Author: Jim McLennan

The Beast (1970)

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Dir: Mario Costa
Star: Klaus Kinski, Gabriella Giorgelli, Giuseppe Cardillo, Paolo Casella
a.k.a La Belva and Rough Justice

It’s nice to see Kinski allowed to let rip fully on a character now and again. Werner Herzog was particularly good at allowing this, and the results were usually incandescent. This isn’t quite at those levels, but is still one of the more memorable spaghetti Westerns in which Klaus appeared. He plays Johnny Laster, a sex-maniac who will paw any woman within range, especially when he has had a bit to drink. This is apparent, right from the start, where he tries to assault a particularly… bosomy young woman, washing her clothes in a river. Only the fortunate presence of someone with a larger gun than Johnny’s, saves her from a fate worse than death.

In town, he teams up with a local ne’er-do-well, and they hatch a plan to rob popular local businessman, Mr. Powers. The plan leaves Powers dead, but the thieves come up empty. Laster, after disposing of his accomplice, gets involved with another area hoodlum, Glen (Casella), who clearly wasn’t aware of what happened to the last accomplice. He has come up with a rather more convoluted plan to get their hands on Powers’ money:

  1. Abduct Powers’ daughter, Nancy, who is on the way to town to claim her inheritance, and get someone to take her place
  2. ?????
  3. PROFIT

Okay, it’s slightly better thought-out than that, though not by much. His idea isn’t bad: it’s more the execution, because the stand-in could not look less like Nancy Powers if she tried. This is what happens when your chosen replacement for the thoroughly blonde daughter of old money is Juanita (Giorgelli), a Mexican go-go dancer – or, at least, the 19th-century version thereof. Remarkably, it seems to work, at least to begin with. For no-one in the town has met the daughter, and Powers’s minion, Pinkerton, who has at least seen a portrait of her, initially writes off the difference between Nancy and Juanita as bad art.

Even more ill-conceived is the other part of the plan, which involves leaving Laster to “guard” Nancy. [Glen really needs to do a better background check on the partners in his criminal endeavors…] It doesn’t take long before he’s moving in on her, like a shark that scents blood. Things escalate from there, and although the conspirators get a chunk of cash, both Nancy and Pinkerton end up dead. Except Pinkerton isn’t quite dead, and identifies everyone to the authorities. The gang splits up, with a price on their heads, and local Mexican gang leader Machete (any Robert Rodriguez fans will understand why I hooted on hearing that name) sees an opportunity to claim the reward. His men track down Laster who, like the craven coward he is, agrees to finger the rest of the gang and the loot, if his life is spared.

I’m pleased to report this doesn’t end well for him. I’m slightly less pleased that it doesn’t end too well for anyone else either – in particular Juanita and her lover Ricardo (Cardillo). They were fairly sympathetic characters, who just wanted a bit of cash, so they could escape their life of drudgery, and didn’t quite realize what they were getting into, by aligning themselves with Laster. Once again, folks: we see the importance of doing thorough background checks. It does feel as though Costa ran out of ideas as to where the plot should go for the final reel, eventually throwing up his hands and ordering a bulk package from “Gunfights In Rock Quarries R Us”.

To that point, however, this has generally been reasonably watchable, with a brisk pace and plot that twists in interesting ways. The sheer “loose cannon-ness” of Laster is fascinating to see, since you’re never quite sure what he’s going to do next. Though if you bet on something sleazy, you’ll likely come out of the movie ahead with your bookie. It’s notable to see Kinski play a character who is basically close to irredeemable, and lives up to the nickname “Crazy Johnny.” The sex-maniac angle is particularly notable and one wonders how much Kinski’s torrid personal life played into it. Was the character of Laster written specifically for him? Regardless, it seems so close to home I’m surprised Klaus took it on. It’s almost like O.J. Simpson playing the part of a wife murderer.

I would like to have seen him more in the middle section of the film: he’s somewhat shunted off to one side for the cutesy stuff between Juanita and Ricardo, and the “unconvincing stand-in” section of the plot. Similarly, the sudden arrival of and focus on Machete in the second half, after he has only been mentioned briefly to that point, is slightly jarring. The rest of the cas5 are so bland as to be almost forgettable, with none of them making any real impact, and the same goes for Costa’s direction: his skills seem more skewed towards the script-writing. This was the final movie on which Costa would work, and appears to have seen him come out of retirement, as the rest of his 33 directorial credits were all between 1945 and 1965.

There is one name of note who worked on the film beyond Kinski. The soundtrack is an early one by Stelvio Cipriani, whose IMDb entry lists over 200 movie credits as composer, including a remarkable eighteen in a single year (1978: I can only presume some were partial credit, unless he was truly capable of churning out a full score every 20 days!). These are mostly Italian, but some of his music has been used elsewhere, e.g. in the Death Proof section of the Grindhouse double-feature, so it appears Quentin Tarantino is a fan. All told, it’s a solid enough entry, but one where Kinski’s performance is probably the only factor which will stick in your brain. Even with the very strange dubbing in the English-language version, which has Klaus given a bizarre Southern drawl because… reasons, his animal-like intensity still shines through. It’s worth a look, purely for that alone.

The Hand That Feeds the Dead (1974)

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Dir: Sergio Garrone
Star: Klaus Kinski, Katia Christine, Marzia Damon, Carmen Silva
a.k.a. La mano che nutre la morte and Evil Face

According to Wikipedia, this came about after director Garrone was introduced to Turkish producer Şakir V. Sözen, who offered the use of a large villa as a location, in exchange for casting actor Ayhan Işık. Rather than making the planned single film in six weeks, Sözen suggested using it to make two films in eight. Garrone agreed, and so was born this and Lover of the Monster, with which Hand shares much of the same cast and crew – some of the footage shot turns up in both as well. Which makes sense, since the plots overlap enough to have caused confusion over the years. In both, Kinski plays mad scientist Nijinski – there, a mere Doctor, now he has been upgraded to professorial status – who lives on a remote country estate with his wife, and carries on the dubious medical experiments started by his late father-in-law, Baron Rassimov.

