Head Above Water/Hodet over vannet

Norway, 1993

Directed by Nils Gaup

Cast:
Lene Elise Bergum, Svein Roger Karlsen, Morten Abel, Reidar Sørensen

I have to admit that I don't really watch a lot of Norwegian thrillers. Not because I don't like thrillers from my own homeland but simply because there are very, very few of them. As such, Head Above Water stands out since it's one of the very few Norwegian thrillers. It's also easily one of the best Norwegian films from the 1990s.

The story takes place on an idyllic and isolated little island in the south of Norway, where newly-wed couple Einar (Svein Roger Karlsen) and Lene (Lene Elise Bergum) are vacationing at their seaside summer house. Einar is a magistrate and he is noticeably older than his young, pretty wife, who has been struggling a bit with her nerves – popping a few more tranquilizers than she ought to. The only other person on the island is Lene's old childhood friend, Bjørn (Morten Abel), who lives in another cabin nearby.

Einar and Lene at their picturesque summer home

Einar and Bjørn decide to take the boat out for a little fishing trip; leaving Lene all by herself on the island. It isn’t long, however, before Lene's old boyfriend, Gaute (Reidar Sørensen), shows up for a surprise visit. Gaute claims he sent a postcard to announce his arrival but Lene insists she never received it. She nevertheless invites him in as they seem to still be quite chummy. Gaute reveals that his wife has left him and that he's been drinking very heavily lately. Keeping the trend up, he helps himself to a bottle of vodka.

Gaute gets started on the booze...

...while Lene watches

Before the night is over, Gaute ends up asleep - naked - in Einar and Lene’s bed. Lene herself spends the night on the couch. The next morning, she is woken up by the sound of the boat’s whistle as Einar and Bjørn return from their fishing trip. Fearing what the jealous Einar will do if he finds Gaute naked in their bed, Lene rushes into the bedroom to wake up Gaute but to her horror she discovers that he is dead – having apparently died of a heart attack from his excessive drinking.

A dead, naked ex-boyfriend in your marriage bed can give you a headache

The nervous Lene panics completely at the thought of what Einar is going to think, and - acting purely on impulse - she drags her ex-boyfriend’s naked corpse out of the bedroom and hides him in the potato cellar...

Hiding the corpse

To reveal any more of the plot would be a crime as it would deprive first-time viewers of many great and unpredictable surprises in the plot. Rest assured that there are plenty of neat twists and turns in store – with the viewers never being quite sure about what has happened or who to trust.

Director Nils Gaup is without doubt one of Norway’s most talented filmmakers. After making his debut with the gripping adventure film Pathfinder (1987), which received an Oscar nomination for best foreign film, and following up with the partially Disney-financed youth adventure Håkon Håkonsen (1990), Gaup was offered work in Hollywood. He was asked to direct the Sally Field flick Not Without My Daughter (1991) but turned it down and instead made his third film in Norway. The film he made was of course Head Above Water, which became a great success and won the prestigious Norwegian movie award, the Amanda, for best film of the year. The film also achieved some success abroad, which inevitably led to a Hollywood remake starring Harvey Keitel and Cameron Diaz in 1996.

It's no wonder Hollywood tried to imitate this film because it's a very effective thriller and Gaup demonstrates a great talent for building tension and suspense. The setting on a small, secluded island is clever and allows the narrative to focus very closely on its small cast and let the growing tension between them flourish. The fact that there are only three characters really works to the film's advantage; tightening the focus and building up a claustrophobic atmosphere as the unexpected twists in the plot force the characters to re-evaluate their opinions of each other (the audience to re-evaluate our opinions of the characters). The effective tension is held up all the way till the film's dark but amusingly ironic conclusion.

There's plenty of (sometimes sexual) tension between Lene and the various male characters

But it's not just the ending that is ironic. Head Above Water actually contains its fair share of comedic touches - with Gaup serving us some really pitch black comedy of errors to underline the macabre irony in several of the film’s twists. It elicits a few good chuckles but Gaup stays true to the thriller format, and the emphasis is more on thrills than on laughs.

