Category: Filmography

The Black Abbot (1963)

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Dir: Franz Josef Gottlieb
Star: Joachim Fuchsberger, Grit Boettcher, Dieter Borsche, Klaus Kinski
a.k.a.  Der schwarze Abt

This was my first encounter with the cinematic works based on the books of Edgar Wallace, a prolific writer from the first third of the 20th century. His crime stories gained a new lease of life in the sixties when the German studio Rialto made a long – more than 30 – and successful series of film adaptations, forming a foundation of the genre known as Krimis, an abbreviation for the term Kriminalfilm. Much like the horror films of Hammer, around the same time in Great Britain,. the studio had a stable of actors, many of whom appeared across multiple entries in the series, playing similar roles. For example Fuchsberger, played in thirteen of Rialto’s Edgar Wallace production, usually as a Scotland Yard detective or other investigator, though here he plays estate manager Dick Alford – albeit a character with investigative tendencies.

Kinski, too, was something of a regular, from 1960’s Der Racher [The Avenger] through 1967’s Die Blaue Hand [Creature with the Blue Hand], typically playing a character of dubious morality. In this case, he plays Thomas Fortuna, butler to landowner Lord Chelford (Borsche), with a particularly unctuous nature. Detective Puddler of Scotland Yard (Charles Regnier) and occasionally-amusing comedic sidekick, Horatio (Eddi Arent, another Rialto regular) are at Chelford’s manor to investigate a murder, after a man is found stabbed to death in the ruins of a nearby abbey. From this spirals off a severely tangled mess of suspects, plots, multiple blackmail attempts, red herrings and further deaths. To be honest, my poor head was spinning with the complexity of it all, and I feel some kind of chart, perhaps involving arrows, should come with the movie, explaining the relationships between the characters. The main thrust seems to be a lost treasure of the Chelford family, in which most of the cast are interested, but you can also add:

  • Chelford’s fiancee, Leslie Gine, is actually in love with Alford.
  • Her brother, Arthur, is being blackmailed by employee, Fabian Gilder.
  • Gilder has an almost stalkerish obsession with Leslie.
  • Chelford’s ex-secretary and former girlfriend, Mary Wenner, teams up with Gilder.
  • The titular Black Abbot, guardian of the treasure, is roaming the grounds.
  • Chelford’s sanity is increasingly loose, and collapses entirely after seeing his dead mother.
  • Fortuna is quickly recognized by Puddler as a former resident of Dartmoor Prison.

blackabbot3That enough plot for ya? More than one review mentions a Gothic tone here, and with its combination of family secrets, lost treasure and insanity, it does have the feel of something by Victorian author Wilkie Collins [I’m a fan, so was down with that]. The opening is also particularly striking: while the film is entirely in black-and-white, after the Abbot claims his first victim in a pre-credit sequence, the opening titles explode into quite lurid color, with a voice-over declaring, “Hello. Here speaks Edgar Wallace!” Which is quite a feat, considering the writer died in 1932, while working on an early draft of King Kong. There are also aspects not dissimilar to the Italian giallo genre, which would flourish, in particular under Dario Argento, a decade or so later.

That’s particularly apparent in the later stages, when Chelford goes off the deep end. Borsche actually does a decent job at falling apart, but by this point, Kinski has left proceedings [to avoid spoilerage, no more detailed account of his fate will be provided]. I’ll admit much of my interest went with him, though I could still admire some pretty nifty cinematography. That’s something else this has in common with peak Argento: even if the storyline is, being very kind, on thin ice, it’s always nice to look at. But, I must confess, the prospect of having to watch a whole slew of these, since Rialto kept Klaus gainfully employed for much of the sixties, doesn’t exactly fill me with a great deal of enthusiasm. I am encouraged to discover that this one isn’t necessarily “typical,” and I think I may be include to lean towards some of the earlier entries and see if they’re a little easier to handle in terms of plotting.

In the film’s defense, I was watching an English-dubbed version, and that may not have helped proceedings – it rarely does. However, it didn’t seem like they had done too bad a job, at least compared to some other Kinski works I’ve had to endure, in other than their original languages. The voices generally appear to fit the characters, and more than one person of each sex is doing voices. You can probably guess, the bar for good dubbing has been set painfully low by previous experience. The trailer below gives you a good flavor, along with showcasing the abbot’s pugilistic skill, and given you just a taste of the complexities involved. I’m not sure the full-length feature makes a great deal more sense.