The desired outcome is different, however. Where Monster was somewhere between Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this one is a cross of Frankenstein and Les yeux sans visage. For Professor Nijinski has been experimenting in an effort to repair the damage done to his wife Tanja (Christine), who was badly burned in a fire. As a result, she has become a recluse who rarely ventures out, and only does so wearing a veil. Her husband has been predating the local countryside for subjects, with the help of his mute minion, but fortune smiles on him when a carriage accident literally drops newlywed couple Alex (Işık) and Masha (also Christine) on his doorstep. While they recover from their injuries, they stay in Nijinski’s house, alongside two other women. Katia (Damon) is supposedly writing a book about the Baron, but is actually investigating the disappearance of her sister, while Sonia (Silva) is a whore, bought onto the estate as an unwitting source of spare parts.

That both Masha and Tanja are played by the same actress, more or less tells you where the rest of the film is going to go. We’d worked out how it was going to end quite some time in advance, and the movie did not disappoint in this aspect, shall we say. There were some unexpected diversions along the way, however, not least the lesbian canoodling between Katia and Sonia – even if the post-canoodle cuddle is rudely interrupted by the minion. We were also impressed with the use of a tuning fork to manipulate said henchmen, suggesting that the Professor’s research has perhaps also gone into the area of mind-control.

Even though it was close to four years ago that I watched Monster, the similarities are striking, and there were times where it would have been very easy to forget which movie you were watching, they share so many elements. It definitely evokes a sense of deja vu, in its purest sense. Hand is perhaps – it has been four years! – slightly more Gothic in tone. I feel like its closest cousins might be the Hammer films of the early seventies, when the British studio started adding more exploitative aspects to its traditional story elements. There’s a great deal of creeping around corridors by candlelight, with the heroines typically wearing the kind of floaty nightgown, no-one ever wears outside of period horror movies.

The surgical sequences are similarly lengthy (though it does appear there may have been a stand-in for Kinski during them), and surprisingly gory. The effects were by Carlo Rambaldi, who worked on the two Andy Warhol films, Blood for Dracula and Flesh For Frankenstein, the same year as this. He would take home the first of his three Academy Awards for visual effect three years later, for his work on King Kong, also winning for Alien and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Rambaldi designing the title character in the latter. Safe to say, creating that lovable alien is quite some distance from fabricating the face-flaying which provides this film’s most memorable moment.

The plot does offer some twists in the later stages, and it turns out that Prof. Nijinski perhaps isn’t such an unrepentant villain as he initially appeared. His harvesting of female skin donors from the countryside nearby is largely driven by a devotion to and love for Tanja, which is almost touching (if you squint at it from the right angle, under appropriately subdued lighting). It’s bordering on poignant when the carpet is pulled out from under his affection,  with Tanja deciding instead to take advantage of the obvious opportunity presented by her new looks. However, other aspects of the script don’t work as well, such as the police investigation into Nijinski, that gets early screen time, then is all but forgotten in the second half.

Kinski is solid, effective, and by his standards, very restrained: the film still entertains almost in direct proportion to the amount of Klaus present. Which as a rule of thumb, means the second half is likely superior, as the movie settles down on him and Tanja. The first half seems to suffer from a lack of focus: at various times, it feels like the heroes are going to be Alex and Masha, then Katia and her boyfriend. To be honest, they’re nowhere near as interesting characters as the Professor and his veiled spouse. The writer should have concentrated on their story, and kept the others more firmly in the supporting roles they deserve.

The rest of the technical elements are as solid as they were in Monster, with good use being made of the countryside locations. I think I preferred this one to its partner. Both Kinski and Christine deliver better performances, and there’s something almost Shakespearean about the tragic way this ends. The pacing during the first half could certainly do with some tightening up, yet this one eventually proved able to sustain even my wife’s interest – and she is usually a good bellwether that a Kinski movie is decent quality!

Golden Night (1976)

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Dir: Serge Moati
Star: Klaus Kinski, Bernard Blier, Marie Dubois, Jean-Luc Bideau
a.k.a. Nuit d’or

Two years after supposedly being disposed of, in circumstances which are, at least initially, very murky, Michel Fournier (Kinski) comes back from the grave. And, as you can imagine, he’s not happy. Fournier announces his return with notes and creepy dolls, sent to those responsible for his alleged “death.” They include his brother, Henri (Bideau), and police commissioner Pidoux (Blier), who got Fournier accused of being the “golden chain killer,” for (again, supposedly) murdering a little girl.  Muddying the water further is Michel’s previous relationship with Henri’s wife Veronique (Dubois), which led to a daughter, Katherine.

Michel abducts the young girl, and uses her as leverage – though quite what his endgame is with this kidnapping, remains rather opaque. It may be an attempt to rekindle the flame with Veronique, though child kidnapping seems a bit of a poorly conceived option. Indeed, the same could be said for quite a few other elements, such as the “Nuit d’Or” casino which gives the film its title, and where it both opens and closes. While there are suggestions that Michel was a heavy gambler, it’s never clear how this quite fits into the overall scenario.

Similarly, there’s the weird, almost apocalyptic, religious cult to which he has ties: The Temple of the Son of the True Light. They hold their services in a car-park decked out with drapes, quote heavily from the Book of Revelations and their leader appears to be a midget in a coffin. Michel ends up using fellow disciple Sister Andrée (Anny Duperey) to watch over Katherine, though her stricter approach to their captive triggers its own problems. It’s perhaps significant that Michel ends up being too damn weird for the cult, who turn him in to the cops, via a disembodied voice. Imagine, if you will, Jim Jones throwing his hands up and saying, “Who the hell is this weirdo? I don’t want anything to do with him!” 

The scenes with Michel opposite Katherine certainly possess disturbing elements, as shown in the still on the right. Some of this is hindsight, in the light of subsequent accusations by Klaus’s real daughter, Pola. But it’s also unsettling in the context of the movie, with the allegations regarding Michel as a killer – apparently high-profile enough, he’s recognized by a woman in the street while waiting for his daughter. But like the other elements mentioned above, these just don’t gel into anything approaching a coherent whole. This could be a decent policier, following Pidoux’s efforts to solve the kidnapping. Or been told from the point of view of Henri and Veronique, as their marriage unravels under the pressure of events. Or been a roaring rampage of revenge for Michel, getting his own back on those who wronged him. It nods towards each angle, yet is unsatisfactory as any of them, perhaps not helped by a 78-minute running time that restricts much development.