Gaup delivers the necessary thrills

The film also impresses on a visual level; with a rousing musical score that heightens the suspense and very stylish the cinematography. The idyllic island makes a picturesque backdrop to the macabre plot, and as the story starts to unfold, the beautiful island surroundings quickly start to feel claustrophobic.

The acting by the small cast is uniformly excellent, with top honors going to the outstanding Svein Roger Karlsen, who is required to go through several shifts in his portrayal of the husband. He is ably supported by debutant Lene Elise Bergum, who is terrific as the nervous, young wife. Although Bergum's pill-popping character initially reminds one a bit of the kind of giallo heroines played by Carroll Baker in the 1960s, she quickly reveals herself as highly resourceful and demonstrates a tremendous survival instinct, which makes her extremely compelling to watch. Bergum also possesses a very natural charm and has great chemistry with all of her male co-stars. She's also shown to have no qualms about taking her clothes off at regular intervals. Unfortunately, Bergum never really fulfilled the promise she showed here. Other than a long-running role on Scandinavia's longest-running daytime soap, Hotel Cæsar, she only really had a couple of dumb blonde roles in short-lived sitcoms, and eventually retired from acting altogether. A real shame!

Our delightful heroine

And in the role of the couple’s friend is Morten Abel, who at the time was a singer in the popular Norwegian band The September When, and later went on to a successful career as a solo artist. While not as impressive as the two leads, Abel does a pretty decent job - especially since he isn’t really an actor.


If you're looking for quality European thrillers you've might have missed out on then look no further because Head Above Water is just what you're after. The Norwegian DVD released by SF Norge contains English subtitles, so I highly recommend picking it up so you can enjoy this little gem. Just make sure you sit through the entire closing credits or else you'll miss the film's final ironic twist.

The cast:

Lene Elise Bergum as Lene


Svein Roger Karlsen as Einar


Morten Abel as Bjørn

Reidar Sørensen as Gaute

The Balsorano castle

The Balsorano castle is one the all-time greatest and most famous Italian horror movie locations as it was featured in a large number of memorable Italian horror films during the 1960s and 70s.

The castle is located in Balsorano, a small comune in the province the province of L'Aquila in the Abruzzo region of Italy. It was built in 1470 on the remains of a previous fortified structure and is now surrounded by a beautiful green park.

During the 1960s, when gothic horror movies were in vogue in Italy, many of them were shot on location at the Balsorano castle. One of the many popular horror films to be shot there is Massimo Pupillo's delightful Bloody Pit of Horror (1965), starring American bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay as a red-hooded executioner who tortures and kills beautiful girls at his castle. The Balsorano castle is very prominently featured in this film, and below are some pictures of the castle as seen in the film:









But Bloody Pit of Horror wasn't the only horror film Mickey Hargitay made at the Balsorano castle. A couple of years later he starred alongside the luscious Rita Calderoni in Renato Polselli's great and extremely bizarre The Reincarnation of Isabel (1972). This film, too, puts the atmospheric Balsorano castle to great effect:










Of course, the Balsorano castle also features in a number of black and white horror films. One of them is Camillo Mastrocinque's enjoyable Crypt of the Vampire (1964), based on the writings of J. Sheridan Le Fanu and starring horror legend Christopher Lee:






The Balsorano castle in gorgeous b&w photography in Crypt of the Vampire



Then there's the extremely obscure giallo A... come assassino (1966), directed by little-known filmmaker Angelo Dorigo and starring Mary Arden and Sergio Ciani. It's one of those black and white gialli with gothic influences, so what better than to shoot it at the Balsorano castle?

More b&w terror at the castle in A... come assassino

And let's not forget another highly cherished horror film shot at the Balsorano castle: Luigi Batzella's The Devil's Wedding Night (1973) - starring the irresistable Rosalba Neri as a bloodthirsty countess who sacrifices young women at her castle.

The devil's wedding night takes place at the Balsorano castle

Of course, many more films were also shot at the Balsorano castle and far from all of them were horror movies. Actually, many of them were hardcore pornos! One of the earliest pornos to filmed at the famed castle was the rather bizarre but amusing Erotic Flash (1981), which stars Moana Pozzi (in her hardcore debut), Herbert Hofer and Marina Frajese among others.

