La Maison de rendez-vous (novel by Alain Robbe-Grillet)

La Maison de rendez-vous is a 1965 novel by Alain Robbe-Grillet. Robbe-Grillet received great acclaim in his native France as a novelist, belonging to the so-called New Novel (Nouveau Roman) school. This was one of the many variants of modernism with perhaps some touches of what would later become known as postmodernism. These writers were not notably concerned with traditional approaches to narrative and characterisation.

Robbe-Grillet also achieve both fame and notoriety as a filmmaker. His movies play around with conventional narrative and include some very marked surrealist influences. He is best-known in the English-speaking as the screenwriter of the superb and influential 1961 movie Last Year at Marienbad (which was directed by Alain Resnais but feels much more like an Alain Robbe-Grillet movie).

My full review of La Maison de rendez-vous can be found here at Vintage Pop Fictions.

A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971)

A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin is a 1971 giallo written and directed by Lucio Fulci although its giallo status has to be qualified. We’ll get to that later.

It’s an Italian-Spanish-French-British co-production (although the extent of British financial involvement in the project is debatable) which accounts for the casting which is very multi-national even by the standards of European genre movies of that time. It’s set in London with some location shooting done there although the studio shooting was done it Italy.

This movie hits the ground running. We get a crazy WTF opening sequence on a train and a crazy WTF sequence with two women and a fur coat. Then we get a woman talking to her psychoanalyst. We get the half-naked blonde woman but now she’s the crazy woman’s next-door neighbour. And a hippie freak-out party with lots of naked chicks. Way to go Lucio. We’re already totally fascinated. Who is this dark-haired woman? Is she crazy? Is she drugged-out? We don’t know but we want to find out.

The possibly crazy woman is Carol Hammond (Florinda Bolkan). She is married to successful lawyer Frank Hammond (Jean Sorel). Her father is one of England’s most eminent barristers, Edmond Brighton (Leo Genn). Carol has a stepdaughter, Joan Hammond (Ely Galleani).

The young woman in the adjoining flat is not at all respectable and Carol strongly disapproves of her. We will later found out that this woman is Julia Durer (Anita Strindberg).

Carol doesn’t really seem to be crazy but she suffers from insomnia and has disturbing dreams. She does all sorts of naughty things in these dreams, such as having sex with a stunning blonde woman. In the dreams she also takes a knife to the blonde.

Her psychiatrist is very Freudian (Freudian psychoanalysis was still a big thing in 1971) and he isn’t worried. Everything is under control. Carol is just working out her inner conflicts in the dreams. In fact the dreams are a sign that she is making good progress.

Then a murder takes place. It’s puzzling at first until the police forensics guys turn up a vital clue that narrows the range of possible suspects drastically. Then a further clue makes the case cut-and-dried. The evidence is overwhelming.

Inspector Corvin (Stanley Baker) should be delighted but he isn’t. He’s a good copper and his copper’s nose tells him this case just doesn’t smell right. He is convinced that something very important has been overlooked.

After this the plot twists kick in and there are plenty of them. The possibility of a second murder seems quite real. Someone certainly seems to have murder in mind.

What makes this movie extra special is that it’s a psychiatry murder thriller and I just love psychiatry murder thrillers. We get lots of psychobabble and half-baked Freudianism. Bliss. There are some obvious nods to Hitchcock’s Spellbound with cool dream sequences. There’s a fair bit of Hitchcock influence at work here. In fact lots of Hitchcock influence.

Fulci offers us some gore (and it's full-bore gore), but not too much. He does offer some effective visual set-pieces with some wonderfully executed nicely scary paranoid chase sequences. And we get a really good scene with bats.

Fulci is trying to keep us in a state of uncertainty about Carol and Florinda Bolkan’s very effective performance keeps us very uncertain indeed. Jean Sorel is good, as always. Leo Genn is excellent. This was not a particularly demanding role for Stanley Baker but Baker is always watchable.

While Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace may have been the first giallo it was Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage in 1970 that pretty much defined the 1970s giallo. Prior to Argento, at the tail end of the 1960s, there had however been quite a few movies that could be called proto-giallos or phase 1 giallos. These included Romolo Guerrieri’s The Sweet Body of Deborah (1968), Fulci’s own One on Top of the Other (AKA Perversion Story, 1969), and several Umberto Lenzi movies including So Sweet, So Perverse (1969). These movies lacked a lot of what we think of as the classic giallo trademarks (serial killers, black-gloved killers, extreme visual excess). They were essentially stylish erotic thrillers almost invariably set against a backdrop of 1960s jet set decadence. I personal love these proto-giallos.

I would regard A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (which was made in 1970 although released in 1971) as belonging to this proto-giallo sub-genre. There are no serial killers and in fact only two murders. There’s a very strong atmosphere of decadence, interestingly blended with counter-culture stuff. The events of the movie are precipitated by a collision between the world of the very rich and the world of the hippies, both decadent worlds but decadent in different ways.

There’s also an element that is found in most of the late 60s proto-giallos - the possibility (but not the certainty) that one or more key characters might be mad.

Don’t think too much about the plot of this movie. And don’t expect a gore-fest. There is some shocking gore but it’s very brief. Just enjoy the atmosphere and the visuals and let Lucio Fulci play with your head for a while. I rate this as top-tier Fulci. Highly recommended.

Mondo Macabro’s Blu-Ray looks great and is packed with desirable extras.

my cult movie highlights of 2023

In 2023 I watched 254 movies - some first-time watched and some re-watches.

Among the first time cult movie watches the most pleasant surprises were:

Just Jaeckin's Madame Claude (1977), a stylish intelligent political thriller about sex and power.

Lucio Fulci's Aenigma (1987), seriously surreal and twisted, unsettling and perplexing but unsettling and perplexing in a way that is original and distinctive.

Lucio Fulci's The Devil’s Honey (1986). A sleazy kinky movie, but sleazy and kinky in an intelligent and provocative way. A movie about sex and sexual obsession and it confronts those subjects in the kind of direct way that very very few American movie have ever done.

Among the re-watches the highlight was Paul Schrader’s 1982 Cat People. In order to appreciate this one you have to regard it as being an entirely different movie from the 1942 version although dealing with similar themes. Both movies are equally great in their own ways.

Candy Stripe Nurses (1974)

Candy Stripe Nurses, released in 1974, was the last of the hugely popular nurse movies made by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures.

It was written and directed by Alan Holleb.

These movies followed a formula that Corman used in other series as well. The movie tells the stories of three nurses and the adventures and misadventures they have on the job and off. Most of the adventures seem to involve the young ladies losing their clothing. The stories of the three women are intercut throughout the film although there’s no connection between their stories.

Candy stripe nurses (or candy stripers) were volunteers who performed simple nursing duties under the supervision of nurses. Such volunteers still exist but I don’t think we’re allowed to call them candy stripers any more. They were called candy stripers because of the cute candy-striped uniforms they wore, which are probably also not allowed any more.

Firstly there’s Marisa (Maria Rojo). She keeps getting into trouble at school. She’s the world’s oldest juvenile delinquent (Miss Rojo was 31 when she made this movie). Her principal is tempted to call the police after her latest outrage but offers her a way out. The matter will be forgotten if she volunteers to work as a candy stripe nurse at the local hospital.

One of Marisa’s patients is a young guy named Carlos who was wounded during a gas station armed robbery. He’s now facing prison for his part in the robbery. He assures Marisa that he is innocent (and in fact he really is innocent). Marisa plays amateur detective to find evidence that will clear him. She is motivated by a love of justice, and by the fact that she thinks Carlos is really nice and really cute.

This is the segment that doesn’t really work because it’s too serious in tone and the plot idea isn’t that great.

Secondly there’s Diane (Robin Matson). She’s an intellectual and she hopes to be a doctor one day. She takes life pretty seriously. She likes men, but she likes serious intellectual men. Until she gets involved with a patient. He’s a jock (in fact a basketball player). He’s not her type at all. At least that’s what she thinks until they have wild sex in the gym. Now she realises she really likes totally non-intellectual jocks.

Everything would be fine except that he keeps going nuts and doing crazy things. The doctors thought he was on drugs but the drug tests were negative. Diane is sure she can find a way to save him. This segment works because Robin Matson is a cute, sexy, likeable oddball.

