Author: Jim McLennan

El caballero del dragón (1985)

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M8DSTKN EC008Dir: Fernando Colomo
Star: Harvey Keitel, Maria Lamor, Miguel Bosé, Klaus Kinski
a.k.a. Star Knight

Well, it’s certainly different, that’s for sure. Not least in its casting. Kinski as an alchemist, I can get my brain around – it’s really just a Spanish, historical variant on the mad scientist role he has played often enough. But there was apparently once a world in which the producers thought, “We need a medieval knight. I’ll tell you who we should get: Harvey Keitel.” Admittedly, this was during the eighties, when Keitel was largely floundering in obscurity; the previous year, in Nemo, he had basically played Zorro, so I suspect he was operating in “Don’t send me the script, just send me the check” mode. Not that he’s terrible, it has to be said. Just that watching the Bad Lieutenant riding around in armor on horseback in a film which occasionally teeters into Holy Grail territory, is not what I expected. Chalk up another of the odd pleasures I’ve experienced, courtesy of Project Kinski!

Note the use here of Kinski taken from 'Aguirre'!

Note the use here of Kinski taken from ‘Aguirre’!

This is not exactly a common genre either, that of medieval sci-fi. A “dragon” is pillaging the land, culminating in it stealing away the king’s daughter, Princess Alba  (Lamor). The king’s leading knight, the presumably ironically-named Klever (Keitel), goes off to try and rescue her, having been promised her hand in marriage and half the kingdom if he succeeds. But the only person who has kinda worked out what’s going on is alchemist Boecius (Kinski). He has taken a break from his research towards an elixir of eternal life, along with his work as the king’s physician, and knows that the dragon is a UFO, piloted by a humanoid and telepathic alien, Ix (Bosé), possessing a haircut which positively screams “mid-eighties.” Ix’s armor is actually a space-suit, protecting him from earth’s atmosphere, but that hasn’t stopped him from falling in love with Alba, and vice-versa. Will this tale of inter-stellar love have a happy ending?

Arthur C. Clarke once wrote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” and that’s one of the concept at the heart of this film. I like the idea that people would interpret extra-terrestrial phenomena, in a way which fits their existing world view – in this case, in terms of dragons or demons. Boecius’s capacity to grasp the situation leads him to be accused of being in league with the devil, leading to his arrest – though curiously (albeit fortunately for the plot), rather than being burned at the stake for witchcraft,  he is still allowed to accompany Klever as he heads off on his mission. It’s not often that Klaus gets to play a character who is easily the sharpest tool in the box, and it’s a shame that he isn’t given more to do, such as interface with Ix to a greater degree. Instead, he literally sits around with his hands tied for most of the second half.

M8DSTKN EC012But there is a fair bit to enjoy in the rest of proceedings, though it’s hard to be sure how seriously we are meant to take proceedings. I mentioned the Holy Grail above, and its most obvious influence is the Green (rather than Black) Knight character, who guards a bridge, refusing to let everyone pass – but in reality, is completely incompetent and incapable of stopping anybody. While I understand the aim was comic relief, he seems to have strayed in from a completely different film, and instead does a pretty good job of destroying the “magical realism” atmosphere which is otherwise being built up nicely.  Helping that out is Jose Nieto’s score, which is genuinely impressive and evocative – like the Green Knight, it appears to have strayed in from another movie, only in the soundtrack’s case, it’s a much better one.

To be honest, the climax of the film is implausible, even by the low standards set over the first 80 minutes. It relies on Boecius having developed an elixir which, never minding working on humans, is also capable of affecting aliens to whom our atmosphere is lethal, and presumably have a radically different physiology. But I can’t say I minded too much, being willing to cut the film some slack due to its original approach and theme. Still, it’s shaky enough that I was surprised to discover it reportedly received an American theatrical release in 1986:  I guess standards have dropped significantly over the last two decades. This is fairly readily available now, having apparently fallen into the public domain, and as a result shows up on some of those big box sets, with titles like Sci-Fi Invasion 50 Movie Pack. You can even find the full thing on YouTube, albeit in a version which isn’t just dubbed, it’s also slightly out of synch. However, I can’t claim with a straight face that this impacted my enjoyment of it too much!

5 per l’inferno (1969)

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Dir: Gianfranco Parolini
Star:  Gianni Garko, Aldo Canti, Klaus Kinski, Margaret Lee
a.k.a. Five for Hell

five-for-hellPerhaps a better title would be, How Mini-trampolines Helped Win the War.  That this is, I kid you not, a significant aspect of proceedings, should give you a handle on how seriously this should be taken, i.e. not very. In the later stages of World War 2, Allied forces are under threat from a Nazi counter-attack, known as “Plan K”. To find out the details, a group of five American GIs, each possessing a different skill, are sent through enemy lines, on a daring snatch and grab mission to the German headquarters where the plans are stashed in a safe. Led by Lt. Hoffman (Garko, best known as spaghetti Western hero, Sartana), there’s a safe-cracker, an explosives expert, a pugilist and an acrobat (Jordan). They get help from resistance girl Helga (Lee), who has to distract the nasty Nazi in charge, SS Colonel Mueller (Kinski) – she truly puts the “undercover” in “undercover agent”, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