Jesus Christus Erlöser (2008)

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Dir: Peter Geyer
Star: Klaus Kinski

“I have come to tell mankind´s most exciting story:  The Story of Jesus Christ.  l’m not talking about that Jesus with jaundiced skin who was made the biggest whore ever by an insane human society that perversely drags his cadaver around on infamous crosses. l´m talking about that adventurer, the freest and most modern of all men, who preferred to be massacred than to rot alive with all the others. l´m talking about a man who is just the way we all want to be. You and me.”

Translating as Jesus Christ, Savior, it’s subtitled An evening with Klaus Kinski, and that is perhaps more a threat than a promise. For this is an 84-minute theatrical car-crash of a live performance from 1971 – but, really, what else would you expect when someone like Kinski sets himself up, by creating an event where he’ll provide his view of Jesus Christ for two hours? The tone is set immediately, as Klaus starts off by describing Christ in the style of a police report, and after saying “Alleged profession: worker,” someone in the crowd shouts out, “But you have never done any work!” It’s not long before things escalate. “I want my 10 Marks back!” yells another spectator, and the flood-gates are open. “Are you here to put on a show or just to amuse the people?” “He is just wanking around!” “You’re at a loss, aren’t you?

You will not be surprised to hear, Kinski does not handle hecklers well. yelling back “Just shut the hell up, so you can hear what I have to say!” and inviting another to “come up here, you with your big mouth.” The audience member is apparently rather braver than I would be, and actually does go on stage, arguing that if people contradicted Christ, “He tried to convince them, he didn’t say, ‘Shut up.'” To which Kinski replies, “No, he took a whip and bashed them in the face! That´s what he did! You stupid pig! And that can happen to you, too!” Yeah, when Kinski later proclaims, “I am not your Superstar,” he isn’t kidding. Klaus Kinski, like the SubGenius Foundation, is with Jesus, the fighting Jesus, not some long-haired mushmouth.

It isn’t long before Kinski storms off the stage, after delivering this parting shot: “There are two possibilities! Either those of you who aren’t part of that riff-raff throw the others out! Or else you spent your money for nothing!” He returns, and starts from the beginning again. He does get further, describing his notion of Christ as someone who was with the outsiders and the hurt, not establishment groups like the church or the Army. “Woe to you who are rich,” Kinski quotes Jesus as saying, “Every inmate and every prostitute is better than you.” But this doesn’t sit well with a crowd who paid Klaus a fair bit of money (probably about the equivalent of twenty bucks each, in today’s money) and the heckling starts up again. Not lost on the crowd is the irony, given Kinski’s attitude, in hearing him preach, “Do unto others as you should have them do unto you,” and “Love your enemies.”

Another audience member takes the stage at this point, and politely inquires, “Mr. Kinski, can I say something?” Klaus gives him that look – y’know, the one delivered to the monkey at the end of Aguirre, which causes the simian to shit itself – and instructs security to kick him off. The man persists – again, showing more courage (or, possibly, stupidity) than I would – but only succeeds in driving Kinski from the stage again, this time declaring,  “If even one person remains who wants to hear this, he’ll have to wait until the fucking riff-raff has left!” While he’s out, a discussion ensues, with Klaus being accused of “fascist methods”, but the counterpoint is made that this is a performance, and “people have no right just to come up on stage.”

erloser2

Klaus takes the stage for a third time, after pleas are made for people “to stop interrupting and provoking Mr. Kinski.” You can guess how well this works, and the non-playful banter continues, as Kinski tells the story of Christ berating a priest for eating without being hungry. “Speak today´s language and not one of 2,000 years ago!” yells a heckler, followed by “We aren’t little kids anymore. We’re enlightened adults!” Another comments, “It’s just like an Edgar Wallace movie or a spaghetti Western,” a pointed reference to Kinski’s large body of work for hire. Klaus’s long pauses also draw derision, with cat-calls of “Forget your lines again?” and an almost Pythonesque, “Get on with it!”, the latter prompting the performer to snarl back venomously, “You’re one of those who nailed him to the cross!”

A subsequent further reference to his movies, “The crime movies are better” also gets the hoped-for (and not very Christian) reaction, “I didn’t make those crime movies for a moron like you, idiot!” That marks the effective end to the meaningful portion of the evening’s entertainment, Kinski flouncing off stage for a third and final time, as chants of “Kinski is a fascist!” are heard [does Godwin’s Law apply in Germany?], an incensed Klaus declaring, “At least they let Jesus speak before they nailed him up.” While Kinski declares the performance over, a couple of hundred hardy souls stick around, down at the front, and are eventually treated to a Kinski Unplugged performance of the text, though even this has its road-bumps: “Can’t you just shut up! lf you can’t understand that, then let someone pound it into your brain with a hammer!” Finally, at 2am, the night concludes.

