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Post by aubrey on Oct 28, 2016 16:20:59 GMT
013: Lucky, el intrépido aka Lucky The Inscrutable (1967) Ray Danton ... Lucky Barbara Bold ... Brunehilde Dante Posani ... Michele Dieter Eppler ... Secuaz de Gafas de Oro María Luisa Ponte ... Madame Linda Rosalba Neri ... Yaka Beba Loncar ... Beba Teresa Gimpera ... Cleopatra Fast-moving, sometimes confusing but generally enjoyable spy comedy, in the tradition of masked Spanish Super/Anti-Heroes. Lucky (Ray Danton) is hired to locate a counterfeiting operation and has to defeat a mad scientist and a female ex-Nazi officer; he finds a horn-dog sidekick, who, being very good-looking (a kind of cross between Captain Jack from Doctor Who and Tom Cruise), turns out to be useful for getting information from the various women they meet. The film uses a lot of 60s techniques – characters talking to the camera, speech balloons, action/chase scenes backed by a Swingle Singers type singing (extraordinarily effective), wild parties, disguises (a running joke is that he is so famous that everyone he meets sees through whatever disguise he's wearing at the time): and one section with a Secrets Market, a rainy boulevard where men and women with raincoats and umbrellas walk up and down, muttering, “Commonwealth secrets;” “South Sea Island Secrets,” etc, is funny and atmospheric at the same time. Jess appears a two or three times: notably as a hobo riding on a train, and earlier as an informant who tries to tell Lucky that he has a knife in his back, while Lucky, not understanding, keeps asking him to repeat himself. Then Jess falls over. This film seems to divide opinion, more than most Franco films; I liked it though. It's daft, and if it goes on too long (and if some of the jokes go on too long as well), then at least it's a good natured and fun (and sometimes funny) Sunday afternoon film. Incognito:  The Market of Secrets:  Jess: 
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2016 8:50:52 GMT
If the pictures are taking too long to load I won't do as many. Thanks |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2016 8:53:47 GMT
Aubrey's Marathon is OK with me. It may be niche, but there is far more irritation to be found in some posts elsewhere on this board. You should have learned by now that life does not give you a free ride, and you don't always get everything your own way  |
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Post by marispiper on Oct 29, 2016 9:01:45 GMT
Aubrey's Marathon is OK with me. It may be niche, but there is far more irritation to be found in some posts elsewhere on this board. You should have learned by now that life does not give you a free ride, and you don't always get everything your own way Free ride? Get everything your own way? I don't understand the response to me. This board is for sharing....some posts you like, some you don't. That's all I was saying. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2016 11:16:37 GMT
You should have learned by now that life does not give you a free ride, and you don't always get everything your own way Free ride? Get everything your own way? I don't understand the response to me. This board is for sharing....some posts you like, some you don't. That's all I was saying. "It may be niche, but there is far more irritation to be found in some posts elsewhere on this board."
Sorry, I regarded that as a sly little dig. Anything but "sharing"
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Post by marispiper on Oct 29, 2016 18:29:03 GMT
Free ride? Get everything your own way? I don't understand the response to me. This board is for sharing....some posts you like, some you don't. That's all I was saying. "It may be niche, but there is far more irritation to be found in some posts elsewhere on this board."
Sorry, I regarded that as a sly little dig. Anything but "sharing"
Gus, I can tell you, you don't have the monopoly on irritating posts y'know! |
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Post by aubrey on Oct 29, 2016 18:35:49 GMT
I'll do Succubus aka Necronomicon tomorrow: the film where jess found his vision; then Two Undercover Angels aka Sadisterotica (the alternative title is highly misleading).