Sexy action at the castle in Erotic Flash

In the 1990s, many period piece pornos by Joe D'Amato and Franco Lo Cascio were shot at the Balsorano castle but I'm not too familiar with any of those film. Regardless, the Balsorano castle is a truly outstanding location that has contributed a lot to the look and atmosphere of a number of great Italian genre films. It's always a pleasure to see it pop up in a film.

The Concorde Affair/Concorde Affaire '79

Italy, 1979

Directed by Ruggero Deodato

Cast:

James Franciscus, Mimsy Farmer, Joseph Cotten, Venantino Venantini, Van Johnson, Edmund Purdom, Francisco Charles, Fiamma Maglione, Ottaviano Dell'Acqua, John Stacy, Robert Kerman, Mario Maranzana, Aldo Barberito, Francesco Carnelutti, Enrico Papa and numerous others

After neglecting this blog for months I've finally gotten around to look at some more interesting films and sat down with what is a virtually forgotten entry on the filmography of Ruggero Deodato: The Concorde Affair. Like so many other Italian films, this was conceived as a cash-in on a popular Hollywood cycle; in this case the many all-star cast disaster movies that were doing the rounds in the 1970s after the huge success of Airport (1970) and its sequels. Actually, The Concorde Affair was released just a few months before the fourth and final film in the Airport series: The Concorde – Airport ’79, which - obviously - also dealt with the Concorde but on a much bigger budget. I suppose that at the time the world was fascinated by this aircraft that could transport passengers at speeds greater than that of sound, and movie producers must have seen the potential for big business in movies featuring the Concorde. But unfortunately, the timing – for both Concorde films – was all wrong as the disaster movie fad was on its dying breaths by now. The Concorde Affair also had the misfortune of being made in-between Deodato’s two notorious cannibal films Last Cannibal World (1977) and Cannibal Holocaust (1979) – the two films most people remember Deodato for. They have completely stolen Concorde's thunder and it remains a neglected item on Deodato’s filmography to this day. That’s a terrible shame because this is actually a really enjoyable little film that deserves to be seen as more than a mere footnote in Deodato's career.


Now, on to the plot! We are introduced to Milland (Joseph Cotton), an evil business conglomerate who is earning good money on his successful South American airline. However, the rising interest in the Concorde has both Milland and his partner Danker (Edmund Purdom) worried as they fear that the speed and efficiency of the Concorde might bring an end to their profitable airline business. Thus, they come up with a plan to sabotage some Concorde flights in order to make the public think the Concorde is an unsafe aircraft. Not long after, they successfully sabotage a Concorde test flight (equipped with just a couple of crew members on board), which crashes into the Atlantic Ocean.

The Concorde goes down...

Miraculously, stewardess Jean Beneyton (Mimsy Farmer) manages to survive the crash and is discovered floating unconscious in the sea by two local fishermen from the island of Martinique in the Antilles. Fans of Italian genre cinema will no doubt recognize one of the fishermen as he is played – uncredited – by Dakar (real name: Alejandro Barrera), a Peruvian wrestler turned actor who played supporting roles in countless Italian films. Dakar’s most famous role is no doubt that of Richard Johnson’s superstitious assistant in Lucio Fulci’s legendary horror hit Zombie (1979), which, incidentally, was also shot on location in the Antilles not long after The Concorde Affair.

The sole survivor

Dakar (to the left) as one of the fishermen

Anyway… the action now shifts to New York, where a successful news reporter named Moses Brody (James Franciscus) receives a phone call from his ex-wife Nicole (musician/actress Fiamma Maglione, billed under her usual ‘Mag Fleming’ moniker), who just happens to run a restaurant in Martinique. She also just happens to be the employer of the fishermen who rescued Jean out of the ocean. Nicole hints to Moses that there’s a big story behind the crashed Concorde flight and begs him to come to Martinique at once.

Moses chillin' in his New York office

Moses obliges and travels to Martinique; only to learn that his ex-wife has died very suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack. The fishermen are dead too – having been speedboated to death – and the poor traumatized Jean has been kidnapped by a shady fellow named Forsythe (the always awesome Venantino Venantini), who is the ruthless guy who was paid by Milland and Danker to sabotage the Concorde test flight. Forsythe figures he can use Jean, the sole Concorde flight survivor, to blackmail Milland and Danker for more money. It’s up to Moses to find out what happened to his ex-wife, undercover the truth about the crashed Concorde, rescue Jean and, most importantly, try and stop Milland and Danker from crashing a second Concorde – this time a fully booked flight riddled with clichéd Airport-style passengers...