Thirdly there’s Sandy (Candice Rialson). She’s doing really well in her studies because she’s discovered the secret of academic success. You get young doctors to do your homework for you by having sex with them. She ends up working in the hospital’s sex clinic. One of the patients being treated in the sex clinic is rock star Owen Boles (Kendrew Lascelles). He has dried up creatively because he can no longer satisfy his cute female groupies in the bedroom, and his bedroom prowess was the secret to his creative drive.

Sandy has no doubts that she can reawaken the stricken pop star’s interest in sex. This segment is the most amusing.

The acting is adequate given that the roles aren’t exactly over-demanding. Robin Matson and Candice Rialson are charming and sexy and they take their clothes off. Candice Rialson was at this stage the queen of the drive-in movies.

The Corman formula is followed rigidly. A combination of melodrama and sexy humour, very tightly paced, with lots of bare breasts and bottoms. It was a carefully calculated formula - Corman knew just how much nudity and violence he could get away with in the markets at which he was aiming. These nurse movies are very tame, but just titillating enough for those markets.

Corman knew it was a winning formula. Writer-director Alan Holleb gives Corman what he wanted and the result was never going to win any Oscars but it’s fun slightly naughty good-natured entertainment.

Candy Stripe Nurses is recommended as long as your expectations are not set too high.

Shout! Factory has released four Roger Corman nurse movies in a DVD boxed set and if you like his formula you’ll enjoy this set. The transfer is anamorphic and quite acceptable.

I’ve also reviewed another earlier Corman nurse picture, The Young Nurses (1973).

Night of the Devils (1972)

Night of the Devils (La notte dei diavoli) was directed by Giorgio Ferroni and was based on Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy's 1839 short story Sem'ya vurdalaka (The Family of the Vourdalak).

It begins with a young man in hospital in Italy. We will later discover that his name is Nicola. He was found wandering in a confused state. He may have crossed over the border from Yugoslavia. At times he seems quite normal but he panics when the lights are turned out. Various tests are carried out but they’re inconclusive. He may be suffering from amnesia.

A young woman visits him in hospital. She claims to have met him a week earlier. She is concerned about him. When he sees her he freaks out completely.

We then get his story in a flashback. He was driving in the country and swerved his car to avoid hitting a woman. His car is now undriveable and the woman has vanished. He asks for help from the inhabitants of a nearby cottage. The head of this little household seems surly but since he has just buried his brother that might be understandable. We, the audience, witnessed the burial and it was rather strange.

The man lives with his grown-up sons and daughters. Also living here are the brother’s pretty young widow and his children. There’s some tension with the oldest of his sons.

Nicola is welcome to stay but he must not leave the cottage after nightfall and must on no account unbar the windows. There is a knocking at the door, but everybody assures Nicola that it is just the wind.

It’s as if Nicola has found himself back in the Middle Ages. These people have no electricity, no telephone, they have never seen a television, they have no motor vehicles. And they appear to be steeped in superstition. The children tell Nicola about the witch that tries to enter the house every night. Nicola hears varying accounts of the death of the brother.

The old man decides to put an end to the curse once and for all. If he can. If he fails it will mean disaster.

Nicola is a city boy. He thinks this stuff is all nonsensical superstition. And of course he may be right. He has seen and heard some strange things but they all could and almost certainly do have perfectly rational explanations. That’s what he is determined to believe.

Things get complicated when a tentative romance blossoms between Nicola and one of the daughters, Sdenka (Agostina Belli).

Nicola is confronted by some extreme acts of violence but it’s still possible that the violence is driven purely by superstitious fears. He is definitely anxious to get his car back on the road. Things are getting too disturbing for him. He’s not exactly frightened, yet. It has crossed his mind that it would be a good idea to leave and take Sdenka with him.

A conversation with an old man in the nearby village gives him some more information. The old man tells him of the legend of the Vourdalak. The vourdalak are not exactly vampires, but there are similarities. When the original story was written in 1839 there had been vampire stories such as Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819) but the vampire was not yet established as a major literary trope. There was however a growing interest in both folklore and the occult and vampire-like monsters such as the succubus and the lamia had attracted the attention of writers. There are also mentions of witches in the movie so it was drawing on various occult influences.