Director Moati has spent most of his career in TV movies and/or documentaries, and I do suspect this is the kind of material which would need a far stronger hand to control it. Some places have compared it to an Italian giallo, and while I can see where this is coming from, it doesn’t quite have the atmosphere, combining horrific elements with eroticism, which I’d generally expect. That said, there is one scene which anyone who has watched this will remember: the puppet show Michel puts on for Kathleen, to explain the situation to the child. This includes marionettes in the form of all the major players, including one of Michel/Kinski (shown, top) which is both disturbingly creepy and lifelike. Or perhaps, because it’s lifelike. The scene in question is below: since it’s unsubtitled in the clip, here is the narration Michel provides.

“Once upon a time, there was a man called Michel. He was alone. All by himself. No one loved him. His father, Charles, was always finding what he did was wrong. His brother, Henri, was jealous because Michel had met before him a very beautiful queen. Véronique. Queen Véronique loved Michel very much. So… Charles and Henri wanted to make Michel disappear. But Michel was not dead. He was in Africa. There, all alone, he was thinking about Queen Véronique and the little princess Catherine. You. He loves them so much. He says to the queen, “Come.” He says to the princess, “Come.” All three go away. And they are happy together. Sleep, Catherine. Sleep…”

There’s a decent supporting cast, also including Maurice Ronet as the owner/operator of the casino. Blier would go on to work with Kinski again, making his penultimate movie appearance in Kinski’s Paganini.. Michel’s mother is played by the venerable German actress, Elisabeth Flickenschildt, in her final role, who had worked with Klaus on a couple of the Edgar Wallace films during the sixties, including The Indian Scarf. One oddity: though speaking his own dialogue in French, when shown in his home country, Kinski’s voice was dubbed back into German, by Hans-Michael Rehberg.

The movie has the germs of some interesting ideas, and isn’t short on style, either. It’s nice to see Klaus firmly front and center, and his performance works, because Kinski is a well-cast choice for the character. However, the film as a whole never meshes the elements together. It feels to me the biggest problem is a script that apparently can’t decide what it considers important, and ends up leaving all its components under-developed and, thus, underwhelming. The ending doesn’t complete the film with an exclamation point, or even a full-stop, more like a set of ellipses, petering out in a way which could hardly be a greater disappointment if it tried. It remains worth a look for the acting, and for the puppet-show, though I wonder, what happened to the Kinski marionette? I’m a little surprised it didn’t go on to have its own, successful career as a cheaper (and, certainly, more amenable!) alternative to the real thing…

Giù la testa… hombre (1971)

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Dir: Demofilo Fidani (as Miles Deem)
Star: Jeff Cameron, Jack Betts, Gordon Mitchell, Klaus Kinski
a.k.a. Adios Compañeros, A Fistful of Death and Ballad of Django

Virtually worthless, this is little more than a shallow cash-in under virtually any of its titles. Giù la testa was the Italian name for Sergio Leone’s Duck, You Sucker, and it’s got absolutely nothing to do with Django – there is no character by that name present. Even its central character is named after Macho Callahan, a Hollywood Western starring David Janssen, made the previous year. Just to confuse matters more, Adios Compañeros is also one of the alternate titles for A Coffin Full of Dollars – another Western which starred Kinski, was directed by Fidani and saw release in 1971. And Ballad of Django was used for The Django Story, also a Fidani movie from the same year.

Any of those would probably be rather more impressive than this waste of time, in which Klaus barely appears.  While I admit, it’s a lot of fun when he is present, his role feels like it’s eventually going to be significant in some way, perhaps as the power behind the local throne. It’s therefore an immense disappointment when the end credits roll, without that happening. When he’s gone from this film, he’s gone, folks. Do not expect him to return, or be anywhere close to as important as the poster below would have you hope.

The focus is, instead, on Macho Callaghan (Cameron) – note the “g”, for legal reasons! – who is the sole survivor of the Carson gang, after they are attacked and massacred by Butch Cassidy (Betts) and his gang. After recovering, Callaghan teams up with another renegade, Buck O’Sullivan, to take revenge on the people responsible – a process complicated by Cassidy’s group having split in two, with Buck among the men now following Ironhead Donovan (Mitchell). Those two parties hold no love for each other either, having split after a rigged game of poker. The vast bulk of the running time sees Callaghan and O’Sullivan working to infiltrate Ironhead’s gang, and/or attack Cassidy’s. It’s all incredibly dull, even by the low standards of Fidani, whose reputation as among the worst of spaghetti Western directors is certainly not diminished by this.

Proceedings reach the absolute pits when he somehow convinces Ironhead that the appropriate strategy to take Butch by surprise, involves having his men walk towards the Cassidy hideout, holding medium-sized shrubs in front of them as “camouflage”. Admittedly, in terms of Callaghan’s actual aim – to wipe them out – it proves highly effective. I’m just staggered any self-respecting outlaw would agree to something which looks like a cross between a community theater production of Macbeth (“Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane”) and Monty Python’s How Not to be Seen sketch. And don’t even get me started on how two saddlebags can create a greater conflagration than the bombing of Dresden.

It’s all poorly and stupidly plotted, not least the way that in this world, punching each other’s lights out is apparently a rite of initiation, necessary to establish any kind of trust. Buck betrays Macho and rides off; after our hero chases him down and they have, not their first fist-fight (more on that in a moment), that they become fast friends. Similarly, Ironhead is suspicious of Macho, until they have a set-to, and the gang leader is bested in combat. To borrow a line from Demolition Man, I guess “this is how insecure heterosexual males used to bond.” The only slightly interesting twist is the revelation, right at the end, that Callaghan wasn’t just a cold-blooded outlaw, though I am less than convinced it makes sense, given all that has gone before.

The sole bright spot is Kinski, who has a very brief yet memorable role as Reverend Cotton, the cleric in charge of the local town – to save you the bother, he arrives around the 18-minute mark. Yet, as you’d expect out of any man of the cloth played by Klaus Kinski, he’s not exactly your normal minister, even if we do first encounter him in his natural environment of church, telling the story of the Good Samaritan. [It’s an interesting throwback to Jesus Christus Erlöser] Callaghan enters the church at the end of the service, and the Reverend gives him a dollar from the collection plate, also offering him a job as a “watchdog”, saying “My parish is full of marauders.”