It’s truly one of those events that must have been utterly memorable to experience in person, with a real sense of danger, and no way of knowing what would happen next. Kinski, who did a number of recordings of great works and spoken-word performances, in his early career, certainly has the gravitas and stage presence to pull it off, but the  problem is the subject matter. It seems too obvious that he is drawing parallels between himself and Christ, which does not go down well with the irreligious and/or atheist crowd members. Combine that with Kinski’s notoriously short fuse, and the results are almost inevitable. He certainly makes some good points about Christ, but as one of the crowd puts it:  “Let me make this quote: ‘You will know me by the deeds I do.’ That’s decisive.” And indeed it is: the chasm between Christ’s words and Kinski’s actions are undeniable, and it’s clear why the proposed world tour never happened.

This was pieced together by Geyer from fragmented footage taken on the night, decades after the event and the camerawork as a result is occasionally ropey. But the power and intensity of Kinski is undeniable, and you can understand what his intended vision of the event was. However, as so often, failure is more interesting than success, and one suspects an uninterrupted performance, in front of the appropriate reverential crowd dreamed of by Klaus, would have given us a good deal less of a glimpse into the true personality of its creator. Below, is a section of the show.

Lover of the Monster (1974)

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Dir: Sergio Garrone
Star: Klaus Kinski, Katia Christine, Ayhan Isik, Erol Tas
a.k.a. Le Amanti del Mostro

lover_of_monster_poster_01Watching this, it struck me that Kinski would have been a good alternative to Udo Kier in the same year’s Flesh for Frankenstein. For this Italian/Turkish co-production starts off looking like it’s going to be another version of the Frankenstein story, with Alex Nijinski (Kinski) and his wife Anna (Christine), moving into the rural mansion which was her late father’s home, as well as his laboratory. Alex becomes increasingly fascinated by the experiments carried out by his father-in-law, and starts to return the laboratory to its former, functioning state, unaware – or not caring – that his wife is being wooed by an old flame, local Doctor Igor Walensky (Isik). When her pet dog turns up dead, Alex seizes the chance to try out the lab equipment and…

Well, and that’s where the film makes an abrupt right-turn, into the street which is home to another classic of 19th-century horror literature, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde. For, while attempting to resurrect the pooch, Alex gets a shock – no, literally, since part of the machine, which relies on high-voltage electricity for its power, malfunctions and sends its energy into its operator. For reasons never satisfactorily explained or explored, that turns him into a part-time maniac, roaming the countryside and killing anyone unfortunate enough to cross his path. When the dead bodies start turning up, the local authorities choose to blame any conveniently handy vagabonds. One innocent man is lynched, and after the murders continue unabated, another gets hauled in for a show trial which would make Stalin shuffle uncomfortably. Meanwhile, it’s just starting to dawn on Alex what’s happening during his blackouts.

It’s obviously a good role for Kinski, who gets both to be restrained and subdued (particularly by his standards) as Alex, then is given free rein to go totally over-the-top and let rip as the monster. Initially, it isn’t clear Alex is the culprit, with most of the monster’s early attacks being shown from its point of view, which seems like a waste of Kinski’s talents to me. There’s a strange tension to the relationship between Alex and Anna, apparent upon their arrival, when she shows him to her father’s room, then declares, “My room is in the other wing of the house.” It’s mentioned on occasion that the source of the tension is his possessiveness, Alex saying, “I’ll try to make you forgive my moments of jealousy,” and at another point, Anna says, “Your absurd jealousy offended me.” However, there’s never any specifics provided, and its an angle which doesn’t go anywhere, even though it seems to be Alex’s ongoing love for Anna, which propels things to their final, tragic conclusion.

monstroThe production values are solid, and it has some of the same lush cinematographic feel enjoyed by the better Hammer Productions of the sixties, even if the music largely consists of the same cue, used almost regardless of whether or not its appropriate. Beyond Kinski, the cast are solid, rather than memorable: neither Christine nor Isik have much to do or show any real character arc. It’s remarkably restrained in the exploitation aspects: the killings are positively bloodless, and up until the end, when Christine does her best to make up for lost time, there’s no nudity to speak of either. That’s surprising for two reasons. Firstly, the sex/horror combination genre was well under way by this point – not least at the hands of Hammer – and secondly, Garrone was hardly averse to the sleazier aspects of cinema. To demonstrate that, in his filmography, this comes in between writing The Big Bust Out, a.k.a. Crucified Girls of San Ramon, and his best known directorial work, the Naziploitation entry, S.S. Experiment Camp.

