Shudder Saturday: Tales That Witness Madness (1973)

If you can't settle on what one movie to watch at any time then you may as well pick an anthology movie. That is my motto . . . that I just made up for the sake of starting this review with some kind of justification for my choice here. But there's some truth to it. I always tend to enjoy anthology horrors whenever I stumble across one that I have yet to see, and the format allows me to remain optimistic even if one segment isn't working for me. Not every anthology is a winner though, and Tales That Witness Madness is one of the bad ones, which perhaps explains why I never made time for it before now.

The framing device may sound familiar to those who are fans of a certain other, much more celebrated, anthology horror film from the mighty Amicus (and it should be noted that this is decidedly NOT an Amicus film, despite sharing certain qualities). A psychiatrist (Donald Pleasence) is guiding a new colleague (Jack Hawkins) around the Asylum he is due to work in, and tales are told that show a number of key patients being housed there after incidents that would appear to feature the supernatural.

Although I was unfamiliar with writer Jennifer Jayne (credited here as Jay Fairbank), I was very familiar with director Freddie Francis, a legendary figure in British cinema who worked well as a director on films of highly varying quality, but who is also celebrated for his cinematography in films he didn't helm (perhaps most notably on The Elephant Man). Francis did some of his best work throughout the 1960s, especially when working with Hammer or Amicus, and initially seemed as if he was going to do just as well throughout the 1970s, but 1973 feels like the starting point for a downward slide. This may have been due to a lack of the right material, or it may have been the case that Francis was floundering, alongside many colleagues from the big British studios that he worked with, as great changes in the tastes and limits of acceptability rippled throughout the average horror movie viewers.

Aside from Jayne and Francis, this suffers from having a cast that just doesn't have enough star power to make up for the quartet of weak tales. Hawkins and Pleasence are very good, but sadly not onscreen enough, and other positives are Suzy Kendall, Joan Collins (hampered by the fact that she's in what is surely one of the most bonkers horror anthology segments ever), Kim Novak, and Leon Lissek. I am not saying everyone else is awful, although one or two are, but they're generally just there, unable to do anything to distract from the poor writing.

I was hoping that I would watch this and then be able to recommend it as a bit of a forgotten gem, but that was not to be. This is dire, although the first tale did remind me of a short story by Ray Bradbury, which gave me a glimmer of hope that was soon dashed, and the third tale (that one featuring Collins) is memorable for the hilarious lunacy of the central concept. Nothing here is really worth witnessing, sadly.

3/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share

Mubi Monday: The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1970)

The directorial debut of Dario Argento, and the first of what would become his “animal trilogy”, The Bird With The Crystal Plumage is a visually-pleasing and entertaining murder mystery. It is a giallo that both shows the intended path of a film career that would keep Argento on a high for the next decade or two and yet also tries harder to keep things logical and tidy (unlike a number of the more barmy examples of this sub-genre that aim for style and memorable deaths over any kind of plausibility).

Tony Musante plays Sam, an American living in Rome with his girlfriend, Julia (Suzy Kendall). Walking home one night, Sam witnesses the attempted murder of Monica Ranieri (Eva Renzi). He is unable to properly see the attacker, or even help, as he is trapped in an area between two glass doors. Once Monica is safe, with police and medical personnel on the scene, Sam tries to untangle exactly what he just witnessed. Immediately coming under suspicion from Inspector Morisini (Enrico Maria Salerno), Sam decides that he has to provide his innocence AND find the killer. Yes, it is time for him to turn amateur detective.

A lot of people love this film, and the subsequent films that came along soon after it, but I never have. It’s important, establishing some of the main elements that Argento would go on to polish and perfect by the time he delivered Deep Red, but it lacks the savagery and memorable madness that feels soaked into so much of Argento’s filmography. There’s one highlight, the main sequence in which our hero is trapped while watching the attempted murder take place, and the ending returns to that idea, but it’s not quite enough to make this a classic. It is good, but you can find a hundred other examples of this kind of film that are good.

Argento keeps his script pretty low-key and grounded, and also keeps it fairly close to a Fredric Brown novel titled “The Screaming Mimi” (apparently, I am not familiar with that material so cannot say just HOW close this is), which gives him more time to make viewers cringe with dialogue that weaves between the laughably bad to the horribly outdated. He already shows a good eye for set-piece moments though, but just cannot throw in enough of them while taking more care than usual to deliver a standard narrative.

It's tough to judge the acting on display, especially when heightened melodrama is the tone of most scenes, but I guess you could say that everyone feels right for the time and the place. Musante is a decent lead, helped by the fact that his “relationship” with the killer feeds into his need to get the case solved ASAP, and Salerno is good as the typically displeased cop who is very reluctant to let our hero get too far away from him. Kendall and Renzi are fine, the latter having a bit more fun once the immediate threat of murder is gone, and Umberto Raho, Pino Patti, Giuseppe Castellano, and Mario Adorf all help, populating the screen with memorable characters/suspects.

