Venus in Furs (1967)

In 1967 sexploitation producer Lou Campa hired Joe Marzano to work on a bizarre little movie called Cool It, Baby. The movie did quite well, and Campa was sufficiently impressed to give Marzano $10,000 to make another sexploitation pic. Marzano took the money and went away and made Venus in Furs, which was undoubtedly not at all the sort of movie Campa had in mind! It is in fact an art film, admittedly an art film about sex, but it’s very much an art film.

It bears some similarities to the movies that Marzano’s friend Paul Morrissey was making for Andy Warhol at the time, although Venus in Furs is infinitely more surreal. The opening titles state that it was suggested by, rather than based on, the classic novel of the same name by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch ’s classic novel (the word masochism derives from the sexual fixations recounted in this book), which seems fair enough. It’s a strange but oddly engrossing mix of von Sacher-Masoch, Freud and surrealism.

A rather introverted and very bookish man who works at a shoe store is obsessed by von Sacher-Masoch’s novel. He’s also obsessed by women’s shoes and by fantasies of being dominated by women. He mets a woman named Marna, who takes him away to a strange house inhabited by an assortment of people who spend their time indulging their unusual sexual interests (which involve things like exercise bikes, chess and ping pong). By this time the movie has taken on a distinctly dream-like quality. The man wanders from room to room, each room containing two or more people engaged in activities that seem like sexual fantasies seen through a haze of drugs. My favourite was the fetish that involves a hip bath, a saucer and a jug of milk.

He finds a book of photographs which obviously disturb him, although we don’t know what the book contains. There are also readings of children’s stories, and finally the climactic orgy scene. The orgy scene is again more disturbing than erotic, more like a fever dream. There’s a man in drag dancing with a woman. There’s a woman lying on the floor fully clothed while another woman obsessively deals playing cards onto her back. There are various writhing couples, all fully clothed. This was common enough in 1960s sexploitation movies and usually looks silly, but in this case it adds to the unsettling quality of the film. The couples are driven by something, but it doesn’t appear to be sex. There’s a peculiar unerotic quality to the eroticism, a kind of thwarted sterile quality. The plot doesn’t really go anywhere, but that seems more of a strength than a weakness, contributing to the feeling of events moving in a futile circular manner like endlessly recycled dream images.

Barbara Ellen (who co-wrote the script) plays Marna, and she may now be my favourite sexploitation actress. She plays Marna in a delightfully perverse way, and also plays the goddess Venus in the opening sequence. There’s very little nudity and no graphic sex, but the movie still manages to be kinky in a strangely non-sexual sexual way. The film is in constant danger of taking itself too seriously, but Marzano comes up with enough striking and disquieting images to justify its pretensions to being a genuine art film.

This was truly the golden age of American sexploitation, when a director could make a feature film such as this for $10,000 and be allowed to follow their own private obsessions wherever they happened to take them and end up with fantastically weird little gems such as this. It’s released on DVD by Something Weird, and in common with most of their releases the black-and-white cinematography looks absolutely gorgeous, as if it had been filmed yesterday. Highly recommended for devotees of cinematic strangeness.

Django (1966)

Spaghetti westerns form a cult movie genre that I’m not all that familiar with. But after seeing Sergio Corbucci’s Django (following a recommendation on this community) I can see myself exploring this area much more fully.

Like Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns Django is amazingly violent, very dark and very very cynical. Django himself is a former Union soldier whose wife was murdered by the corrupt and sadistic Major Jackson. He arrives in an exceptionally forlorn town near the Mexican border, to find the town so terrorised by both Mexican bandits and Major Jackson’s red-hooded cut-throats that it now seems entirely deserted apart from Nathaniel’s whorehouse. Django has a reputation as a murderer and a thief himself, but he also has a deep aversion to those like Jackson who kill for pleasure, and he has an understandable dislike of people who enjoy brutalising women.

Our hero isn’t worried about being outnumbered by Jackson’s thugs, because he has a very useful little toy in the coffin that he takes with him everywhere. The toy is a Gatling gun. And why does he drag a coffin around with him? Apparently because he considers himself dead, after the murder of his wife. He’s one of those brooding tragic anti-hero types. He becomes involved in a plan to steal a hoard of gold from a military fort, and what follows is a series of double-crosses and outrageous amounts of mayhem. There’s a romantic interest as well - a whore named Maria, rescued by Django at the beginning of the film. Django wants the gold, and Maria wants Django.

