is social control by means of technology. What the ideological purpose behind the social control might be is never specified because it’s irrelevant.

Julie (Barbara Fisk) is the heroine and she’s dissatisfied by her marriage. Her husband just watches TV all day.

Julie is involved with a terrorist group who plan to blow up the government’s super-computer.

Julie wins the lottery. The prize is a week in the Pleasure Dome, where every fantasy can be lived out. The idea is obviously lifted from Westworld.

Julie doesn’t have much fun. The leisure activities are much too violent for her. These include killer-cross - moto-cross but with motorcycle riders hunting down female victims. Once it’s explained to her that the victims are just robots it doesn’t bother her so much. And when she later kills a security guard she feels no qualms about it at all. He was just a robot. A machine.

Of course the Pleasure Dome turns out to be not quite what it appears to be.

There are obvious borrowings from various other science fiction movies and TV series (such as Death Race 2000 and Nigel Kneale’s superb TV play Year of the Sex Olympics).

The plot might not be dazzlingly original but it’s perfectly serviceable and while the ending might not come as a huge surprise it’s effective enough.

OK, back to the smut. The X-Rated material is very mild simulated sex plus a lot of nudity. Yes, there is a lot of frontal nudity. If you’re terrified of the female body maybe you should play safe and just stick to children’s cartoons. There does seem to be some doubt about the original intentions of the filmmakers, as to whether some of the softcore material was added later, and whether the filmmakers approved or disapproved of this.

I think the movie makes much less sense without the softcore stuff. The sex stuff makes it clearer that this is a society in which sex and violence are used as social pacifiers. The scene with Julie and her husband watching TV has a lot more impact when we see the sex stuff on the TV. It makes the couple’s reactions a lot more interesting. There’s a very early scene which apparently had the AGFA team heading for the fainting couches. In fact it works really well. The sudden twist in which the poor innocent victim reveals that she’s just an actress and she’s treated the whole thing as a joke helps to make the point of the movie and adds an interesting multiple voyeurism - we’re watching a couple who are watching something but what they’re watching is not what it seems to be. And the viewer is immediately drawn into the voyeurism.

Very little is known about this movie. No-one knows anything about the producer-director, Derek Ford, or the writer, Michael Greenwood. It seems to have been financed by some guys with a background in hardcore. It’s impossible to say whether Ford knew the extra sex stuff was going to be added. When you watch the non-naughty Smut Without Smut version what you have is at best a cheap knock-off of a number of well-known sci-fi movies. I imagine that it was obvious that it was unreleasable. It’s not terrible but it’s just not interesting enough to have worked as a serious art film at the time, and it’s too tame to have succeeded as an exploitation movie. The decision to add the extra sex footage was quite sensible. It turned it into an intriguing exploration of social control through vicarious artificial pleasures. Rather than just being a cheapo Westworld it becomes an interesting riff on Huxley’s Brave New World.

And regarded in that light it’s not too bad. The ideas might not be original but they’re good ideas, and they might not be explored in profound depth but they are explored. I enjoyed it more than I expected to and it’s worth a recommend rating.

What’s interesting is that for decades this was thought be be a lost movie, until AGFA discovered they had had a complete print (in fairly good condition) sitting in their archive.

Night of Open Sex (1983)

Night of Open Sex (La noche de los sexos abiertos) is a 1983 Jess Franco movie that springs a few surprises. It’s not quite what it initially appears to be.

This is one of the movies Jess Franco made for Golden Films. This was both the worst and the best part of his career. It was his worst period in the sense that Golden Films turned out to be totally incompetent when it came to securing foreign distribution for his movies. These movies remained entirely unseen and unknown outside of Spain.

On the other hand it was his happiest period because Golden Films offered him an unprecedented level of creative control. He could do absolutely anything he wanted to do. And nothing mattered more to Franco than creative control.

Even when Franco’s cult following later started to build these movies continued to be almost totally unseen and unknown to his fans outside of Spain. This finally started to change some years back and these movies are now available, in subtitled form (they were never dubbed into English) and in remarkably good transfers, on DVD and Blu-Ray.

Their initially very poor reputation among eurocult fans has gradually grown but they are still far too often overlooked.

