99 Women (1969)

99 Women was Jess Franco’s first attempt at a women-in-prison movie. It‘s a genre that he revisited on many occasions. Released in 1969, 99 Women is rather tame by the standards of later movies of this type but it’s still an entertaining and very effective movie. The film opens as a new batch of women prisoners arrive at a notoriously tough and brutal island prison, a sort of Devil’s Island for women. Among the new inmates is Marie, convicted of murder although (as we find out later) she actually killed in self-defence. The prison supervisor is a particularly vicious and sadistic woman, played with relish by Mercedes McCambridge. Just as unpleasant is the island’s governor, the corrupt Santos, who regards the sexual favours (whether given willingly or more usually unwillingly) of the women prisoners as being one of the perquisites of his office. Their rule may be about to come to an end, as a new supervisor (played by Maria Schell) is about to take over, although events are already moving towards a crisis that no change of policy will be able to avert.

The movie benefits from a rather strong cast. Maria Schell gives a solid performance. McCambridge overacts, but it’s a role that really demands that type of approach and she’s certainly entertaining. Herbert Lom is delightfully sleazy as Governor Santos. Maria Rohm is adequate as Marie. Rosalba Neri is outstanding in a part that could easily have become a mere stereotype, the evil lesbian predator. Instead she makes the character believable, complex and rather sympathetic. Franco’s approach is quite restrained, and the film is surprisingly lacking in sleaze or tackiness (at least by the standards of a women-in-prison movies). There’s no explicit sex, and very little nudity, and the violence is fairly muted as well. Franco nonetheless manages to convey the cruelty and viciousness of the prison quite convincingly. There is of course the escape through jungles and swamps, without which no women-in-prison movie would be complete. The DVD includes a couple of alternate scenes and a trailer, and a 17-minute interview with Franco. He is, as always, interesting and enthusiastic. In general 99 Women delivers the goods, and the Region 4 DVD release looks reasonably good if just a little grainy.

Valley of the Dolls (1967)

Since I managed to pick up a DVD copy of the movie in a bargain bin for a dollar I thought that was sufficient excuse to sit down and enjoy Valley of the Dolls all over again. It did not disappoint. It never does. In fact my admiration for this film grows and grows. Any movie can have the odd line of embarrassingly bad dialogue. Some have quite a few. But every single line of dialogue in Valley of the Dolls is magnificently awful. Each viewing brings out more of the truly epic quality of Patty Duke’s bad acting. It’s the kind of performance that comes along once in a lifetime. Sharon Tate gets to deliver a line that is exquisitely cringe-inducing even by this movie’s standards – yes, I mean the line about the bust exercises. Barbara Parkins is fighting out of her class in this company but she’s a game little trouper and she gives it her best shot, although one can’t help feeling that she didn’t know what movie she was making.

Susan Hayward is of course the one member of the cast who understood what was happening. She knew how bad the movie was, and she loved every minute of it. It was a role originally intended for Judy Garland, but I don’t think anyone could top Hayward. I don’t think I will ever get tired of watching this movie. It would be like growing tired of chocolate. In fact the pleasures of this movie increase with each viewing, because of the delicious sense of anticipation when you know that a really horrendous piece of dialogue is coming up, or an instance of overacting that achieves true grandeur, or a positively outrageous slice of maudlin sentimentality or, best of all, those moments when the film delivers one of its important moral messages.

This movie is the standard by which any movie that aspires to be a camp classic must be judged, and very few films have ever surpassed it. I just can’t wait to watch it again!

The Long Hair of Death (1964)

Barbara Steele started her career in Italian horror on a very high note indeed, in Mario Bava’s brilliant Black Sunday (La Maschera del demonio). Her subsequent Italian movies never quite equalled that masterpiece, but the strangely-titled The Long Hair of Death (I Lunghi capelli della morte) is actually not bad at all. It’s a tale of a woman falsely accused of a crime and suffering death at the stake, of witchcraft, of revenge and betrayal, of dead women who refuse to stay dead, of adultery, and of a country and its leader cursed from the grave. It has all the ingredients you could possibly want in a gothic horror movie, and it has the gothic atmosphere in spades. Director Antonio Margheriti was no Bava, but he was extremely competent and was always at his best working in the gothic horror mode. When you’re making a movie with Barbara Steele you need to be able to make the most of her considerable screen presence and her striking and unusual beauty, and Margheriti manages to do just that. And Steele, given a pretty decent role, does a very fine job. The movie is, by the standards of 1964, rather gruesome, but this quality is used effectively and contributes to the mood of mounting corruption both personal and political. Italian horror of this period sometimes relies almost exclusively on the visual elements, but this one has quite a strong plot - it’s complicated but it hangs together well, and it has a nice symmetry to it. It’s a consistently entertaining movie with some moments of real terror, and a powerful and effective ending.