Corbucci directs with considerable panache. He’s not Sergio Leone, but he has almost as much style and a fine sense of pacing. The anonymous town is superbly done - it’s all mud and desolation, like a vision of the aftermath of the apocalypse. On a low budget this movie manages to look rather impressive with plenty of exciting action sequences and copious amounts of atmposphere. In the title role Franco Nero does his best to duplicate the sort of effect that Clint Eastwood achieved in his Italian western roles, and he does a splendid job. Loredana Nusciak is likeable and spirited as Maria and the supporting cast show plenty of enthusiasm and verve.

The level of violence and brutality was enough to get the film banned in Britain for 25 years. It’s a much better movie than I’d expected it to be, and it’s definitely more than just a retread of Leone’s films. There are some great visual set pieces and it delivers stylish entertainment. The Region 4 DVD includes a brief documentary featuring interviews with the movie’s assistant director Ruggero Deodato and with star Franco Nero (who is charming and amusing and remembers the film with a good deal of affection).

Girly (1969)

A brief synopsis of the plot and a glance at the DVD box art would lead you to believe that the 1969 British horror flick Girly (or to give it its full title, Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly) is going to be a feast of sex and gore. In fact it’s almost entirely lacking in those two attributes. All it has going for it is a quirky script, skillful direction and good acting, so it’s not going to please most modern horror fans.

Sonny and Girly are a brother and sister who live in a large decaying gothic mansion with their mother (Mumsy) and their nanny. Nanny sleeps at the foot of Mumsy’s bed. They’re apparently still at school, since they’re in school uniform when we first met them (although Vanessa Howard does look just a tad too old to be convincing as a teenager). When they get lonely they go to the park looking for new friends. After making sure that these new friends don’t have any other friends or relatives, no-one who is going to miss them if they suddenly disappear, they take them home. And the new friends always stay. Forever. Or at least until they are sent to the angels. The new friends get to participate in all sorts of lovely games. Sonny likes to film these games. Girly’s games often involve an axe.

Sonny and Girly’s latest new friend has a girlfriend, or at last he has a girlfriend until she meets with an unfortunate accident while playing with Sonny and Girly. The new friend decides to stay with the family, and is soon caught up in the games. Now you have to remember that this is a horror movie, and people in horror movies aren’t supposed to behave rationally (they always go down into the cellar when you know they shouldn’t), so there’s no point in asking why he stays even when it becomes clear just how dangerous Sonny and Girly’s games can be. If you notice how short Girly’s skirts are, you have another explanation for his reluctance to leave. And Girly can be very very friendly. Mumsy can be rather friendly as well. They’re an affectionate sort of family, in their own way.

Of course it goes without saying that the games start to get a little out of hand, and it’s not easy to tell who is playing with whom.

Freddie Francis was always a stylish director with plenty of visual flair and he’s in good form. Brian Comport’s screenplay (from his own novel) is nicely twisted. The contemporary setting is combined effectively with the rambling gothic house. Ursula Howells as Mumsy is delightfully odd and dotty, and Vanessa Howard projects a disturbingly naïve and precocious sexuality. The claustrophobic mix of eccentricity carried to the point of lunacy and bizarre lust works well. The 60s vibe is equally effective. This is subtle horror executed with panache, and it’s well worth a look.

Hercules against the Moon Men (1964)

By 1964 the Italian movie industry had cranked out countless highly entertaining and extremely profitable movies in the sword and sandal (or peplum as it was know in Europe) genre, and what was ned was a way to keep things interesting, to vary the formula just a little. The solution adopted in Hercules against the Moon Men (Maciste e la regina di Samar) was to add some science fiction elements. And since this is an Italian genre movie, those added science fiction elements are deliciously bizarre!

The wicked queen of Samar hides an abominable secret. This is an Italian sword and sandal epic so of course there has to be a beautiful wicked queen, not that I’m complaining, beautiful but wicked queens are always fun. The people of Samar live under the shadow of a volcano, but they live even more under the shadow of the terrible monsters of the mountain. At regular intervals they must make human sacrifices to the mountain. Queen Samar has gone beyond such commonplace evils however. She is in league with the inhabitants of the moon, the cruel and rapacious Moon Men! And she plans to sacrifice her own sister so that the queen of the Moon Men may be revived from her eternal sleep.

This is clearly a job for a hero, and luckily there’s one wandering about nearby who volunteers to help the struggling masses of Samar to overthrow their cruel but beautiful tyrant. The hero in question is Maciste, a recurring character in Italian movies of this type going way back to the very beginnings, the 1914 epic Cabiria. This movie has nothing whatsoever to do with Hercules, so for its US release the title was naturally changed to give the impression that it was a Hercules movie. Maciste hooks up with the rebels, and soon becomes involved in romance with the daughter of the rebel leader, Agar. Since this is a peplum Agar is brave and virtuous, but terminally dull.