Night of Open Sex introduces us to erotic dancer Moira (Lina Romay). Through the rather sleazy Vickers (Miguel Ángel Aristu) she has become mixed up in some sort of espionage plot. Her job is to take the place of another girl, Tina Klaus (Juana de la Morena), and deliver a secret message to the General. Vickers has kidnapped Tina and she has been forced to reveal the plan concerning the message.

Al Crosby (Antonio Mayans) appears on the scene. The name suggests that he is going to be another variation on the Al Pereira character who pops up in so many Franco films, usually in the guise of a hardboiled private eye.

Whatever deal is going down, Al wants in on it. He wants Moira to accept him as a partner.

He also wants to sleep with Moira. He has to be very forcefully persuasive at first but Moira seems delighted with the outcome.

Al and Moira have a problem. They have the message but it’s in code and they have no idea what it’s all about. Al figures there’s money involved.

There’s still the problem of Vickers, and there’s another couple who want a piece of this action. There’s plenty of potential here for violence and double-crosses.

It all leads up to a totally unexpected ending which I absolutely loved.

There’s a staggering amount of sex and nudity. Lina Romay is nude for the majority of the film’s running time and you won’t be surprised to see a lot of shots of the most intimate parts of her anatomy. The other actresses spend a lot of time naked as well. The sex scenes are softcore but very raunchy.

The highlight of any Franco movie is likely to be the nightclub act scenes and Moira’s act has to be seen to be believed. When you’ve seen it you still won’t believe it. The things she does with those magazines. And the car. She’s a very imaginative lady.

At some point in this movie you’re going to have one of those “I don’t think we’re in Kansas any more Toto” moments. It’s not that anything supernatural or paranormal or science fictional, or impossible, happens. You just know that this is not reality. Maybe part of it is reality. Or maybe none of it. You start to realise that the plot is following dream logic rather than ordinary logic. Characters suddenly do wildly unexpected out-of-character things. It’s clear that this is not a flaw in the script. This is intentional. Uncle Jess is playing with our heads.

Stephen Thrower has suggested that the entire movie is an extended sexual fantasy (or series of sexual fantasies). I think he’s probably spot on. It’s a sexual fantasy rather than a dream or a hallucination or an exercise in surrealism.

Which raises lots of interesting questions. Are we supposed to believe that these people have any actual existence? Is this Jess Franco’s sexual fantasy which he’s inviting us to share? Is it to any extent Moira’s fantasy? And given the close collaboration between Franco and Lina Romay and the fact there was apparently quite a bit of improvising going on, are there any elements that might be Lina’s fantasy? Or a fantasy shared by Jess and Lina?

There is one genuinely shocking scene, but of course if this really is supposed to be taken as a fantasy then that scene becomes much less disturbing. Other mildly disturbing scenes become not disturbing at all.

The sex scenes are very passionate but they’re also just a little jokey. They’re mostly good-natured. You have to love the way Moira starts yelling “Oh Tarzan” as her sexual frenzy increases and in one encounter she gives an actual Tarzan jungle call when she comes. It’s one of the things that is so engaging about this movie - these sudden goofy moments.

The final sex scene is priceless. It may be the culmination of Franco’s career as a filmmaker. It’s not that it’s graphic, it isn’t, but the context is delightfully surprising.

Night of Open Sex is crazy, but it’s crazy in a subtle way. The craziness creeps up on the viewer. I liked it a lot. Highly recommended.

Severin have provided a great transfer with some very desirable extras. As always the pick of the extras is Stephen Thrower’s perceptive video essay.

The Magic Blade (1976)

The Magic Blade is a 1976 Shaw Brothers swordplay movie directed by Yuen Chor.

It starts with two master swordsmen, Fu Hung Hsieh and Yen Nan-fei, taking up a duel that was interrupted a year earlier. This time it will be to the death. The duel however is interrupted again - some very nasty very bad people are trying to kill them both. They figure out they’re up against the evil forces of the swordplay underworld. They decide to team up.

What’s at stake is not just a power play but possession of the Peacock Dart, a kind of magical super-weapon. The Peacock Dart would bring its possessor absolute power. It must not be allowed to fall into the hands of the bad guys.

The bad guys of course are determined to get the Peacock Dart. It’s to be found at the Peacock Mansion which is under the control of a venerable but fairly formidable old guy. That’s where Fu Hung Hsieh and Yen Nan-fei meet Miss Chiu. She’s the old guy’s daughter. She has no martial arts skills but she’s resourceful and brave. She’s also cute and rather sweet. She ends up teaming up with the heroes.