The Concorde in trouble

Not surprisingly, The Concorde Affair is often referred to as a rip-off of the Airport films but the fact of the matter is that it doesn’t really have all that much in common with the popular Hollywood franchise. For starters, the majority of the action in Deodato’s film actually occurs either on the ground or at sea. Furthermore, none of the main characters figure among the imperiled Concorde passengers. Which may not have been a terribly wise decision as it’s a little difficult to care too much about any of the Concorde passengers because they are rather poorly developed (we don’t even learn the names of any of them).

Furthermore, the film's plotline is far too convoluted (especially the part with all the sabotage and blackmail business) and somewhat unoriginal, too, considering that it was penned by reliable genre scribe Ernesto Gastaldi. But in the end this is of little consequence because when you have a dependable professional like Ruggero Deodato in the director’s seat, the film becomes a really fun and engaging little suspenser nonetheless. And like all of Deodato’s works, The Concorde Affair is a very slick-looking and technically well-made product. Federico Zanni’s cinematography is top-notch and the use of attractive locations in the Antilles as well as some street scenes in New York brings a continental feel to the proceedings; making this look like a bigger budgeted production than it really was.

Picturesque scenery in the Antilles

This only thing that really betrays the film’s low-budget origins is the use of grainy stock footage for all shots of the Concorde. There are also a couple of hopelessly unconvincing miniature airplane models on display – particularly the underwater ones – and this mars the film somewhat. But on the other hand, Italian B-movies have a long-standing tradition for using stock footage and cheesy miniatures, so for true devotees of Italian genre cinema this will probably add to the fun rather than take away from it.

Concorde stock footage

Miniature work

The Concorde Affair also benefits tremendously from Stelvio Cipriani’s rousing score, which is a marvelously catchy, toe-tapping tune that really livens up the proceedings. Further assets are the impressive underwater sequences shot by Gianlorenzo Battaglia, a gifted underwater expert who would go on to work on the celebrated submerged ballroom sequence in Dario Argento’s horror classic Inferno (1980). Here we are treated to some very well-made and suspenseful sequences of James Franciscus diving to explore the wreckage of the crashed Concorde. The scenes of him searching the darkened aircraft with a flashlight are eerily effective and there’s also a briefly seen shark thrown in for good measure– prepping Franciscus for his next Italian film, Enzo G. Castellari’s shark-shocker The Great White (1981). We even get some cool underwater fights and a bit of glorious blood-shedding, although this is – not surprisingly – rather tame when compared to the stuff Deodato would conjure up for Cannibal Holocaust.

Underwater action, sharks and some gore really adds to the fun

The cast is certainly impressive; featuring a truck-load of Hollywood has-beens in European exile. At the front is James Franciscus, who has just the right charm and rugged handsomeness to play the suave but likeable lead. He gets to do plenty of underwater work here and even prances around a bit in a pair of tight swimming trunks. Interestingly, the other two Italian films Franciscus did during the same period – the piranha flick Killer Fish (1978) and the aforementioned shark opus The Great White (1981) – also involved lots of action at sea.

Franciscus in swimming trunks

Then there’s Mimsy Farmer, who gets to do her thing once again – that is play a slightly twitchy and on-edge character. It’s the same routine she does in most of her films from this era but she admittedly does it very well. Things do lapse into laughable silliness in the climax, however, when Mimsy is given the heavy burden of rescuing the sabotaged Concorde flight via telephone(!) and breaks down in hysterical sobbing from the pressure put on her. With that said, this is a priceless moment of grandiose cheese that really adds to the overall fun.