Perhaps the most unusual aspect is the socio-political one. The authorities fail to consider, even for a moment, the possibility that the killer could be a member of the local upper classes. Instead, they just naturally blame a tramp, and execute the first one they find, with little more concern than “I hope we found the right man or it would be a terrible mistake,” hand-waving away such concerns with “No-one in town could have done something similar… I think I can consider the case closed.” Then, when Alex’s murderous spree continues, and proves them wrong, it’s decided that the basic principle was fine, they just didn’t quite get the right vagrant. And the next one actually has blood on his hands! Never mind his “absurd assertions” that this is the result of a chicken he stole, “It’s enough to look into his eyes to be convinced of his offense.” It’s very clear Garrone does not have a great opinion concerning the fairness to be found in the legal and judicial systems.

Garrone had worked, at least tangentially, with Kinski before, having written the story that became 5 per l’inferno. And he worked with him again immediately, since this was also shot alongside/back-to-back with The Hand That Feeds the Dead (a.k.a. Evil Face). [The two are often confused: they have virtually the same cast and make use of the location, and similar premises, Kinski playing a mad scientist in both.] This is respectable enough as drama. anchored by the expected strong performance from Kinski. However, it definitely needs the rest of the film to be ramped up to match, coming over as too genteel to be particularly memorable, and feeling a good decade older than its actual age.

Vampire in Venice (1988)

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Dir: Augusto Caminito
Star: Christopher Plummer, Klaus Kinski, Barbara De Rossi, Donald Pleasence
a.k.a. Nosferatu in Venice

vampireinvenice2 An unofficial sequel to Herzog’s Nosferatu… Well, that was the plan, anyway. The intent was rapidly derailed when Kinski showed up and proclaimed that he wouldn’t cut his hair, so the vampire here is not the bald creature from the original (and Murnau’s original), but sports a typically Kinskiesque main of shaggy, blond hair. [He does, however, have the same fangs as in Herzog’s film] That was only the start of a nightmare production, which chewed up and spat out any number of directors, while the money ran out when they had only filmed half the story. We’ll talk about that in a bit. Get some popcorn.

Vampire hunter Professor Paris Catalano (Plummer) is called to Venice at the behest of Helietta Canins (De Rossi), who wants his opinion on a tomb, tightly secured with iron bands, she has found in the family crypt. Could this be the actual resting place of the infamous Nosferatu (Kinski), who supposedly left Venice two centuries earlier? Turns out he did have a connection to the household, vampirising a distant ancestor of Helietta, whose portrait bears a spooky resemblance to her descendant. [Anyone who has seen more than two vampire movies will know immediately where this is going] Helietta organizes a seance, to try and contact Nosferatu’s spirit, but it acts more as a wake-up call, and he rises from his rural grave, though what he really wants is the black veil of death. Fortunately, the only thing that can kill him is the love, freely given, of a beautiful virgin. Any of those around? Hello, Helietta’s little sister, Maria…

Though set in the modern day, the film rarely feels like it, with a stiff, mannered approach to the characters which appears rooted more in the Hammer tradition of middle Europe in Victorian times. Venice provides a highly evocative backdrop and, overall, it looks very, very nice: credit to Tonino Nardi for the cinematography. Many scenes have a dreamlike – more accurately, nightmarish – quality that is not dissimilar to Herzog’s version, with people moving in what often seems like slow-motion. Nosferatu is particularly good at that, capturing perfectly the world-weary air of the undead: when you’ve lived for hundreds of years, you aren’t going to be in a rush to get anywhere. However, even its most ardent fans would have to admit that the story leaves a lot to be desired, and some scenes, such as Nosferatu flying, in very badly-done green screen, with his lady, may have strayed in from entirely different films [Superman would be a good guess for the one mentioned]. These do a good job of destroying the atmosphere, and the end result is a patchwork of the creepily effective and the cringe-worthy.

vampireinvenice1There’s good reason for this, because the film had as many as six different directors at various stages of proceedings. According to Luigi Cozzi, who was originally the special effects supervisor, the first was Maurizio Lucidi, who shot some scenes without Klaus, such as the Venice Carnival. Then Squittieri Pasquale wrote a new script, but didn’t actually direct anything. Third was Mario Caiano: he lasted two days, mostly spent arguing with Kinski. When Caiano left, producer Augusto Caminito took over, but was so slow he asked Cozzi to help out, doing second-unit work. Klaus also had “some creative ideas,” which Cozzi helped commit to celluloid. Kinski’s ideas made no sense, even with input from an experienced film-maker – but it kept the star happy, and willing to work with Caminito. This was likely in the best interests of both men, as part of the lure for Kinski to reprise his role, was that Caminito was willing to fund Klaus’s pet project, Paganini.