The chief bad guy has not put in a personal appearance yet and that won’t happen until very late in the movie. All that the heroes know is that he’s Master Fu.

Master Fu has employed five master swordsmen, all renowned killers and all of them evil and each has his own private retinue of fighters.

Also on the side of evil is the fearsome Devil Grandma, a kind of wicked witch type and it’s only gradually that we learn how twisted and evil she is. She has some really scary and unpleasant habits.

The action is relentless. There’s one complex fight scene after another. This is a Shaw Brothers movie so you know the fight scenes will be expertly staged but Yuen Chor also makes every fight scene different, and every one of them imaginative. The human chess match is a particular highlight.

In its later stage the film changes gears just a little. We discover that our heroes are not just human fighting machines. They’re not emotionless. They are capable of kindness (in particular towards a young prostitute) and there are some hints of romance. There are romantic feelings towards Miss Chiu. This strengthens the movie considerably. Heroes who are prepared to risk their lives to battle evil are all well and good but let’s face it we always have much more sympathy for a hero prepared to risk his life to save a woman he loves.

We also get to meet the femme fatale. She doesn’t rely on swords or throwing knives. She wields a much more formidable weapon - her sexual charms. And her sexual charms are considerable. At this point we also get some nudity which adds a bit more spice.

I love the fact that the visuals are superb but everything looks totally artificial. This is the world of myth, legend, fairy tale, folklore, whatever you wish to call it. This is not the real world. There are no overt supernatural elements. The only real magic is the Peacock Dart. But it is nonetheless a fantasy world. Of course all the swordsmen can perform impossible acrobatic feats.

It’s visually very impressive but this is not a pretty movie. This is a slightly sinister world, a dark fantasy world, a world in which evil is palpable. There’s darkness as well as light.

The female characters are quite varied. Some are good, some evil. And the femme fatale character even has some depth - we might not approve of her motives but we can understand them.

Master Fu is also a slightly more complex villain than one night expect - in some ways he’s a victim of his own success as a villain.

Insofar as there’s a theme running through the movie it’s that the pursuit of money and power is not so much morally wrong as futile. The price is too high. The more money and power you obtain the more of a burden it will end up being.

The Magic Blade has everything you could want in a movie of this type, delivered with energy and style. Highly recommended.

The Eastern Masters DVD provides a very acceptable transfer.

The Pyjama Girl Case (1977)

The Pyjama Girl Case (La ragazza dal pigiama giallo) is an intriguing 1977 Italian crime thriller that one could be tempted to label as a giallo. I don’t think it is a giallo. I don’t think it can even be regarded as an unconventional giallo. It’s a murder mystery combined with a police procedural. There's not enough action to qualify it as poliziottesco. I think you could make a perfectly plausible case for regarding this movie as a neo-noir. It combines murder and sex, but in a way that strikes me as much more typical of the neo-noir than the giallo.

The movie is based on possibly the most famous murder case in Australian history. In 1934 a young woman’s body was found, clad in yellow pyjamas. At first the victim could not be identified. It took ten years to identify the woman and solve the case, although some doubts still remain. It was a media sensation at the time and in 1977 when this movie was made there were still plenty of people in Australia who remembered the pyjama girl case.

The movie changes some crucial details but the core of the story - the difficulty of identification and the fact that the girl’s body was put on public display in the hope that someone would identify it is based on historical fact.

This is an Italian movie but a lot of location shooting was done in Australia.

The movie begins with the discovery of a young woman’s body on a Sydney beach. The body had been doused in gasoline and set alight and the face is unidentifiable.

Homicide cop Inspector Timpson (Ray Milland) is retired but manages to get permission to assist in the investigation, much to the disgust of the officer officially in charge of the case.

The police have few clues. There are a couple of pieces of suggestive evidence but they are open to misinterpretation by the police, and by the viewer. There’s another clue so trivial that no-one but Inspector Timpson is even interested in it, but it’s the key to the mystery.

Ray Milland looks old but he’s supposed to be a crusty irascible old guy and he’s still Ray Milland and he’s as watchable as ever. He really is excellent.

Dalila Di Lazzaro makes an effective female lead. Mel Ferrer is excellent as an eminent but lecherous doctor.