Mimsy does her hysterical routine

Unfortunately, the remaining Hollywood players are used mainly as marquee value without really bringing much to the screen. Van Johnson is under-used but manages to do a fairly decent job as the brave Concorde pilot but Joseph Cotton and one-time matinee idol Edmund Purdom fare less well. Cotten, in particular, looks really bored as he sleepwalks through his part as the corporate bad guy. With the exception of a single outdoor scene where Cotten is shooting clay pigeons, all scenes with him and Purdom take place in an office where they discuss the sabotage plot with their advisors. Obviously shot in a day or two, these scenes are a textbook example of faded stars showing up only to collect a quick paycheck.

Uninspired office scenes with Cotten and Purdom

Luckily, several reliable Italian B-movie veterans are on hand to fill the supporting parts and they certainly deliver the goods. A bespectacled Venantino Venantini packs his usual mean stare and makes for an excellent villain, and it’s also good to have omnipresent stuntman/actor Ottaviano Dell’Acqua onboard as Venantini’s tough-guy henchman.

Venantino Venantini: great actor, great bad guy!

Many will also no doubt enjoy spotting numerous familiar faces in small or uncredited roles. In addition to Dakar’s aforementioned role as the unfortunate fishermen who fishes Mimsy out of the water, we are also treated to British-born character actor and voice dubber John Stacy as the skeptical American consul in Martinique and Aldo Barberito (a regular in many of Umberto Lenzi’s films in the 1970s) as a kindly priest aboard the Concorde etc.

But the most interesting presence here is arguably that of an uncredited Robert Kerman, the American hardcore porno actor better known as R. Bolla, who Deodato later cast in the leading role in Cannibal Holocaust, and who also appeared in Umberto Lenzi’s two cheesy cannibal flicks Eaten Alive! (1980) and Cannibal Ferox (1981). Here, Kerman plays the chief operator at the London control tower, who works hard to try and prevent the sabotaged Concorde from meeting the same fate as the test flight. His presence is very welcome and Kerman delivers a surprisingly strong and dedicated performance. An even more amusing piece of trivia is the fact that two further American porno actors also appear in the London control tower scenes alongside Kerman: Jake Teague and Michael Gaunt. They too would go on to appear in further Italian films: Teague was one of the detectives in Eaten Alive! and the university professor at the end of Cannibal Ferox, while Gaunt was a grave digger in Lucio Fulci’s zombie classic City of the Living Dead (1980)!

Porn star roundup: Michael Gaunt, Robert Kerman and Jake Teague

In spite of a few flaws, The Concorde Affair is a criminally underrated effort from Ruggero Deodato. It's good, enjoyable fun and if you ever get the chance to watch it then do so!

The main cast:

James Franciscus as Moses Brody

Mimsy Farmer as Jean Beneyton

Joseph Cotten as Milland

Venantino Venantini as Forsythe

Van Johnson as Captain Scott

Edmund Purdom as Danker

Francisco Charles as George

Fiamma Maglione as Nicole Brody

Ottaviano Dell'Acqua as John, Forstyhe's henchman

John Stacy as The Consul

Robert Kerman as Kelman, chief operator at the London control tower

R.I.P. Horst Tappert

It is with great sadness I note that beloved German actor Horst Tappert passed away on December te 13th at the age of 85.

Horst Tappert began his film career in the late 1950s and fans of European cinema will fondly remember Tappert for his performances in a series of Edgar Wallace krimis in the late 1960s - beginning with a supporting role in The Horror of Blackwood Castle (1967) and then graduating to leading player; portraying Scotland Yard Inspector Perkins in both The Gorilla From Soho (1968) and The Man With the Glass Eye (1969).

Tappert featured in German lobbycards for some of the Edgar Wallace krimis he appeared in

Horst Tappert also acted in three German/Spanish co-productions directed by prolific Spanish cult-director Jess Franco: She Killed in Ecstacy and The Devil Came from Akasawa (both 1971) alongside Franco starlet Soledad Miranda, and then finally in the bizarre but stylish and enjoyable crime-thriller The Corspe Packs His Bags (1972).

Tappert in The Corpse Packs His Bags

But it wasn't until two years after The Corpse Packs His Bags that Tappert would land the role that we all know and love him for; that of Oberinspektor Stephan Derrick in the long-running German detective TV series Derrick, which ran for a 281 episodes from 1974 to 1998.