The main thing this movie has going for it is the sheer outrageous loopiness of the plot, and some delightfully silly moon man costumes. Giacomo Gentilomo’s direction is less than inspired, and the effects are fairly cheap (although the gigantic jaws of death from which Maciste must escape are quite cool). To enjoy it you really have to be a fan of this type of movie, and of movie campiness in general. The acting is generally unexciting, although it has to be admitted that the actress playing the evil queen is very good, and rather sexy in a beautiful wicked queen sort of way. Perhaps I was just in a particularly benevolent mood when I watched it, but I found its oddness reasonably appealing. Not a peplum classic, but an interesting curiosity.

Ma Barker's Killer Brood (1960)

Ma Barker's Killer Brood tells the story of infamous Depression-era gangster Ma Barker and her equally infamous sons. Well actually it’s almost entirely fiction, but it doesn’t do to let anything as tedious as facts get in the way of a fun story! And this is most definitely a fun story.

Ma Barker wants her boys to have all the good things she missed out on when she was growing up. But opportunities to make honest money are scarce, so Ma encourages her sons into a life of crime. They start by robbing the collection plate at their local church. Her husband doesn’t approve of this kind of criminality but Ma despises him as a weakling and soon dumps him. Ma and her boys embark on a violent crime spree, in the course of which they become involved with just about every other famous Depression-era gangster, from Machine Gun Kelly to John Dillinger.

Herman, the eldest of the Barker boys, would really have preferred to continue with his violin lessons rather than rob banks, but Ma has no patience with weakness and Herman has little choice other than to join his brothers. Ma’s ruthlessness reaches a peak when she disposes of her second husband by forcing him to play Russian roulette in a surprisingly chilling scene. In fact for a 1960 movie Ma Barker's Killer Brood is exceptionally violent. When Herman can’t bring himself to shoot an armoured car guard his mother not only drives her car into the unfortunate guard but then calmly runs over his prone body.

The production values are low, but the dialogue is priceless. Ma’s exchanges with Machine Gun Kelly’s girlfriend are especially memorable. Veteran character actress Lorene Tuttle relishes the opportunity to play a rare starring role, going completely over-the-top as Ma Barker. Imagine a female version of Jimmy Cagney in White Heat. It’s a delightful performance.

Writer-director Bill Karn produced a classic piece of exploitation cinema with this bizarre little offering. Highly recommended for those who love trash cinema.

Simon, King of the Witches (1971)

Simon, King of the Witches is one of those odd little films that failed to find an audience on its initial release in 1971, but that turns out to be rather interesting. Director Bruce Kessler believed the film’s failure had a lot to do with the title, which suggested that this was a straightforward horror movie when in fact it’s anything but. He’s probably right. The movie is part horror movie, part counter-culture film, part black comedy, and probably has more in common with a film like Harold and Maude than with the sort of movie horror fans expected to see at their local drive-in.

Simon is a witch. He’s not a minion of Satan, though. He’s more of a pagan witch, deriving his powers from the old gods like Poseidon and Aphrodite. He’s a true magus, the genuine article, with real powers. He lives in a storm water drain. You might wonder why, if he has such dread powers, he lives in a storm water drain. The truth is that Simon is not terribly concerned with money or possessions. He has a larger agenda - nothing less than challenging the powers of the gods themselves. Which you can do just as easily from a storm water drain as a penthouse, apparently.

After being arrested for vagrancy (being a true magus isn’t as glamorous as you might imagine) he befriends a young hustler named Turk who introduces him to the mysterious Hercules, a kind of wealthy dandy with a mild interest in the occult. Through Hercules he becomes involved with Linda, the daughter of the District Attorney, and is drawn into a web of police corruption centred on the drug trade. This involvement threatens to distract him from his plans to extend his occult powers so as to sit among the gods.

The essentially incompatible plot elements do become a little muddled at times, and the corrupt police sub-plot seems to be there mainly to give the film suitable counter-culture credentials. Unfortunately that sub-plot doesn’t really work, and distracts from the far more successful black comedy elements.

It’s still an intriguing movie. Its greatest strength is Andrew Prine as Simon. He plays the role straight, taking the character perfectly seriously. His performance is extravagant, but never hammy (which would have been the obvious temptation). It’s actually almost Shakespearean, an impression reinforced by his habit of addressing the audience directly. There’s an amusing cameo by Warhol superstar Ultra Violet as a witch queen, and some entertainingly trippy 1970s special effects. There’s no gore at all, but quite a bit of nudity. The Dark Sky DVD boasts a nice transfer plus brief but worthwhile interviews with Andrew Prine and director Bruce Kessler. Simon, King of the Witches is an oddity that’s worth seeing, if only for Andrew Prine.

Submission (1969)

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.