Director-writer Flavio Mogherini didn’t have a huge career as a director and didn’t seem to do much else in the crime genre. This is not just an interesting movie but an interestingly constructed movie so it is perhaps a pity he didn’t do more films of this type. The structure is not just daring - it’s superbly executed.

The location shooting goes a bit overboard on Sydney tourist landmarks but on the whole it uses Sydney very effectively as a setting. It’s a beautifully shot movie.

Moving the time period from the 1930s to the 1970s works just fine. In 1977 the difficulty of identification and the lack of certain types of forensic evidence that would today be taken for granted would still have seemed plausible. I love the fact that the decision was made to retain Australia as the setting. The story would have worked in a different setting but the Australian setting gives it a distinctive feel.

The movie takes an extremely interesting and daring narrative approach. The nature of the narrative makes it incredibly difficult to talk about without risking spoilers. This movie really is better appreciated if you go into it knowing as little as possible about the plot so I’m going to dispense entirely with any discussion of the plot.

To be honest I’m not sure that any other narrative approach would have worked.

The pyjama girl’s story involves a lot of the elements that I would see as typically neo-noir - sexual betrayal, jealousy, suspicion. This movie does not feel at all like a giallo but it does feel somewhat like a precursor to later movies like Body Heat and Basic Instinct, and possibly even the 1981 The Postman Always Rings Twice. The Pyjama Girl Case has that same kind of tragic doom feel, with sex being the instrument of doom.

I’m not suggesting that Mogherini was consciously making a neo-noir but I suspect he was doing what a number of Hollywood directors were doing in the 70s, 80s and 90s (starting with Chinatown in 1974) - taking classic film noir as a starting point and taking advantage of the fact that they could now deal much more openly with the dark side of sexual desire. To me the two central characters are very much noir protagonists - they’re a mixture of good and bad and they’re spiralling down into the noir nightmare world and they can’t stop themselves. I also think that in Sydney in 1977 has much more of a neo-noir vibe than a giallo vibe.

The Pyjama Girl Case has its own flavour and it works extremely well. Very highly recommended.

The Pyjama Girl Case is included in Arrow’s Giallo Essentials Red Blu-Ray boxed set. The transfer is excellent and there are quite a few extras.

Human Beasts (1980)

Human Beasts (El carnaval de las bestias) is a 1980 Spanish-Japanese co-production written and directed by Paul Nashy. Naschy of course also stars.

It starts off giving all the appearances of being a violent action thriller (other elements including full-bore horror will pop up later). Naschy plays Bruno Rivera, a hitman and former mercenary who is employed by a Japanese terrorist group to steal some diamonds. Bruno double-crosses them. The terrorists hunt him down. He’s alone and there are five of them, but he is a ruthless professional and they’re amateurs. He wins the fight, but ends up grievously wounded.

His problem is that one of the terrorists is still alive and she’s out for revenge. Mieko (Eiko Nagashima) was madly in love with Bruno. She thought he was going to marry her. Now she has a whole bunch of very good reasons to hate him, the fact that he killed her brother being the main one, and when a woman after revenge is also a woman scorned you figure that the revenge she has in mind is quite nasty.

She is also a fanatic.

Bruno, near death, is taken in by Don Simón (Lautaro Murúa) and his family.

Don Simón is a doctor. This is where the movie changes gears a bit. It gets weirder and more twisted and more perverse. The household comprises Don Simón, his daughters Mónica (Silvia Aguilar) and Alicia (Azucena Hernández) and a black servant named Raquel (Roxana Dupre). At least we assume at first that she’s a servant, and then we discover that she is Don Simón’s mistress. They have a passionate and apparently mutually satisfying sadomasochistic relationship. Raquel enjoys being punished.

The two daughters are almost scratching each other’s eyes out for the chance to be the first to get Bruno’s trousers off. Mónica wins that battle. Bruno is still very weak but he still manages to pleasure Mónica very successfully, while Alicia seethes with jealousy.

Apart from the rampant sexual perversity there are other odd things about Don Simón’s household. Apparently they have very tight security. Why would a simple country doctor and pig farmer need tight security?

It might begin as an action thriller but it defies easy genre categorisation. There’s the woman-seeking-revenge element. There’s also a man seeking redemption. Bruno has been a very bad man but now he has discovered he has a conscience and he has regrets. Whether such a man can achieve redemption, and self-forgiveness, is another matter. He has terrible nightmares.

And then there’s the ghost.

