Film Forno

Maestro Fernado Di Leo between the two babes from Avere Vent’anni

I just watched an Italian language version of Fernando Di Leo’s great poliziotto Il Boss (Wipeout USA). A very cool film, I had the good fortune to see it on a double bill with Montaldo’s MachineGun McCain at Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse Film Festival. The Italian version is a bit different, for one thing a lot of subtlety is lost in translation, at least it seemed that way to me, the Italian language version created an overall impression of more political corruption and intrigue. It seemed more real in a way. commissario Torri (Gianni Garko) is in bed with local Mafiosi,

Gianni Garko, commissario Torri, Order in the Mob!

informing them of police action, he has a house and bank accounts given to him by the Mob but he justifies his activities by saying he’s all about “Order”, and only the Big Bosses can maintain order among the Underworld. Is this a rationalization? does he really believe he’s helping Society with his proto Fascist philosophy? The film doesn’t give any definite answers but it’s the questions I find fascinating. Lanzetta (Henry Silva in one of his most iconic performances) is a ruthless, cold blooded killer.

Henry Silva, looking like an Incan head carved from Stone

A monster raised by a Mafia don, almost like Frankenstien, except this monster succeeds in destroying his creator. The dialog between Lanzetta and Rina Daniello (Antonia Santilli) has more dimension in the Italian version.

Have a shot of the Italian Gangster’s Favorite, J&B!

She keeps calling him “Larry” which pisses off Lanzetta to no end. Their conversations seem almost improvised, very natural. The sequence where they shack up in Lanzetta’s apartment is one of the strangest in all Crime Cinema! A full blown Mob War is raging in Palermo and right at the height of it, the guy who started it all is locked away screwing his brains out with the daughter of his ex-boss! He even complains to her that he’s spending too much time in bed with her. It’s like it’s the first time this monster has had sex. Another point that struck me more forcefully in this version is this: the film opens with one of the greatest hits in all Mafia Films, Lanzetta fires a grenade launcher from the projection booth into a theater full of Mafia dons about to watch a Swedish porno film. It’s as if the projector literally becomes a Death Ray! The Power Of Cinema!

Coldest Killer in Cinema!

But my point is this, in the aftermath of the killing, at the morgue, one guy is hysterical, screaming for revenge, nothing will satisfy him but blood!

First To Rat!

This is Attardi (Gianni Musi), later when the gang has kidnapped the daughter of the Don responsible for killing half their family, Attardi wants to kill her with his bare hands, he has to be restrained by his brothers. But Attardi is the guy who rats out the family! He tells Lanzetta where they’re holding the girl! This strikes me as so true, the over dramatic guy, screaming for revenge is the one who rats out his family! Di Leo’s crazy characters really ring true! I also noticed a funny thing, when Lanzetta is in the projection booth preparing to send the audience to Hell, the projector is running but there is no film in it! The reels are empty! Check it out.

The Boss Never Sleeps

Richard Conti is great as the insomniac Boss of Bosses and Pier Paolo Capponi is excellent as Cocchi, the rival hitman, he is like a tough Italian John Casale.

Cocchi, Casale’s Cousin From Palermo

And here’s another strange thing, at the end of the film in the Ameriacan version it ends with Lanzetta walking off down a road, in the Italian version it cuts to the lawyers office where he gets a phone call and a title appears, Coninua, to be continued. What ever happened to Part Two? I guess it never got made, too bad, I’d love for this film to keep on going!

I Wish!

I had dinner with the lovely, eternally young Barbara Bouchet during the Grindhouse festival. I asked her about working with Di Leo, she said she loved it, that when they made a film it was like one big happy family, a joy to be involved with. I was happy to hear that. As I watched Wipeout at the New Beverly Cinema Quentin was sitting next to me, he leaned over and told me that Di Leo is one of his, maybe his favorite director of all time. He also said he heard an interview where Di Leo was asked ” Are there any directors working today that you admire, or that remind you of your own filmmaking?” Di Leo replied, ” Yes, Quentin Tarantino!” It made Mr. Tarantino very happy.

Hard to find but worth it! A historical drama based on a true story about a beautiful young girl (Beatrice)

Francesco vs. Beatrice

her tyrannical father and a loyal servant that loves her, of course with all the usual Fulci fetishes, eye-trauma, torture, rape, etc.

Fulci signature Eye Trauma! That’ll teach him!

It’s told in a sort of time jumping flashback style from multiple points of view, a riff on Yojimbo but not the same technique. Great production value, medieval Italia, Roma, villas in the campagnia.

Cool Optical, Matte shot using Castel Sant Angelo

Soldiers, cardinals, Inquisitors, there’s even a papal investigator who is a Medieval Columbo!

The Pope’s Colombo! Official Investigator Of The Vatican

A dysfunctional family headed by a father who is a total sadist prick. He has one guy torn apart by dogs, throws a party when two of his sons are killed in Salamanca ( he’s notoriously cheap and rejoices he dosen’t have to foot the bill for his sons crusading any more), imprisons his daughter in a filthy dungeon, abuses her and everyone around him.

Tomas Milian as loyal servant Olympio

Olympio loves Beatrice

Tomas Milian plays Olympio the servant, he becomes Beatrice’s lover and helps her off her old man.