This was clearly inspired by The Dirty Dozen from two years previously, though the makers here decided pretty much to skip the entire first act of recruitment. They  replace it by opening with three minutes of Hoffman driving around in his jeep, picking up the rest of the team. And training? It’s clearly vastly over-rated. Let’s just go ahead and bypass that, shall we, instead driving up to a road-block dressed as Germans. What could possibly go wrong? Let’s just say, seems the element of surprise was not deemed particularly important. However, despite the news of a party of invading Americans presumably having reached Mueller, it doesn’t appear that security is notably stepped-up in any way around the vital war documents.

Still, the actual mission is well-handled by Parolini, with the infiltration largely taking place in silence, or with only the ambient sounds, which works nicely in generating tension. There are unforeseen obstacles to be overcome – hey, who could have guessed that security fence would turn out to be electrified! If only something had thought to bring a mini-trampol… Hang on. We did? And we’ve got an acrobat to use it! What are the odds? Actually, pretty good: Parolini also made copious use of trampolines in his Western Sabata, made the same year. And, dammit, there’s a silent alarm on the safe connected to a light in Mueller’s bedroom (okay, if you can figure out why it would be silent, you’re a better viewer than I). Fortunately, Helga is on the job there, sucking face with Klaus to ensure he doesn’t see the light. However, it isn’t enough to stop the alert from being raised, and our ferocious five must fight their way out, in order to get the crucial spoils back to the Allied High Command, and save 50,000 of their colleagues from being encircled and crushed.

fiveforhell2It’s pretty straight-forward stuff, but entertaining, with the good guys each given their moment in the spotlight, and enough distinguishing character traits to make them identifiable. Lee also makes an impression: surprised to discover she was English, as almost her entire career is in Italian movies. I get the feeling we’ll be seeing a lot  more of Ms. Lee on this site, since she appeared in no less than 11 films alongside Klaus, over the six years from 1966-71 (and was married to his agent). I can’t say I mind that. As for Kinski himself, it’s a little too stereotypical of a role to be truly memorable. Of course, he looks totally spiffy and completely ze part in ze uniform, and there is something nicely sinister about the way he reels Helga in, despite (or perhaps more perversely, because of?) his suspicions she’s playing for the other side. But like just about everyone here, he’s painted in very broad strokes – and the main color used was ‘Nazi Navy’.

Without wishing to give too much away, let’s just say that, like The Dirty Dozen, any sequel would require some serious re-stocking in the personnel department. For a while, it looks like Mueller might escape any form of retribution, even as he commits the usual mistake of leading from the front – look, you’ve got minions, why don’t you send them in to do battle for you? However, I’m pleased to report that a late turn of events prove to be a bit of a shock for him. That’ll probably make more sense when you see the film. I’m chortling as I type. Maybe you will chortle too…

Schizoid (1980)

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Dir: David Paulsen
Star: Marianna Hill, Klaus Kinski, Craig Wasson, Donna Wilkes

schizoid2Advice columnist Julie (Hill) is increasingly concerned by a steady flow of apparently psychotic messages cut out of newspapers. Who is behind them? Could it be someone from the therapy group that she attends, such as the obsessive handyman (played, oddly, by Christopher Lloyd of Back to the Future fame)? Maybe her ex-husband (Wasson)? Or is the head of the therapy group, Dr. Pieter Fales (Kinski)? Perhaps even his whiny teenage daughter (Wilkes)? The police initially refuse to do anything, but even they are forced to act, once it seems someone is acting out the fantasies described, stalking women known to Julie, and stabbing them to death with scissors.

I bold the name of Kinski’s character, not because he is necessarily the psycho, but since there’s some twisted genius here, casting Klaus in a slasher film like this. He is easily the most obvious candidate for the perpetrator, because who better to play a total psycho? Except, for much the same reasons, he is also the most obvious red-herring. So which is it? Hey, I’m not going to spoil it for you. Instead, I’ll say that there are echoes of Dario Argento here, with its black-gloved killer lurking and observing his victims from the shadows, before terrorizing and dispatching them. Except, of course, writer-director Paulsen doesn’t have a fraction of Argento’s visual flair, and the killings here largely progress in a flat and uninteresting fashion.

There are some interesting dynamics here, not least in the relationship between Julie and Dr. Fales, which certainly seems well over the boundaries of normally-accepted professional conduct. Admittedly, it’s not clear if she is seeing him in any genuine therapeutic capacity, or if she just hangs out at the therapy group to get fodder for her column, which reminds me of nothing more than the narrator in Fight Club. I would also have thought a psychiatrist like Fales would have a better approach to handling his daughter, Alison, who turns up to dinner wearing clothes belonging to her dead mother, and deeply resents any other woman – like Julie.