Derrick became a phenomenally popular series and has been broadcast in 108 countries - Italy, France, Japan, China and Norway being some of the countries in which the show was particularly successful. It's somewhat of a mystery just how a show like Derrick managed to become such a huge hit all over the globe and I'm not going to try and guess. I will, however, take the time to discuss my own memories of Derrick - from a Norwegian standpoint. I remember Derrick very well from my younger years as the show used to air every Friday. Back in the 1980s, there was only one single TV channel in Norway and crime shows were only shown Friday nights so it goes without saying that Derrick really reached out to the Norwegian TV audience and made Horst Tappert a household name. It was always a rather innocent and not very violent series but even as new TV channels emerged and crimes shows were being aired all day of the week, Derrick still remained popular with Norwegian viewers; having long since achieved cult status.

Horst Tappert's popularity was also helped by the fact that he was always an outspoken friend of Norway. He and his wife, Ursula, frequently vacationed in Norway; having bought a cabin in Hamarøy in 1990. He also met with King Harald and Queen Sonja of Norway when they were visiting Germany in 1994.

Horst Tappert meets King Harald of Norway

In 2002 Tappert won the Norwegian-German Willy Brandt Prize, which is handed out annually by the Willy Brandt Foundation, named for the former German chancellor who had a Norwegian wife and helped rebuild ties between the countries after the war. Tappert won the prize for having given Germany a human face in Norway after WW2.

So I've been aware of Horst Tappert since my early childhood but back then I only thought of him as Derrick. I basically knew nothing about his earlier acting career and I still remember how stunned I was when - years later - I found out he had been in Jess Franco films! Seeking these films out turned out to be very worthwhile and it really allowed me to see a whole new side of Tappert. The Corpse Packs His Bags, in particular, is a great Jess Franco film and it boasts what is now one of my favorite Tappert performances. In stark contrast to the Derrick character, Tappert plays somewhat of a bad guy character here - at one point he actually ties up his co-star (the chic German actress Barbara Rütting), soaks her in liquor and lights a match; threatening to set her ablaze unless she gives him the information he wants. Such brutal behavior is not what most people will associate with Horst Tappert but he pulls it off convincingly.

Tappert shows his mean side

It's sad that this great, legendary cult actor is no longer with us but Horst Tappert will live on in our hearts forever through the many great memories of his work as Derrick, and in the Edgar Wallace krimis and Jess Franco Films.

R.I.P. Horst Tappert

Lost film #3: Tempo d'immagini

Italy, 1970

Director: Adimaro Sala

Cast:

Umberto Di Grazia, Maria Pia Giancaro, Dino Mele

Here's another completely obscure Italian film that appears to have disappeared almost entirely: an erotic melodrama called Tempo d'immagini, which was directed by a little-known filmmaker by the name of Adimaro Sala. A pretty low-budget film with only three actors, the film was registered with a visa number (which are issued to all Italian films) in October 1970 but for whatever reason the film was shelved for a great number of years - not given a theatrical release until in 1988!!!

Whatever happened to the film after that is anyone's guess. It doesn't appear to have been released on VHS and it's not even listed in the IMDb or any other notable movie databases.

However, a photo novel version (a so-called cineromanzo) of the film was published in the Italian cineromanzo magazine Topfilm in June 1971. Topfilm also had a French sister-magazine called Playfilm, which was identical in content; the only exception being that Playfilm was in French text instead of Italian. The photo novel version of Tempo d'immagini was published in Playfilm in October 1971 under the French title Temps d'images, and I have been fortunate enough to get my hands on this magazine.

The cover of the Playfilm magazine. The image is not from Tempo d'immagini, however. Instead it shows the stunning French actress Veronique Vendell in a shot from the German sex comedy Virgin on the Verge (1970)

Thanks to this photo novel it is possible to form somewhat of an impression as to what kind of film this is. The story is actually very simple. It deals with two young lovers named Joe and Jannette.

Jannette is played by the gorgeous Maria Pia Giancaro, a notable genre actress in Italian films in the 1970s, who played memorable roles in stuff like Emilio Miraglia's giallo The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972) and Mario Siciliano's occult thriller Evil Eye (1974).