But eventually, the money for this one ran out, with only half the story filmed – in part, I suspect because Caminito had to pay all three directors who left the project their full fees. But he eventually cobbled together something that was semi-coherent, and it was premiered at the Venice Film Festival, mostly due to the producer’s clout. It certainly wasn’t as well-received as Herzog’s, and that’s fair enough, since Nosferatu had a far stronger consistency of tone, even if it was less imaginative and inventive. This throws some curves into the standard vampire mythology, such as the suggestion that they can be killed with mercury, while daylight and crosses are ineffective. However, these ideas are never developed, although who knows what might have happened, had the film been able to be made as originally intended.

The audio side is kinda weird too. It’s mostly a synthesizer-based soundtrack by Luigi Ceccarelli – but it also throws in chunks from the Vangelis album, Mask, as if Ceccarelli also had a fight with Kinski and left the production, leaving Caminito to fill in the gaps from his CD collection. Watching this with the English-language dialogue is equally odd, because Plummer and Pleasence are clearly recognizable as themselves, while Kinski is just as obviously dubbed by someone else. It doesn’t really impact his performance very much, because he hardly has many more lines than he did in the original – it’s all about the presence. And the staring. There’s lots of staring. Plummer provides good support in a role I can easily imagine Peter Cushing having played, but Pleasence is never given too much to do. He plays the family priest, Don Alvise, and one wonders, again, if perhaps his role would have been more pivotal had the film been completed.

In some ways, this is a Rorschach Blot film, where what you get out, is based on what you put in. Knowing about its troubled production, you’re left having to fill in the blanks yourself, and how much you enjoy this, may well depend on how good a job you do. Here’s the Japanese trailer.


Vampire in Venice aka Nosferatu a Venezia (1988… by Z-cinema

Mivtsa Yonatan (1977)

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Dir: Menahem Golan
Star: Yehoram Gaon, Gila Almagor, Klaus Kinski, Sybil Danning
a.k.a. Operation Thunderbolt

Say what you like about Israel, but I’ve got to admire their approach to terrorism, which more or less redefines “zero tolerance,” in particular since the Munich hostage crisis went pear-shaped in the hands of the German authorities, resulting in the death of all the hostages. The Israelis decided they could rely on no-one else but themselves, and the results have been depicted in a number of movies down the years. For instance, their sending of assassination squads after the architect of Munich was the source for Steven Spielberg’s Munich, and its smaller, arguably superior predecessor, Sword of Gideon. So it is here, with the audacious mission to rescue hostages on a plane hijacked by German terrorists, who are now being held at the Ugandan airport of Entebbe. This inspired both TVM Victory at Entebbe, with Anthony Hopkins, and bigger budget theatrical release Raid on Entebbe, starring Peter Finch. Helmut Berger and Horst Buchholz respectively, played the role which is taken on here by Klaus, that of lead hijacker, Wilfried Böse.

What this brings is a particularly Israeli perspective, emphasizing the pride felt by the country in the accomplishment, and heroic stature conferred on organizer Col. Yonatan Netanyahu (Gaon), whose younger brother Benjamin is the current Prime Minister of the country. The title of the film translates as “Operation Jonathan”, the name by which the mission is known there, in tribute to him, and thirty years later, Netanyahu was voted in the top 20 Israelis of all time by a national poll. It’s hard to think of a parallel in US history. Maybe if the attempt to rescue the hostages in the Iranian embassy has succeeded, instead of (literally) crashing and burning in the desert, it might occupy the same place in national consciousness. Emphasizing this, the film was produced with the co-operation of the Israeli Air Force and government, and includes footage, shot for the movie, of politicians such as then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Minister of Defense Shimon Peres.

thunderbolt4This may help explain why such a glossy genre piece was submitted as Israel’s entry for the ‘Best Foreign Film’ at the 50th Academy Awards, an honor not usually given to such a… Well, I could use the term “jingoistic piece of cinema,” but let’s go with “straightforward action flicks.” It actually made it as far as the final five nominations, alongside Luis Bunuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire, but both lost out to France’s now largely-forgotten Madame Rosa. [I note that among the other national entries that year were Wim Wenders’ The American Friend and Paul Verhoeven’s Soldier of Orange] There were two versions of the film made: a wholly English-language one for the international market, and the one seen here, which is told in a variety of languages, including English, German, Hebrew and Arabic. Also worth mentioning, two years later director Golan would team up with cousin Yoran Globus to buy Cannon Films, one of the most prolific production companies of the eighties.

