Quella carogna dell’ispettore Sterling (1968)

Frame Up (1968)

directed by: Emilio Miraglia (as Hal Brady)

cast:Henry Silva, Beba Loncar, Keenan Wynn

Interesting noir/proto-crime/polizzi flick by the great Emilio Miraglia (The night Evelyn came out of the grave). This little film has enough thrills to satisfy the devoted Italo-genre cinema fan and the effective presence of the ever reliable Henry Silva.

Henry Silva is a police inspector. A gang of robbers killed his son and he is accused of having killed a police informer and is kicked out of the Department. He will have to do all by himself to discover the truth.

Pretty similar to another Silva/Miraglia collaboration, the Assassination, that is, Frame Up offers nice cinematography, a bunch of euroregulars like Luciano Rossi, Beba Loncar and Pier-Paolo Capponi and a convincing noir atmosphere but cannot be described as anything more than a solid entry in the Italian Noir catalogue. The mechanical, labyrinthine, at times, plot follows the well-known and at that point already patented norms of the European Noir cinema, but Silva manages to steal the show and to elevate the film a couple notches above average.

Silva would go on to have a much celebrated career in Italian ,among others,  genre cinema,a thing that he really deserved.

Frame-Up is a nice flick from that early period of Eurocult cinema,quite rare too as it seems. So if you track a copy, do not hesitate to add it in your collection.

Hommes de joie pour femmes vicieuses (1974)

Men for rent (1974)

directed by:Pierre Chevalier (as Lina Cavalcanti)

cast:Alix Mahieux, Daniel Darnault, Pierre Taylou

Another insane entry by Eurocine,to say that this movie and its English dubbing  track are completely bonkers,would probably be an understatement as we watch various Eurocine regulars like Monica Swinn blur the lines between ,almost hardcore, erotica and slapstick antics, this must ,by all accounts, seen to be believed.

In “men for rent” we witness the exploits of a handful of men of different frames and characters who happen to work as male prostitutes in a brothel run by Madame Rachelle. Our characters given comical names like: Noodle,Angel,Plumber and Schechrezant try to satisfy the numerous female patrons, women of different social backgrounds and  commentary against the stereotypes of sexual relationships,interracial relationships,the French bourgeoisie and female emancipation ensues.

Insane,insane trash made in France, the dialogues are to die for and some of the comical gags are very effective. Chevallier is said to have tried to do a sort of political film that ridicules the post May 1968 France, but given the fact that Marius Lessoeur penned the script and that Eurocine produced the film I highly doubt that this should be seen as anything else than a pretext for another sexploitation crime committed against cinema.

At least this one is way more vibrant than other wretched Eurocine entries, and more fun to watch thanks to its bizzarre premise.

Deadly Games (1982)

Deadly Games (1982)

directed by:Scott Mansfield

cast:Alexandra Morgan, Jo Ann Harris, Sam Groom,Steve Railsback

Painfully average,perhaps even below average entry to the slasher cannon, Deadly Games is as flawed as it gets,as the director Scott Mansfield constructs segues of talky and perky for their own sake dialogue that in all seriousness have more in common with “Friends” the series, or even “Sex in the (rural) City” than with an effective slasher film.

A town is being terrorized by a masked killer who is murdering women. A young woman is attacked by the killer but escapes. She believes the killer to be either the town’s policeman or the manager of the local theater, and she devises a plan to find out which is the actual killer.

The “Halloween”copying  or maybe the “Scream” predating opening sequence still holds well enough,the burial scene is quite effective and the unexpected,coarse and abrupt ending is cool in its off-kilter nature, but unfortunately the rest of the flick plays more like a romantic comedy or a ptsd/shellshock drama in which the cool character actor Steve Railsback is sadly underused.

It’s no co-incidence that this got released in 82 after being shelved for 2 years and that even after its release it received very limited distribution, thus remaining a painfully obscure genre entry without an official DVD release as of yet.

Even the stronger willed slasher die-hards will be challenged to sit through the entire thing…

Σλασερ μπαρούφα που παρά τη σπανιότητα της αποτελεί τρανταχτή απόδειξη πως μερικά πράγματα καταβροχθίζονται από τον πανδαμάτωρα χρόνο για κάποιο λόγο.

Δημοσιογράφος σε μουσικό περιοδικό επανεγκαθίσταται στη γενέθλια πόλη μετά το θάνατο/δολοφονία της αδερφής της και επανασυνδέεται με όλους τους παλιούς της γνωστούς και φίλους.Σύντομα διαπιστώνει πως η μοιχεία στην περιοχή χαίρει μεγάλης αποδοχής αφού και η ίδια θα τραβήξει το ενδιαφέρον του παντρεμένου αστυνόμου της πόλης και φίλου ενός βετεράνου του Βιετνάμ με μετατραυματικό σοκ. Όλοι μαζί την αράζουν στο σινεμά του βετεράνου όπου βλέπουν ασπρόμαυρα φιλμ τρόμου και παίζουν επιτραπέζια. Στο μεταξύ άγνωστος δολοφόνος ξεπαστρεύει τις γυναίκες της περιοχής.

Δεν είναι καθόλου τυχαίο που το Σλασερ στοιχείο αναφέρεται στο τέλος της σύνοψης, αφού είναι σίγουρα ο “φτωχός συγγενής” της πλοκής. Χωρίς να ισχυρίζεται κανείς πως το παρόν είναι οτι χειρότερο παράχθηκε ποτέ στο είδος, το deadly games είναι αφόρητα επίπεδο και σοβαροφανές.Οι όποιες συγκινήσεις είναι αραιά τοποθετημένες μέσα στο φιλμ χωρίς κανέναν στρατηγικό σχεδιασμό, τα κίνητρα , οι βαθυστόχαστες συζητήσεις και τα όποια σεξιστικά overtones των αντι-ηρώων δεν εξηγούνται ποτέ, ακόμα και το φινάλε της ταινίας σοκάρει περισσότερο λόγω του απρόσμενου της φύσης του παρά λόγω της αποτελεσματικότητάς του.

Μόνο για τους φανατικούς.