The Torture Of Olympio

The best scene in the movie is when Milian, who has been graphically tortured in horrible ways and has confessed implicating Beatrice, is brought before her to confront her. The Inquisitors expect him to contradict her and say she’s guilty, he looks at her from the floor, his body torn up, shattered, a mess. He apologizes to her and says she’s innocent!

When confronted with His Lady he recants his confession

The Inquisitors are pissed! They drag him off to torture some more and while breaking his bones on the Wheel, he dies. There is also a wild boar of a man called Il Catalano. He is a hired killer brought in to finish off Francesco Cenci( George Wilson). We first meet him in a cave where he lives, he’s passed out with two naked prostitutes.

Catalano, The Human Wild Boar

This guy is great, there’s no one like him in Cinema today! Ignazio Spalla! Check him out! Super cool casting by Fulci in giving this cat the part.

Boar Hunt

Everyone cracks under torture except the beautiful Beatrice, they wrap a rope arond her head and tighten it until her head almost explodes but she doesn’t crack. She’s the toughest one in the movie, maybe from putting up with that asshole of a father for all those years. She tells the court how he raped and abused her and her lawyers shout it at the trial for the whole world to hear.

Royal Rapist Rat

The people of Rome want her set free! She gets a groundswell of support which pisses off the Pope, a dude with a hugh, hairy mole on his puss.

Pederast Cardinal with his Holy Boy Toy

The papcy covets Cenci’s land and fortune, what better way than to off his family and claim it all for the Church! I heard tell that when this movie came out in Italy people in the theater were yelling for the director to be killed! Fulci pissed off the Christian Democrats with this anti-Church tale of greed, torture and murder. It does bring to mind the Salem witch trial where women were offed so greedy townspeople could glom their real estate! It also bears comparison with another cool movie, Michael Reeves Witchfinder General. Check it out if you can track down a copy, you won’t be sorry.

They ran an episode of The Men Who Made The Movies the other night on TCM. It was about William Wellman.

“Wild Bill” Wellman
The guy had an incredible career, winning the first Academy Award for Wings, making great films like Public Enemy with James Cagney, a film that ushered in the Gangster Era of moviemaking and is the bookend to White Heat in terms of Cagney’s career. Both are about tough characters with doting mothers. This would make a great double bill. He also made The Ox-Bow Incident and another great war film Battleground. But it’s G.I. Joe that I’m here to tell you about. It’s my favorite war movie of all time. I even like it better than Attack with Jack Palance. I was gratified to learn via The Men Who Made The Movies that it’s Welman’s favorite film of all! It is great. Written by Ernie Pyle, a war correspondent, ably portrayed by Burgess Meredith in the film.

Burgess Meredith and Ernie Pyle flank an Unknown guy

Pyle went into the thick of the action and wrote about the common man, his stories of the dog soldiers on the front lines carrying out orders in the face of intolerable conditions are what inspired Wellman to make the film. Wellman spent time with Pyle in New Mexico at Pyle’s place. Ernie came to visit the Wellman’s in Hollywood and while playing shoot em up with the kids uttered a line that stuck in Wellman’s head “A man falls dying only once.” It would prove prophetic. The film follows a unit of infantry led by Capt. Bill Walker(Robert Mitchum) as they struggle to take Monte Cassino. Wellman filmed in real bombed out towns in Italy, where snipers still abounded. He used real soldiers as extras, firing a Howitzer and performing other military tasks to add reality. A lot of the soldiers in the film never got to see it, they were killed in action shortly after filming.

Life In A Bunker

There are some amazing sequences, one soldier carries a recording his wife back in the states made of his baby boy’s first words. He carefully guards the disc like a treasure, looking for a phonograph so he can hear it. Finally he finds one in a burned out village but it doesn’t work. He struggles to fix it but he can’t get it to go. Then after it seemed it would never work, it does. He hears his son’s first words and he snaps, charging out of the cave he’s been living in to kill all the Germans. He has to be restrained, his mind is gone.

Wild Bill got his nickname as a WWI pilot

But it’s Robert Mitchum’s nuanced performance as the bone tired world weary Capt. Walker that steals the show. He has to write the letters to the next of kin. He has to order new, inexperienced men out to the front line where there life expectancy is two hours. He has to be sane, and responsible in the face of the insanity of war. He delivers in spades. This is the film that made Mitchum a star. The Story Of G.I. Joe is an anti-war movie. One of the best. Something we need to see today, maybe more than ever. And Ernie Pyle never got to see the movie either. He was killed by a Japanese sniper bullet in the South Pacific before the film was released. ” A man falls dying only once.”

December 7th was Eli Wallach’s 92nd birthday. Please members of the Academy give the guy a career Academy Award! He deserves it! He’s a National Treasure. His portrayal of Tuco in Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is one of the greatest in the History Of Cinema! He should have won back then. Let’s show the man how much we appreciate him while he’s still here! Who deserves it more than him? He’s never gotten one and it’s a disgrace to our film community. I’m starting the campaign now! Spread the word! Write your Congressman! Petition the Academy, Seize the Chinese Theater! Maybe the American Cinematheque can have a retrospective and generate publicity, any and all ideas welcome. Let’s honor this great artist! Clint jump on the bandwagon for your old buddy, don’t leave him hanging like at the end of GBU.

Take the shot, elevate him to the firmament of Super Stars!