Maria Pia Giancaro

Jannette's lover, Joe, is played by Umberto Di Grazia, who was one of the many C.S.C. actors (like Carla Mancini, Luigi Antonio Guerra, Lorenzo Piani etc) that were credited for tax reasons and often didn't actually appear in the films they were credited in. When C.S.C. actors actually did appear, they usually played rather insubstantial roles. Thus, it is quite a surprise to see Di Grazia playing the leading role here. I'm assuming that director Adimaro Sala liked him a lot because he had previously used Di Grazia in a leading role in his La pelle a scacchi (1969), another obscure film with only a handful of actors.

Umberto Di Grazia

Anyway, it seems that Joe and Jannette like to drink whisky and fool around while wearing strange white robes and big fur hats.

Joe and Jannette have fun with whisky and fur hats

There's also a fair bit of sex going on but judging by the way it's shot, it looks as if the sex scenes are a tad on the "artsy" side.

Artsy sex and nudity aplenty

Everything is all nice and jolly until Jannette starts to get involved with another man (Dino Mele). Eventually, Joe finds out about this and it leads to violence...

Jannette and the other man

The inevitable eruption of violence

Obviously, it's difficult to properly judge and appreciate the mood and atmosphere of the film when one only has the photo novel to go by but at least it gives us an idea of what the film would be like. The story is simple and the film obviously cost next to nothing but it looks interesting enought for me to want to check it out. Maria Pia Giancaro certainly looks very lovely here. Hopefully, Tempo d'immagini isn't completely lost and can be rescued from obscurity.

The cast:

Umberto Di Grazia as Joe

Maria Pia Giancaro as Jannette

Dino Mele as The other man

The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun/La dame dans l'auto avec des lunettes et un fusil

France, 1970

Directed by Anatole Litvak

Cast:

Samantha Eggar, John McEnery, Oliver Reed, Stephane Audran, Billie Dixon, Bernard Fresson, Yves Pignot, Marcel Bozzuffi

Having previously looked at and been impressed by the French thriller The Sleeping Car Murder (1965), based on the novel of Sébastien Japrisot, it felt appropriate to take a closer look at The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun, another French thriller based on a Japrisot novel.

The lovely Samantha Eggar stars as Dany Lang, an attractive English secretary who works in an international ad agency in Paris. Being short-sighted, Dany always wears big, fashionable (and dark) 1960s-style glasses.

The lady with the dark glasses

During a hectic work period, Dany's boss, Michael Caldwell (Oliver Reed), asks her if she'd mind working overnight at his home. Being the faithful employee, Dany agrees and accompanies Michael back to his house. There she also meets with Michael's attractive wife, Anita (Stephane Audran). As it turns out, Anita actually used to be friends with Dany a long time ago, although their friendship fizzled out as soon as Anita climbed up the social ladder by marrying Michael. The former friends' reunion is rather awkward - they barely exchange a few phrases but the encounter triggers a flashback in Dany; showing how Anita was apparently prone to sleeping around a lot before she met Michael.

The next day, Michael, Anita and their little daughter are going away on a trip and ask Dany to drive them to the airport in their fancy, white convertible and then take the car back and park it at their house. Somewhat reluctant as she's never driven the car before, Dany nevertheless agrees and drops them off at the airport. But as she's about to drive back, Dany gets off in the wrong lane and finds herself heading south - towards the Riviera - instead. Figuring she might as well enjoy this fancy car while she has the chance, she impulsively drives on.

The lady in the car

But soon strange things start to happen. Everywhere Dany goes, she is recognized by complete strangers who all claim to have met her there before. But Dany is certain that she has never been in the south of France before or met any of these people. It's as if she's retracing a route she has never taken. Things turn more sinister when Dany stops at a gas station to use the bathroom. Shortly afterwards, the gas station attendant hears Dany's screams coming from the bathroom. He rushes to find her lying hurt on the floor; claiming a stranger attacked her and viciously hurt her hand. Her hand has to be bandaged but the gas station employees all claim that Dany has recently been at the gas station before and that her hand was already bandaged then. Things start to turn stranger and stranger. What is actually going on? Is there a plot to drive Dany mad? Or is she mad already? Or has she experienced some sort of trauma that has given her partial amnesia?