MBDSCHI EC004Alison seems to flaunt her body at her father rather too much: I was kinda relieved to discover Wilkes was already in her twenties since, to give you some idea, four years later, she played a 15-year-old hooker in Angel. The mere fact he doesn’t squash this immediately makes for somewhat sleazy viewing – or more than somewhat, considering Pola’s recent accusations against her father. In addition, it’s interesting to contrast this role for Kinski, with the ones his other daughter, Nastassja, was getting around the same time (1980), which inevitably seemed to involve her with an older woman. Oh, and Fales also visits a strip-club and bangs one of the dangers, in forthright fashion, right up against the wall of the dressing-room (right). Probably safe to say that Dr Phil, he most certainly is not.

This comes to a head in an argument between father and daughter which is kinda amusing, simply because we get to see Kinski on the receiving end of the kind of screaming temper tantrum, for which he became justly famous. As generally, he shows a near-complete lack of parenting skills, flapping his arms and his jaw around, with equal (lack of) effect, as his daughter shrieks at him, before locking herself in the garage and eventually careering through the wall in an automobile. To be honest, I can’t say it has too much to do with the rest of the movie, apparently having strayed in from some Lifetime original movie. However, having been through the teenage daughter thing – fortunately, without the car accident or creepy undertones – I can vouch, Paulsen got their irascible omniscience spot-on.

The film does a fairly good job at keeping you off-balance, mostly through Kinski twitchily veering between “He’s got to be the murderer” and “That’s far too blatant, he can’t possibly be the murderer.” To avoid spoilers, let’s just leave it that, and instead, I should say, I’m fairly sure “schizoid” does not actually describe any of the clinical symptoms shown by the attacker here. The title is likely just playing off other, similarly one-word slashers like Maniac from the same year, or referring back to the granddaddy of them all, Psycho. There was even another film, the not to be confused Schizo, made four years earlier, and starring Mrs. Peter Sellers, Lynn Frederick.

What’s good about Kinski’s performance is that he’s the only character who is given anything like depth. While, like all the others, he may or may not be the killer, Dr. Fales also has good and bad aspects, which sets him apart from the others, who all appear to have been given instructions to stick to one dimension in their portrayals. There are times when Fales seems almost sympathetic – a rarity for Kinski – and then, moments later, you’re convinced he’s the man who is wielding the scissors in a stabby fashion. I think the movie might have been better, or at least, more interesting, to have concentrated purely on the weird daddy-daughter dynamic Klaus has with Wilkes, rather than a pseudo-whodunnit, which we’ve seen done far too often before, and usually better.

A genius, two friends and an idiot (1975)

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Dir: Damiano Damiani
Star: Terence Hill, Miou-Miou, Robert Charlebois, Patrick McGoohan
a.k.a. A genius, two partners and a dupe

geniusThis will certainly be one of the shorter reviews, partly because Kinski’s role in it is almost entirely trivial – his absence from the main cast list above, is entirely deliberate – and partly because there is not much else of merit or note. That might come as a surprise, particularly when you learn that some of the content was directed, uncredited, by Sergio Leone, making it his last Western. While his presence is particularly apparent in the opening scene, which has much the same spooky quality as often found in his more renowned works, that’s definitely the exception, rather than the rule. Even the score, by genre master Ennio Morricone, is far from one of his best, being never more than forgettable, and sometimes jars badly with the action which is being depicted, rather than enhancing it. I guess some credit is due for going to the effort of actually filming some scenes in the US, with Utah’s Monument Valley looking as majestic as in the far-superior works of John Ford.

As for the plot, it’s an over-long, complicated and largely tedious effort, about a con-artist and quick-draw gun Joe Thanks (Hill), who concocts a plan to defraud cavalry Major Cabot (McGoohan, definitely outside his usual comfort zone) of $300,000. This requires the help of half-breed pal Steamengine Bill (Charlebois) and his partner, Lucy (Miou-Miou), who loves both Bill and Joe. Joe is pretty much the only person who has a clue what’s going on, and every time his plan seems about to derail, he has a way to keep things moving. I don’t have a great deal of time for films where the audience is kept entirely in the dark like this, and once the pattern becomes clear, there’s virtually nowhere of interest left for the movie to go.

I do get the sense this was supposed to be a parody of the genre and its clichés, closer to Terence Hill’s Nobody series, rather than a legitimate Western, so I guess it should be cut some slack for its absurdist and slapdash approach, throwing elements in with far more enthusiasm than skill. Kinski’s contribution – one of his very rare appearances in a comedy – is typical. He plays Doc Foster, a gunfighter who becomes the butt of one of Thanks’ schemes early on in proceedings, the hero provoking Foster into a gunfight after wrecking his poker game. That goes about as well for the Doc as you’d expect, him being embarrassed in front of the watching town-folk. He ends up following Joe into another cavalry officer’s room, but is then dropped back out the window, landing astride his horse. Kinski yells out something along the lines of “Ow! My balls,” before he and his horse ride into the sunset, never to be seen again in the movie.