Not that Cotton appears to need aid, apparently believing in the proverb, “God helps those who help themselves.”. For it turns out he’s a dab hand at horseshoes, and the next time we see the Reverend, he is about to clean up at a nearby contest. He has already won a barrel of whiskey(!), adds a new saddle to his haul, and is about to go for the holster and Colt pistol set, saying “I want to win it. That way, we’ll have a few less murders!” [All these hints are why I was expecting him to be more significant] Callaghan swoops in, uses the dollar he was given as an entrance fee to the competition, and wins the gun instead, though Cotton doesn’t appear to mind.

Kinski’s third and final scene comes at the end of a bar brawl in which Callaghan and O’Sullivan have been heavily involved. They spill from the saloon into the main street, still punching each other’s lights out, and Cotton rushes in to break them apart, yelling as he does so, “All men are brothers! You have to love each other… I SAID LOVE!” This is clearly a two-fisted man of God, and he seems particularly upset that this fight is taking place on the Sabbath. That’s the end of Kinski: roughly ten minutes has elapsed between his first appearance and the last, and with his departure goes any reason to keep watching this dull, idiotically-scripted piece of cinematic dreck.

The Dead Eyes of London (1961)

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Dir: Alfred Vohrer 
Star: Joachim Fuchsberger, Karin Baal, Dieter Borsche, Klaus Kinski

The Edgar Wallace novel had previously been adapted into a British film, The Dark Eyes of London, starring Bela Lugosi in the role of the insurance agent. Released just at the opening of World War 2, in November 1939, it was the first British film to be given the “H” certificate by UK censors, for horrific content. Proving quite successful in Germany, it was an obvious choice for a local version, two decades later. It was the first adaptation directed by Vohrer, who’d go on to become one of the mainstay helmers in the field, with a total of fourteen Wallace-inspired stories to his credit before the end of the sixties. This one is perhaps darker in tone than most, and seems almost to be inspired as much by Italian giallo films as the krimis with which I’m becoming increasingly familiar over the course of this project.

The hero is Scotland Yard’s Inspector Larry Holt (Fuchsberger), who is investigating a series of deaths by drowning in the Thames, which he’s convinced are murders, even though the forensic evidence suggest accidental demises. We know from the start that he’s onto something, having watched as Blind Jack, a hulking bald brute with cloudy eyes, attacks his chosen victim, an Australian wool merchant. A Braille note found in the victim’s pocket brings in specialist Nora Ward (Baal), who helps uncover a possible link to “The Dead Eyes of London,” an organized criminal group of blind beggars, and a mission for sightless old men run by the Reverend Paul Dearborn.

Discovering a life policy held by the corpse leads Holt to the Greenwich insurance company, run by David Judd (Borsche), since the death of his brother, Stephan. It turns out they have ties to the other corpses fished out of the river, and have had to pay out on the claims, because the deaths were officially certified as accidents. Meanwhile, Judd’s secretary, Edgar Strauss (Kinski) has a criminal record for fraud, a gambling habit and a fondness for wearing mirror shades in every situation. Might he, possibly, have something to do with the murders?

Oh, who am I trying to kid? It’s Klaus Kinski in mirror shades. Of course he does, as if his glowering (albeit sickly-looking) presence on the Spanish poster wasn’t a dead giveaway. Though it has to be said in the film’s defense, Strauss is just one element in a very twisted tale, and I’ll go as far as to say, not even the central one. This area is perhaps where the movie has most in common with the giallo: an incredibly complicated plot, on which it’s probably best not to breathe too hard, for fear of the entire thing collapsing into a heap of “I’m so sure…” implausibilities. In this case, it seems as if the majority of the characters are not who they claim to be; some of these assumed personas are more credible than others.

The fraud plan particularly doesn’t seem to stand up to any degree of scrutiny, not least in the way all the victims are insured by the same company. If I was pulling off this kind of scheme, that approach would seem immediately to invite unwanted attention from the authorities – and this is exactly what happens here. If I were an evil criminal mastermind, I might also be inclined to have a range of different “accidents” befall the victims too, rather than drowning them in the same location. Again, the similarity in the deaths, allows the police to draw a connecting line between them far too easily.

Much like the best giallos, however, it knocks the atmosphere thing out of the park. The London depicted is apparently perpetually blanketed in fog, in a manner which suggest the Clean Air Act passed five years earlier had never gone into effect, with the last real “pea-souper” actually being in 1952. I lived in the city for more than a decade and never saw anything like the phenomenon depicted here. However, I won’t deny the impact of the meteorological license, with the eerie, almost deserted streets, and shadows in which anything could conceivably lurk – up to and including a sightless vagrant with murderous intent. [Blind Jack is played by Adi Berber, who brings a physical presence to his portrayal which reminded me of Tor Johnson, the ex-pro wrestler frequently used by Ed Wood, Jr.]

There are some surreal stylistic flourishes, such as the shot of a man cleaning his teeth which is filmed from inside his mouth. While it’s certainly something I don’t recall having seen before, the obvious question is: why? It’s a surreal moment largely out of stylistic keeping with the rest of the film, though the movie has some other odd physical elements, such as a skull which doubles as a pop-up cigarette dispenser, and a booby-trapped television set that shoots at the viewer. On the other hand, there are the comedic stylings of Eddie Arent as Inspector Holt’s sidekick, Sergeant Sunny Harvey, who knits jerseys to relieve stress.

After taking a bit to get going, this does eventually reach a decent speed, even if some aspects do require a healthy quote of disbelief suspension. By the end, it’s almost a giallo-Gothic cross-breed, with the heroine victim facing some particularly nasty potential deaths. Particular praise goes to the appropriately named Heinz Funk’s score, which occasionally borders on the electronically experimental, before dropping back a few centuries for a bit of the old Ludwig Van, to accompany bits of the (somewhat ultra-, given the date) violence. Kinski’s role is more of a supporting one, significantly oversold by the poster above, yet he slips into his character like a well-worn, slightly threadbare suit, inhabiting it as if he has been there all his life. This turned out to be something of a breakthrough performance for Klaus: reportedly, the film “was a huge hit when it was released and earned Kinski a title story in the very influential news magazine Der Spiegel, exposing him for the first time to a broader audience.”