There are flashbacks aplenty and dream sequences. Past and present bleed into each other. Reality and dream bleed into each other. The viewer can’t be sure what’s real and what isn’t and nor can Bruno.

And then comes the totally wild ending. It’s foreshadowed but it’s so outrageous you’ll be taken by surprise anyway.

Naschy is in good form, doing a fairly good job of making Bruno’s change of heart seem convincing. Eiko Nagashima makes an excellent driven woman. The supporting players are all fine.

This was a fairly early directorial effort by Naschy but he handles things very competently. And his screenplay is pleasingly outré.

There’s a bit of sleaze and some definitely visceral horror.

Human Beasts is a bit of an oddity but it’s interesting and disturbing and generally quite impressive. Highly recommended.

This film is included in Shout! Factory’s Paul Naschy Collection I Blu-Ray boxed set. The transfer is very good. There are no extras of note.

Stray Cat Rock: Machine Animal (1970)

Stray Cat Rock: Machine Animal, directed by Yasuharu Hasebe and released in 1970, was the fourth of the five very successful Stray Cat Rock pinky violence movies made by Japan’s Nikkatsu studio at the beginning of the 1970s. The legendary Meiko Kaji features in all five movies.

The first thing that needs to be pointed out is that the Stray Cat Rock movies were not what today would be thought of as a franchise. There are no direct links between the five films. Each film features entirely different characters. Meiko Kaji plays different women in each film. Each film has a slightly different feel. What they all have in common is that they all involve the adventures of girl juvenile delinquent gangs.

The second thing to be pointed out is that while Machine Animal feels like a pinky violence movie it features no nudity and no sex and the violence is very restrained. This is a rather good-natured movie.

Maya (Meiko Kaji) is the leader of a Yokohama girl gang. They have a friendly relationship with a male juvenile delinquent gang, the Dragons (led by a guy named Sakura), but Maya’s gang is fiercely independent. They sort out their own problems.

Both gangs, Maya’s gang and the Dragons, encounter three young guys whose car has broken down. Two of the guys are Japanese while the third is an American, Charlie. It seems like these three guys are going to get beaten up, but that doesn’t happen. These juvenile delinquents are not mere thugs. They’re not out for aimless violence. If you don’t bother them they won’t bother you.

The girls later discover that these three guys have a huge stash of LSD tablets that they’re trying to sell. The girls steal the drugs.

Maya then finds out that Charlie is a U.S. Army deserter tired of the carnage of the Vietnam War. He’s trying to escape to Sweden. The drugs are to be sold to finance his escape on a cargo ship. Now the girls feel really bad. They don’t want Charlie to have to go back to the war.

The girls decide to return the drugs but then things get really complicated, with everybody trying to steal the acid tabs from everybody else. The Dragons get involved. Various pushers get involved. Sakura’s somewhat sinister sister Yuri (Bunjaku Han), the major local dealer, gets mixed up in it as well. Nobody is sure any longer where the LSD stash is.

There is major trouble between Maya’s gang and the Dragons, with both gangs resorting to kidnappings in order to force their rivals to negotiate a deal. Inevitably things get dangerously heated.

It’s fun in these Stray Cat Rock movies seeing Meiko Kaji playing characters far removed from the ice-cold killer psycho bitch roles with which she later became associated. She was perfectly capable of playing very sympathetic nice girls and she could be funny and even adorable. In this movie she’s very likeable. Maya is a nice girl. She does not rule her gang by fear. The other girls accept her leadership because they know they can trust her and they know she’s smart and resourceful. She’s the queen but she’s a benevolent queen.

The way girl gangs are treated in this series (and other pinky violence series) is extremely interesting. These are young women trying to cope with a world that they find confusing and alienating. They deal with this by forming girl gangs which function as tight-knit emotionally supportive female groups. Girls who have fun together, but who will unhesitatingly back each other up.

It’s not done in a heavy-handed feminist way. It’s just the natural inclination of women to want to bond with female friends. They like men but they need the mutual trust and respect of female friends.

Meiko Kaji was a successful pop singer as well as an actress and she gets to sing in this movie. There are in fact a number of pop songs featured in the movie which makes it a nice time capsule of 1970 Japanese pop culture. Even better, this film features go-go dancing!