If you follow suit, you’ll be about ninety minutes or so better off. I can’t, in all honesty, recommend this to anyone except completists, be they of the Leone, Morricone or, in my case, Kinski varieties. Below is a clip from the German dub – it appears to have Kinski’s own voice – which covers most of his screen-time.

Churchill’s Leopards (1970)

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Dir: Maurizio Pradeaux
Star: Richard Harrison, Pilar Velázquez, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, Klaus Kinski

Churchills_LeopardsCan’t complain about the poster, though the truth is that Kinski’s role, while pivotal, is more supporting than as front and center as it would have you believe. The true star is Harrison, who plays twin brothers, both lieutenants in the armed forces – only one is a Nazi, Lt. Hans Müller, the other a Brit, Lt. Richard Benson. The former is in charge of the defenses for a French dam, and with D-Day imminent, Winston Churchill comes up with a plan to blow up the dam, which would cause havoc to the German supply lines. The plan involves taking out Muller, and plugging in Benson, who will then be ideally placed to assist a group of commandos, led by Major Powell (Rossi-Stuart) parachuted into enemy territory with the tools necessary to destroy the facility, with the additional help of the local resistance, one of whose members (Velázquez) falls for Benson. Kinski plays the local SS commander, Captain Holtz, who grows increasingly suspicious that pseudo-Müller’s behavior is inconsistent with the real thing, and brings an old flame back from Paris to confirm these doubts.

The antecedents in this case are classic war flicks such as The Guns of Navarone (1961), The Heroes of Telemark (1965), and Where Eagles Dare (1968), depicting similar missions in which a small group of Allied soldiers are dropped behind Nazi lines, with the aim of taking out a key piece of local infrastructure. Obviously, this has nowhere near the same degree of star power, nor can it manage the same degree of spectacle. The latter is particularly obvious when – and I trust this isn’t much of a spoiler – the dam is blown up at the end, which is depicted in a mix of stock footage and painfully bad model work, that bears only the faintest resemblance to the landscape shown as its actual location. There’s more stock footage book-ending the film for its credits, though at least this does provide some appropriate scene-setting for what follows.

The rest of the story is largely a collection of well-worn war clichés, as the heroic Tommies (ironically, there’s not an actual Brit to be seen – you can hear a few, apparently doing the dubbing) escape discovery by the nasty Nazis, through a combination of luck, pluck and the timely intervention of pseudo-Müller. This all builds to the actual attack on the dam, after a delay caused by the discovery that they now need a quarter-mile of waterproof cable to reach the spot underwater where they’ll place their explosives. It’s never explained why they don’t blow things up from the dry side of the edifice, but presumably there were sound, structural engineering reasons for this, that the movie just chose not to share with the audience. Their preparations are interrupted when Holtz gets the proof he needs, and realizes what’s about to happen, leading to a massive gun-battle, with so much indiscriminate automatic gunfire, it felt like something I’d have re-enacted enthusiastically in my school playground, as a nine-year-old.

Churchills_Leopards2Kinski’s character is, to some extent, a reprise of his role the previous year in Five For Hell. However, it’s actually among the more interesting aspects of the film, because he does succeed in being more than the typical, jackbooted stereotype. The first time we meet him, he seems positively cheerful, and is clearly a smart slice of Schwartzwalder kirschtorte, to the extent that his leading the charge into battle, literally firing the opening shots against the Allied forces, seems out of character and foolhardy. However, make no mistake: he’s an SS officer. There’s no room to question that, after two German soldiers are killed, having come too close to discovering the undercover group. He takes 20 locals – including the love interest – hostage, and lets it be known that he’ll execute them if those responsible for the deaths don’t come forward and admit it. This leads to the film’s tensest and best scene, where the hostages are lined up on the edge of a ravine, gazing down the barrel of a machine-gun. What will the anti-Nazis do? And even if they do come forward, will Holtz honor his side of the demand?

If only the rest of the film could have tried to generate the same level of enthusiasm. The problem here is that, while the spaghetti Westerns often succeeded in bringing something new to the genre, this spaghetti War film seems content to follow slavishly in the well-trodden path of other, better movies. As a result, it’s neither fresh, nor interesting, and outside of Kinski, you’d be much better off watching the Hollywood examples mentioned above, which are superior in just about every way.

Android (1982)

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Dir: Aaron Lipstadt
Star: Don Keith Opper, Brie Howard, Klaus Kinski, Norbert Weisser

“I thought it was a clever little movie. It is the first movie I’ve done that children might like. The greatest thing in the world is to do something for children.”
– Klaus Kinski

Hmm. Not sure I’d entirely agree with Kinski on its suitability for a younger viewing audience, but I can kinda see where that’s coming from. This plays almost like a sci-fi reworking of Pinocchio, centered on an artificial boy, who wants nothing more than to be truly human, with all that entails, both good and bad. However, with Kinski in the role of Gepetto, you won’t be surprised to hear that the results are rather darker. There’s no Jiminy Cricket here to provide a sense of conscience; instead, it’s all morality through circuitry. I did read one review that suggested it was a sci-fi version of Rebel Without a Cause, calling it “a game fantasy about children rebelling against their parents,” though Opper is obviously much more well-mannered version of James Dean. Indeed, having helped bring two children through their teenage years to adulthood, the slight backtalk we see here hardly registers as rebellion (our general rule of thumb was, if the police weren’t involved, it didn’t count!).