Only the Cool (1970)

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Dir: Jean Delannoy
Star: Stéphane Audran, Lilli Palmer, Klaus Kinski, Frédéric de Pasquale
a.k.a. La peau de torpedo, Children of Mata Hari, Pill of Death, The Deathmakers

The jealous Dominique Krestowitz (Audran) is trying to have an affair, yet is unable to go through with it. Turns out this is retaliatory: she suspects her antiquarian husband, Nicolas (de Pasquale) is cheating on her, and becomes certain of this after a friend sees him going into a Paris building, when he’s supposed to be out of town on a business trip. She’s half-right: he is keeping secrets from her, but it’s not an extra-marital sojourn. Nicolas is a member of a Russian spy ring, run by the ruthless Helen (Palmer). As he returns from his latest mission, this has come under threat, and everyone has to go off-grid for a bit: the building is a temporary safe house, and the woman another member of the ring.

Knowing absolutely nothing of this, Dominique rushes to the apartment to confront her “unfaithful” spouse. The resulting fracas leaves both Nicolas and his partner shot dead, and Dominique has to go on the run. This sets off a mess for everyone, as the authorities investigate the corpses, uncovering the espionage cell in the process, after they discover Nicolas’s double-life and the microfilm he took on his mission. As Helen struggles to keep a lid on things, her bosses send over Pavel Richko (Kinski), an assassin tasked with locating and killing Dominique before she can give up what she knows – even though the audience is aware, that isn’t anything of significance.

Director Delannoy was a veteran of the industry, starting in the twenties as an actor, before moving behind the camera the following decade. But he was reviled by many in the French New Wave, François Truffaut famously saying of Delannoy’s Chiens Perdus sans Collier in 1957, that he had seen it three times so as to learn exactly what not to do (“‘il avait vu trois fois afin de savoir exactement quoi ne pas faire.”). Following that and other critical savagings, Delannoy’s career dropped off, but he kept working on journeyman efforts like this, directing his last film at the age of 87, and reaching the century mark before passing away in 2008.

This is based on a book by Francis Ryck call La Peau de torpedo – an odd title, used for the original French release, which translates as “The torpedo’s skin”. I’m not certain of its relevance with regard to the movie. Helen refers to Richko and another spy by the term, saying “The service sent me two torpedoes,” but that’s the only mention of the word the subtitles contain. I presume the book would be more forthcoming, but doesn’t seem to have received any publication in an English translation. It may help explain the plethora of different titles by which this was released worldwide. The movie certainly is ahead of its cinematic time, offering a gritty and down-to-earth portrayal of espionage.

As a contrast, it came out between On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Diamonds are Forever, much more the kind of spy films produced during this era. This is closer to Le Carre than Fleming (even if I acknowledge the gap between the 007 novels and their adaptations!), being as interested in the mechanics of the spy business as its characters. The focus for the latter shifts repeatedly, from Nicolas to Dominique to Coster (Michel Constantin), the French counter-espionage agent leading the investigation, to Helen). Two scenes in particular stand out. There’s a long, almost silent depiction of Nicolas’s break-in to his target and, later, another lengthy sequence where another of Helen’s minions, knowing he’s being followed, tries to shake the tail. This switches between him and the French authorities, who know he knows and use all their resources to keep on their target.

Kinski takes his time showing up, only appearing about 75 minutes into proceedings, although there’s enough of other interest going on here, that I didn’t mind too much. Richko immediately takes charge on meeting Helen, telling her “You’re a friend. You’re welcoming me at Le Bourget airport. I kiss you. Smile, please. Now! That’s an order.” I was amused when he later arrives at her apartment (pausing only to do a little shopping, picking up a particularly lurid robe!) and knocks on the door, when she asks who it is, he deadpans, “James Bond.” As spies go, this could hardly be further from the truth: about the only gadgets on view here are the strychnine pills carried by each of the spy ring, for use in case of capture (explaining yet another of the alternate titles).

Through her contacts, Helen has tracked Dominique to the Normandy port of Fécamp, where the fugitive is hiding out on a ship moored at the docks. However, the cops have also located her, and are mounting a surveillance operation of their own. Richko does an end-run to avoid them, approaching the boat from the ocean-side and sneaking on board to dispose of his target, only for a literal mis-step to prove his undoing, and he falls into the hold, breaking his back. With Helen also in custody after a futile attempt to evade the authorities., he’s not needed: in an act of kindness that’s rare for the film, Coster gives Richko his suicide pill back so he doesn’t have to live out his days, paralyzed and in jail. Before the end credits, there’s still time for a final, downbeat twist – one which perhaps was inspired by a previous 007 film.

Overall, this was better than expected, especially after early scenes where I had no real idea what was going on. For truth be told, that’s the point here: the entire film is based on a huge series of mistakes and misunderstandings, e.g. Nicolas isn’t having an affair, and Dominique has no clue at all about espionage. Yet in the murky world which is spy versus spy, these still prove more than capable of leading to the deaths of just about everyone involved. Even if the fate of Kinski’s character was poorly-handled, you can only appreciate the consistently downbeat tone, and admit its impenetrable nature is entirely by design.

Shoot the Living and Pray for the Dead (1971)

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Dir: Giuseppe Vari
Star: Paolo Casella, Klaus Kinski, Patrizia Adiutori, Dino Strano
a.k.a. Prega il morto e ammazza il vivo, To Kill A Jackal, Pray to Kill and Return Alive

Although I strongly suspect this never came closer than the other side of the Atlantic, this has at least a theoretical local interest to me here in Arizona. For the set-up has Dan Hogan (Kinski) and his gang having robbed a bank in Phoenix of $100,000 in gold bars. They’re now headed south for the Mexican border, but knowing federal agents will be standing guard, they’ve hired a guide with local knowledge to take them through one of the little-known mountain passes across the frontier. Indeed, these are so little known that, despite having lived in Arizona for 17 years, I wasn’t even aware there were mountains between here and Mexico, let alone mountain passes…

Anyway. their intended guide is killed by John Webb (Casella), who links up with Hogan and his gang at the stagecoach stop known as “Jackal’s Ranch,” where they’re waiting for Hogan’s moll to show up with the loot. He offers to replace the guide for half of the gold; despite severe qualms, both by Hogan and other members of the gang, they don’t have many options. There are also tensions within the gang, leading to their number being reduced before they even set off from the inn, and one member, Reed (Strano), reckons Hogan is out to ditch them all. Once they depart, it’s not long before the ill-prepared group find the terrain presenting a threat equal to, if not greater than, the marshals in pursuit.