When the real horrors kick in they do so in a big way. There’s a fair amount of gore but it’s the stifling atmosphere of fear and suspicion that really makes the horror work.

The twist ending is not entirely unanticipated but it still packs a real punch.

There’s also plenty of eroticism, some of it being perhaps not entirely healthy. The vourdalak is a more overtly sexual monster than the vampire. And perhaps a monster driven more by emotion than by bloodlust.

Night of the Devils is both very effective and very interesting gothic horror with the transposition of mediæval beliefs into the modern world being done pretty well. Highly recommended.

Giorgio Ferroni is better known for his superb 1960 gothic horror film Mill of the Stone Women which I also highly recommend.

The Raro Video DVD looks great (they’ve also released this film on Blu-Ray).a

The Sister in Law (1974)

The Sister in Law is a 1974 Crown International release which falls vaguely into the erotic thriller category.

It starts off as a sexual-romantic melodrama but with hints in the background that there’s a thriller plot here that will eventually kick in.

Robert (John Savage) is a young man who has been away for a couple of years, finding himself or finding America or finding something or other. Now he’s returned to his parents’ home.
He finds that his sister-in-law Joanna (Anne Saxon) has moved in with his parents. Joanna is getting a divorce from Robert’s big brother Edward, because Edward has moved in with his girlfriend Deborah.

There’s an obvious and immediate attraction between Robert and Joanna. We get the feeling that Joanna doesn’t like to be without a man for too long. It’s obvious that within a very short time these two are going to be sharing a bed. That might not be too much of a problem except for one thing. Edward decides to return to his parents’ home as well, and he brings his new girlfriend with him.

Things become more than a little tense.

Edward doesn’t want Joanna any more but his pride is a bit wounded by her obvious sexual hunger for his kid brother. Edward is very tightly wrapped and there’s an edge of violence and nastiness in his makeup. He gets a bit aggressive towards Robert.

While this is happening Joanna has noticed the way Robert and Deborah are looking at each other. Joanna doesn’t like what she sees. She doesn’t like it one little bit. Her pride took a bit of a knock when Edward dumped her for Deborah. She is most definitely not going to let Deborah steal Robert from her as well. If she has to fight to keep Robert then she’ll fight, and Joanna is not the kind of gal you want as an enemy. She’s feisty and a bit crazy.

Predictably Joanna and Deborah come to blows (in a reasonably good swimming-pool catfight scene).

Robert has Joanna if he wants her but now he wants Deborah as well. He’s a crazy mixed-up kid.

Edward has other things to worry about. He’s involved in business dealings with some pretty shady characters. In fact they appear to be out-and-out gangsters. Edward thinks he’s a tough guy but these guys play in the major leagues and as tough guys go Edward is very much a Little Leaguer. He’s out of his depth and he’s too stubborn and arrogant and conceited to admit it.

Gradually the thriller elements start to dominate and the other characters are drawn into Edward’s ill-advised criminal enterprises.

The romantic-sexual melodrama and thriller elements make an uneasy combination. As a thriller it’s at best OK but nothing at all special. As a melodrama about sexual deceit and game-playing it’s much more interesting and it might have been better for the movie to have concentrated on that element.

There is a lack of sympathetic characters. Edward is a jerk and he’s dumb. Robert is a whiny self-pitying brat. Deborah doesn’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain. That leaves Joanna as the only sympathetic character. At least she’s not dumb or whiny. She has more complex motivations than the other characters. We’d like to know more about what makes her tick so it’s disappointing when the focus shifts away from her. The emotional entanglements are not satisfactorily resolved. They’re just quietly forgotten. That’s a pity because they were potentially really interesting. Not just a romantic triangle but a romantic quadrangle with multiple levels of betrayal and deceit and jealousy.

This could have been a very good movie looking at the shifting and confusing sexual mores of the 70s.