Coming out a few months after Blade Runner, this covers a similar theme – what does it mean, to be “human”? – albeit in a much smaller, low-key way. Like Runner, it’s set a little way into the future, in a corporation-controlled world. The location is a space-station, formerly a busy hub, but now reduced to a skeleton crew of Dr. Daniel (Kinski) and his android assistant, Max (Opper – though credited in the movie as “introducing Max 404”). Android research has been banned on Earth after some unfortunate incidents, hence their re-location beyond the reach of planetary laws. What disturbs this idyll is the arrival of a trio of escaped criminals, Maggie (Howard), Keller (Weisser) and her lover, Mendes (Crofton Hardester). When Max also realizes that his creator is working on a new, improved (and female!) android called Cassandra, that will lead to Max being terminated, he opts to throw his lot in with the criminals and assist their plan to escape back to Earth. But the good doctor has his own plans for Maggie, involving the transfer of her sexual experience in to Cassandra.

android

Shot in 20 days – 19 on set, plus one on location in an arboretum –  and edited in three weeks, this was originally a production for Roger Corman’s New World studio, test screenings led Corman to shelve it, but producers Barry Opper (Don’s brother) and Rupert Harvey bought the rights back, and took it on the film festival circuit, where it was fairly well-received. It certainly isn’t a typical Corman production, even though it does recycle some production elements such as sets and props from his earlier space operatic works like Battle Beyond the Stars – as an aside, James Cameron worked on this, as a design consultant in the art department! However, it’s much more restrained and thoughtful rather than exploitative: you can’t imagine many other Corman films which would have a montage of clips from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, played out to a soundtrack of James Brown’s It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World.

It’s also fairly cynical in its view of humanity: while it’s difficult to provide specifics without spoiling the film’s big surprise, let’s just say that neither mankind, nor their creations, exactly come over as paragons of virtue. I found Maggie the most sympathetic character; she’s a white-collar criminal, as opposed to her more psychopathic colleagues. Kinski’s doctor is more creepy than anything else, and he’s clearly operating in mad scientist mode, virtually bereft of all human interaction skills. Initially, this seems a result of his being isolated, with no-one to communicate with, except an android he himself programmed; subsequent events, however, put a different spin on things, though you could certainly argue they raise as many questions as they answer. Apparently, Kinski refused to block out scenes or even rehearse with the other actors – and rookie director Lipstadt was probably in no position to argue, though it has to be said, it’s a decision which likely enhances the feeling of disassociation between the doctor and everyone else.

The production values are pretty clunky. We’re now closer to the setting of 2036 than we are to the film’s release, and there are aspects of the “future” it portrays which will simple seem woeful [half a century of progress has not, apparently, moved us past green-screen monitors]. The small budget – variously reported as from half a million to a million dollars – is somewhat disguised by the fact that there is a very small cast and only a handful of sets, but the spaceship effects are so bad they probably would have been better off not bothering. Random factoid I want to drop in here, for want of a better location: one of the landing party which arrives on the station near the end is Rachel Talalay, who’d go on to direct Tank Girl, in her only acting role.

Still, it’s an interesting concept, albeit one that’s largely derivative of its ideas from previous, better movies. It was also the film debuts of both Opper and  Howard – can you imagine your first movie role being to star opposite Kinski? She had been a drummer in an all-girl rock band, while he had previously worked as a carpenter for Corman, and between them, they succeed in holding the film together, with the bulk of the screen time. In particular, he carries out the shift from a wide-eyed innocent, curious about sex, to ruthless killing machine, obeying the instructions of his revised programming, with some deftness, and the themes the movie covers have also stood the test of time, rather better than the effects. If it’s no Blade Runner or Metropolis, certainly nor is it the Plan 9 I feared this might be.

android2

Death Smiles on a Murderer (1973)

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Dir: Aristide Massaccesi
Star: Ewa Aulin, Sergio Doria, Angela Bo, Klaus Kinski
a.k.a. Death Smiled at Murder

Director Massaccesi is better known under one of the forty-plus pseudonyms he used, Joe D’Amato, being one of the most infamous grindhouse directors of the seventies and eighties. He was a pioneer of the “mockbuster,” a similarly-titled movie with the same themes as a successful mainstream film, e.g the 11 Days, 11 Nights series inspired by 9 1/2 Weeks, or Ator the Invincible, which came out soon after Conan the Barbarian. But he’s probably best know for such titles such as Erotic Nights of the Living Dead and Porno Holocaust. Those are more or less exactly as they sound: a mix of sex and violence which could be both soft- and hard-core. Having seen some of these, his reputation as the “evil Ed Wood” seemed largely justified.