There are two clear and distinct sections here: the first, in the enclosed setting of the stagecoach stop, and then, as the dwindling band of robbers, along with their hostages and guide, make their way toward the border. The former is definitely the most effective, and it feels like the film was a strong influence on Quentin Tarantino for The Hateful Eight. It was thus no surprise to discover that he listed it among his favorite 20 spaghetti Westerns, the only Kinski starring vehicle to make the list (For a Few Dollars More is #2). The almost stage-like setting, with a group of heroes, villains and those whose agenda is murky, all at each other’s throats, is very similar – and that’s before the arrival of a stagecoach and its passengers throws a curve at proceedings, in both movies.

The interplay between these factions and individuals is always intriguing. Hogan in particular is a wild-card, liable to explode into sudden brutality at the drop of a card. Yet that appears to make him something of a chick-magnet. One of the hostages basically flings herself at him, resulting in this immortal exchange between her and Hogan:
    “You’re not like other men – you’re an animal, and I like you!”
    “Shut your mouth, you stupid bitch!”
I’m probably in agreement with Kinski on that point. But the tension is palpable and well-handled, especially after the forces of law show up, to investigate why the telegraph at Jackal’s Ranch is no longer operating. Largely because we’ve already seen how it can happen, courtesy of Hogan, you feel as if you’re always on the edge of violence breaking out.

Then, at about the half-way point, the party heads out – Hogan, incidentally, unconcerned that some of his gang are lying dead in the barn, along with one of the hostages. Unfortunately, that’s when the film all but grinds to a halt, with little to offer except for endless sequences of them traipsing across the high desert. They seem to run out of water after only about five minutes, and this leads to much whining from the weaker members of the party. Eventually, once everyone else has been disposed of, you do discover what Webb’s agenda and motivation are with regard to Hogan: while reasonable enough, it does feel too much like it was pulled out of a hat.

The problem is, the journey serves no real purpose – except for the water shortage, there’s virtually nothing which could not have happened, just as well, as Jackal’s Ranch. The film loses the tight, claustrophobic constraints of its single location, and offers the viewer instead nothing more than the spaghetti Western equivalent of a long drive, complete with children in the back seat relentlessly asking, “Are we there yet?” I have no clue what Vari was hoping to establish with this change in approach mid-way. I might well have been fascinated if, instead, he’d kept the characters confined, and had Webb continue to pick apart Hogan’s gang, exploiting their paranoia and widening the fractures, to his eventual advantage. That’s what Tarantino did in Eight, certainly.

As is, Kinski is really the only reason to watch this, and offers good value as the chief villain. He doesn’t appear in the early stages, and that absence helps build up audience expectations for the clearly-feared leader of the gang. His entrance delivers on this foreshadowing, arriving like a rattlesnake slithering onto the set – and the reactions of the other characters are mostly along similar lines. Everyone is virtually hypnotized, and it’s almost as if they require his permission, simply to continue existing. It’s a shame that almost no-one else in the cast makes anything of an impression: Casella, in particular, needs to do considerably more to hold the viewer’s interest – especially because his motivation is hidden from the audience for the majority of the film’s running-time.

I guess the makers deserve some praise, at least for attempting to do something significantly different from the standard spaghetti tropes. There are almost no gunfights here, and having the first half take place almost entirely indoors is also decidedly at odds with the usual approach. It’s a shame they did not appear to have the courage of these convictions, and abandoned these efforts at originality, before they could bear a full harvest.

The Little Drummer Girl (1984)

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Dir: George Roy Hill
Star: Diane Keaton, Yorgo Voyagis, Klaus Kinski, Sami Frey 

Based on a novel by renowned British author, John Le Carre, this is story of Charlie (Keaton), a young and idealistic actress who is recruited by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence arm, despite her own, strongly pro-Palestinian views. Under the control of Martin Kurtz (Kinski), she is seduced by Joseph (Voyagis) and becomes part of the Mossad plot to locate and target Khalil (Frey). He’s a Palestinian bomb-maker, whose devices have already resulted in many deaths. Charlie will play the girlfriend of Khalil’s younger brother, who has already been captured by Mossad, in order to get close to the subject. But even for an actress, taking on such a role comes with a terrible emotional cost, as Charlie discovers.

The general consensus appears to be that the film is not a very good adaptation of the book. According to Roger Ebert, it “lacks the two essential qualities it needs to work: It’s not comprehensible, and it’s not involving. They made a real effort to pull off the daunting task of filming John Le Carré’s labyrinthine bestseller, but the movie doesn’t work.” I haven’t read the book, so can’t comment on that aspect, but on its own terms, the film does seem to be considerably lacking on the motivation front. In particular, for someone apparently so fervently devoted to the Palestinian cause, Charlie’s conversion into an agent for their greatest enemy is neither credible nor convincing. Her relationship with Joseph falls some way short of authenticity either.

It’s not the first time that director Hill seemed to struggle with the process of adapting a well-respected literary work to the big screen. While he had great popular and critical success with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, his efforts to translate novels into movie were much less noteworthy. Neither Slaughterhouse-Five and The World According to Garp have endured as well, and Girl likely should be filed in the same drawer. It’s the flaws with the central characters which were the largest problem, and perhaps inevitably, when you try to distill a 500-page, densely-packed book down into a couple of hours, something has to give, somewhere. It doesn’t appear to have been the plot, of which there’s more than enough.

I did find it admirably even-handed. There have been plenty of other films which covered the undercover war between Mossad and their terrorist adversaries in the wake of the Munich massacre, but these have generally leaned more heavily toward the Israeli viewpoint. This is more neutral, and certainly considerably more cynical in its approach. Both sides have no qualms at all about using and deceiving people to achieve their ends, and it’s fortunate the script follows the novel to its downbeat conclusion. where Charlie is basically broken by the mission, and the realization she has been utterly played as a patsy by Kurtz and his crew.