Enough of such trivia. The film is straightforward and linear, beginning with passengers boarding a flight in Tel Aviv, heading for Paris, with a stop in Athens. It’s there, with the laxer Greek security, that the four terrorists, led by Böse and the hardcore Halima (Danning), come on board, and take over the plane shortly after take-off. After landing to refuel in Libya, where the hijackers are warmly welcomed by the local authorities, the plane heads for Uganda and lands at Entebbe Airport on the shores of Lake Victoria. Netanyahu begins planning and training a rescue, but can’t act without government authorization. The passengers are transferred to the airport terminal, and divided into Jewish and gentiles – the latter are let go, but the former are retained as hostages, with demands made for the release of 43 prisoners held by the Israelis. Despite the complexity of staging a rescue such a long way from friendly air-space, with time running out before executions are scheduled to begin, the government finally pulls the trigger, sending Netanyahu and his men on their way, to take on not just the hijackers, but the Ugandan forces guarding the airport.

It’s somewhat amusing to note that Kinski actually represents the saner end of international terrorism, at least in comparison to Halima – this seems to have accurately reflected the dynamic at the time, one hostage recalling, “I thought Bose could be talked to. There was no point talking to the female Nazi terrorist.” So, by Klaus standards, it’s a restrained performance. There’s one point, where he interrogates a hostage who has attempted to hide a knife, that it looks like things might kick off, but attention is rapidly diverted. However, you do still get to experience the delights of Klaus yelling about cutlery: “What are you doing? They all have knives! Why were these people given knives?” He is also out-lunacied by President Amin (Mark Heath),  who turns up at the airport, as much to show off his shiny new car as anything else. “I am His Excellency, Field Marshall Dr Idi Amin Dada, owner of the British Cross, DSO, MC, and appointed by God Almighty to be your savior!” I was left with an urge to watch The Last King of Scotland. Or, more salaciously, Rise and Fall of Idi Amin.

The problem with making a movie based on historical events, is that [unless you’re Quentin Tarantino in Inglourious Basterds], those same events hog-tie your narrative. The audience knows how the film ends, so it’s a lot harder to generate tension. Sometimes, you can work around it; for example, on Titanic, James Cameron focused on one particular couple of the thousands on the boat, to great success. But here, that isn’t possible, and so events unfold in the way you know they do. It’s almost like you’re watching a film you’ve already seen. This doesn’t devalue it entirely: it’s a well-made piece, and is certainly a story worth telling. However, I can’t say I was particularly enlightened, though I was approaching it from a Kinskiesque angle, and would have liked to have seen more of Böse’s background. Instead, even his death is a bit unsatisfying, as he just gets shot and keels over. I guess real life doesn’t normally provide a chance for an enlightening final speech, particularly when special forces are attacking you.

Finally, according to Wiki[edia [so take it with a quick “citation needed”!], Danning, who was one of my favorite B-actresses in the nineties, “provided full financing out of Germany and distribution as well as casting her friend Klaus.” She does get a producer credit, but I haven’t been able to find any other information on the friendship between Danning and Kinski, which would seem like a fascinating relationship.

thunderbolt

Love & Money (1982)

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Dir: James Toback
Star: Ray Sharkey, Ornella Muti, Klaus Kinski, Armand Assante

It’s not often you can point at a specific moment, after which it becomes impossible to take a film seriously. Usually, this kind of thing creeps up gradually, until you realize you are watching proceedings with a permanent, sardonically raised eyebrow. But, here, there’s a particular line of dialogue which was just so horrifically bad, that the snort of derision it provoked echoed throughout the rest of the film. It comes after banker Byron Levin (Sharkey) has finished an appointment with international mogul Frederick Stockheinz (Kinski), declining an offer of one million dollars to fly down to Latin America and convince Levin’s former college friend, now national leader, Lorenzo Prado (Assante), not to nationalize Stockheinz’s mines. On the way out to his car, however, he bumps into the businessman’s wife, Catherine (Muti), and falls instantly for her. However, he opts for what is surely the most laughable pick-up line in cinema history:

“If you ever touch him again, or any other man, I’ll kill you.”