This, however, dates from early in his career – so early, in fact, he directed it under his own name! – and is largely competent, made with more care than later examples of his work which I’ve seen. Perhaps it was from before he adopted a more jaded and cynical approach, as voiced by a character in Emanuelle’s Revenge [note the mis-spelling of the first word!], who appears to echo D’Amato’s own frequently-expressed thoughts, “We’re not making artsy-farty crap for intellectual faggots. We’re out to make money!” Instead, there are certainly no shortage of “artsy-fartsy” elements, even if it also contains its fair share of nudity and sex. In terms of style, it’s somewhere between the giallo and Gothic genres, combining the more in-your-face and whodunnit aesthetics of the former, with the dreamlike mysteries of the latter.

It’s a period piece, set around 1909, and begins with Franz (Luciano Rossi) bemoaning the death of his sister, Greta (Aulin). The next thing we see is a coach accident outside the house of Walter and Eva von Ravensbrück (Doria + Bo); the driver is killed, but the passenger is Greta, and is knocked unconscious. She recuperates in their house, under the eye of the local physician, Dr.  Sturgess (Kinski). but a couple of problems soon arise. The maid, apparently knowing something, hands in her notice and leaves, but  on the way out takes both barrels of a shotgun to the face. Then, both Walter and Eva fall in love with the new house-guest. When Eva realizes her husband is winning the battle, she takes drastic action, luring Greta to the basement and walling her up there. Problem solved, right? Nope – as anyone familiar with classic horror will know, it’s never a sound solution. Eva soon starts seeing both the hale and hearty Greta, alternating with a decayed version, and when she tears the bricks down to make sure she is seeing things, discovers the body is no longer there.

deathsmiles3You’ll notice that Klaus’s character only receives a passing mention. That’s because, despite his co-star billing with Aulin, his role is largely incidental. He has a sideline, working to discover the secret of life in a basement laboratory with his mute assistant, and a medallion worn by Greta appears to have provided a breakthrough. One imagines he sensed something was up when he was able to stab her in the eyeball with a pin, and not even receive a blink; that, along with the odd scar on the side of her neck where the IV tube of elixir went in. Anyway, he successfully revives his own test subject, only to be offed, along with his assistant, by (presumably) the same person who killed the maid. Exit Mr. Kinski, before the half-way point has been reached, though he’d return for another Massaccesi movie later in the year, Heroes in Hell.

To this point, the film hasn’t so much been playing the cards close to its chest, as leaving the table entirely, and looking at them from a locked room in the next building. Even by the end, it’s far from certain that all the questions raised have even potentially been answered, and indeed, it seems more are raised. Walter’s father shows up, and appears to have had quite the relationship with Greta himself: yet he didn’t make any connection between her disappearance and the sudden arrival of a beautiful blonde at his son’s house? The film also treats us to an entirely incomprehensible moment, where a bunch of flowers thrown by Greta turn into a cat, which then scratches someone’s face off, over a period of what seems like several minutes. [Look, it’s a freakin’ cat: you outweigh it by a factor of about twenty, and gravity is on your side] “None of this makes any sense,” says an investigating policeman at one point, and by the time the final credit roll, you’ll almost certainly be agreeing wholeheartedly.

However, for all the questionable plot elements, I can’t deny that Massaccesi does a good job of generating a dreamlike atmosphere, where even the more dubious moments have a certain plausibility. The first return of Greta from the tomb is particularly well-done, and delivers a fine wallop [I didn’t see it coming, that’s for sure], while there are also a couple of other sequences that are well-put together and directed with finesse. Aulin is undeniably lovely to look at, and it’s entirely credible why both husband and wife would fall for her. This isn’t one to watch if you’re in a demanding mood; I’d probably recommend laying off the caffeine instead, and watching it just before bedtime, when your critical faculties are dulled toward sleep. Seen through that prism, it’s a lusciously-shot exercise with the air of a lesser story from Edgar Allen Poe, and provides a more than pleasant way to pass 90 minutes.

My Name Is Shanghai Joe (1972)

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Dir: Mario Caiano
Star: Chen Lee, Piero Lulli, Carla Romanelli, Klaus Kinski

joeSpaghetti Eastern? Noodle Western? I’m not quite sure what to call this combination of two genres, which probably counts as among the oddest mash-ups – quite saying something, in a decade that also gave us horror/kung-fu crossbreeds such as Dracula and the Seven Golden Vampires. In this case, it’s a kung-fu Western, with the titular Joe (Lee), coming to the United States to make his fortune, only to find just about every American is a racist. He ends up innocently involved in a scheme to smuggle Mexicans across the border as slave labor, but when he witnesses a massacre, he realizes the truth, and embarks on a mission to take down the man responsible, Spencer (Lulli). Needless to say, Spencer is unimpressed, and hires a pack of thugs with names like ‘Pedro the Cannibal’ and ‘Scalper Jack’ (Kinski) to make sure Joe doesn’t interfere with operations.