As it stands it’s a movie that doesn’t quite make it. Its biggest asset is Anne Saxon’s enigmatic but fascinating performance as Joanna. There’s plenty of topless nudity and a few reasonably steamy sex scenes that are made interesting by the fact that the motives of the participants are so tangled and murky. The Sister in Law is tentatively recommended but it does lose its way.

This movie is included in the excellent 32-movie Drive-In Cult Classics DVD boxed set. The Sister in Law gets a good anamorphic transfer. The set includes some great drive-in movies - Trip With the Teacher (1975), The Babysitter (1969), Cindy and Donna (1970), The Pom Pom Girls (1976), the excellent Malibu High (1979), Van Nuys Blvd. (1979) and Pick-up (1975). All of which are very much worth watching. Even the lesser movies in this set like The Teacher (1974) and Hot Target (1985) are worth a spin.

Scyla (1967)

Scyla is a 1967 sexploitation feature by Nick Millard (who usually used the name Nick Phillips). It’s an intriguing attempt at mixing sexploitation with mythology, in a contemporary setting.

As usual with Millard’s films it was shot without synchronised sound. In this case he is able to turn a liability into an asset. This is not a realist film. The voiceover narration adds to the dreamlike feel and it works.

Gregory spends most of his time on the beach. He doesn’t do much except laze around. It’s not a bad life but there is one thing missing in his life - love. Gregory is a bit of a romantic. He’d like to meet that one special girl.

He thinks he’s met her when he encounters the lovely blonde Scyla Dane on the beach. He suggests to her that they should split and find somewhere where they can groove. He may or may not have been making progress with her but then her boyfriend Montgomery shows up. Montgomery is a really uptight guy who doesn’t like the idea of his chick grooving with other guys.

Gregory has however become obsessed. He has Scyla’s address. It was on a slip of paper that she left on the beach. Maybe she intended Gregory to find it?

Gregory finds Scyla’s house and watches Scyla and Montgomery making love. This triggers the first of many fantasy/dream sequences. They’re probably Gregory’s fantasies but sometimes they seem to be Scyla’s fantasies. The fantasy is of course Gregory and Scyla making it together.

Gregory goes to visit his old girlfriend Circe. Circe is a witch. Of course she’s not really a witch. This is 1967. There are no real witches. Except maybe Circe really is a witch. Gregory makes a big mistake. He tells Circe about his new love. He doesn’t want Circe any more, he wants Scyla. As you might expect Circe does not take this very well. No man has ever rejected her.

Circe isn’t a real witch but she uses her magic powers to try to seduce Gregory and also creates a sexy nymph to tempt him. Somehow Gregory manages to resist the temptations of two gorgeous naked chicks crawling all over him. He’s so much in love with Scyla that he is impervious to the sexual charms of other women.

Circe isn’t giving up. If her magic doesn’t work on Gregory it might work on Scyla. Somehow Circe is going to win Gregory back. Not because she loves him, but because she now wants him because he doesn’t want her.

How much of what we’re seeing is real? Is any of it real? Are any of these women real? The movie leaves it to the viewer to decide.

The mythology/fantasy aspect works quite well. The film does succeed in making us doubt reality. Millard doesn’t give us any fantasy scenes that look like scenes from a fantasy movie. He just gives us a lot of scenes that may or may not really be happening.

Of course in a Nick Millard movie you expect some fetishism. There’s not very much of that here, but there are a few moments. The nymph’s thigh-high black boots are a very Nick Millard touch. Not to mention Circe’s rubber panties.

There’s a colossal amount of nudity including frontal nudity, some if it very explicit. This movie was pushing the edge of the envelope in that respect in 1967.

Scyla is an in intriguingly offbeat sexploitation movie with a nicely enigmatic atmosphere. Highly recommended.

This is one of three Nick Millard movies in Retro-Seduction Cinema’s San Francisco Sex Collection. The transfer is fullframe and black-and-white which is how the film was shot. Personally I think these types of movies looked better when made in black-and-white.

I’ve reviewed several of Nick Millard’s other movies, including the wonderfully avant-garde How I Got My Mink (1969), the very existential Oddo (1967) and the delightfully sleazy exercise in foot fetishism Pleasures of a Woman (1972). I’m quite fond of his sexploitation movies.