loveandmoney2What’s particularly ludicrous, is that it works, and the two begin a torrid affair. Maybe the eighties were a different era or – and I’m leaning more toward this explanation – maybe Toback thinks this kind of line actually succeeds, outside of movieland. Three decades after this movie came out, he has a bad reputation for trying out cringeworthy chat-up techniques on women in the street. So perhaps it’s not too much of a surprise that, when in his screenplay, the lead character behaves in the same way. I suspect many viewers will be less convinced, and the disbelief largely set the tone for the remainder of this, which stumbles from one sad wish-fulfillment to the next, visiting the usual benchmarks of Toback’s movies (“sex, money, race, gambling, fate, art, music, seduction, the conflict between high and low culture, lofty philosophizing, and street-corner tough-guy posturing”, to quote Nathan Rabin). The startling thing is, the chat-up line is only one among a number of contenders for the worst scene here. We’ll get to others in due course.

In some ways, it is ahead of its time, portraying a world where business and government have become merged. As Stockheinz says during his first meeting with Levin (in between yelling as he makes Very Important Phone-calls, because he is a Very Important Businessman), “Trans Allied Silver is not a corporation, it’s a civilization…  In ten years, multinationals will own 65% of the world”. But the film does little to explore the concept, and I’m inclined to file this prescience in the “Blind squirrel” category of scriptwriting. On the other hand, particular in the early going, so much of the film seem to depict people making phone-calls, it could be an AT&T corporate video. Despite the kind of seduction technique which appears to have strayed in from /r/theredpill, Catherine falls for Byron, even though he has little to offer except further bizarre statements, and sexual dysfunction. These combine to provide another memorably bad scene. Byron can’t sustain an erection, and requests Catherine sing The Star-Spangled Banner to bring his Old Glory to attention. That whirring sound you hear, is Betsy Ross spinning in her grave.

You can also add in the poignant monologue where Catherine talks about discovering her father’s dead body after he committed suicide: “He was hanging, naked, from the rafters. His penis was sticking out. His feet were blue”. It’s reminiscent of nothing so much as Phoebe Cates’ story in Gremlins, about how her father dressed as Santa, got stuck in the chimney and died. Except, that was intended as black comedy. This is apparently dead serious, since Toback’s films wouldn’t know a joke if it came up and introduced itself to them. Having been fired from his bank job, and now banging the millionaire’s misses, our hero opts to take Stockheinz up on his offer, and the three of them fly off to “Costa Salva”. Byron hangs out with Lorenzo for a bit, while he performs the usual duties of a Latin American president e.g. attending a rally, but still finding time to squeeze in a quick shag with a local peasant girl he passes on the road, and to whom he takes a fancy.

loveandmoney4There’s finally some action after Stockheinz eventually susses out what’s going on. He orders his driver/bodyguard Blair to get rid of Byron, only to be double-crossed, as Blair has taken Lorenzo’s money to kill his employer. Byron disrupts the attempt – for no reason that Toback bothers to make sense for his character – only for Stockheinz to kill Blair and leave the witless banker (or bitless wanker, I’m not sure which is more appropriate) to take the rap. Except Lorenzo lets Byron go, because…. College buddies? Back in America, Levin’s bibliophile wife leaves him – it’s not clear what happened to his senile father in law (played by renowned Golden Age director, King Vidor). But there’s a happy ending, as Catherine – or, at least, Catherine’s voice – shows up and asks where he is going. No clue is offered concerning what happened to Stockheinz either. Maybe he got left behind in Costa Salva.

It’s a mess, from beginning to end, and it’s not even a likeable mess. Kinski gets to shout a lot into phones, and that’s about it. Even Toback now says Sharkey was “the wrong actor” – Toback wanted to use Harvey Keitel, although the script was originally written for Warren Beatty, a frequent partner of Toback, who also has a bit of a reputation, to put it mildly, as a womanizer. Maybe he’d have been better able to pull off the over-ripe dialogue Toback penned; I note Toback’s subsequent film, The Pick-Up Artist, was also intended as a Beatty vehicle. One can only wonder what might have transpired had original producer and renowned critic Pauline Kael stayed with the production. She hated Toback’s script, requested a rewrite, and according to Toback, “After six weeks with her, I said to [Beatty], “That’s it, either I’m going or she’s going.”” Kael went. With hindsight, the results couldn’t have been any worse if they’d fired Toback.