The film is also on considerably better ground when working as a “spy procedural” depicting the nuts and bolts of clandestine operations, and the convoluted lengths to which organizations will go. [You’ll never trust a detour sign again] For example, there’s a very well-crafted and interesting sequence where Charlie is dropping off a car in a European town, before catching the train to Munich. The surveillance and counter-surveillance tactics deployed by both sides make for intriguing viewing, as do the lengths gone to fabricate artifacts creating a believable romance between Charlie and Khalil’s brother. On the other hand, the script appears unable to tell the difference between Nottingham and Dorset, a clunky mistake which I’m sure was not made by Le Carre.

Kinski is on the other side of the coin, having taken the role of a terrorist who hijacks an Israeli plane in Operation Thunderbolt, seven years previously. Though it feels a bit odd to have somebody like Klaus, who fought as part of the Nazi Wehrmacht in World War II (albeit briefly and extremely badly, by his own account!) playing an Israeli. Kurtz makes for a good character – I found him a more compelling figure than Charlie, certainly. He’s a puppet-master who is pulling the strings from behind the scenes – of everyone, in particular of Charlie – with an almost fanatical dedication to the cause, and a ruthless disregard for the consequences to the puppets. Yet he’ll also pause operations to check in with his wife.

His performance received some praise at the time, for example People magazine said Klaus, “steals what there is of the picture. Kinski is pure Le Carré. Keaton is pure Hollywood.” However, Ebert wrote that his performance “seems intended for a standard thriller. There is no sense of the man’s past, of his intelligence, of his torn emotions, of the doubts he has about the job that Charlie is being asked to do.” I’d disagree, with at least some of that. Kurtz comes across as very smart: it feels as if he is playing chess, while everyone else in the film is playing checkers. Except for Charlie, who is struggling to come to terms with the tactical subtleties of noughts and crosses.

Le Carre also shows up in a cameo, and it was amusing – albeit, probably just to me! – to notice a very young Bill Nighy, playing one of the members of Charlie’s theater company, who is also her boyfriend. This was a full two decades before I first remember noticing him in Shaun of the Dead. At the time of this film’s release, the New York Times wrote it “could have been done successfully as a television mini-series,” amd [erhaps Nighy will also show up in the impending BBC version of the series, due to start filming in 2018. That will be directed by renowned Korean film-maker, Chan-wook Park, who made Oldboy and Lady Vengeance, and a six-part series might be better equipped to handle the densely-packed structure of the source material. 

Heart of Stone (1950)

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Dir: Paul Verhoeven 
Star: Lutz Moik, Hanna Rucker, Paul Bildt, Paul Esser
a.k.a. Das Kalte Herz

First things first. Despite its presence at the time on both Klaus’s IMDb page and Wikipedia (update: it appears to have been removed from the former in early 2018), there is very severe doubt at to whether Kinski ever appeared in any released version of this film. It appears possible that he may have auditioned for a role and even appeared helped with some screen tests, but the consensus of discussion appears to be that he is not even visible as a background extra. Unless someone can prove otherwise, this is therefore included here solely for completeness. [Also note: this is not directed by “the” Paul Verhoeven, who would only have turned 12 that year. This is a different Paul Verhoeven, whose son Michael has followed in his father’s footsteps and forged a solid career in German cinema]

That said, I certainly didn’t feel like this was a waste of time, despite the lack of any apparent Kinski content in it. I was particularly reminded that, in the early days after World War II, up until about 1952, the border between the two parts of Germany was not the “Iron Curtain” it would later become. Consequently, an East German production such as this, made by state film company DEFA, could still make use of cross-border talent like Moik and Rucker – not least because the West German film industry was all but dead in the post-war rubble, and not encouraged by the Allies. This was also the first East German film made in color. But despite its origins in a fairy-tale published when Karl Marx would still have been in short pants, the Socialist subtext here is not exactly subtle.

Peter Munk (Moik) is a poor charcoal-burner who lives in the Black Forest. He yearns to escape his life of poverty and marry the beautiful Lisbeth (Rucker). He sees his chance when he meets the legendary Glasmännlein – basically, think of a German leprechaun – who gives Peter two wishes, “and then a third, if he is not foolish.” It’s clear that Peter never played D&D: I did, in my college days, and know from experience there, that all wishes must be extremely carefully worded, for any loophole will be ruthlessly exploited. Rather than taking the time to consider his options, Peter rushes straight in. “I wish first, that I can dance better than the dance king, Hannes Schlurker (Peter’s rival for Lisbeth’s affections), and that in the pub, I always have as much money in my pockets as that rich Ezekiel (the town’s most successful businessman).”

I know my old dungeon-master would have immediately called that two, due to the use of the word “and” in the wish. However, the Glasmännlein is a little more forgiving – apparently having realized Peter is quite capable of digging his own grave – and lets it slide. His follow-up is even more esoteric: “I wish for the beautiful Winkfritz glassworks, which will be auctioned tomorrow.” Even the Glasmännlein is taken aback, pointedly asking Peter, “What do you know about the art of glassmaking?” Still, the charcoal-burner persists, and gets what he wants. But it turns out to be not what he needs. While he does win the heart of Lisbeth, the glassworks is a financial disaster, and one of those loopholes in his first wish leads to Peter teetering on the edge of ruin.

He goes back into the forest and meets another legend, the malicious giant Dutch Michael (above). He convinces Peter that the heart is the cause of all woes, and allowing Dutch Michael to add Peter’s to his collection – which includes Ezekiel’s – will put him back on the road to business success. Yes, the brick-like moral here is that the rich are literally heartless. Peter is soon back on top indeed. But only at the cost of his humanity, which eventually leads to the loss of Lisbeth, and his realization that he made a terrible mistake. Fixing things will first require tricking Dutch Michael into returning Peter’s heart,  then hoping the Glasmännlein will be as good as his word, and give Peter a chance to fix things with his third wish.