It would be nice to say that the DVD release, on the Sinema Diable label, was worthy of the film, but sadly I have to say the picture quality is pretty dubious. This movie deserved better treatment. The Long Hair of Death is more than good enough to compensate for these deficiencies however, and if you have any interest in 60s eurohorror then this is a movie you simply have to see.

Shaft (1971)

Despite the 1971 fashions and the 1971 urban hip slang Shaft is a movie that has aged surprisingly well. Partly it’s because the acting is not only generally competent, it’s also somewhat understated. The temptation to go totally over-the-top is resisted, and the dialogue is delivered with such conviction that even though it should sound embarrassing, it somehow sounds right. Richard Roundtree is even able to get away with lines like “Can you dig it, man?” Roundtree actually is extremely good – he has plenty of attitude, he doesn’t take any crap from anybody, and he’s not averse to forceful expressions of indignation (to say the least) when he encounters racism, but he doesn’t overdo it. He plays Shaft as a man who gets angry when there’s a reason to be angry, but he doesn’t play him as an angry man. In fact Shaft is basically a guy who is doing OK in life and he’s enjoying himself. It’s possible that the movie struck such a chord among black audiences at the time for precisely that reason – it has a black protagonist who is in control of his life and although he has problems like everyone else he’s having a pretty good time. Shaft of course is a movie with not only a mainly African-American cast but also an African-American director, Gordon Parks. Parks is careful not only to avoid black stereotypes but also white stereotypes as well. Most of the bad guys are white, but they’re bad guys because they’re gangsters, not because they’re white, and the black gangsters are portrayed as being just as vicious as the white ones. And the white detective who is involved in the case is a decent guy (a very good performance by Charles Cioffi in a role that could easily have become a clichéd crusty cop with a heart of gold but doesn’t).

The plot of the movie is, well really it’s so threadbare it’s hardly there at all (black gangster hires black private eye John Shaft to retrieve his daughter kidnapped by rival gangsters), but you don’t watch a private eye movie for the plot, you watch it for the atmosphere and the attitude, and in those areas Shaft delivers the goods. And it’s a great deal of fun. With wonderfully quotable 70s hipster dialogue. The print shown by TCM was very grungy. They may have cleaned it up for the DVD release. I hope not, since I’m sure Parks intended the movie to look nicely grungy. This wasn’t the first blaxploitation movie, but it was the movie that established the genre at the box office. Plus you get to hear the classic Isaac Hayes theme song for which he picked up an Oscar!

Don't Deliver Us from Evil (1971)

Joël Séria’s 1971 debut feature Don't Deliver Us from Evil (Mais ne nous délivrez pas du mal) was inspired by the same murder case as Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures, although Séria’s film makes no attempt to follow the facts of the case at all - it's merely a point of departure for a thoroughly fascinating and disturbing little movie. Don't Deliver Us from Evil also has major autobiographical influences as well – Séria’s relationship with his own parents was extremely bad, and he had an unhappy childhood made infinitely more unhappy by being sent to a Catholic boarding school which he regarded as being no better than prison. The movie tells the story of two teenage girls at boarding school who are experiencing the usual problems – a repressive and guilt-laden atmosphere coupled with their own awakening sexuality. In the case of Anne and Lore, though, there is a complication – an excessively close emotional bond between the two girls causes them to withdraw more and more into their own private world, a world in which they can make the rules. One of the rules they make is that they should dedicate their lives to each other, and to evil. Their first attempts at evil are little more than run-of-the-mill adolescent rebellion, but they slowly and inevitably work their way up to more serious acts. They are particularly attracted by the idea of playing sexual games with men, to see how far they can push things. Inevitable they eventually push things too far, with tragic and unforeseen consequences. The movie builds to a conclusion that has lost none of its shock value in the 36 years since the film was made. Along the way Séria manages to include a truly astonishing amount of material guaranteed to enrage Catholic sensibilities.