A score by Ennio Morricone also proves to be a bonus, although it is far from his best work, and there’s a fascination in seeing Argento begin his directorial career with something so intriguingly full of indicators of what he would circle around, again and again, throughout his career. I may not love it, but I certainly admire it.

6/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Adventures Of A Private Eye (1977)

The second film in the trilogy of "Adventures" movies, Adventures Of A Private Eye is less overtly cringe-inducing than the film before it, yet also feels less entertaining at the same time.

Christopher Neil takes the lead this time, playing Bob West, a young man who works for a private detective (Judd Blake, played by Jon Pertwee). When his boss goes on holiday, Bob decides to pretend he is the main man, taking on a case involving a beautiful woman named Laura (Suzy Kendall), an inheritance, some blackmail, and even murder.

Once again directed by Stanley A. Long, with a script this time from Michael Armstrong, Adventures Of A Private Eye is what you might call perfunctory, at best. Although following the template of the previous film, in a way (the main narrative is interspersed with a number of comedic "sketch" moments), this feels altogether more fragmented and messier. The film is better than the one preceding it, in some ways, and yet worse, because of it just being surprisingly dull.

You do get, as expected, some nudity and random sexual encounters, but the focus here is more on Bob trying, and often failing, to make himself appear like a skilled and smart detective. Which would all be well and good if the case at the heart of things was in any way interesting. Look, I'm not daft (well . . . not all the time). I know what the film is aiming for. But when the plot ends up being built around a mystery element then that element should be strong enough to make up for the times when those seeking titillation and giggles are not getting either of those things.

Neil isn't too bad in the main role, he tries hard to be charming enough to everyone around him while also hoping to cover up his incompetence. Kendall is as lovely as ever, although her performance is quite flat for most of the runtime, and it would have been interesting to make her a more intriguing character with the potential to be a lot less innocent than she appears. The rest of the cast is a great mix of familiar faces from this time, from the charismatic Pertwee to Harry H. Corbett, from Adrienne Posta (returning to the series in a completely different role) and Angela Scoular (same as Posta) to Anna Quayle, Irene Handl, Liz Fraser, and the wonderful Willie Rushton (who gets far too little time onscreen).

After weighing up the good and the bad, I have ended up rating this just below Adventures Of A Taxi Driver. Although it may seem unlikely, this feels more clumsy in how it is plotted and put together. It will kill an hour and a half, it's another film of interest to anyone who enjoys digging in to explore the variety of British cinema releases over the year, but it's an oddly childish tale without any truly satisfying set-pieces.

3/10

Torso (1973)

Much loved by giallo fans, and yet another contender often included when discussing templates for the modern slasher movie, Torso is enjoyable, twisted stuff. It is, however, also a tad dull in places, leading me to wonder just what I was missing if I didn't immediately consider it an unmissable classic.

Suzy Kendall and Tina Aumont are two lovely ladies in a film full of lovely ladies. Yes, Torso throws in plenty of gratuitous nudity and, in the second half, a big excuse for a sleepover that puts a bunch of potential female victims together. There's also a killer on the loose, of course, and that makes the ladies afraid. So afraid that they continue to get naked often enough to keep viewers happy, in between the moments of tension and/or bloodshed. And that's about it.

Director Sergio Martino is a significant talent, capable of much better work than what's on display here, and he certainly knows how to make his films aesthetically pleasing for those who like attractive women (hint: he tends to employ attractive women and then encourages them to disrobe). Torso has some of his usual flair, here and there, but it's just a bit too clumsy and ugly in places to be considered a top-tier Martino flick, in my eyes. The script, co-written by Martino and Ernesto Gastaldi, works well enough when setting up the killings, and explaining the sleazy background motivator for our mystery killer, but there are moments when it can't maintain any momentum, becoming preoccupied with fringe characters, mainly lust-filled men, who are of little interest to viewers.

Kendall and Aumont, as previously mentioned, are lovely, and that's all that's really required of them. This isn't a film designed to showcase acting talent. It's designed to showcase the physical assets of those ladies, plus Angela Covello, Carla Brait, Conchita Airoldi and Patrizia Adiutori. There are some men onscreen too, mainly Luc Merenda, John Richardson, Roberto Bisacco and Ernesto Colli, and they're all perfectly fine as they do whatever happens to need done in between more scenes involving the ladies.

There are some nice moments of gore, and it's easy to see why this is considered such a major influence on the slasher flicks of the late '70s and '80s, but it's let down by the meandering moments that feel like padding, despite its lean runtime. Still well worth your time, but I just didn't get an all-time-great vibe from it.

Oh, and I can't finish this review without praising one of the main alternative titles that this was known by - "The Bodies Presented Traces of Carnal Violence". How beautifully evocative and unpleasant is that? Both poetic and painful, which sums up the best of Italian horror cinema right there.

6/10

http://www.amazon.com/Torso-Blu-ray-Suzy-Kendall/dp/B004WMOSLO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413583323&sr=8-1&keywords=torso