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Post by aubrey on Oct 30, 2016 11:36:05 GMT
Here we go again: 014: Necronomicon aka Succubus – (1968) Janine Reynaud ... Lorna Green Jack Taylor ... William Francis Mulligan Adrian Hoven ... Ralf Drawes Howard Vernon ... Admiral Kapp (as Howard Varnon) Nathalie Nort ... Bella Olga Michel Lemoine ... Pierce Pier A. Caminnecci ... Hermann Américo Coimbra ... The crucified actor “The first erotic film I've seen all the way through because it's a beautiful piece of cinema...” (Fritz Lang) A dream of dark and troubling things (as someone said about another film), and the film where Jess found his voice: and he is back with a female star, a state of affairs he always found much more congenial; almost every film he would make from here on would have a female star. The film opens with what was to become a typical Franco device: a ritualised torture/sex-murder scene, that is eventually shown to be part of a night club performance, with the murdered performers coming back to life and bowing; there is a further device, that he also used again, of the scene being played out for real later in the film. The act leads off into the plot, in which the main performer (Janine Raynaud), in a dull relationship with her manager, dreams of herself as a Countess living in a strange castle who plays word games with the bisexual Admiral Kapp before killing him, and later killing another woman who tries to seduce her, in a roomful of manikins. But in real life she is being manipulated by her manager, and by a strange man in the nightclub (Michel Lemoine, who Reynaud was to marry), who might be the devil and who seems to have a pact with the manager to kill her; though by the end she still manages to get back to the castle, one way or another, with the “Devil” now her servant. But the plot is less important and interesting than the details of Lorna's real and dream worlds: the crowd of Monks she passes while wandering through Lisbon; her musings on the city's resemblance – with its cable cars – to San Francisco (and a quick shot showing in the background what might be (but can't be) the Golden Gate Bridge); the wailing Mutes who accost her and her manager and persuade them to go into a funeral which turns out to be that of Admiral Kapp, the man she killed in her dream; the party that could have been in The Prisoner or The Avengers, where a dwarf and a man in a white jacket use a silver platter to serve huge tabs of acid that make everyone think they're dogs; the pianist in the castle, playing Liszt from a score that is eventually revealed to be a Maths text book; a shelf of Aurora monster figures, matching a list given to her during a visit to the psychiatrist. The music throughout is extraordinarily effective, made up mainly Bach, and of Liszt – and with a beautifully arranged piece at the party by what sounds like Schubert is scored so as to slip into a jazz piece (by Friedrich Gulda ), then back again, and back again: so often that it all sounds like sections of the same piece. There are two versions available: German (“Necronomicon”) and US (“Succubus”). Oddly, the US version has slightly more nudity, and with better lighting for the nude scenes (though even this does not amount to much more than a minute's worth all told); but the German version (amongst many other small differences) has a lovely scene where Lorna puts the items on a furniture inventory into song, to music from a jazz record on the gramophone (there seems also to be an Italian version, with a different beginning and end, both recorded from the TV on a hand-held camera, and pretty much unwatchable). In this film Jess is either being pretentious (lists of important writers, internal monologues on the nature of reality, portentous voice-overs and various gnomic comments, etc), or else he is taking the piss out of pretentiousness. It doesn't matter; he has created a film that is like no other, and which repays repeated viewings. Miss Raynaud's costumes by Karl Lagerfeld. The show:  And the reveal:  Mutes:  Dogs:  |
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Post by aubrey on Oct 30, 2016 11:39:46 GMT
But don't take my word for it:
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Post by aubrey on Nov 19, 2016 14:44:56 GMT
015: Two Undercover Angels aka Rote Lippen aka Sadisterotica - (1967) Janine Reynaud ... Diana Rosanna Yanni ... Regina Adrian Hoven ... Mr. Radeck Chris Howland ... Francis McClune Alexander Engel ... Albert Carimbuli The second film about the Red Lips detective agency (the first is from 1960, and I don't have it), and the first to star Janine Raynaud and Rosanna Yani as the two detectives – one dark-haired, sensible, and commanding, the other blonde and seemingly ditzy, who run their agency from their home, a 16th century defensive tower (Torre de Cabo Roig) on the Alacante coast. Inside it is open plan, very colourful, very 60s, very Avengers: and it even has a disembodied hand that at one point, when Regina complains to the camera about not being able to get out of bed on account of being naked, passes her a nightie. After an introductory sequence showing a bridal wear model being abducted, Diana and Regina are hired by the model’s fiancé to investigate her disappearance. They soon discover that she is not the first model to have vanished; and their investigation leads them to a trendy art gallery. Diana – the sensible one - sneaks in the place at night, and steals a painting (leaving a lipstick kiss - “Red Lips” - on the backing of the empty frame), before giving the gallery caretaker (played by Jess) a bonk on the head; while Regina, pretending to be a rich heiress wanting to buy an artwork, chats up the gallery owner in the hope of getting to see the reclusive artist. (What Diana and Regina don't know is shown to the audience early on: that the mad artist Claus Tiller is indeed behind the abductions/murders, though his werewolf-like servant (Morpho, again) does the actual killing, while Tiller takes photos.) Meanwhile, the caretaker Jess has gone to the police (something that proves to be a very bad idea), and Regina has inveigled the gallery owner to come back to the tower, there to get him drunk and talkative (Diana is hiding, with a microphone); but he is killed just before he can say the artist’s real name. The women rush out to give chase to the assassin; and when they get back the body has gone. The puzzle is solved at last, and the answer turns out to be a detective story cliché (as the culprit admits himself – PD James once used it as well: she probably got the idea from this). The process of getting there is funny, exhilarating, and sometimes, if you dwell on it too much, even horrific (the women don’t; and the film, and the next, both have the same breezy indifference to death – other people’s death at any rate – as does, say, Jess’s favourite TV programme The Avengers). Again, there are lots of nice touches: Jess the caretaker trying to catch one of the figures in the darkened gallery moving, the hens in the Police detective’s office, the totally gratuitous (but very good) strip/topless dancing scene in the night club where Diana meets a rich lesbian. The whole thing is enjoyable, and very worth seeing. Before the abduction:  Jess the Caretaker at the Police:  Chasing a killer:  Morpho and a "statue":  The hideous truth:  It all comes out right in the end: 
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Post by marispiper on Nov 19, 2016 14:53:14 GMT
^^^
Yes, I can see many elements of the storyline which are right up your alley 😄
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Post by aubrey on Nov 22, 2016 16:11:04 GMT
It's a similar story to that of House of Wax (I think it is) with Vincent Price.