This brings home one of the delights of Project Kinski. If it hadn’t been for Klaus’s presence – and he’s only in it for a few scenes, amounting to little more than a glorified cameo – I’d almost certainly never have bothered watching the little gem. Oh, don’t get me wrong: in conventional terms, this is not a “good” movie. Far from it. But if you’re not braying with laughter when the hero karate kicks an obviously stuffed bull’s head into unconsciousness, then you clearly do not share my sense of absurdist humor. Put it like this: if someone had sent me the script, I’d have been more than happy to show up and do a cameo, for the sheer lunacy of it. Maybe that’s why Kinski is in it, though I suspect it was more the usual financial inducement than the attraction of the surreal lunacy it contains.

joe2Given the era, one suspects Chen Lee is trying to channel Bruce, though he actually looks more like a young (and pre-plastic surgery) Jackie Chan. I liked the way he was dubbed into impeccable English, almost BBC pronunciation – it really enhances how dickish the locals are being. Lee does have some decent moves, though any sense of reality is severely eroded by the obvious use of tricks like slightly off-screen trampolines and reverse footage. Were those ever convincing to an audience, even back in the seventies? The best bit, is probably where he pokes one of the killers in the eyes and yanks out the eyeballs.  The main problem is the stretching the film requires to get around the issue that kung-fu isn’t exactly bulletproof: with the exception of Kinski’s character, if the other killers sent after Joe behaved with moderate intelligence, the film would be over. As is, it’s only at the end, where he goes up against a colleague from the same school (or “boss level”), that there’s anything like a reasonably fair fight.

Kinski plays the penultimate boss, and is in the film for eight minutes, tops. He discovers Jack’s whereabouts after interrogating a doctor whom Joe called to tend to Cristina (Romanelli). the Mexican lady who has been helping him. As mentioned, Jack the Scalp Ripper is the only one to displaying some common sense, starting off by shooting Joe in both legs. He then terrorizes Cristina for a bit, draping the doctor’s scalp over a doll to ghoulishly effective result, it must be said, before setting his sights – and the portfolio of knives he keeps inside his coat – on the lovely senorita’s locks. Of course, Joe won’t stand for that kind of thing. Mostly because he was shot in both legs, remember? Hohoho! Let’s just say, it ends with Spencer receiving a gift that made me wonder if David Fincher, the director of Se7en, had seen this [I’m also fairly sure Quentin Tarantino has, since I was reminded more than once of Django Unchained – not for the first time in a spaKinski Western]

Despite my cynicism, and an amount of Kinski which belies the font size of his name on the sleeve, I was definitely entertained by this. It may be ludicrous – actually, there’s not much “may” to be found – and hardly counts as anything more than a Frankenstein’s monster of moviemaking, sewing together elements from different genres, regardless of their suitability or coherence. However, it’s certainly never dull, and makes up for in loopy inventiveness, what it lacks in more traditional cinematic qualities.

Ognuno per sé (1966)

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Dir: Giorgio Capitani
Star: Van Heflin, George Hilton, Klaus Kinski, Gilbert Roland
a.k.a. The Ruthless Four

Thruthlessis certainly lives up to its title, beginning with a literal bang, as Sam Cooper (Heflin) blows up a goldmine and his partner, after the latter tries to double-cross Cooper out of his share. He struggles back across the desert to town, where his return without said partner lead to suspicious gossip. Needing a new partner to get the gold out, he calls up Manolo (Hilton), who was almost Cooper’s foster son. However, Manolo then brings his friend, Brent the Blond (Kinski) in as another participant, much to the chagrin of the original owner.

Worried he is outnumbered and likely to meet an unpleasant fate in the mountains, Cooper tries to even the odds by turning to Mason (Roland), who deserted the army alongside Cooper, but now holds a grudge against him, believing he turned Mason in to the authorities. The four new stake-holders head out on the long journey back to the mine’s location, known only to Cooper, and it’s not long before they are attacked by a group apparently keen on jumping their claim. Once they arrive, it soon becomes clear that everyone seems to have their own plans, with alliances forming and melting as each of the participants maneuver for superiority and the upper-hand.

This is a solid one, with a script that keeps the viewer entertained as it twists and turns. There’s a creepy vibe, fairly daring for the time, hinting at an unhealthy, possibly homosexual, relationship between Manolo and Brent [there’s also a rather odd scene in a bath-house which also seems rather out of place], though Hilton is probably the weakest of the four actors. There’s one scene in particular – you’ll know it when you see it – where he isn’t so much chewing the scenery as gnawing on it like a rabid beaver.