This is a very low-budget movie, with both cast and crew including a large number of non-professionals, but it has none of the slapdash or amateurish feel that you would expect in such circumstances. It’s a very assured and visually arresting production, and the performances by the two lead actresses, Catherine Wagener and Jeanne Goupil, are superb. They succeed in making their characters both frightening and sympathetic, and both dangerous and vulnerable. Goupil had had no previous acting experiences whatsoever and the director made the bold decision to allow her absolute freedom in her interpretation of the role – a bold decision that paid off handsomely (and launched Goupil on an acting career that continues to this day). Don't Deliver Us from Evil is one of those European movies that is able to succeed as both an exploitation movie and an art film. It’s a rather obscure movie, and it’s to be hoped that the DVD release will make it much better known. It certainly deserves to be better known. Mondo Macabro have done a fantastic job with the DVD – the movie looks great and the extras include an interesting featurette on the influence of the infamous Pauline Parker/Juliet Hulme murder case on the film as well as interviews with the director and with star Jeanne Goupil (who is delightful and very entertaining). I recommend this one very highly.

Lips of Blood (1975)

A man is troubled by returning memories of his childhood, and in particular by memories of a strange young girl. Quite by chance he comes cross a photograph of a ruined chateau, which triggers further memories. His mother tries to persuade him that the girl never existed. Visions of the girl keep recurring, however, and lead him to a graveyard, and to a crypt. Knocking over a cross that stands guard at the entrance he opens a coffin, from which two young women emerge. They are vampires, which of course is only to be expected if you start following beautiful young women into graveyards at night. He finds that vampires have played a significant part in his past, and it is his memories of the vampires that had been erased from his memory. Jean Rollin’s 1975 film Lips of Blood (Lèvres de sang) combines eroticism, horror and evocations of childhood and loss. It’s also a movie that, like so many vampire movies, addresses issues of female sexuality and the anxieties that female sexuality provoke. The hero is eventually offered a choice, and in effect it is a choice between his father and the authority he embodies and the woman and the rebellion that she represents. Vampirism as a metaphor for the threat that female sexuality represents to tradition, order and authority is here made very explicit (another vampire movie that illustrates this same point is the underrated 1967 Hammer film Dracula, Prince of Darkness, especially in a particularly chilling staking sequence).

As is usual with Jean Rollin, the movie features some effective gothic imagery, although it’s not as impressive visually as earlier films such as Requiem for a Vampire and Shiver of the Vampire. Lips of Blood is, however, an intriguing movie about memory and about the pains and joys of growing up. Unfortunately by 1975 audiences expected either a lot more sex, or a lot more gore and violence, in their horror movies and Lips of Blood sank without trace at the box office. The Redemption DVD release doesn’t offer much in the way of extras, but the movie looks superb and it’s a must for fans of 1970s eurohorror.

Russ Meyer’s Lorna (1964)

Russ Meyer’s Lorna, made in 1964, lacks the extreme campness of later Meyer films. It’s actually rather dark in tone, a tale of lust, jealousy and sexual frustration in the boondocks. Lorna has been married for a year. Her husband Jim is a decent sort of guy, and he’s studying at night to try to better himself. Unfortunately his studies only leave him enough energy to satisfy his own sexual needs, and not Lorna’s, and young Jim doesn’t seem to realise that women actually have sexual needs. So when a good-looking bad boy comes along it’s not surprising that Lorna is tempted to stray from the path of marital fidelity. Although darker than his later films it has most of the Meyer trademarks. The men are either sexually inadequate or they’re violent morons, or both. The women want more out of life than their men are offering them, and they take steps to get it. The women have, of course, the physical attributes you expect from the women in a Russ Meyer film, and those physical attributes are freely displayed. There’s nudity, there’s sex, there’s violence, and there’s also humour (much of this coming from the fire-and-brimstone preacher man who introduces the story and provides the postscript to it). As with all of Meyer’s movies it’s difficult to take offence at any of the content – Meyer’s sympathies are so clearly with his female characters, and the violence is so clearly shown as being the result of male inadequacies and fears and lack of understanding of women. Meyer had the gift of being able to make highly successful softcore sex movies that gleefully subvert and mock the whole concept of that type of movie. And as usual the camerawork and editing are amazingly energetic and imaginative – Meyer could make low-budget movies that just looked so terrific, and still look terrific even today. If you’ve only seen his later movies then Lorna is worth seeking out – it’s a wonderfully overheated saga of backwoods sleaze and passions running amok. Very entertaining.