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Post by aubrey on Jan 2, 2017 15:20:32 GMT
016 Besame Monstruo aka Kiss Me Monster (1969)  Janine Reynaud ... Diana Rosanna Yanni ... Regina (as Rossana Yanni) Adrian Hoven ... Eric Vicas Chris Howland ... Francis McClune Michel Lemoine ... Jacques Maurier The Red Lips girls are drawn into a case involving a serum that is reputed to be able to create a race of super humans. Three different groups want to get their hands on it: an ancient secret society who all wear red robes and pointed black hoods and call themselves the Abelines, a lesbian princess who wants to create a world of women without the need for men, and a couple of gay men who would like army of muscular hunks wearing skimpy red Tarzan trunks to work their bidding (“like Anders 1 and Anders 2”, one of them says). The film starts oddly, with a scene between Milou, the main policeman from the last film, and Regina, as their cars meet on a hot dusty road. They talk about a case involving a serum, banter a bit, and then leave; then there is a shot (behind the titles) of a plane coming in to land, and then a B&W car chase from a different film – literally, since it doesn’t fit here at all. Then a car (a different one) pulls up in front of the Red Lips castle, the colour fades back in and the girls get out and scamper up the steps to their front door, before remembering a box they have left on the front seat. They go back and get it; and this time they are followed back up by Milou and a vaguely threatening official. The two men want to hear the girls’ story. We flash back to a stormy night. The girls are asleep, one of them (Regina) dreaming about Paul Newman, she says when Diane wakes her. There is a knock on the door. A violinist stands there (I don’t know how they know he’s a violinist), with a page of sheet music for them. He is about to explain more, but gets a knife in the back before he is able to. Diane goes to play the music, but Regina says they should do something about the body before they carry on; and so, chatting and bickering the whole while, they cart it down to a cliff top and pitch it over. The sheet music takes them to an island, where they use the cover of a nightclub act: there is a montage showing people on the island anticipating their visit, though whether as the act or as detectives isn’t clear. One of the men shown in the montage picks them up in a taxi, and tries to pick them up as well (unsuccessfully) and almost the first thing they see after that is an old man with a guitar playing the music they are investigating, which they are told is a kind of unofficial national anthem. They ask after the scientist, and the man says to go and ask his wife, who lives down by the quarry. But she is injured, and dying, and there is a big bloke outside in red Tarzan trunks (Anders 1 or 2). Then we go to the nightclub (The Flamingo, again) for a few minutes of wild music and dancing... This is maybe the first fifteen minutes of the film, and the pace does not relent after that. The plot has many false starts and pointless byways; but there are enough funny and/or exciting bits to keep the viewer interested. Regina is caught and interrogated by the lesbian princess, while Diana has to deal with the gay couple (though none of this is spelt out, what with it being in Spain under Franco). The puzzle of where the serum is hidden is solved in a stroke of genius (Jess would use the same sort of solution in at least one later film, and it is also used as one of the puzzles in the first Resident Evil game), that makes everything that follows seem a bit flat: even a big shoot-out near then end is so brutal as to feel like more like a Billy Liar fantasy than anything that might really have happened. The film ends with the girls, having got the serum for themselves, planning to run away to make their own army of lovers before joining the hippies. I doubt that would have worked out very well. The dubbing, as ever, is atrocious; Thrower says that with both the Red Lips films there is a better version just a decent dub away, and he is right; but it would be even better to have the original voices and subs. The Girls' home and office:  Under cover: "Tell me, why do we always have to stand with our backs to the audience?"  Jess the informant gets a knife in the back, just before he can give his information:  The Abelines:  The solution! 
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Post by marispiper on Jan 3, 2017 16:43:46 GMT
It always amuses me to read your summaries of these films as you point out the many ways in which they are dreadful...yet you still love 'em 😄
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Post by althea on Jan 3, 2017 17:04:33 GMT
Aubrey,it has to be said,you are a man of unusual tastes. While my taste is different from yours,one is in no way better than the other. It's a case of,"whatever floats your boat." I have seen some films that were so bad,they were good. I'm not one for blood and torture etc. I hate violence wherever it happens,but I can understand that these films you like are ritualised and almost comic in their portrayal of violence.(Of course,I could be wrong.I was wrong once - it was a Tuesday.)  |
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