On the other hand, Kinski is very restrained: he’ll go into a bar and ask for a glass of milk, and for no particular reason, he’s dressed in priest’s garb. But any doubt whether this is a fraud is dispelled by the scene where someone greets him as a cleric. It’s entirely clear who is the dominant partner (emotionally, if not necessarily sexually), particularly in one scene where Manolo is gabbling away, trying to convince his partner that they don’t need to kill the “old and harmless” Cooper, and if they take care of Mason, then Cooper will be “no problem.” Brent does little more than stare back, as Manolo pleads his nervous case, before dismissing the argument: “You think too much. Just take orders from me. If I want you to kill Cooper, you’ll kill him, won’t you – because you’ve always taken your orders from me. Isn’t that right?” There’s also a cool shot in the mine, where a cloaked Brent looks like a pick-ax wielding incarnation of the Grim Reaper.

Heflin, a supporting actor in classic Westerns such as 3:10 to Yuma, was once famously told by Louis B. Mayer, “You will never get the girl at the end.” His character here certainly looks like he has a story to tell, just based off a face which looks like a granite outcrop. Heflin was already in his late fifties, and would only make a couple more movies, before his death from a heart-attack in 1970 – it’s nice to see a hero who isn’t an obvious leading man type. But it”s the constantly-shifting dynamics between the quartet that are most engrossing, with a real sense of underlying violence, never far away. The gun-battle at the burned-out mission on the way to the mine is particularly well-handled, and I also appreciated Capitani’s creative use of silence – most notably, the early sequence where Cooper struggles back from the mine, with little or no water and increasingly exhausted.

Despite undeniable similarities to John Huston’s classic Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the overall result is a solid piece of work, that works within the standards of the genre, yet still manages to generate no shortage of new wrinkles. Most of which appear to have found a permanent resting place on Heflin’s face. The Italian title translates as Everybody for himself, and seems perfectly appropriate – but even more so would have been the title originally planned, Ognuno per sé (e Dio per nessuno). That one translates as: Everybody for himself (and God for nobody).

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Lo chiamavano King (1971)

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Dir: Giancarlo Romitelli
Star: Richard Harrison, John Silver, Klaus Kinski, Luciano Pigozzi
a.k.a. His Name was King

kingThis movie achieved something of a spike in popularity after Quentin Tarantino included Luis Bacalov’s title song, His Name was King on the soundtrack for Django Unchained. That, along with the naming of Christoph Waltz’s character as King Schultz, suggests it may be a genre favorite of Tarantino. It’s hard to see why, as it’s a muddled and confusing piece, with little to recommend it. The aim appears to have been to set up Harrison’s character, bounty-killer John ‘King’ Marley, alongside the likes of Django or Sabata, but the lack of any subsequent sequels suggests it met insufficient commercial success to justify proceeding.

It was, however, a reunion for Harrison and Kinski, as they had both appeared the previous year in the war film, Churchill’s Leopards, respectively playing an Allied soldier and his German twin, and a Nazi officer. Here, at least initially, they’re on the same side, Kinski’s Sheriff Foster first appearing alongside King, celebrating the marriage of the latter’s brother. However, the newlyweds find themselves captured by the Benson gang, who have a beef with King after he killed one of their members in an earlier encounter. As revenge, they kill the brother, rape his wife and sent her back to town. Needless to say, that provokes King into heading after them, leaving the widow in Foster’s care. However, complicating matters is a document implying King was involved in a shipment of weapons which is now being used against the army, which makes him a wanted man, being hunted himself by federal agent Mr. Collins (Pigozzi).

There are a couple of scenes where Foster is entranced with a pocket watch and the tune in plays. These seem obvious nods to For a Few Dollars More, where Gian Maria Volontè’s character, leader of the gang in which Kinski played a member, was similarly obsessed. Here, neither the execution nor the payoff is as impressive, though it does lead to probably the movie’s best scene, where Foster discovers a transgression by his deputy, and takes punitive action. Otherwise, there isn’t much of Kinski early at all: his role becomes a good deal more important over the course of the second-half, and is positively pivotal during the climax. It’s just a shame they didn’t let Klaus do his own dubbing, or at least find someone more appropriate, because the voice they use just doesn’t work.

The main problem, however, is a script that seems to specialize in obscurity, with what you’d think were important facts – such as Foster being the sheriff – apparently being concealed, or at least, made insufficiently clear. As a viewer, you’re left watching scenes whose relevance and importance is obscure, in the hope that, eventually, it will all make some kind of sense. To the film’s (bare) credit, it does end up coming together, with a moderately decent one-on-one face-off in the streets that’s preceded by an impressively rapid-fire evacuation by everyone else, people literally diving through windows to get out of the way of the upcoming gun-fight. While amusing, it’s definitely incongruous, playing more like something out of Blazing Saddles than a serious spaghetti Western.

Outside of Kinski, there isn’t much point to seeing this: Harrison’s career was spiralling down, though he hadn’t yet reached the Grade-Z Philippines and Hong Kong schlock he’d make in the eighties. None of the other aspects are in any way memorable, and even the theme song, apparently beloved by Tarantino, is forgettable musak. I do note that the film, according to the IMDB, has a running time of 90 minutes, while the version I saw clocked in at a brisk 76. It’s possible that there may be an alternate version out there which is more coherent and/or interesting. I’d be lying, however, if I said tracking that down was in any way a priority.

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