Probably not much of a spoiler to say that, as in all good fairy stories, everyone lives happily ever after, having learned a valuable lesson about something. Specifically here: money can’t buy contentment, and the pursuit of wealth is only going to cause misery, for you and those around you. Oh, and: Proletariat of the world, unite! In the film’s defense, much of the morality on view was not added, but came from the original story, written by Wilhelm Hauff and published in 1827, shortly before his death at the young age of 25. However, it’s perhaps the good fit with Communist philosophy which brought it to the attention of DEFA – they did excise the scene where Peter uses a cross to repel Dutch Michael, allowing him to escape.

It is not the only adaptation of Hauff’s work. There are reported to be two other versions of this story, though the only one about which I could find much, is the 2016 movie, in which Moritz Bleibtreu (Lola’s boyfriend from Run Lola Run) played Dutch Michael and Frederick Lau (the male lead in Victoria) was Peter. Three years after this version, DEFA adapted another of his stories, Die Geschichte vom kleinen Muck, which became the studio’s most successful production ever, selling almost 13 million tickets [Heart of Stone is third on the list, at 9.78 million]. Hauff also wrote the first version of the story which would become the infamous Nazi film, Jud Süß, though without the anti-Semitic agenda of the cinematic version.

This is a solid bit of story-telling, which does a good job of not talking down to its audience (unlike some fairy-tale adaptations), and kept me interested throughout. Moik manages to play both hero and villain of the piece effectively, and the setting creates a world where the magical and mundane can co-exist. If you’ve seen other East German films and series in the genre, such as The Singing Ringing Tree, this is very much cut from the same cloth. It was an engaging exercise to think about which role Klaus could have had in the film. I can’t really see him as the romantic lead, even at a relatively early stage in his career. One of Ezekiel’s henchmen seems more likely, or perhaps even Dutch Michael?

Particular thanks to the East German Cinema Blog for the subtitles which allowed me to review this.

Das Geheimnis der gelben Narzissen (1961)

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Dir: Ákos Ráthonyi
Star: Joachim Fuchsberger, Sabina Sesselmann, Christopher Lee, Klaus Kinski

Probably the most interesting thing about this krimi, is it was shot in two entirely separate versions: one in German, and one in English, in a co-production with British studio Omnia Pictures. The latter movie was called The Devil’s Daffodil, a slightly more catchy title than the German one, which translates as “The secret of the yellow daffodils” The movies have different lead actors, but a number of the same supporting cast, including Lee and Marius Goring, who appear in both [According to Wikipedia, Lee spoke five languages fluently – English, Italian, French, Spanish, and German – as well as being “moderately proficient” in three more, Swedish, Russian, and Greek]

The plot in both is the same, and focuses on two different crimes. In London, someone is killing attractive young ladies, and leaving yellow daffodils at the scene of the murder. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, airline security consultant Jack Tarling (Fuchsberger) discovers heroin being smuggled inside the stems of… artificial yellow daffodils. He flies to London to visit the import-export company for whom the shipment was intended, only to find that all documentation regarding the order has mysteriously been lost. At first, company secretary Anne Ryder (Sesselmann) seems to remember it, but she suddenly clams up, under orders from her boss, Raymond Lyne.

When the employee responsible is fished out of the Thames, very bereft of life, the investigation has to make its way past this literally dead-end. But it turns out that there is another angle which Tarling can explore: all the murdered women worked at the somewhat questionable “Cosmos Club”, a bar and cabaret. For it turns out, there is a link between the psycho killer and the heroin smuggling. Tarling gets help from Scotland Yard – who knew they were so happy to let a private security consultant basically run a criminal investigation? There’s also Ling Chu (Lee), a Hong Kong policeman who was involved in the smuggling case back East. It turns out he has both a personal interest in the case, and not quite the same respect for suspects’ rights, as his Western colleagues.

Yes, Christopher Lee is not just speaking German, he’s portraying a German-speaking Chinaman. If this had been a random example, it might have been one thing [this was the sixties, after all, when even Mickey Rooney got to play an Asian]. But for whatever reason, it was something of a regular occupation for Lee in the decade. It started in 1961 with his portrayal of Chung King in Hammer’s Terror of the Tongs, and after his role here, he went on to play evil genius Fu Manchu no less than five times for producer Harry Towers between 1965 and 1969.

Kinski plays Peter Keene, a ne’er-do-well who is the son of Lyne’s former Royal Air Force commander. Lyne took the son under his wing, in what he claims is “Christian charity,” in an attempt to steer the young man out of the trouble and bad company into which he had fallen: “Debts, unfunded cheques, black market… He was a good for nothing. Wasn’t even a good criminal.” Lyne gives Keene a job as a barman at the Cosmos Club, but the young man is also useful as a tool for taking care of any problems Lyne needs handled. There also appears to be a significant dose of mental instability in Keene’s character, which plays right into Kinski’s wheelhouse, especially during the later stages.

In addition to being filmed at Shepperton Studios, there’s some nice location work here, both around Piccadilly Circus and in a finale at Highgate Cemetery, then largely abandoned and in a state of aesthetically pleasing disrepair. But that isn’t enough to salvage what seems a particularly poorly thought-out and executed plot. It’s difficult to figure out what anyone’s motives are here, and Tarling is blandly uninteresting as the hero. They’d have been better off making Ling the central character, as his refreshing lack of moral scruples might have made for an interesting twist. He’s also fun to watching, spouting “old Chinese proverbs,” that he freely admits are entirely made-up. This was the first of five times that Lee and Kinski would act in the same movie – although not necessarily sharing any screen time. The next occasion would be the following year, in the similarly horticulturally titled, Secret of the Red Orchid. 

Outside of that pair, this is just not very interesting, though I was at least entertained by the burlesque show-tune which enlivens the middle of proceedings at the Cosmo Club. Their leading showgirl, “Mademoiselle Gloria”, chirps out a cheerful little ditty on stage to a pseudo-Parisian policeman, with lyrics such as “When a man sees me, he immediately thinks about I’amour – because I’m totally natural.” All the while, she keeps popping behind a pseudo-Parisian hoarding to remove items of her clothing. It’s entirely PG-rated, and you can hardly imagine anyone finding it erotic, but it does have a certain innocent charm. More than one source indicates that Kinski’s autobiography has him reporting he slept his way through most of the female cast and crew here – one imagines Mademoiselle Gloria was near the top of his list.

I’ll have to dig out my copy and see if I can find the relevant passage…