Crawlspace (1986)

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Dir: David Schmoeller
Star: Klaus Kinski, Talia Balsam, Barbara Whinnery, Kenneth Robert Shippy

“We were doing this one scene in the crawlspace–so it was uncomfortable for everyone. I asked for a second take and Klaus shot out like a bullet, running toward me–as if he were going to attack me. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, ‘I am not a hamburger! I am Klaus Kinski!’ ”
— David Schmoeller

The first time I was aware of this film was not through the movie itself, but through the short created by writer-director Schmoeller 13 years later. Entitled Please Kill Mr. Kinski, which showed up on, of all things, a DVD collection put out by Troma. That’ll be covered elsewhere on the site, but in brief, it details the hellish experience the director had, working with Kinski during the shooting of Crawlspace in Rome. When I eventually saw the film, I must confess to being somewhat disappointed. Not, I should stress, in Kinski, who gives one of his more impressive English-language performances. But the whole idea of a mad doctor scuttling around inside the walls of his apartment complex, spying on and murdering his tenants, is a pretty ludicrous concept.

Fou a tuer 001frfrThat barely scratches the surface of the madness which is Dr. Karl Gunther (Kinski), the son of a Nazi war criminal who escaped Germany and hid out in Argentina. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, with Gunther Jr. euthanizing patients at his hospital, and graduating from there to full-fledged murder. When the heat grew too much in Buenos Aires, he headed for America, and sets up as a landlord – catering to pretty young female tenants in particular [Schmoeller makes a cameo near the beginning, as a prospective tenant who fails all of the good Doctor’s criteria] But it’s not long before he’s keeping a woman (Tane McClure, Doug’s daughter) in a cage, having removed her tongue. After every murder, he plays Russian roulette, greeting his survival with a muttered, “So be it…” Then there’s watching films of Hitler, while smearing make-up on his face and yelling “Heil Gunther!” It’s almost as if the writer started with a list of “Ways to make your character seem insane,” and included them all.

This makes some sense, with a bit of background. Schmoeller’s script was written on request by Empire’s Charles Band, who wanted a script which could be used with a set that was already built for another shoot. The original version perhaps made somewhat more sense, as the central character there was a Vietnam vet, who returned from his experiences mentally broken. He recreated his POW camp in the attic, and used bamboo traps to ensnare his victims. However, Band nixed the idea, suggesting the lead be made a Nazi, and that he could get Kinski for the role. Schmoeller agreed, and rewrote the role specifically for him. And, I have to say, it fits Klaus like a glove. You just can’t imagine anyone else playing the part. Every twitch, gaze and mannerism is Kinski being Kinski. Of course, that might largely be down to Schmoeller’s on-set problems: he said, “I would go to work every morning with my stomach in a knot.” So, how do you direct, that which will not be directed?

One imagines, probably by standing back and getting out of the way, once other possibilities e.g. murder, have been exhausted. That’s largely what happens to the storyline as well: it stands back and gets out of the way of Kinski’s performance. The basics are established quickly i.e. Gunther is a loony, and there’s a new tenant, Lori (Balsam) after the previous occupant makes the mistake of going into the attic. I had to smile at this exchange, Schmoeller clearly riffing off one of Klaus’s most iconic performances:

Loril: I swear, the guy across the hall was a vampire. You know what I like most about this place?
Gunther: That there are no vampires?

crawlOnce the basics are established, not much actually happens, until the final 20 minutes. There’s a faux-rapist – ah, those wacky eighties! – and the brother (Shippy) of one of Gunther’s Argentinian victims shows up, creeps Lori out by knowing way too much about her. Gunther almost carries out a plan to execute him with a poisoned blowdart (because there is no better weapon to lug around a crawlspace than a blow-gun…), before opting for a more painful method of dispatch. That’s about it in terms of story arc, with the rest of the running time largely occupied by Kinski acting increasingly deranged. He finally topples over the edge, leaving Lori trapped in the house and the subject of an extended stalk ‘n’ slash sequence, as she crawls through the ducts and around the building, pursued by her landlord. The highlight here is probably when he gets on a wheeled dolly and starts whizzing round the ducts like a crazed street luger.

However, it is never anything less than thoroughly watchable, and it’s entirely down to Klaus. Without him, it’s difficult to see how this could ever sustain a viewer’s interest, though the Vietnam riff originally planned, might have gone in some interesting directions. Say what you like about Kinski – and Schmoeller certainly has over the years since – there’s no doubt that he could be utterly compelling. This is an excellent example of mediocre material being elevated by his presence, and after a spell of these review where he was an ancillary character, getting limited screen time, it was nice to get back to a movie where he’s front and center.  He certainly delivers – the US trailer below gives a good idea of what you can expect.

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.