Sébastien Japrisot's plot is certainly intriguing enough and The Lady in the Car is off to a good start; with a promising set-up and a mystery that grabs our attention. Unfortunately, the film fails to make good on its promise and start losing focus and running out of steam just one third into its running time. The mystery of why Dany is being recognized in places she's never been to before and the effective aura of strangeness that is present during the first half hour or so eventually takes a backseat when Dany encounters an obnoxious hitchhiker named Philippe (played by John McEnery) and for no good reason takes him along with her, lets him in on her story and goes to bed with him. This - along with a lot Dany's subsequent actions - comes across as rather implausible, and, worse yet, the couple has little to no discernible chemistry. The Philippe character is merely an annoyance factor that steals focus.

The film never really recovers from this, although it eventually gets its plot back on track and throws in a few interesting moments that help keep our interest up until all the elaborate details are revealed in the not quite successful denouement. To say that the final explanation requires a certain suspension of disbelief is a vast understatement but it works to a certain degree at least because Japrisot's intricate plot is fascinating, if somewhat unconvincing. The screenplay was written by Japrisot himself together with the director, Ukraine-born filmmaker Anatole Litvak, but somehow their joint efforts in transferring Japrisot's story to the film medium doesn't work all that well. The structuring of the story and a slow pacing is part of the problem - another one is Litvak's direction. Litvak was certainly no stranger to thrillers and had a successful Hollywood career; churning out such well-received thrillers as Sorry, Wrong Number and The Snake Pit (both 1948), and gaining an Oscar nomination for best director with the latter. By the time he made The Lady in the Car, though, Litvak was 68 years old and it was to become his final film. It was hardly a good swansong for Litvak as he just doesn't manage to muster up the kind of thrills or enthusiasm that the story requires in order to work.

The book the film is based on

What Litvak does succeed in, however, is capturing that late 1960s/early 1970s flavor very well, with plenty of chic fashions, some Mario Bava-style lighting and a delightful Michel Legrand score, which includes the catchy song "On the Road", performed by Petula Clark.

The film's soundtrack release

It's also evident that the film is atmospheric and visually impressive even though the only English-language print that appears to be in circulation is a soft, fuzzy-looking print with an overly reddish image that does absolutely no justice to the film's color scheme. But even in this print, Claude Renoir cinematography is striking and one can sense the remnants of a very colorful and stylishly shot film. No doubt, a pristine-looking print would make the film a far more aesthetically pleasing experience and probably help smooth over some of the flaws in the storytelling.

Shots such as these make one long for a good-looking print of the film

Another asset for the film is the beautiful British actress Samantha Eggar in her first brush with so-called Euro cult territory - she'd go on to more success with her subsequent Euro efforts, making Light at the Edge of the World (1971) in Spain and The Etruscan Kills Again (1971) in Italy. Eggar's performance here is quite impressive and she does a terrific and convincing job as the increasingly confused Dany. While some of Dany's motivations and actions seem rather illogical, this is the fault of the writing and not Eggar, who does the best she can with the material and makes sure we still believe in the character even when she's acting implausible.

None of the other cast members are given too much to do actually. The always welcome Oliver Reed, who would reunite with Eggar nine years later in David Cronenberg's The Brood (1979), does an impressive job with his limited screen time, though. So does the exquisite Stephane Audran (better remembered for her work in the thrillers of her husband Claude Chabrol) as Reed's wife. John McEnery on the other hand is extremely annoying as the hitchhiking Philippe and the film had been better off had his character been cut from the narrative alltogether.

While far from a perfect film, The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun has its memorable moments and a strong leading performance by Samantha Eggar. Those wanting to see a really good thriller based on the writings of Sébastien Japrisot should start with The Sleeping Car Murder instead but this one is worth a look too. Now, if someone could just release a good-looking version of the film - I'm certain it would make the film far more enjoyable.

The cast:

Samantha Eggar as Dany Lang

John McEnery as Philippe

Oliver Reed as Michael Caldwell

Stephane Audran as Anita Caldwell

Billie Dixon as Dany's colleague

Bernard Fresson as Jean

Marcel Bozzuffi as Gas station attendant

Yves Pignot as Batistin

I'm back

After a lengthy absense I am finally back. I have not forgotten about this blog and I intend to try and update it more frequently in the time to come!