I loved the fact that at one point the girls need motorcycles so they steal them from a showroom but after they’ve finished with them they return the motorcycles to the showroom. They may be juvenile delinquents but they’re not common thieves! And when they ride the bikes through a restaurant they apologise to the customers for the inconvenience. Being a juvenile delinquent doesn’t mean you have to forget to be polite.

The acting is fine with all the girls being likeable and cute.

Stray Cat Rock: Machine Animal’s greatest strengths are Meiko Kaji’s star power and its sense of female camaraderie. It’s also fast-moving. Don’t expect lashings of sex and violence. This is more like a good-natured caper movie. But it’s entertaining, it’s a great chance to appreciate Meiko Kaji’s versatility as an actress and it’s recommended.

All five Stray Cat Rock movies are included in Arrow’s Blu-Ray boxed set and all five movies look terrific. There are a few extras as well.

Yasuharu Hasebe also directed the first and third movies in the series, Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss (1970) and Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter (1970). I’ve also reviewed the second movie in the series, Stray Cat Rock: Wild Jumbo (1970), which was directed by Toshiya Fujita.

Pacific Banana (1980)

Pacific Banana is a 1980 ozploitation sex comedy directed by John D. Lamond.

When the Australian film industry was reborn at the beginning of the 70s it quickly split into two bitterly opposed camps. On one side was the official respectable industry that made the government happy (these movies were all financed by the government) and pleased critics. These were middle-brow movies with artistic pretensions and everybody knew these were good movies because they were dull and could never have been made unless the taxpayer footed the bill. They were seen as movies that would give people overseas a favourable impression of Australia and of the artiness and seriousness of Australian filmmakers.

On the other side were the ozploitation filmmakers. They made movies that people actually wanted to see, which enraged Australian film critics. Their movies made money, which enraged critics even more. Their movies sold well overseas and made money on the drive-in circuit in the U.S., which was yet another black mark against them.

John D. Lamond definitely belonged to this disreputable side of the industry. In 1978 he had an international success with Felicity, by far the best of the countless 1970s Emmanuelle rip-offs.

He followed up that success with Pacific Banana.

This movie concerns a young airline pilot named Martin (Graeme Blundell). His problem is that after a traumatic sexual misadventure he can no longer perform in the bedroom. This sexual misadventure also cost him his job. He ends up flying an ancient DC-3 for Banana Airlines, a cheap broken-down airline at the bottom of the airline food chain.

His pal Paul (Robin Stewart) on the other hand can perform anywhere at any time. He has two fiancées, Sally (Deborah Gray) and Mandy (Alyson Best). They’re Banana Airlines stewardesses. In fact they’re the airline’s only stewardesses.

In Tahiti Martin’s friends do everything they can to help him overcome his problems. He is offered sexual temptations which no man could resist, but poor Martin fails to rise to the occasion.

Even the amazing Candy Bubbles (Luan Peters) is helpless in the face of Martin’s inadequacies, and Candy has never failed to arouse a man’s interests.

The problem has some connection with the female members of the Blandings family, and especially with the young Julia Blandings (Helen Hemingway) who seems to terrify Martin. And Julia keeps showing up.

The basic idea is fine. Lamond knew how to do this sort of thing. The script is by Alan Hopgood, who wrote Alvin Purple (one of the best sex comedies of the 70s). Graeme Blundell is perfectly cast. There’s an exotic setting. There are lots of lovely ladies. There’s a huge amount of nudity. All the right ingredients are there, and it works up to a point but it doesn’t quite come off.

The voiceover narration is a major problem. Not only is is unfunny, it actually detracts from much of the humour. The pie fight was a terrible idea. The slapstick elements are lame and out of place.

It does have some very funny moments. It has the right playful feel and the abundant nudity and sex are handled in a cheerful good-natured way.

The ladies are not just lovely. They prove themselves to be very adept at comedy. The whole cast is good.

Umbrella’s DVD looks extremely good. Extras include an interview with Lamond speaking very wittily and amusingly about his career plus a featurette which includes Lamond, scriptwriter Alan Hopgood and star Deborah Gray (who seems to have thoroughly enjoyed making this movie).

Pacific Banana is very good in parts but one can’t help feeling it should have been just a little better. It’s still amusing and sexy and it’s worth a recommended rating.

Speaking of Australian sex comedies, I’ve reviewed Alvin Purple (1973) which I highly recommend. I’ve also reviewed Lamond’s Felicity (1978) which is absolutely top-tier erotica.